A/N: My life has been CHAOS. Literally. It's been one whirlwind after another of work and then school and career shit. My laptop even fucking died so there's that. I'm only able to post this because kayweston did tremendous work on this chapter. She's amazing. Anyway, I'm trying, I swear to god I'm trying to reply to everyone asap because I miss interacting with people on here! So all you kind souls who leave reviews, I love and appreciate everyone of them.
Oh and also I flipped a shit when OneWanderingMind left a review cause I love her story(s). So you guys should check her stuff out too if you haven't yet, it's brilliant.
And trying to update my other stories :( as soon as this semester is over.
ANGST!
xx
"What do you mean she's still sick?" Alison growls with a biting tone as she glares down Hanna with her piercing blue eyes.
"That's all she told me, and that she needs me to drop off homework after school," Hanna hesitantly tells the furious queen bee.
"She texted you?"
"Yeah, didn't she text you?" Hanna asks now, confused.
"I don't know, I haven't paid attention. I have more important things to deal with," Alison brushes her off with a lie but this is driving her crazy. Emily has been absent from school for the past two days- ever since she ran out of Alison's house. It's killing the blonde because they haven't texted, talked, or seen each other since. She doubts Emily is actually sick- that'd be too coincidental.
"I feel bad for her, she doesn't sound too good," Aria chimes in and Alison's head innocently turns towards the mini brunette.
"How so?"
"I ran into her mom at the grocery store yesterday. She said Emily's been in bed all nauseous with a headache. You don't think she could be preg-"
"God no," Alison says all too quickly shaking her head. "Emily's not pregnant."
"Well she better show up tomorrow, or she'll have missed too much school to compete next week," Spencer throws in as she walks up to the conversation. Alison nods absentmindedly. The wheels in her head begin to turn- Mrs. Fields had been working day shifts lately, she knew- so if she left now, she could make it to Emily's long before her mom comes home.
"Cover for me, I'm going to go check on her after English," Alison orders.
"I was just going to see her after school," Hanna reminds her but Alison glares at her warningly.
"And I was going to go see her now. What's your point? Cover for me."
x-x-x
The house is quiet, and surely enough Pam's car is missing from the driveway. Alison lets out a sigh of relief and lets herself into the house with the spare key. As she tiptoes up the stairs and peeks around the door into Emily's room, she sees the brunette lying very still on her bed facing the wall.
"Emily," she whispers and there's no response. She frowns. "Emily."
She tries again louder and then she hears her. "Go away."
"Nice try," Alison wears a subtle smirk and goes over to the bed.
The silence is thick and sinister, and Alison can almost physically sense Emily's anger and disappointment boiling inside the brunette. She can see that in her eyes, though Emily doesn't even look at her - she continues looking at the wall, but her breathing is rapid and her eyes narrowed.
"You're aware you'll have to talk to me eventually, right?"
"I said go away Alison," Emily manages to say, but the mentioned blonde doesn't take no for an answer. She does flinch at Emily not using her nickname, and she does feel the weird heaviness on her chest, but she doesn't even move an inch towards the door. She just lets herself sit down next to Emily's legs.
"Which part of go away don't you understand? I don't want you here," Emily's utters through gritted teeth, her voice alarmingly low.
"Em, sit up and look at me," Alison commands as she tries to take the duvet off of Emily, but the brunette is persistent.
"No!" Emily yanks at the duvet and the anger overtakes her. "Please just leave."
"Look at me."
"Leave."
"Em. Look. At. Me."
Alison's voice is soft yet firm, the tone has Emily shivering, and the blonde's cerulean eyes are sparkling eerily. When Emily eventually sits up, Alison takes a deep, shaky breath.
"You're the only one I can trust Em," Alison starts softly, and Emily furrows her
eyebrows with confusion. Alison sighs at that, acknowledging the disorientation.
"The only one I can… completely be honest with," she continues and gives Emily a tiny tight-lipped smile, the one reserved for… for the real thing only.
"You're not exactly doing an amazing job at showing that," the brunette grunts.
