The English Teacher ➳ Emison

Chapter 22 | Transitions

Emily stood in her room at night, organizing her outfit for school the next day. The house was dark for the most part except for her own room. Her mother had gone to sleep half an hour ago. When her phone began ringing suddenly, Emily glanced at the door before walking across the room to retrieve the device from her bed, picking it up quickly in order to not wake her mother in the other room.

She merely managed to see that it was Alison calling before she answered, pinning the phone to her ear.

"Hey," she greeted casually.

"Hey," Alison said, her voice slightly wavering. "Uh, listen, are you alone?"

"Are you about to ask me what I'm wearing?" Emily jokingly asked in a scandalous tone, settling in her window seat.

"Em, I'm serious," Alison insisted solemnly. "Are you completely alone?"

Emily frowned at the grave tone of Alison's voice. "Yeah," she answered hesitantly, "I'm in my room and the door's closed. It's just me. What's going on?"

Alison let out a faint sigh. "Something happened today," she said deliberately, and Emily could sense her unease even over the line.

"What happened?" Emily asked, her curiosity piquing.

"Remember how I told you I needed to supervise detention after school?"

"Yeah?" Emily acknowledged questioningly.

"There was only one student today in detention, Em," Alison said.

Emily could hear a tinge of slurring in her voice. She wondered if Alison was sitting in her bed with a glass of wine in her hand. She sometimes did that, but she never got tipsy on a school night. Emily wondered what made her want to drink to this point tonight in particular.

"Who was it?" she questioned.

"Paige," Alison completed warily. "And I think she might've arranged it that way because she knew I was supervising detention."

"Why... Would she do that?" Emily asked in bafflement, trying to wrap her head around Alison's words.

"Because she had some things to say to me, apparently," Alison intoned. "And I realized that I, uh... I completely underestimated her."

"What? Ali, what are you talking about?" Emily asked worriedly.

"I'm talking about the fact that she knows about us," Alison revealed quietly. "She has for a while, actually."

Emily stayed silent, her mouth gaped in alarm. There was no way she had heard correctly. Her heart remained halted in place as she mumbled, "W-What do you mean she knows? How?"

"She told me she's been suspicious for a while, especially after that away meet you were on, and to test it out, she... Followed you to my house," Alison could barely get the words out, and Emily turned further concerned. "A few times."

"She did what?"

"She took pictures too," Alison admitted.

"Wait," Emily interrupted nervously, shaking her head, "hold on a second. Ali, just because Paige said so, it doesn't mean that she has them, right? I mean, she could be bluffing."

"She showed them to me, Em," the blonde stressed. "You can clearly see my house there. It's pictures of you walking in and out, there's even ones of you walking Pepe in the street near my house. She took those."

Emily let out a small breath of realization as Alison spoke, thinking back to that morning when she had taken Pepe out. She saw that damned rose bush, she even walked over there from sheer paranoia, but there was nothing worth noting there. Paige must've run off to hide by the time Emily was standing near it.