washing machine heart

clownin' around

[this is what emily looks like in this story, only with brown instead of red hair. i thought this paget brewster character best represented what i wanted emily to be like in this au. ]

Perched on her bed, Emily stared blankly at her ticking clock. It was 3:25 AM, and she was still awake. She never usually had trouble sleeping, in fact, amongst her friends, it was well known that she could sleep anytime, anywhere. It wasn't wrong. She had even fallen asleep on a rollercoaster once. While she tried to convince her friends that it was a joke, she knew it wasn't. That was the day after she had been kicked out by her mother, only a few weeks before school began. And now, here she was again, unable to sleep.

Spencer had knocked out pretty quickly, the exhaustion from the social events of the day making him tired. In a way, she wished he was still awake so she could talk about her feelings, but she knew it was best not to. Nobody needed to know her deepest thoughts, anyway.

Clearing her throat, she rolled over to lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. She placed some stickered sheep as a joke, but often, it was what helped her through hard nights. Today, the sheep seemed to take form of an especially blonde girl and what happened at the party. It was all Emily could think about.

Shaking her head, she grabbed her airpods to pop them in and began to scroll through Instagram. Multiple people had posted pictures from the same party they went to, laughing and shouting in each video and picture. Did they know what happened towards the end? Did they know what happened to JJ and Emily?

She was checking her own profile when suddenly, a follow request popped up. Curiously, she clicked on it to only discover that it was one of the well-known artists at school, Elle Greenaway. Elle was a beautiful girl, she was kind, polite, and the two of them had never spoke but sometimes waved in the passing times.

She accepted the request, and it was only a few minutes later when she received her first DM from the girl. "Hey, this is Elle Greenaway! I just wanted to say that I heard about what you did at the party. In fact, I watched the whole thing play out. (even if you didn't notice me there, still a lil' bit salty ;p). I wanted to say thank you for standing up for JJ! That was so brave of you, I know I could never. I also... heard about her hitting you and calling you what she did. That was so NOT OK and dont' worry, I gave her a thorough talking! Anyway, I won't waste your time anymore, just wanted to thank you for being awesome.:)"

Emily grinned at the message, surprised at how truly kind the girl she had never spoke to before was. She took a bit of time before responding, clicking on Elle's profile to see what exactly the girl was like. She mostly posted pictures of her art, but every so often, she would post some artsy-selfie with her grinning brightly at the camera. She had a nice smile.

Returning back to their messages, Emily began to write her own. "Hey elle, thanks for this! I really appreciate it, I hope yk that. Thanks for talking to her about what she did, THAT was brave of you. If you really want to thank me for it, you could take me out for coffee sometime?;)" She clicked send before it dawned on her what she was doing. She was flirting with someone, a girl of all people. While she had never been especially in denial of her obvious sexuality, she had never acted upon it before and was quite terrified of what Elle might say. It took her awhile to respond, as well. Taking a deep breath, she set her phone down until she heard a notification ring and she instantly grabbed it, reading it.

"I'm not really a coffee kind-of-gal, how about I take you out to dinner instead? :) my treat, obviously" Emily grinned, and didn't even hesitate a response.

"As long as you're there, anything is fine with me:)"
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Emily's 7 AM alarm rang throughout her shared room with Spencer, although she didn't have to worry about alerting heim as he was awake at the early hours of 5 AM. He hadn't woke up too much later than she had gone to sleep, talking for hours with the cute girl. They had talked about school, their dreams, their childhoods, their families, and had settled on going out to dinner tonight, they wanted to meet for sure as soon as possible.