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Summary
It becomes a problem. Because like is a lot more manageable than love. Liking someone, if you are disciplined enough - and Emily clearly is - can be confined. You can take it off and shove it in a little box, then throw it at the very edge of the conscious mind and never once look at it again. From there, if you focus deep enough on not focusing on it at all, the box will itself move closer to the edge, and, eventually, completely fall into the profundity of the forgettable.
Love is different. Emily feels it right away. She reaches for the feeling, box already open. But while like would just be easy to pick off, love claws at the heart, tears the walls to stay lodged in. It doesn't fold up neatly the way like does. It doesn't wait politely at the edge of her mind to be forgotten. It digs in with both hands, finds the soft, unguarded tissue behind her ribs, and holds on there, and every attempt to pry it loose only tears something on the way out.Or: Emily reads a five-hundred-year-old debate about whether it's better to speak or to die, and spends the rest of her life proving both sides wrong.