A/N – This is kind of a rambling update… Ugh. As if I don't already feel inadequate with the return of Locum Tenens." :) / :( Oh well! Thanks for reading! Stay safe! 3

"Come on," Paige whispered to herself as she waited for her call to go through. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed with her phone in her lap. She put her hair up into a quick ponytail and unconsciously clenched her fingers into tight fists. Her left one was rubbing up and down her thigh, and her right was gently pounding. She half-hoped that the call would go to voicemail. Leaving a message would have been so much easier.

It wasn't that she was nervous. Terrified was more like it.

"Hello."

It had been almost three weeks, but the anger was still evident in the tone. Paige lost what little nerve she had.

"Hi. I… uh… I just called to apologize," Paige blurted out. The scoff on the other end was loud, even through her phone. "Okay, I get that what I did was way out of line, and I never should have…"

"No shit?" It had been a while since Paige had heard her ex-girlfriend get mad at her like that. Since the breakup, she had been on pins and needles around Paige, for the most part, as if she didn't want to scare her away. The anger was actually somewhat of a relief; the fact that she was able to be herself. "Seriously, what were you thinking Paige? Oh – wait. You weren't thinking!"

Paige pressed on with her explanation, even though the question was obviously sarcastic. "I just thought that… having someone else there… it might… I don't know… take a little of the pressure off having to deal with me one-on-one."

"Yeah. And how did that work out?"

Paige threw her head back in frustration. "Look, I didn't call to argue with you. I just wanted to apologize for putting you in that situation. If I had had any idea…"

"If you'd had any idea? Paige, someone moves across the country to be closer to you, and you had no idea?"

"Hey!" Paige got defensive and stuck her index finger in the air. "She did not move across the country to be with me!"

"Oh, God – whatever!" Aeryn was about to lose it. "I just hope you did a better job apologizing to her than you just did to me!" Paige dipped her head. The silence was deafening. "Oh my God! You haven't called her yet?"

"Well, I…"

"In three weeks?"

"Aeryn," Paige pleaded, "I've been down this road before with her. Too many times to count. She's not going to listen to a word I say." Paige bit her lip. "She's just going to yell at me and make me feel like a fool," Paige said sadly.

"You deserve it." Aeryn scoffed.

Paige let that comment go. "Just… trust me," she stammered. "When Emily's mad at me…"

"Uh – hello? Emily is not mad at you."

"I… yes she…" Paige couldn't even. "Did you even see her? You were at the same dinner I was!"

"Yeah, I was," Aeryn said defiantly. "And I saw her. I didn't see anger. I saw hurt. You hurt her Paige."

"No…" Paige was resolute. "I think I know Emily better than you do."

Aeryn shook her head, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Fine. She's mad at you. Whatever. You'd still better call her. You owe her that much."

Paige sighed deeply. "You're probably…"

"Why are you still talking to me?" Aeryn demanded impatiently. "Go! Call her."

"All right! All right! I'll…" The screen on Paige's phone woke up, indicating that the call had ended. She chuckled in spite of herself. She knew that Aeryn was yelling at her like that because she really cared. She swiped through her contacts and pulled up Emily's name, closing her eyes as she pressed the call button.

Aeryn was right. Emily deserved the chance to yell at her. Paige felt a little guilty for finding comfort in Aeryn's obervation that she was hurt rathr than angry.

The phone clicked. Paige braced herself.

"Hi, Paige."

Unlike Aeryn's tone from the previous call, Emily's was hard to read. Paige pressed ahead.

"Hi, Emily. Listen, I just wanted to apologize for how I handled that dinner…" She paused. She was about to describe the dinner, so Emily would know what she was talking about, but she realized how silly that was. Of course, Emily knew which dinner she was calling about.

"It's okay," Emily said, before Paige could continue. There was a little upturn in her voice, as if she really meant it.

"Well, not really," Paige said slowly. "I… I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, I honestly thought… Well, it sounds stupid even to say it, but I thought that having Aeryn there would… would take a little of the pressure off."

Emily smiled to herself. "Well, that's probably not the dumbest idea you've ever had."

