Thread: An Ironic Bond (Pretty Little Liars AU plot) - Redria x White

Sitting at their table, Aria's gaze remained fixated on Emily's face, at least while she wasn't looking. Despite being convinced that this was the solution to her predicament, Aria still remained somewhat confused. Confused because she had now found herself feeling guilty about hiding her intentions from Emily. Confused because she had dragged this on for so long that she was now wondering what Emily would make of it. Confused, perhaps mostly, because she was still trying to figure out why she was now considering this sort of relationship with such a good friend in Emily, while she had never once before thought of her this way. There wasn't even an attraction - at least not on a physical, sexual level - but it was also the first time that Aria hadn't even factored such a thing into her decision. For the first time in her entire life, she didn't need such an attraction to somebody in order to feel like she was interested in them. Instead, she was convinced that there was such a deep connection that she was feeling, that it rendered physical attraction worthless - there was just... something else there, even if she couldn't grasp what it was. However, was this truly a deep connection that Aria was feeling? In her desperate search for a solution to her loneliness, and her subsequent epiphany that Emily was the answer, Aria hadn't truly examined what other explanations there might have been for how she had suddenly found herself feeling. But that didn't matter, because there they were, sitting at a table at a bar downtown, and Aria had one thing on her mind - going for broke and finally spilling her guts to Emily. Staring into the last of her second drink of the night, Aria closed her eyes as she finished what was left of it, and was now staring into the glass that now had only held ice cubes and a few pieces of fruit in it. The trip here seemed to take forever, but once Emily knocked on the window to her car, everything began to go by in a blur. Aria vaguely remembered anything from that point on, all the way to this moment right now, as she stared at the slowly-melting ice in her glass. The walk inside, the conversation they'd made once arriving, and anything in between - none of it mattered in the face of what was truly on Aria's mind. Even now, as she finally looked back at Emily, she felt... absent, and it may or may not have been obvious in her behavior. If asked, Aria couldn't have recounted one single thing that they spoke of since sitting down, because she simply had other things on her mind. This was such an intensely critical moment for her that she couldn't settle down and focus even if she wanted to. The only thing that hadn't escaped her in her current mindset were the two things that she had spent months reminding herself of - she had one chance to do this right, and she had to wait for when the time was right to do it. Simple, right? Suddenly, Aria found herself squinting at Emily, who seemed to be concerned about something. What was she saying...? I can't... But suddenly, Aria snapped out of it, finally hearing Emily's voice Aria... Aria! Is something wrong?? Shaking her head, Aria sighed. No... I just... n-nevermind... She'd spaced out, or rather, she had finally been caught spacing out. Truthfully, she'd spent the entire night that way, at least since sitting down with Emily. It had suddenly become apparent that it was all but obvious that something was on Aria's mind tonight, as it had been many other nights when they'd hung out together these past few months. The difference tonight was that Aria wanted to come clean to Emily, but was beginning to realize that she couldn't simply confess and expect things to go perfectly. Common sense had started to make itself apparent in the fact that this, like any other potentially shocking confession, needed to be done in baby steps. Nonetheless, Aria still needed to recover from being caught in deep thought. ...I was just... thinking that I needed another drink! Smiling big, Aria stood up from the table. I'll be right back...! and with that, Aria hurried off to the bar. While standing at the bar waiting for the bartender, Aria reflected on what had just happened, and her guilty conscience was wreaking havoc on her thoughts. God... she totally knows something's up now! I'm such a fucking idiot...! She glanced back at their table, seeing Emily on her phone. It seemed innocent enough. Maybe... just maybe ... Emily chalked this up to being nothing at all. Then again... maybe she had simply grown to ignore Aria's weird behavior since returning. Suddenly she found herself worried about THAT as well. The problems and concerns just kept piling up, and drove Aria to make one pivotal decision while standing there at the bar - she had to put things into motion before Emily began to think that she was crazy. Walking back to the table, Aria put Emily's drink in front of her. Here, got you one too! as she sat down, smiling. Aria... you've gotten all three of my drinks so far... Aria's heart sank, her face growing even more pale. She hadn't even realized that she'd been covering all of Emily's drinks thus far, and her guilty conscience had left her dreading that this had every implication of being a date in Aria's eyes. At this point, she had nothing to say. And so, Aria simply stared for a moment before speaking up. Oh... It was now obvious that something was... different about tonight, and how things went from here was left at the complete mercy of Emily's response.