"You're not making any sense," Emily frustratedly voiced at Alison's back as the other girl kept her arms tightly crossed over her chest in a gesture of pure fury, her breathing becoming rigid.
The brunette had to reach a hand to her own neck then, feeling her throat tighten from the amount of shouting that took place. She was frankly surprised by herself, because the old her would have never shouted, let alone at Alison.
"Wow, Emily," Alison called out in a cynical tone over her shoulder, scoffing. She then bitterly muttered under her breath, "that's the best you could come up with?"
Emily sighed, exasperated, "Ali..."
"Don't."
Emily rolled her eyes and huffed at having to talk to her girlfriend's back like some cheap soap opera, emphasizing the exhale for Alison to hear, because well, the blonde just loved being over-dramatic.
The brunette's eyes tracked Alison's movements as the latter walked over and plopped on the bed, resting her hands over her face for a few moments, trying to pull herself together.
"Could you at least tell me what it is that I did?" Emily quietly croaked out, feeling small and weak. She hated feeling that way, but unfortunately, it was a given when fighting with Alison. The blonde had the power to make you feel fragile and utterly defeated. That was why she was Queen Bee.
"You know what you did." Alison blankly stated as she dropped her hands and stared up at Emily with hooded eyes.
Emily's brows creased in genuine confusion and Alison let a frustrated breath in reaction. How was she supposed to stay mad at the girl when Emily just looked so adorably perplexed?
Alison's jaw clenched hard as she restored to her previous mood because Emily shouldn't have been confused. She knew Alison better than anyone else, she knew that her actions would cause this exact reaction.
And Emily seemed to begin to understand what her girlfriend was getting at as her face finally displayed comprehension. But she refused to sit down next to her girlfriend and tell her she was sorry, because she was innocent. She hadn't done anything wrong. And with Alison looking at her with an accusatory gaze, she couldn't help but feel aggravated as well, her own anger building up inside of her until she reached a breaking point.
"Well, what the hell was I supposed to do?" the brunette all but blurted out. It was safe to say that sweet, naïve Emily had suddenly snapped.
"How about not talking to her?" Alison hissed, quickly getting to her feet, full-on poker-face etched on her, since inside, she was crumbling. This jealousy issue was proving to be a real pain in the ass for Alison, but she couldn't help it. "And when your girlfriend's in the same room!"
"Alison, you've got it all wrong," Emily commented back heatedly, her hands automatically folding over her chest as some defense mechanism. "I only talked to her because she was standing on the employees' side of the counter. I thought she was trying to stir trouble!" the brunette protected herself, too defeated to notice the way Alison shrunk slightly at the realization that Emily had called her by her full name, and not by the usually happy, ring-y 'Ali'.
"What was she even doing there, anyway?" Alison uttered in disdain.
"Who? Maya?" Emily asked innocently, and all hell broke loose inside of Alison once again simply at the sound of the other girl's name. She wasn't even in the room and she had the power to start a fight between her and Emily, a thing that almost never happened. "She was just there to visit some of her old friends from work, apparently."
"Right, and you just had to go and talk to her," the blonde rolled her eyes begrudgingly, "while I was right across the room, too. Nice one, Emily."
"So what? From here on out, for the rest of my life, I'm not allowed to talk to any other girls? Paige, I understand. Sydney, fine. But the thing with Maya happened ages ago. And need I remind you, I was even angrier than you." She could see Alison getting boiled up, opening her mouth to protest, but Emily beat her to it and continued on talking. "And I didn't mean to talk to her, but when someone walks around to your side of the counter, you have to at least ask them what they're doing!"
Alison's baby blue eyes shifted to dangerously dark color as she stepped closer, "You know I hate her-"
The sound of whistling drifted inside the room as the door opened, but it was enough for Caleb to see the look on both girls' faces in order to close his mouth and stop his nonchalant whistling, a confused look covering on his face since technically, he'd never seen the two girls fight before.
Alison's eyes traveled to the analog wall clock over Emily's head, confirming that Caleb was early. She had asked him to come over at six to check her computer because it was acting up, but never in her life did she regret inviting someone over like she did right now.
"Uh... should I come back later?" he dubiously pointed over his shoulder, beginning to step backward, shifting the laptop in his hands to a position under his arm.
"No need," Emily hastily corrected as her eyes glistened, "I was just leaving."