"I came to visit you didn't I?" this time Alison's voice is quiet and almost pleading, and if Emily doesn't know whether or not to believe the sweet undertones. "I made a banner for you at your swim meet- how many times have I gone to Spencer's lame field hockey games? Or Aria's poetry readings, or Hanna's…whatever Hanna does?"
"That's not the point," Emily mutters and Alison sighs again.
"You walked out on me that day," Alison reiterates, trying to find any reason for Emily to really spill how she's feeling.
The brunette wants to scream- wants to tell Alison off and yell at her for reeling her in and then kicking her out- but she's not sure if Alison would even acknowledge that's what she did. So instead Emily just starts crying and it's all she can think to do because her mind is going a hundred miles a minute and she's immensely overwhelmed. And at first it's soft, silent and Alison doesn't even notice it because she's too busy fiddling with her hands trying to think of a way to fix things. But the silence grows thicker and the blonde picks up on the sniffling and rapid breathing and she glances to sees tears wetting Emily's sweet face.
"No, no why are you crying?" she gasps quietly in horror, the sight hurting her in ways she didn't think it could.
"Just leave me alone Ali," Emily pleads once more, covering her face and pulling the blanket up to wipe her tears on. She doesn't want to seem pathetic in front of Alison, but she feels like it's too late and all she can do now is hide.
The blonde looks around the room for a minute or two, anxiously, before she crawls off the bed, kneels in front of Emily and pulls the duvet down only to stare into watery brown eyes. Hesitantly she lays a hand on her face and leans in, shaking. She wants to do something to make the crying stop- all the pain and hurt and misery that she causes. And this is the only way she knows how. But as her lips graze Emily's, she hears the brunette choke back a sob and she pulls back instantly. Hearing her mermaid's pain brings her to a somber reality- this is only going to hurt Emily more in the long run.
So she stands up, retreating, and mumbles apologies before running out and down the stairs, dashing out the door.
When she gets back to school and the girls ask how Emily is, she snaps angrily at them and that's the end of that.
x-x-x
"Have you guys seen Emily?" Alison finds herself asking frantically the next night. She'd heard that the brunette finally made an appearance to the party they're at. Noel was hosting one of his infamous cabin parties and Alison had been draped on his arm until she heard someone mention they saw "Ben's girlfriend" show up and that he better "get her drunk and get it in tonight" because she'd been absent most of the week.
"I saw her inside near the drinks about twenty minutes ago," Aria tells her and Alison barely nods before turning but she feels the tiny punk haired brunette grab her wrist gently.
"Ali wait," Aria says hesitantly in a hushed voice. The blonde narrows her eyes, but she's always more patient with Emily and Aria- they annoy her less. "Is everything okay between you and Emily?"
"Why wouldn't it be?" Ali asks with furrowed eyebrows. Has Aria figured them out?
"I just…was just wondering," Aria offers sympathetically. Alison looks closely in her eyes and she realizes that she's not oblivious, that she's aware something is going on but she may not know exactly what. "I don't want something bad to happen to your friendship."
"It won't," Alison reassures her and herself. She feels her heavy heart sigh and she looks sincerely at Aria. "She means too much to me for that to happen."
Aria, satisfied, lets go of Alison and the blonde smiles before running off to the kitchen.
And there Emily is, leaning on the counter, trying to pour herself a shot of tequila and failing miserably as the alcohol splashes out of the shot glass. Ben is standing behind her in a predatorily manner and his hands land on Emily's hips as he tries to whisper something in her ear, but she's fidgeting and turns around.
And that's when he offers the most obnoxious smile Alison could ever imagine, and he grabs at Emily's ass roughly, pulling her in towards him in a sloppy kiss.
"Ben no," she merely slurs and tries to untangle herself from his embrace, clumsily pulling away.
"Oh come on Em, you know you like it. Don't be a tease."
His words are dripping with lust, and he leans forward to kiss her again, still wearing that smile while she drunkenly gives in after a second of protesting.
Alison clears her throat loudly, unwilling to watch any more of this.
"What?!" Ben turns around, angry at being interrupted. He's drunk too, and his enraged voice is too much. Emily's eyes are cloudy, but she sees traces of fear in there.
"Leave her alone," Alison orders in a biting tone, "or I'll make you so miserable you'll never want to leave your house again."
