Careful, Ali ➳ Emison

Chapter 3 | At Your Defence

Emily stood by herself in the locker room, contemplating whether she should go and sit with the girls in the cafeteria since there was still some time left for the lunch hour. It had been a good, productive practice, at least that's what the coach told them. They were set to compete against Brookhaven Acadamy, their rival school, next week. Usually, it would be the only thing she could think of. Not today, though. Emily had far bigger priorities. She was even surprised when she realized the largest topic floating through her mind wasn't Ali's (and by extent, her) stalker. No, no. It was how weird Alison had been acting that day.

What did Emily mean by weird?

She meant that the blonde had been... touchy, to put it lightly, ever since their mini stand-off that morning. It was like every time the blonde had seen her today ever since, she would not stop touching her. The brunette felt a little full of herself for thinking this, but she could've sworn Ali was finding excuses to touch her all the time.

For example, Alison kept dropping her books by "accident" and after Emily would bend down to pick them up out of politeness, she would thank her by running her hand down her arm slowly while giving her that charming DiLaurentis smile that never failed to make the brunette feel unexplainable things. When Ali did that, it almost made her drop the books once again. It's not that Emily was complaining, but a simple "thank you" would've sufficed, so why was all of the extra flirting even happening?

She hadn't seen Ben all day, which was something she, sadly, deemed as a success. It wasn't so much that he wasn't nice to her, she just wasn't in the mood to put on the mask she usually had to put when he was around her. That happy, nothing-wrong-here mask was beginning to wear out. She hadn't thought so much about it before her chat with Alison yesterday, when the blonde was painting her nails. She wasn't sure which one of Alison's remarks had caught on, but something in her mind definitely changed since yesterday. It was like she could, for a moment, see her relationship from an outside perspective. She wasn't happy. She wouldn't say it out loud, but she wasn't.

However, she couldn't just break up with Ben without any form of explanation, and she didn't know what she could possibly say to him. 'I feel uncomfortable and suffocated when you're around, and it's slowly eating at me from inside'? Or maybe, 'I'm feeling some weird things for my best friend and I need to realize what it means'? And don't even get her started on what form of reasoning she would find to give her friends, 'I'm really trying to focus on school and swimming right now'? Yeah right.

Emily sighed fully as she took off her swim cap, allowing her dark hair to fall neatly over her shoulders. Now she sure as hell didn't have time to get to the cafeteria. She was storing her blue goggles in her locker when she heard the door of the locker room opening and shutting. She waited a few moments, thinking maybe one of the girls had forgotten something, but nobody came into view, causing her to become suspicious.

"Hello?" she called out experimentally, though no one answered. She tried again, louder this time, since maybe that girl didn't hear her, "Hello? Anybody here?"

Nothing.

Something was wrong. She could hear faint footsteps, so she wasn't imagining it, but this person was either extremely shy to the point where they didn't answer her back, or they were just seriously mute.

The brunette desperately tried to stop her heart from going a hundred MPH in her chest as she called out once again, "Hello?!"

She walked slowly across the line of lockers, her eyes darting everywhere, and at heart, she realized maybe this is how Alison's been feeling all along. She neared the end of the wall of lockers, with the intention of peering around it, when two strong arms grabbed the top of hers. "God," she gasped under her breath.