The brunette wiped her tears on her sleeve and sniffled as she breezed past the boy, who awkwardly shifted in his place, not knowing what to do for the life of him.
"We're not done talking about this, Emily," Alison called out to the girl's receding back, too invested in the moment to notice the irony of the situation.
The brunette merely threw a, "Whatever," over her shoulder as she disappeared out of sight. A few tense moments later, Alison flinched at the sound of the front door slamming harshly downstairs.
Caleb looked back at Alison with sympathy and concern. Even though he didn't know the story, he realized, as a single tear rolled down Alison's pale cheek, that he'd never seen the girl look so completely... broken.
X-X-X-X-X-X
"Emily?" Toby's voice rang in the brunette's ears, but she didn't hear him, not really. Her eyes were so watery that she could barely even see the boy, who had, at the sight of her quivering figure outside his door that allegedly-innocent afternoon, tore off his door chain and opened his lock so quickly, that he was afraid the handle might break.
Emily only shook her head lightly as tears flowed freely down her tanned cheek, and that was enough of a sign for him to pull her into a bear hug. It soothed her, but it didn't even stand in comparison to Alison's hugs.
As Toby pulled her into the apartment he shared with his two best friends, currently occupied by no one but him, he was glad that he decided not to go out to The Grille an hour ago, considering he knew that Hanna was gone with her mom to a spa vacation that exact weekend and Emily couldn't have gone to her if he hadn't been home.
He sat her down in the living room, walking away with the assurance of getting her a glass of water. He stepped over to the kitchen, pulling out his phone and hastily texting Alison, before storing it back in his pocket and pulling out a cup from the cabinet.
In the next town over, Alison heard the beeping of her phone from where she was sitting on her bed with Caleb. The sole reason she picked it up was that she had no idea where Emily had gone to, she could've been in the middle of the woods for all Alison knew. Caleb watched as the teary girl frantically picked up her phone while he patted Pepe's fur, who had his head nestled in Alison's lap in comfort.
"Emily's okay, she's with Toby," she weakly informed Caleb, releasing a not-so-subtle sigh of relief, and the boy nodded in return, immensely reassured himself. He truly had no idea about the regular dynamics of their fights, and he wasn't sure if he should be asking Alison or not because the girl had been picking at her nails the entire time since Emily left.
"No surprise there," Caleb commented reasonably in a calm tone. He stared her for a moment, and then asked in a particularly uncharacteristic soft voice, "So, after Maya left, you two just ended up here?"
Not answering his question, Alison pinched the bridge of her nose, muttering, "Caleb, I am such a screw-up."
"Hey, no you're not." he firmly disagreed. "Why would you say that?"
"Because it's true!" Alison frustratedly stood to her feet as Pepe quickly got off her lap. She couldn't help but feel absolutely furious, but not at Emily - at herself. From her point of view, something must've been seriously wrong with her if she managed to hurt the swimmer over and over and over again. Luckily for her, Emily was a very forgiving person, but that didn't mean she could forgive her forever.
"Why? Why are you a screw-up?" Caleb demanded, challenging her and trying to dig to the bottom of this. Maybe Alison had been right back when she asked him in Paris, maybe he really was a secret therapist.
"Because!" Alison shouted at no one in particular.
"Because?"
"Because Emily's never hurt anyone and yet she gets hurt every time. By me. What kind of girlfriend am I? What kind of person am I?" Alison retorted genuinely, looking him straight in the eye.
"Not a perfect one," he shrugged, spreading his arms to his sides in a show of 'oh well', and dropping them to his sides. "Guess what?" he asked, looking at her to make sure she was listening intently, "neither is Emily." He gave her a meaningful, pointed look as she wiped her nose with the nearest kleenex, seating down on the bed.
"But she is," Alison mumbled defensively, and Caleb smiled softly, making a self-note to tell that to Emily sometime.
"You know what, forget about that for now. Do you want to know what Toby's mom used to do for us when I first moved in with them?" Caleb asked with a mischievous smile.
Alison raised an eyebrow at him, prompting him to continue.
"She used to us give these... 'life lessons' before we went to bed," he laughed in nostalgia. "The first lesson: relationships are based on trust," he gave her a purposeful look, and she nodded faintly and looked down at her lap in embarrassment.
