The Difference Between Us // Emison AU

Chp. 13

Emily Fields helped Alison Dilaurentis into her room in the upstairs loft over the art shop. The blonde had willingly changed into some of Emily's oversized art rags to wear to bed.

"You can take my room. I'll take the couch," Emily said to her as she pushed open the closet and looked around for other types of pillowcases.

Alison looked down at her feet. "You really didn't have to do all of this."

"What do you mean?"

"This, Emily. You didn't have to take me in and treat me like a bird with a broken wing. You're just... you're selfless like that," Alison said.

Emily couldn't help but blush. "I mean... that's just how I was raised."

"It suits you," Alison whispered. "It's hard to turn away from somebody with a good heart."

Emily moved to the other side of the room where the blonde was sitting on the neatly made bed. "Ali... what prompted you to come here tonight?"

Alison, fearing the worst, looked down at her hands in her lap. "Some days my father and I simply don't see eye to eye. Today just happened to be one of those days."

"The fight was so bad as to force you from your home?" Emily asked, not fully convinced.

Alison could tell the brunette knew something else was truly going on. She knew that the innocent girl sitting in front of her wasn't stupid or naive. But telling her the full truth would only do more harm than good until Alison could find a way to stop it from happening.

"He's a mean drunk," Alison said under her breath.

Even though Kenneth wasn't drunk at the time, nor was he truly being mean to her, she knew that if Emily had decided to ask Jason about it, the other Dilaurentis would unknowingly agree with his sister's words based on how they were raised.

Alison could remember quite clearly how Kenneth would drink excessively in front of them. How sometimes, if he was tipsy enough, he would hit their mother.

When the blonde was 12 and Jason was 15, she remembered him stepping out to block Kenneth's slap just as it was about to make contact with Jessica's face. He had been scolded for hours and sent to his room even amid their mother's begging.

Emily sat quietly as the blonde girl finished her sentence and only kept her comments to herself. She didn't know how else to turn them into words that would make sense.

"Well... I'm sorry Ali," Emily said.

Alison shrugged and wouldn't meet the brunette's eyes. "I'm not too fazed. There are just nights I don't know how I can stay in the same building as him."

"And what do you usually do?"

"Well... that's the thing. I've never left the tower to get away from him until tonight. Usually I just lock myself in my room and hope he doesn't try to bother with me," Alison said.

Emily, realizing she didn't have a pillowcase for Alison's head, stood up. "I'll be back, okay? I just have to finish getting a couple things for you."

"Okay."

After Emily had slipped out of the room, she sat on the other side of the door and tried her hardest to listen in to the room to see if the blonde would make any other moves.

No noise was brought to her attention.

Realizing she didn't have much to gain from standing there doing nothing, Emily moved away from the door and down the hall to the small linen closet opposite Jason's room.