Emily’s car is quiet, the engine’s thrum seems like the only noise in the world. Em’s driving is calm and steady, and watching the trees flash by outside the window, Hanna can almost remember what it’s like to feel safe. Even though they aren’t safe, not really. Not ever.
Hanna looks at Emily’s profile, visible in the flash of streetlights. It’s just a matter of time, she thinks. She shared a room with Emily for months, after all. It’s totally not eavesdropping if someone talks in their sleep, if the name they say over and over again is Ali.
She has a memory of striding down the hall with Mona, trying so hard to be the new Alison. She never thought about what it would be like to have the old one back. Like realizing your favorite bag is a knock off, a cheap imitation, and last season’s to boot. That’s what Hanna feels like, fake and out of date.
“What was it like to come out?” she asks Emily. She needs to figure things out, how to go from here to somewhere more authentic. And Emily did that once. She might still have a map.
Emily’s face is closed, cautious. “Where is this coming from?”
“I just never really asked you. I mean, what was it like to stop being one thing and then just become something else?” Hanna knows she’s fumbling, she isn’t even sure exactly what her question is, she just has an instinct that Emily is her best shot at an answer.
“It wasn’t becoming something else,” Emily answers, “I was becoming who I really am.”
And Hanna is floored by how sure Emily sounds. She sounds like Spencer used to when she was on the debate team. Like all the facts have been quadruple checked, and this is who Emily is. She’s never been jealous of Emily before, but in this moment she wishes she had a piece of that bedrock certainty for herself.
“You always knew?” she asks.
“I couldn’t admit it.”
“But you knew.”
“Yeah,” Emily admits.
“Not me,” Hanna says. “I never knew who the hell I was.”
Emily is silent for a long time, her eyes on the road. Hanna thinks maybe the conversation is over. Mile markers blur out the window.
“This is about Alison, isn’t it?” Emily asks.
“Everything is about Alison,” Hanna sighs.
And Emily, who could seriously win an award for person whose whole life is the most about Alison, shakes her head. She takes a hand off the steering wheel, and puts it over Hanna’s.
“Not this,” she says, and her hand is warm and certain. “Who you are on the inside, Hanna - that’s about you.”
“But that’s the whole point!” Hanna exclaims. “I was so busy letting Mona turn me into Ali, I never bothered with figuring my insides out!”
“You let her make you look like Ali,” Emily says. “But you never acted like her. You were still you.”
“I don’t even know who that is,” Hanna says quietly.
Emily’s had enough, she has that look on her face like when she’s about to jump in the pool and break a record without breaking a sweat. She puts on the turn signal, then pulls over to the side of the road. She turns to Hanna, giving her the full force of her attention.
“Listen, I can’t pretend like I know what you’re going through,” Emily says. “Having Ali back is shaking everyone up. In all the ways. But I’ve known you as long as I’ve known her, okay? And you’re still who you’ve always been. You’re Hanna. You’re gorgeous and kind and smart and sometimes a little tactless, and there’s nothing you won’t do for your friends. Unless it involves sharing cheese fries.”
Hanna smiles a little at that, prompting Emily to continue. “Maybe you feel like you don’t know who you are right now, but I’m your best friend and I know you better than anybody, so you have to trust me to tell you.”
“See?” Hanna says. “You’re so sure about everything. Who you are. Who I am. But what if I’m still trying to figure it out?”
“Then figure it out,” Emily responds, like it’s the most logical thing in the world.
“How did you, though?” Hanna presses. “Was it like, the first time you kissed a girl?”
Emily shifts in her seat, uncomfortable. She’s maybe the most private person Hanna’s ever met, she plays everything close to the vest. A good habit, when you have a psychotic stalker after you, but occasionally annoying in the context of best-friendship.
“Before Alison picked us,” Emily says, and her voice sounds far away, lost in memory, “I never fit in anywhere. Not really. And then Ali came along and she was so -”
Beautiful, Hanna thinks. Vicious. Intense.
“Bold,” Emily says. “Larger than life. And everything I’d always tried not to feel, it all rushed up all at once. It was like, when you’re doing a jigsaw puzzle and there’s that one piece that just doesn’t seem to fit. And then you turn it a different way, and the whole picture starts to make sense. That’s how it felt.”
“That’s what I want,” Hanna says. “I want to feel that.”
“But you already know where you fit,” Emily insists. “You fit with us. With me and Spencer and Aria. We’re your friends, Hanna. We love you for who you are, not because you look like Ali.”
Now it’s Hanna’s turn to shake her head. The only other self she can remember is the old Hanna, the disgusting one with no self control. Totally unlovable. That Hanna is gone now, vomited up and flushed down a toilet. She feels reckless and hopeless and a little unhinged.
“Stop being so reasonable!” she snaps. “I’m having a crisis over here!”
Emily’s eyes widen. “You’re getting yourself all worked up,” she says, squeezing Hanna’s hand.
Hanna bangs her head dramatically against the back of the seat. It’s like she’s shouting at Emily from across a canyon, with a river running a million feet below. And Emily’s acting like Hanna just has to run across a rickety rope bridge, like it’s that easy, when all Hanna can see is how far down she’s going to fall.
She wraps a hand around the back of Emily’s neck and kisses her. Her lips are soft and surprised, but Hanna can feel them quirking up, as if Emily’s smiling. She kisses back with a gentle intensity that sends a shiver down Hanna’s spine, and wow - Hanna gets it, why more girls line up to kiss Emily than Noel Kahn these days. She plunges her tongue into Emily’s mouth, trying to get a taste of Emily’s smooth self assurance, trying to swipe a little bit of it for herself.
Emily lets the kiss go on for a minute, then pulls away, still smiling a little. She restarts the car, steering them back onto the highway. She runs a hand through her hair, which falls in a glossy tangle on her shoulder.
“Did that answer your question?” Emily asks.
“Maybe,” Hanna says, her arms crossed over her chest. But she’s smiling a little now, too.
They’re almost to the edge of Rosewood by the time Hanna speaks again. “Alison doesn’t deserve you.”
Emily doesn’t take her eyes off the road, but she sighs, and it’s a sigh full of worry and confusion and love that makes Hanna feel a million times less alone. Because Emily would never admit it, but it’s not all sunshine and roses and dreams come true having Alison back like this.
“I got so used to wanting it,” Emily says. “I never thought much about what it would be like to have.”
Hanna grabs Emily’s hand again, holds it in silence until Emily pulls up outside The Brew.