"I don't know why she taught that to two eleven-year-olds, but she stuck to it. When she had found out her husband was cheating, she just left him. She didn't think she could trust him again, and he didn't try to gain her trust in return." Caleb stopped before he told the girl the entire family history of the Cavanaughs. "Ali, you have to trust Em some more, and these jealousy issues will all be resolved, because then, you wouldn't believe that she would want to be with anyone else other than you."
"I trust her. I trust my Emily," she assured. "I just don't trust them."
"And who's 'them'?" he gazed at her suspiciously.
"Caleb, face it. Emily's a catch. Tons of girls-"
"And tons of guys drool over you on a daily basis, Ali. Okay, so, Emily punched some jerks back in summer vacation. Other than that, though... she's dealing really well with the jealousy issue that I know that she still has, sometimes, too." he reasoned. "If Emily can do it for you, then so can you. For her."
Alison nodded in comprehension, biting her lip and mumbling, "I know. But it's hard."
"Life's hard," Caleb chipped in, "and relationships are work."
"I'm aware, Caleb," she cracked a small smile his way. "I'm just not the greatest at talking about my feelings, and even though I'm completely comfortable with Em, sometimes I'm not completely... comfortable. You know what I mean?" Alison asked.
"Not a clue," he chuckled. "But if it makes sense in your head, it's probably logical."
Alison nodded softly, then thought back to the heated conversation she shared with the brunette. "When Emily and I were talking earlier, she-"
The blonde's abrupt halt caused Caleb to raise his eyebrow curiously her way. "Ali," he said, "what is it?"
"She said, 'for the rest of my life'," Alison mumbled to herself in a small moment of euphoria before covering her hand over her mouth in awe, her heart lifting in her chest.
"What?" the boy asked in uncertainty.
Alison shook her head, already stepping over and reaching to pick her jacket from around the chair in front of her vanity. "I have to go and apologize to her," she answered hastily, opening the door to her room. She paused at the doorway, looking back at him with a thankful smile, "Thank you for everything, Rio."
"Thank me later, Ali. Just go get your girl," he urged with a small grin.
He watched as Alison nodded and quickly exited the room, then turned to the laptop in the corner of the room on top of the blonde's nightstand and clicked on settings.
"Let's see..."
X-X-X-X-X
"She's a mess, Ali. What happened between you two?" Toby inquired protectively.
"I'll tell you everything later, Toby, but right now, I just have to talk to her. Is she still here?" Alison asked, attempting to look over the boy's shoulder in the front doorway.
He gazed at her thoughtfully as if contemplating whether to answer or not, before sighing, "Yeah, she is. And she won't answer anything I ask."
Toby allowed her inside the apartment and Alison's worried eyes strayed everywhere at once. "That's how Em acts when she's upset. She just closes off, it's like an instinct."
Toby nodded as he led the girl to the living room, where Emily was sitting with her knees to chest on the couch, facing the TV that she wasn't really paying attention to.
"Em," Toby said softly, putting his hand on the back of the couch next to the girl.
"Thanks, Toby, but I told you I don't want to talk about it," Emily quietly said, her voice lacking any emotion.
Toby only cleared his throat, indicating Emily to look up, and when she did, she couldn't help but gape openly at Alison's hesitant figure next to the boy. Toby looked between the two of them once, declaring, "I'll... leave you two alone."
They didn't notice the fact that he left the apartment, but they did notice the way each other's eyes were completely bloodshot. After deciding Emily probably wouldn't want to talk to her as of right now, Alison decided to speak first. "Em, can we talk? Please?" she asked tentatively.
The brunette didn't say anything, only turned her head back to the TV and used the remote to turn it off, leaving Alison to fumble into motion and take a seat on the couch. It felt like they were miles apart, even though they merely sat on opposite sides of the sofa.
"Em, I get... I get pretty jealous sometimes," Alison began, glancing at her girlfriend.
Emily let out a humorless laugh, quietly uttering, "Yeah, I noticed that, Ali."
Just hearing Emily say her name again gave Alison such hope, that she forced herself to keep talking.
"It's not because I don't trust you, Em, because I do. With all my heart. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten into this relationship in the first place," Alison promised. "I get jealous because," she paused, noticing the way her voice cracked slightly and how Emily's eyes flew to her the second it did, "because sometimes, especially when it comes to you, my self-confidence plummets."
Emily's newly-teary eyes met Alison's serious ones, and the blonde bit her lip in thought, contemplating how to continue now that she's got Emily's full attention.
