Emma did badly in her GCSEs in 2000 and refused to retake any; instead of going back to school that autumn she found a job at the Lower Loxley café, and (with a lot of encouragement from Nigel) decided to get NVQ qualifications in catering. She didn't actually do anything about them at that point, though.
In September 2001, while going out with Will Grundy, she went to a concert with him, got bored, and took a lift home in a stolen car (Will's) with Ed. Ed drove into a tree and nearly killed them both; she was badly injured, in in a coma for thirty-six hours, nearly lost her leg, and for some reason decided that Ed was a hero for not actually killing her. He did drag her out of the car which will have done her leg no good at all and so perhaps deserved the hero bit a little, but not much. No NVQs that year either.
In December 2001 she started to look into courses at college, but was not yet able to go back to work at LL.
During 2002 she went on going out with William, and staying in with him as well. She started NVQs at college that September. In April 2003 she did work experience at Grey Gables, and learned about wines. After that she accepted a job working at Jaxx Caff. In May that year she had sex with Ed but decided to stay with William, and when he proposed marriage on her birthday she accepted William. (She also got a scooter to go in to college on, under the "Wheels to Work" scheme.)
In December 2003 she was awarded £12,000 by the Criminal Injuries Board as compensation for the accident which crippled her, because Ed had been driving uninsured and illegally. She decided to use it to pay for her wedding.
In July 2004 during the run-up to her wedding she took to going out with Ed again, and on her hen-night had sex with him; then she married William anyway, and carried on working at Jaxx after the honeymoon. Ed went off to Hungary rather than be Will's best man (I don't blame him!) and came back a few months later with an American girlfriend called Beth, and Emma was jealous and nasty.
After Emma had her baby (7th April 2005) she wanted to go back to work again but funnily enough her mum and William's mum, who both worked full time, couldn't baby-sit for her, which she took very badly. And since her husband was also working full-time he couldn't either. She got bored, and as soon as his American girlfriend Beth had gone back to the States started inviting Ed round whenever William wasn't likely to be home from work unexpectedly. Then she decided that the baby was Ed's and left William for Ed.
And then she and Ed tried to take the baby out of the country to a job Ed had got in France, without telling Will what they were up to.
Y'know, people keep saying Emma is intelligent, but I see very little evidence of it!