Careful, Ali ➳ Emison

Chapter 1 | Careful, Ali

"You should really let me paint your nails."

Emily looked up from her book, her gaze shifting to the beautiful blonde situated on the other side of the bed. They were hanging out at Alison's house after school, and were each reading – Alison was flipping through a magazine while Emily got started on the book she had to do a report on – until the blonde spoke up, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Uh, okay," Emily responded with a shy laugh. Alison smiled softly at her in response and the brunette couldn't help but avert her gaze, allowing the blush to spread equally on her cheeks. To Emily, Alison was just one of those mesmerizing things that you couldn't look at for too long. She didn't want the blonde to get suspicious of her incomprehensible feelings. Although, with the amount of staring Emily did on a daily basis, she was pretty sure Alison already knew, hence the excessive blushing whenever the blonde was around.

Alison seemed to be enjoying Emily's embaressment and laid her hand on the brunette's. "Relax Em," she said in the sweet, gentle tone that she reserved only for Emily. "I don't bite," she added with a flirty wink.

That was what Emily didn't understand. Sure, Alison was such a natural flirt, the brunette had seen her flirt with a thousand guys before, but she seemed to be flirting with her more than any of their other friends – probably more than boys, as well. A lot more. Perhaps, she just loved the power that she held over Emily, but the brunette wasn't too sure.

Alison got up from her bed, and the swimmer watched as she retrieved a bottle of light blue nail polish from her vanity. "I bet this color will look amazing with your skin tone," the blonde mused out loud as she sat in front of Emily. The swimmer put her book away and smiled slightly, her heart fluttering happily in her chest as Alison removed the cap off the small bottle.

She got tingles when Alison took her bare foot into her lap, beginning to spread the nail polish on her toes. The blonde seemed to be a master of the craft, since not one glob of paint was out of line. Alison quickly finished with the first foot, then capped the bottle and leaned down slowly, blowing softly on the brunette's toes in order to dry the nail polish. Emily squirmed under the gaze that Alison maintained with her while doing so.

The blonde gave her a little smile, which Emily returned, but when she announced, "You need to break up with Ben," the brunette's smile dropped immediately. Not because of what Alison said, more so because she had forgotten the boy even existed for a second there in her Ali-induced daze.

"What? Why?" she asked, slightly panicked. She thought to herself that if Alison were to answer 'because you like me' she would most likely have a heart attack on the spot.

But Alison merely adressed her calmly, "Because you deserve better. He's a flathead, and deep down, you know it's not right."

Emily thought over the words, but she couldn't understand what they meant. She thought Alison would be happy that she had a boyfriend, the blonde had always urged the other girls to get one, so why would she out of the four of Alison's best friends, the only one with an actual boyfriend, need to break up with him?

"Sometimes it feels right," she amended quietly.

"Oh please, mushy squash," Alison responded with a grimace.

"He's not that bad," Emily took offense in the count of her four-month boyfriend. He was really nice to her. Well, sometimes. And at other times, she wished she could never see him again, but she would never say that out loud, because until she finally got a boyfriend, she couldn't afford to lose him. It was just expected of her – to meet a nice boy, that is – and it made people around her satisfied, so she kept dating him, even if it didn't actually lift her mood in any way.

Alison tilted her head slightly and gave her a somber look, "That's what's left on the buffet table after everyone's made their choices, Em. You don't make decisions, and that's what you end up with." Emily felt a knot form in her throat, because she couldn't tell the blonde how right she was.

Instead, she settled for what she had been saying to herself for the past four months, "Ben really cares about me, and I don't wanna hurt him." Which was true, but even she could admit, that wasn't a reason to date someone.

"Stop taking care of everyone but yourself," Alison reasoned softly.

"Alison..."

"You need to be careful at what you're good at, hon, because you'll spend the rest of your life doing it," the blonde responded, her voice turning unapologetically cold. Emily looked away, feeling like a little scolded puppy. Upon noticing that, the blonde looked like she wanted to say something else, but her phone suddenly beeped in her pocket. She took it out quickly, and Emily watched in interest as Alison's face changed in a matter of two seconds, almost as though she'd seen a ghost.

"Ali? Is everything okay?" the swimmer asked in concern.

Alison never responded, she merely got up briskly from the bed and looked out of the window, before closing her blinds in a frenzy.

"Ali...?" Emily asked timidly from the bed.

Alison turned around to face her, and Emily frowned. She had never seen the blonde so freaked-out. The girls and her have noticed that Alison has been acting a bit weird lately, and that sometimes her mood would shift entirely. It was usually a direct result of getting a text messege. They were planning on confronting her about it, the very next day, in fact. But as she stared at Alison's agitated face, Emily made a split-second decision and walked over to her.

"Ali, can I... can I see your phone?" Emily asked shyly, afraid of the backlash.

"No!" Alison answered instantly, taking a few steps back. She wasn't angry, she just looked... frightened.

Emily nodded gently and stayed rooted in her spot. "Well, can I at least give you a hug?" she amended.

Alison deflated limply at the statement, smiling slightly at her mermaid as she nodded in silence. She'd always allowed herself to be vulnerable like this only around Emily, whom she trusted the most out of her closest friends.

She put her phone in her pocket and neared Emily slowly, until the brunette finally took the girl in her arms. She gave her a strong hug, one that she hoped comforted Alison.

When she backed away, she led the blonde to the bed, feeling in charge of the situation for the first time since she'd met Alison. Emily sat her down gently, "I'm just going to go to the bathroom, and then I'll make you some hot cocoa, okay?"

Alison nodded slightly, sighing before mumbling sincerely, "Thanks for being such a good friend, Em."

Emily gave her a tight-lipped smile, feeling slightly guilty for what she's about to do. She left Alison in her room and walked to the end of the hall, passing by Jason. She tried to smile at him but he only gave her something that resembled a grunt, his appearance disheleved in a way that was somewhat concerning. Shaking her thoughts, she entered the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

The brunette slipped Alison's phone out of her back pocket. She was shocked that the blonde hadn't notice her taking it during their hug, but she tried not to show it when she'd backed away from her and ran off to the bathroom. She unlocked the password and went to the messages function. She had always been the only one whom Alison trusted enough with her phone password, probably because the blonde thought she would never use that information.

Emily got her own phone out in order to call Spencer and tell the witty brunette about what she's about to see, but as she opened the newest chat with 'unknown number', her heart dropped in the same way that her phone slipped out of her hands and landed on the tile floor.

On Alison's phone screen, it said:

Careful, Ali, you're getting too close to your Mermaid. What will you do if something were to accidentally happen to her?

Watch your back, bitch.

-A