"I've always had this issue with jealousy, but it, it just rose to a completely different level when I met you, Em," Alison explained, turning her full figure to face Emily, trying to use her body language to convince the girl. Emily looked bewildered, surprised that Alison was sharing so much and that she's had such a big influence on her and her feelings.
"Girls and boys want you, Emily, and it's... it's difficult for me to just sit back and pretend that it doesn't hurt me," Alison said, her eyes watering ever so slightly. "I know it's not your fault, but when somebody looks at you a certain way, I get self-conscious about myself, about how I don't deserve you, and the only way I show it is-is anger. I lash out. I can't control it."
"But you can."
Alison's eyes quickly snapped in surprise to Emily, after the girl let out the first genuine words that were directed at the blonde since she'd gotten there.
"You can control it, Ali," Emily remarked, turning her own body in the same position as the blonde's. "They're your feelings."
"But I'm afraid that I can't control it enough to restrain it, and if I keep acting this way, then I'll lose you forever," Alison argued.
"Ali, you could rob a bank and blame it on me and I would still love you," Emily said, making Alison chuckle endearingly. "Don't ever question that," she finished.
Alison nodded faintly, believing her. She smiled softly and when the brunette mirrored that grin, she felt the unpleasantness in her heart slowly washing away. "You know," she said, "I noticed something you said when we were talking in my room, that I didn't pay attention to up until you left."
"What did I say?" Emily asked almost fearfully, scared that she had let out something out of line in her vortex of emotions during their earlier argument.
"You said, 'for the rest of my life'."
Emily stared at Alison in confusion, prompting her to continue.
"You want to be with me for the rest of your life?" Alison breathed out hopefully, the tears tracing her eyes all over again, but for a completely different reason now.
"Of course," Emily answered, not missing a beat, "I thought you already knew that."
"I did. I do." Alison nodded, her eyes tracking the way Emily began to move closer to her on the couch, doing the same.
"I mean, I guess I kind of like it sometimes when you're jealous," Emily shyly spoke, ducking her head slightly. "It-it shows me that you, you know... want me."
Alison grinned tenderly at the girl.
Emily stole a look at her before looking back down, continuing to express herself, "But sometimes it gets a little... over the top, you know? I don't want to have to fight with you whenever I talk to a girl-"
Alison instantly replied, "I know, baby. I know. I promise to try my best to be better, just give me a chance. Okay?"
Emily nodded, a smile spreading across her lips. "And I promise to be absolutely patient until then. But just know that... that I'll never look at anyone else the way I look at you, Ali. That's something I can promise you."
Alison laughed softly, wiping the tears from her eyes, finally having time to worry about the fact that she probably looked like an absolute mess, but she didn't even care. "I love you, mermaid."
"I love you, too." the brunette replied fondly, allowing herself to be led into the other girl's arms. The hug was tentative at first, but moments after, they were already falling into the familiar embrace, their tears soaking into the material of each other's clothes.
"I'm sorry," Alison mumbled into Emily's neck, finding herself surrounded by her addicting smell and never-ending warmth.
Emily tightened her arms around the girl, "I know you are. But I still don't get why you don't understand that no matter how many times you think you've screwed up, you'll still have me? We're tethered together for life."
For Alison, that sentence triggered some reaction that the brunette wasn't expecting, and the blonde cried harder into Emily's steady shoulder, clinging into the fabric of her shirt as if it was her only lifeline.
Emily was her home, and growing up in an unsteady, cold household like Alison's had left her for years with the feeling that she would never have someone she could absolutely rely on at any given time, but Emily was now that person for her. Her person.
"Forever?" she carefully uttered in return, sniffling along.
Emily laughed gently, and it sounded like music to the blonde's ears. "I know you want to be stuck with me forever, Ali," Emily teased. It felt weird for her to say something like that, a line that sounded a lot more like something Alison would say and not her. But apparently the blonde wasn't paying much attention to that, and Emily closed her eyes in wonderment when she felt her girlfriend's lips on her own.
As Alison placed her palm on Emily's cheek in order to draw her closer, she could taste the salty tears on their lips, and she knew they had a lot more to talk about, but the important part was for them to understand that, yes, they each had their own issues and their points of conflict, but they would get through them together, and most importantly - no problem was enough to drive them apart.