Paige smiled too. "No, I suppose it wasn't." She licked her lips, which had suddenly become dry. "And I guess it probably won't the last dumb idea I ever have."

Emily laughed lightly, and then responded sincerely. "Well, I appreciate the apology."

"Okay," Paige said softly. "And… I'm sorry that I didn't call sooner."

"Okay."

There was was a gap of a couple of seconds. The silence took Paige back to high school. All of a sudden, a flood of memories crashed into her brain: One of them would call the other on some flimsy pretext – "Did you get the math assignment?" "What time are we training tomorrow?" "What was the name of that movie Aria was talking about at lunch?" After a minute or so, when there was nothing else to say on the topic, and one of them should have said, "Anyway, I'll talk to you tomorrow," neither of them did. Instead, they just stayed silently on the phone until someone came up with something else to talk about. Paige couldn't believe that it was still happening, all those years later, but Emily didn't try to get off the phone.

Paige started to speak at the exact moment that Emily did.

"What?"

"You first," Emily asserted. "After all, you called me!"

"I… I was just going to say that Aeryn really feels bad about it, too."

"Does she?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I hope she doesn't feel too bad. After all…"

"What?"

Emily was going to point out that it wasn't Aeryn's fault, but she didn't want to leave the implication that she was blaming Paige. She had done a lot of growing up since high school, and she realized that laying blame and keeping score really wasn't worth it, in the long run. "She seems like a really good person," she ended up saying.

"Oh, she is!" Paige picked up on the thread eagerly. "Yeah, I'm sure the two of you would hit it off. Well, under the right circumstances."

Emily laughed at Paige's self-deprecating tone. "I'd love to meet her under the right circumstances. And – Terry?" Emily wasn't sure of the name.

"Yeah, Terry. Yeah, you should meet him, too. He's a really great guy."

Emily's head snapped back a bit. "Oh," she said, surprised.

"What? You're surprised that I get along with my ex's boyfriend? Trust me, I wouldn't let her go out with just any guy."

Emily smiled nostaligically. "Trust me, I know. You've always been very protective of your exes."

Paige didn't reply. Emily laughed.

"What?"

"You just dipped your head, didn't you?" She laughed again as the phone fell silent. "See? I know you did!" It's sweet. Emily was glad that she didn't say that part out loud. She didn't want to make Paige feel even more uncomfortable. "No, I was surprised that he's a nice guy. I was surprised that… he was a guy." The words sounded confusing to Emily even as she said them. "You know," she added, "I thought Terry was a woman."

"Don't worry," Paige said sarcastically. "I didn't turn Aeryn straight." Feeling a little guilty for joking about that, she quickly added, "That was a joke."

A touch of guilt wasn't all that she felt. She felt happy. This was different – hanging out on the phone with Emily as friends. In the past, she was the one in the weak position, wanting them to get back together, when Emily wasn't interested. Later, after Rosewood, the roles had reversed, with Emily pining away after her. Paige couldn't remember a time when they weren't together and both on equal footing. It was actually kind of nice, having Emily as a friend. She had missed staying up all night on the phone with Emily. And she missed having a friend to hang out with, after Aeryn and Terry got together.

"The pizza here is really good."

Emily rolled her eyes. "Paige, I'm not splitting a pizza with you."

"No one is splitTing a pizza with Paige," Terry spouted, his voice comically deep as he tilted down his menu and looked down his nose at Paige.

"Oh my goodness," Emily said with a laugh, "I thought, out here on the west coast, people would be more open-minded about the…" It took her a moment to get her thoughts into words. "… crazy, avant-garde pizza concoctions Paige comes up with!"

Aeryn stroked her shoulder. "Oh, please," she said dismissively. "And, meanwhile, all this time, she's been telling us that everyone in Rosewood eats pizza with ranch and buffalo chicken and pineapple and…" She shuddered, making a puke face. "Eugh!"

Paige forced her face into a fake frown. "Okay, well, I may have… exaggerated Rosewood's appreciation for my genius pizza creations, but…" Seeing the looks that she was getting from the table, she threw her hands up and let them drop onto the table in defeat. "What can I say? No great artist is appreciated in her lifetime!" She quickly ducked under the cover of the menu before anyone could contradict her.

