Ezra knows when her friends know (know, that is, about him and Aria) because when he walks into class he feels three pairs of eyes piercing the back of his head; feels those same three pairs slide away as he turns to his pupils. Spencer taps her pen against her hand, Hanna flushes and crosses her arms, and Emily bites her lip and shuffles through her binder.
And Aria wears a little smile on her lips and a blush adorns her perfect cheeks and Ezra has to remind himself more than once that he can't stare at her, can't love her, because this isn't right. So he jerks his gaze from her and tells the class to open their texts to the sixth chapter, and his voice cracks and everyone snickers except Spencer, Hanna, and Emily, who don't do anything at all.
And Aria wears her smile a little bigger, and Ezra again remembers that he's not even supposed to be sneaking little peeks at her because this isn't right.
So he starts reading to the class, because that's what he does when he's at a loss. Losing himself in F. Scott Fitzgerald's words, he makes it all the way through Gatsby's party, Daisy's disappointment, and finds himself stumbling across Nick's assessment of Gatsby.
"… He wanted to recover something," begins Ezra, "Some idea of himself, perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy."
He can't quite force his eyes to remain fixated on the page; instead, they skim across the classroom to Aria, only to find that hers seek him out also. Ezra swallows hard and continues.
"His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out—" Again, Ezra looks to Aria—"Find out what that thing was."
The bell rings; class ends; Ezra sinks into his chair and wonders what idea of himself he has lost through loving Aria.
Loving Aria isn't right, and that's what he's lost: the newly graduated college boy who only wanted to inspire students to love English as he did. Does.
Love English, not Aria.
He buries his head in his hands, and then someone's walking towards him, feet whispering a butterfly tread across the linoleum floor. And it could be Noel, who knows; could be Spencer and Hanna and Emily, who know; but Ezra knows that this is only Aria.
So when she caresses the top of his arm with her fingers, her black nails skimming his flesh in a way that, even with fabric between, makes him shiver, he allows himself to lean into her touch for a few seconds.
"You have to go," he whispers then, finally daring to meet her eyes again.
And Aria wears no smile at all, but swallows hard and says, in a voice thick with not-quite-crying, "So you can return to a certain starting place?"
Because quoting English is all he can do (because, anyway, he certainly can't hope to do Aria anymore), Ezra replies, "My life has been confused and disordered."
And Aria's voice breaks as she accuses, "If all I've done is disorder your life …"
When he doesn't contradict her, her butterfly steps float back out of the room, leaving Ezra trapped in her heartbreak, her memory, his guilt: he said he wouldn't let her down; he thought he was better than her father.
But now, with the wisdom of a man whose aspirations have been disillusioned once and for all, Ezra knows that the difference between himself and her father is only as the one between sleeping and death: even in separate bodies, they still appear the same—to the one who matters, to Aria.
And Ezra knows, or hopes, or decides that if he ever wants Aria to wear her smile again, it'll have to be without him, so he gathers what remains of his courage and pride and goes to the office and hands in his resignation.
It's not easy, it's not healing, but Ezra packs up his classroom with the guilty, unfulfilling conviction that this is right.
The quote "He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself, perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was." is from chapter 6 F. Scott Fitzgerald's (truly incredible) The Great Gatsby.
I really hate this pairing a lot. Not because I doubt that Aria and Ezra have chemistry or that they're meant for each other or whatever, but because the very idea of a student/teacher relationship is gross as long as they're constricted also to the roles of student and teacher - I don't like how PLL glamorizes this (thus this attempt at rationalization). But. That's my opinion - I'd love to hear any of yours :)