"Ali –" Emily starts but Ben interrupts her with a snort.
"What are you, her fucking keeper? Mind your own business, bitch."
Alison feels her veins pulsating and she can hear the blood swooshing in her ears. She clenches her jaw and glares at him as she steps forward, and Emily jumps away from him, from them- but he clutches her wrist angrily, possessively. Alison's voice is seething, low, menacing.
"Listen, perv. If you so much as touch her against her will," she tilts her head and holds eye contact, her eyes narrowing, "I'm gonna tell every single person in this town how much of a fucking loser creep you are. And hell, I'll have witnesses to back me up."
Ben holds a furious glare with her. But there are traces of fright glistening in his eyes and his breathing quickens.
They stare at each other for what feels like eternity for Emily, and she tries to remain stable but she can't stop swaying and her vision starts to go in and out of focus.
Eventually, Ben snorts once again, shakes his head and leaves.
Alison turns to Emily who stands there like a deer caught in headlights. She starts towards her and then she watches Emily's eyes turn flash with betrayal and hurt.
"Don't," she simply says trying to back up and leave but she instead bumps into the table and hiccups, looking for an escape. Alison hates the glossy look over her eyes- like she doesn't see things clearly.
""You need to break up with Ben," Alison states matter-of-factly, and even though Emily knows somewhere deep inside that it's already over and that Alison's completely right, the anger and the memories from previous days overwhelm her.
"What? Why?" she mutters and looks at her feet. "You kind of did the deed yourself. Are you happy now?"
"I thought that's what you wanted," Alison insists and Emily shakes her head.
"You d-d-on't really know what…what I want," she slurs, suddenly seeing double of Alison.
"I do," the blonde replies fiercely as she grabs Emily and pulls her close. "I know you better than anyone else does-"
"I don't know you," Emily slurs back angrily as she rips away from Alison and stumbles off in the direction of another blonde and Alison watches with a tightly drawn mouth as Hanna catches her mermaid and looks at her questioningly.
Alison shrugs and storms off, angry at herself for not being the person that Emily deserves.
An hour later, she goes to the bathroom to sulk. And then she stalks out towards the backyard where she collides with a drunken body that she shoves off of her.
"Watch where you're going," she growls and recoils as she continues on.
"You watch it, bitch," she hears and her head snaps back to see Emily stumbling towards the house.
"Emily wait!" she runs over and stops her from going inside.
"Alison," she slurs as she sways forward and Alison has to catch her before she face plants.
"Come here," Alison mutters kindly as she leads her around gently to the side of the house where it's quiet and no one else is.
"What do you want?" Emily hiccups sadly as her head lulls.
"I need to confess something to you and I know you won't remember this tomorrow, but I have to say it," Alison whispers in a hushed voice.
"What," Emily manages to get out and she sounds so broken the blonde winces.
"I…I'm attracted to you," Alison says quietly but loud enough to be a solid declarative statement. "I'm attracted to you and I hate myself for it. Because you deserve someone better than me, and I'm scared of how I feel and I keep on hurting you. I know that I want you though."
She glances down towards Emily's cleavage guiltily and then looks back at her drunk mermaid's face.
"I always want you," she breathes out as she glances at Emily's gorgeous features, even while she's drunk she's beautiful.
She tries to make the most of the moment, tries to lean in and graze their lips but Emily turns her head.
"I'm not your p-plaything Ali," the brunette manages to slur, though she barely can keep her balance, and she tries to sound fierce but it comes out vulnerable and pained. "S-st-top messing with me."
"I'm not," Alison insists with a pained hushed voice. "I'm not I swear I'm not messing with you. Please believe me."
"How," is all Emily manages to get out with a painful squeak and it cracks Alison's heart.
"I don't know," Ali whispers as she lets her hand cradle Emily's delicate face and she shakes her head sadly, knowing she's made a real mess of things. "I'm sorry Em."
"I lov-v-ve you," Emily protests vehemently and desperately as she stares into Alison's increasingly watery blue eyes. "I always have. You…you know…I'd..I would do anything t-t-o for you."
Alison breathes as she clutches onto Emily and pulls her close, burying her head in her chest. "I know."