The menu also served to hide her smile. She was over the moon. It was weird: her ex, her other ex, and her best friend who had started dating her ex – all getting along.

As Aeryn and Terry collaborated on what they were going to order, Paige leaned towards Emily and pointed out something on the menu. "Oh, no," Emily said with a frown. "You wouldn't like that. It's spinach."

Erin's head popped up from behind her menu. "I thought you liked spinach."

Paige shook her head quickly, scowling in disgust. Emily smiled to herself. Part of it was the familiarity of it all, the way that Paige leaned over towards her with the menu. It ws as if she still trusted Emily to know what she would like than she trusted herself. There was also the familiarity of the fact that Paige's tastes hadn't changed – still eating weird pizza combinations, and still avoiding spinach like the plague. And, to be honest, Emily liked the fact that Aeryn didn't know how much she hated spinach; that, in some ways at least, she knew Paige better than anybody else did. It felt good, sitting at a table with Paige on what might as well have been a double date. It wasn't, of course. There would be no holding of hands, no little pecks on the cheek – and certainly no good-night kiss. Still, it was the closest that she and Paige had been in more years than Emily cared to admit. If that was all that she got out of moving to California, it would almost have been worth it.

It was worth it. Paige peeled her eyelid down, examining the streaks of red that had formed against the whites. She knew that she shouldn't have had so much to drink. She was going to pay for it in the morning – literally, because she'd ended up taking an Uber home, and she'd have to get another one in the morning to pick up her car. But it was worth it. It was the best night out that she'd had in quite some time. She was almost dancing as she got undressed and ready for bed, replaying bits of the night's conversation in her head, even saying parts of it out loud and laughing all over again.

Never in a million years would she have thought that she and Emily could work as just friends. Even back in Rosewood, when Emily told her that what she needed was a friend, and she agreed to be that, it had been out of desperation, not conscious thought. They had always been hot or cold. When it was hot, it sizzled. And, inevitably, Paige got burned. When they were cold, it was excruciating.

She didn't want to think about that. Especially not on this night. Things couldn't possibly have gone better. Aeryn and Terry really liked Emily. That was no surprise. Emily, in the best of times, was definitely a charmer. What surprised Paige was how proud she was of the fact that they liked her. It struck her as more invested than she should have been, but that was a topic for another night. She was too tipsy and too tired to give it too much thought.

We have a connection… I wish I'd fought harder for you.

Emily was haunted by those words; by the way that they were playing out in reverse. And by the way that they ended.

What I need right now is a friend.

Then it's official. We're friends.

That makes me happy.

At times, it felt weird being friends with Paige. It felt great, of course. Emily loved being able to call Paige when she needed a hand, or when she needed a buddy to go shopping with or go to a movie with. Or just when she was bored and needed someone to talk to.

It was almost like the friendship that she had with Hanna, or Spencer, or Aria. It was the kind of friendship that she and Paige might have had if one of them had been straight, or hadn't been single. And that's where the weirdness came in: They weren't straight or in relationships; and, on top of all that, they had history. They had been attracted to each other and had been intimate with each other in ways that weren't true with any of Emily's other friends – but, still, they were just friends.

Emily knew that she couldn't think that way; that she needed to learn to be happy with what she and Paige had. After all, she had moved to California to regain Paige's trust – and if Paige felt that she had only been pretending to be her friend so that she could try to win her back, all of that trust would go out of the window. If you love someone, set her free. Emily was never a fan of clichés, but that one seemed to make sense, in this stage of her life.

That makes me happy.

Emily had to learn to be happy with "friends" again. And she was happy. Still, there was no denying that she wanted more. That seemed like a contradiction, but it was how she felt. After all, someone can be content after eating a great meal but still say yes when the waiter rolls up with the dessert cart.

And that, she supposed, was her answer. If Paige came by and offered her dessert, she would jump at the chance. Until that time, though, she would just have to be happy with a wonderful meal.

Emily ran the lipstick over her lips, then pressed them together to smooth it out. She looked at her reflection and convinced herself that it wasn't too much.

