Author's Note: This is my first time writing fanfic in a really long time. But I've needed an outlet for my creative juices for a while. The first few lines are paying homage to one of my favorite fanfics from another fandom. I hope you enjoy and please let me know if you would like to see more of this!

"In details lost among the city lights,

The words were hard to find."

-DieRadioDie

Aria can't remember the last time she saw stars, just endless rows of boxes, window lights, streetlamps, neon billboards. She looks out her window at these illuminated squares and wonders about the people behind them. On lonely nights, she writes stories about them in her head. There's the blonde girl who lives across the street; Aria pretends she is a Swedish model, with ten boyfriends and a cat named Bjorn. The ginger in the office across the street; Aria pretends he is a serial killer with two kids, hiding his deep dark secret from the world. Aria writes these stories in her head and she feels connected, part of a city that never really felt like home.

Aria has friends here, now, but it isn't the same. When she calls them now, they don't talk for hours, not like she used to with her friends in Rosewood. Sometimes she chalks that up to age and maturity, but at her most honest moments, she knows it is because the depth isn't there, that maybe her friends don't understand her, not like her old friends did.

Aria remembers their bond, standing over Ali's grave, holding each other, the A nightmare, the secrets, the lies. She's happy that's behind her, but she still misses parts of it; she misses the excitement, the feelings. She misses Hanna's quick wit, Emily's warmth, Spencer's smile, and the fucking stars over Rosewood. She misses it all, misses the unpredictability.

She still sees them, sometimes. She has lunch with Spencer every time she comes to the city. They eat at some overpriced, fancy restaurant Aria couldn't afford. When the check comes, Aria makes a show of reaching for it, even though they both know Spencer will be paying anyways.

After high school, Spencer went off to Penn, studied pre-law, got a 4.0. She was TA for some classes, played on the lacrosse team, met a guy named Jamie. They got married and she went to law school, Harvard, natch. Now she lives in a suburb of Chicago, in a big house with a four-car garage and a swimming pool. Aria sees her when she comes to town, but it isn't the same. Spencer taps away at her blackberry and orders a salad every time. Aria remembers sleepovers, endless bags of chips and pints of ice cream, eating frosting straight from the jar.

She hasn't seen Emily in years. She lives outside of San Francisco with her wife. She went off to some small liberal arts school, swam, made all state. Aria can remember the emails, each one with more exclamation points than the last. "WON THE MEET! WOOOOOHOO!" Now she teaches little kids how to swim at the local community center. Her wife runs a nursery, selling tiny plants to hipsters and housewives. She's happy, happier than anyone else Aria knows, at least. They Skype, sometimes, short conversations, updates. Emily is pregnant now, thanks to a petri dish and doctor in a white lab coat. Aria hopes it's a girl.

Hanna became a stylist for the stars. She lives in Los Angeles with Caleb, in a house on a hill with two dogs. Aria sees her name in the trashy magazines they have in waiting rooms, at the doctor, the dentist. The captions read, "Jennifer Lawrence, styled by Hanna Marin." They talked last week, about nothing, just words, small talk between the shouts at Hanna's personal assistant. Hanna tells Aria to come visit, come out to the west coast, to see her and Emily. She says, "I'll pay for the plane ticket," and Aria becomes quiet. They both know she will never come, won't accept the charity, and Hanna won't mention it again for months.

As for Aria, she writes; her name is imprinted on the spine of books on the shelf at Barnes and Noble's, hidden among the thousands of other tomes. Some months the checks come and she goes out to dinner, orders dessert; some months, the checks don't come, and she goes to bed with an aching in her stomach and worried voicemails from her mother ringing in her ears. Her agent says, "It's all happening." Her agent says, "This next one is going to be huge, I can feel it." And Aria smiles at her, but wonders what makes this one different from the last three.

She's seeing a guy, a model; his name is Jake. He has sandy brown hair and bulging muscles, the kind you see in summer blockbusters, the kind on leading men. He's sweet; he rubs Aria's feet, cooks her lasagna. They go out, to the movies, to dinner, to the little league games he coaches in central park on the weekend. Aria tried to take him to a museum once; he stared at the paintings and sighed before wandering off to the gift shop. Now when Aria wants to see art, she goes alone, slips her headphones into her ears and disappears into the crowds of excited tourists snapping photos.

She thinks about him, about being fifteen and so in love she could barely stand it. She thinks of nights with him at museums, standing in silent absorption of light and color, the way they would go back to his apartment and he would take to his typewriter, typing furiously, inspired. She thinks of the feelings, the excitement, the electricity of each kiss. She thinks of stolen moments in dimly lit stairwells, of nights spent on his couch with Thai food and Cary Grant, thinks of him and his hair, messy from sleep, his eyes, so blue they looked like weather. She thinks of her head on his lap as he graded papers, him kissing her in the rain, the way they fit together so perfectly, like two missing puzzle pieces.

She thinks about him when she's sitting in Jake's apartment, staring at his old wrestling trophies on the wall. She thinks about their nights of black and white movies while Jake watches Hugh Jackman swipe at things with hairy talons. She thinks about the posters on Ezra's walls, movies Aria had never heard of before him, covers of books they had loved. She wonders where he is. She sits at her computer and fights the urge to Google him, to seek him out, to think about him. She fights the urge and she succeeds, most nights. She wonders if he ever thinks of her, ever fights the urge to Google her name, to get lost in one of her stories. She wonders if he has a "Jake", someone he has dinner with, someone he takes to the movies.

Aria listens to the sounds of sirens blaring outside of her window, of babies crying and cars honking and people shouting and endless, indistinguishable noise that blurs together into a song, an unwelcome soundtrack to her life. Aria can't remember the last time she felt the serene simplicity of silence wash over her. She walks the city streets and she is wistful, wistful for Rosewood, wistful for quiet, for the sound of crickets chirping in the trees, of the rustling of leaves swaying softly in the breeze. She thinks about New York, about the concept of eight million people on a tiny island and it makes her head hurt. She thinks of Rosewood, her tiny town with a population of barely eight thousand, and it makes her heart hurt.

She goes to bed, wraps her blanket around her body and wonders if this is it, if this is the life she looked forward to when she was younger.