And here we are at the end. Thank you to everyone who stuck with me throughout this story and I would especially like to thank Lord Jeremy Silver for requesting this story, you've all been beyond amazing.

I don't know if everyone saw that I replaced the author's note with the actual chapter last week, to my knowledge it didn't send out an email when I deleted the note and uploaded chapter 9, so if you didn't catch that chapter I suggest backing up and reading that before reading this any further :)

I just want to let you all know that I'll be going on a little hiatus until my finals are over and also so I have some time to get started on my next story before I start posting chapters from it. It'll be a friends with benefits story by the way, if that interests any of you. It was requested a couple months ago and I've been brainstorming ideas for it. I also have a long list of one shot prompts for my series and just in general that I'll be working on. I will be posting a Shayley lap dance one shot on my Tumblr (buttahbenzoobsessed) at some point and I'll let you know when that's up if you want to check it out.

Let's get to the epilogue, shall we? Italics are excerpts from the first chapter. Regular text is telling more of the story's resolution.

-x-x-x-

It's crazy, laying here right now with her, blonde hair splayed across my chest, a pale arm wrapped tightly around me, her legs intertwined with mine. The last few days (well, the last few weeks really) have been anything but easy for us. Hell, the past few years haven't been easy. But we got through it. Just like we always have. Just like we always will.

Hanna and I have definitely been on a rollercoaster, but the scary drops, twists, and turns are all behind us now. It's time to enjoy the ride again. Alison did the most selfless thing she has ever done in her life, the most selfless thing she will probably ever do, she let me go. Even though she knew it would destroy herself, she knew that Hanna and I belonged together and gave us her blessing. Hanna and I had a lot to work through after getting back together. Trust. Understanding. Communication. Things that I thought we had down the first time around, but I guess it wasn't enough then since she thought I would leave her when Alison, my 'first love' as she called her, came crashing back into our lives.

It's a funny thing, your first love. You hope and pray that you'll be together forever. Most of the time you won't be. You'll have fun, but your love will run its course. And where does that leave you? With the promise that you'll always be friends? Yeah, right! You say that, but then time goes on, you drift apart, and then you're strangers. Like you never loved at all.

Alison ended up leaving a week after Hanna and I got back together. I went over to her house to hang out one day after school, she hadn't been in class that day but said that I should come over, but she wasn't anywhere to be found when a got there. A single sheet of paper covered in her elegant cursive writing lay on her pillow, my name on the first line signifying that it was only for me to read.

She said that it was too hard for her to stay here in Rosewood if we couldn't be together. Said that she thought she could handle being just friends no matter how hard she tried to suppress her feelings. She left to Georgia to live with her grandmother. Alison tried to pass it off like it would be better for everyone that way. Her grandmother was sick and needed someone to take care of her, Ali needed to get over me, to start fresh somewhere no one would only see her as the "bitch" or "dead girl walking," and Hanna wouldn't have to always feel uneasy about Ali and I hanging out alone together.

It hurt, knowing that Ali wouldn't be around anymore, but maybe it was for the best...

But sometimes, that first love, you realize it wasn't your first love at all. When you finally meet the right person, and they show you everything that other person didn't, things about yourself, things about the world, that's when you know that you're really in love for the first time.

Turns out that person was in front of me the whole time. I just had to open my eyes and see her for everything she is, everything she had the potential to be.

I fell completely and totally in love with her. But I guess she didn't have enough faith in that love. Believed that I would leave her as soon as that presumed first love came back into my life. But that wasn't true.

She was my best friend. I'd always loved her. I didn't always know the extent of that love for her. But I do now. And I will never let her go. Not for anything, not for anyone.

Not again.

It'll always be you Hanna Marin.

-x-x-x-

Leave one last review? Thoughts on the new story idea? Any Hannily or Emison story or one shot requests? Let me know! Love you guys xoxo