It was different, going out to the movies with Paige. She wasn't dressing up, the way she would have to impress someone whom she wanted to like her, and she wasn't dressing down, the way she would a few weeks into a dating someone, when they reached the point where she could be comfortable and be herself. It was just a movie night, with a friend. She had fallen into a comfortable friendship with Paige that she was enjoying just for the sake of friendship.

She looked down at her dress, pulling it out to the side and letting it swish back into place. It wasn't too much. They were going to see "La La Land," after all, and the dress was just an homage to Emma Stone's aesthetic. She wouldn't have been surprised if Paige showed up in a white linen shirt and black-and-white wing tips. Okay, that might have been a bit of a stretch, but still. She was sure that Paige would get why she wore the dress. And she kind of wanted to see Paige in white linen and wing tips.

Paige's jaw dropped when Emily opened the front door, and she caught her first glimpse of the dress. "Wow!"

Emily giggled shyly. She pulled out the dress to let Paige see its flow. "Emma Stone, right?"

"Ah… What?"

Emily tilted her head, pretending to be offended. "Paige, have you never seen 'La La Land' before?"

"First time!" Paige said quickly. She had actually seen it, but she wasn't really thinking straight, having been caught off guard by the dress.

Emily rolled her eyes and gave Paige a, "what am I going to do with you?" look.

Paige took Emily's hand, to help her down the steps. It wasn't unusual. They had become the kind of friends who could hold hands or even lock arms without it getting awkward; without anyone getting the wrong idea. Paige held open the door and helped Emily inside, smiling back at Emily's thank-you smile as she settled in and discreetly slid her dress down over her long, tanned legs.

Paige was smiling as she drove. When Emily asked why, she just shrugged her shoulders and told her that she was looking forward to the movie. As Emily started to run down the plot of the movie for her, Paige just stared at the road, reminiscing. She remembered sitting next to Emily, in her car or in Emily's, headed off for some adventure. There wasn't much that she liked about Rosewood; in fact, she tried hard to forget most of high school. But there were some good times. It was nice to have Emily next to her again, as a reminder.

And it was nice to have Emily as a friend. It was kind of amazing, sitting next to her in the theater, sharing a box of popcorn, and, when their hands accidentally met as they reached into the box, neither of them felt the need to jerk her hand away, to avoid giving the wrong impression, and neither one worried that the unintentional touch would lead to something else. It was just casual. Paige playfully slapped Emily's hand, accusing her of hogging the popcorn, and Emily brushed her thumb across Paige's cheek, wiping away a bit of salt, as friends do. There was no awkwardness of self-consciousness. It was what it was, and they were what they were: two old friends. The best of friends.

The movie always made Emily emotional, but she wasn't prepared for how hard it hit her this time, when it came to the point where Emma Stone and her husband went to the jazz bar and, seeing Ryan Gosling there, was transported back in time to that meeting so many years ago, only, this time, things were different. Suddenly, a rush of emotion came over Emily, and she felt like crying. The scene was all about poor decisions and missed opportunities. It was the story of everyone's life, but none more than Emily's, with Paige. Her mind flashed back to the crucial moment that she would have changed, if she had the chance: That night in the airport, when Paige left her – really left her – for good. She wasn't deluded enough, in her imagination, to come up with an alternate universe where Paige changed her mind and stayed, but she wondered how their lives would have been if she had insisted on getting on the plane with Paige. Even that was unrealistic, she knew, and she knew that Paige would never let her sacrifice her life like that. But, maybe the gesture would have been enough. Maybe it would have been enough to show Paige that she was serious about them, and maybe things would have been different when she finally did move out to California, to study at Pepperdine.

"Are you okay?" Paige teased, when she saw Emily's face getting flushed, thinking that Emily was only emotional about Emma Stone's decisions, not her own. "Do you need a tissue?"

Emily quickly lifted her head off of Paige's shoulder and punched her softly in the bicep. "Shut up!"

Just that quickly, she was back to reality, with her best friend.

The evening found them sitting at a small table in a quiet bar, sharing a bottle of wine. Emily should have known better than to drink when she was feeling so emotional, but neither one of them felt like calling it a night. She didn't realize how long they had been sitting there or just how many glasses she'd drunk until she heard herself asking Paige, in a soft, doleful voice, "What happened to us? Why didn't we make it?"

