A/N - Well, I can see by the steep drop-off in reviews that interest in this story is plummeting... I guess you don't like the direction I'm taking? Oh well! Thanks for reading this far! :) 3

Paige lay on her back on an inflatable raft, looking up at the sky. It was too perfect. The sky and the water were a matching azure blue, the private beach was all but deserted, and, every once in a while, a seagull would fly overhead and chirp contentedly. It struck Paige that, if there had been a camera to take an overhead shot of her floating there, it would have made the perfect advertisement for resort life.

The single life was, of course, an adjustment for Paige. Just like any other change. It wasn't that it was difficult; just different. There were things that she hadn't had to deal with for so long that she'd pretty much forgotten about them. There were the well-meaning co-workers and neighbors who took it upon themselves to try to find her a girlfriend. Even Aerynn and Terry took it upon themselves to find someone for her, but Paige assumed that this was more for their benefit – that they would get to do couple things with Paige, if she had someone. Whatever their motives, Paige shut down all of her would-be matchmakers pretty quickly.

Another adjustment was dining alone – or, even worse, going for a drink alone. Paige had assumed that visits to a bar wouldn't be as bad as they'd been in college; that the sleazy boys would be interested younger prey rather than a woman well into her thirties who had nothing about her to suggest that she was interested in hooking up with anyone – especially not a male. To her dismay, she discovered that there were still a good number of men out there who were all too eager to take their shot. She was as patient and polite as she could be in shooing them away, and, after a while, the regulars in the places she went understood that she was just there for nothing more than a drink and a bit of friendly conversation.

But these were only minor bumps on Paige's road to self-fulfillment in single life. In some ways, this was the best relationship she'd ever had. She could be honest with herself, in ways that she never really could with her girlfriends. There were no games or pretenses. If she had plans to go out and she wasn't in the mood, she would just cancel, with no guilt or hurt feelings. And, if she wanted to do something on the spur of the moment, she could get up and go, with no one else's schedule to coordinate and no hesitant or unwilling partner to drag along with her. She always had the thought in the back of her head that it was too good to last, and she would grow tired of it eventually, but the opposite seemed to be true. The longer she remained single, the more she settled into the experience.

Paige paddled lazily around on the raft until the sun got to be a bit too warm on her skin. When that happened, she rolled off of the raft into the cooler water and lazily swam a few yards deeper into the sea. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone swimming just for the fun of it. She paused mid-stroke at that thought, brushing her hair away from her face as she stood up and started to tread water.

She didn't think about Emily very often anymore. From time to time, thoughts or phrases like that last one jogged her memory, and her thoughts shifted abruptly back to Emily. It hit her harder this time, though, as she remembered when Emily had asked her that question; back when they were young and their feelings for each other were new and pure. And the way that she had been swimming lazily reminded her of that late-night swim in her father's pool, the night when she gave herself to Emily fully for the first time.

Paige dipped her head. She dipped herself fully underwater and turned around, swimming back towards the raft. She'd had enough paradise for one day.

"I can't just dump her." The irritation in Emily's voice was obvious.

"Okay, well, why not?" Spencer lifted her hands off of the table and let them drop back down onto it. "You say that, but what's keeping you from dumping her?" Spencer was looking at Emily with the steely eyes of a prosecutor.

"Because she's a good woman, Spencer!" Emily matched Spencer's stare. "Because she hasn't done anything wrong!" Emily shook her head angrily. "You don't just dump someone!"

Hanna reached across the table for Emily's hands, to calm her down. "We only want what's best for you, Em. We're all your friends. Nobody's trying to pick a fight with you."

"Yeah? Because it sure feels like it!" Emily thought back to Rosewood, when the same three women, her so-called friends, held an intervention to convince her that Paige was A. It was the same vibe, the three of them ganging up on her, as if they knew better than she did what was best for her.

Aria put her hand on Emily's shoulder as she set a mug of coffee down in front of her and took a seat next to her on the couch. "We've all been through a lot, Em. Good relationships and bad relationships. And we've always stuck together in the end, even though there were some rough spots. And there were times when we fucked up and got it wrong, but we always made it right in the end. So, if we're wrong, we'll back off. But, Emily…" Aria took Emily's hand and gave it a slight squeeze. "It just doesn't seem as if you're happy."

Emily sighed and tried to calm herself down. She knew that being defensive would only convince them that they were right. "Look," she said patiently, "I know that Abby and I aren't perfect, but we work. She's a good woman, and she loves me."

"You keep saying that," Spencer said, in measured tones. "But what I'm not hearing is that you love her."

"I…" Emily looked up at the ceiling, fighting back tears.

"What are you going to do when she asks you to marry you?"

Emily shot Hanna a cold stare. "She's not going to ask me to marry her."

"That's what you said about moving in together, and she asked you. And you moved in together."

Emily shook her head, laughing bitterly. "She's not going to ask me to marry me." Of that, Emily was sure. Abby would never take that risk. She was in self-preservation mode. She knew that their relationship was on the verge of falling apart, and she wasn't going to do anything that would risk pushing Emily over the edge.

"But don't you want that out of a relationship?" Aria asked softly. "Don't you want to be married someday? Don't you deserve to be with someone you'd want to marry?"

"Someone like…" Spencer silenced Hanna with a sharp stare before she could say Paige's name. Hanna rolled her eyes. "Look, what it comes down to is, does Abby spark joy?"

Emily let out a long groan of frustration. She knew that she should never have recommended Marie Kondo to Hanna. "Hanna, I'm not going to Marie Kondo my girlfriend!"

"Ah, well, that's a breakthrough," Hanna said sarcastically. "At least you referred to her as your girlfriend!"

Emily allowed herself to smile. "Listen, I really appreciate what you're trying to do. Really. I do. And don't think I haven't had this conversation with myself a thousand times. And it always ends with the same conclusion: I'm 36 years old, I live in a small town, and the women aren't exactly beating down my door." She gave Hanna a pointed stare. "Paige isn't coming back." She raised her index finger to silence Hanna before Hanna got started. "She's not, Hanna." She flattened her hand, palms down, with finality. "She had a chance, and she didn't. I've accepted that. She isn't coming back, and Abby never left." She sighed weakly. "And I sure as hell don't want to be 36 and alone."

Aria put her head on Emily's shoulder. Hanna and Spencer joined her in a group hug. It had been enough for one day. Anything further would have been counterproductive and would have risked pushing Emily away. So, Aria didn't say what Emily already knew: Being in a relationship doesn't mean that you're not alone.