Paige sat up in her chair, shifting her weight uncomfortably. She should have known better than to ask Emily to see that particular movie.

"I… I'm sorry, Paige," Emily said with a wave of her hand. "I don't know what… I – I had too much to drink." Paige nodded, looking at Emily like a deer in the headlights. Emily was too tipsy to shut up, though. She leaned forward on her elbows, fighting back tears. "How could you walk away from m… from us? I thought we were…"

Paige took a deep breath, puckering her lips before she blew it out. This was it: The conversation that she had avoided back in high school. There in front of Emily's locker, after she bent down to pick up Emily's book, she had seen Emily's heart soften, and it made her heart melt, too. All of a sudden, she was back under Emily's spell – and afraid that having an honest discussion with Emily would somehow drive her away again. She had stifled her feelings for years, afraid to drive Emily away when they were together, and, later, afraid of upsetting her unnecessarily. Now that those were finally about to come out, she wanted to make sure that she got it right. She didn't want to appear angry or to make Emily defensive. She just wanted to get that huge weight off her chest.

"Emily," she said in a pleading voice, "I walked away from you once. Do you have any idea how many times you walked away from me?"

But I came back¸ Emily wanted to say, but she held her tongue. She knew how important it was for Paige to be heard.

"Do you know how much it hurt me? Every time?"

"I'm sorry, Paige." Emily's voice trembled.

Paige shook her head. "I didn't tell you so you'd be sorry." She shrugged her shoulders quickly. "It was years ago. We've both changed since then. I told you because I wanted you to know why I walked away – why I had to walk away." Paige leaned across the table, clasping her hands in front of her. "The time that we spent together, between Thanksgiving and Stanford were the most stress-filled time of my life. I lived with this constant dread that I was going to say something or do something, and you would get pissed off and dump me again." Paige shook her head slowly, smiling bitterly. "I know you loved me, Em. But it was always really easy for you to leave me." Paige looked deep into Emily's eyes. She could see the pain there. But she had to say one more thing; she had to share the thought that had haunted her since high school. "You were the best thing that happened to me in high school, Emily. And the worst."

Emily breathed in through her nostrils. It wasn't a sniffle, although she was on the verge of tears. She didn't want to get Paige back that way; Paige taking pity on her or thinking that she would have to hide her feelings if they were going to be together – even as friends. But there was something that she couldn't stop herself from asking. She had to know. Nodding slowly, she returned Paige's gaze. "I hear what you're saying," she said soberly. She looked down at her wine glass. "Paige, can I ask you something? Do… do you have any feelings left for me at all?"

Paige sank back against her chair and ran her fingers through her hair. "Emily, you mean the world to me. I honestly can't think of anything that in the world that I would put ahead of our friendship. I mean, what we've built, since you moved out to California, is the most amazing friendship I've had in my life. And, to be honest, I never thought we could work as just friends, but now… Well, I can't believe how lucky I am to have a friendship like this."

Jeez, Paige, I get it: We're friends. God – why don't you say it a thousand more times?

Emily nodded her head slowly. "I can't believe how lucky I am, either," she said, when she was sure Paige had finished tossing the F-word around.

Paige leaned across the table, lowering her head so that she could look up at Emily. "Are things going to be awkward between us now?"

Emily rolled her eyes. "Oh, totally," she sneered, giving Paige a playful slap on the shoulder. Paige smiled, like a professor who was trying to console a student after telling her that she'd failed the final exam. Emily cleared her throat and sat up straight, forcing a smile. "Thank you," she said sincerely, "for letting me know."

Paige not knowing how to respond to that, eventually replied, "Thank you for letting me get that off my chest."

Later that night – or, actually, early the next morning, Paige found herself rummaging through her underwear drawer, looking for that picture. Not the copy that Aeryn made after she ripped the original to pieces, but the actual torn pieces of the original. Paige had held on to the broken pieces to remind herself that it was well and truly over between her and Emily. There was no way to put the pieces back together the way they were. There was too much water under the bridge; too many scars. They weren't the girls they were back when that picture was taken.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying her best to fight the thought that was gnawing at her.

Maybe it's time to take a new picture.