A/N: What happened to all the Ezria love and support, guys? Come on! I will go down with this ship if I have to. This is a way that the whole Aria finds out thing could have ended with a glimmer of hope for their relationship. Most likely a one-shot. In case you're wondering, yes, this does mean that I'm abandoning my "Ezra is A" story.
"Burn it? No, I'm going to read it cover to cover. I need to see what was worth throwing away everything we had over!"
Aria was sitting there coming completely apart. Tears were streaming down her face. She was screaming and looked absolutely beautiful to me even as she looked like an absolute mess. Her mascara and hair were everywhere as she looked at me with eyes full of betrayal. Betrayal I couldn't deny.
It was all my fault.
"Okay. If you want to read it, read it. If you want me to read it to you and explain every single line, I will. Just, please Aria, please don't give up yet. We've been through so much and I can give you an explanation. Please just…" I trailed off and put my head in my hands and then dropped it even farther, pulling at my hair in frustration. How had I screwed this up so badly? Aria was the best thing in my life. She was right, I threw this away because of some stupid story I wanted to write.
"Ezra, how could I ever stand to hear the guy I thought was the love of my life read about how he loved one of my best friends? You are despicable."
The guy I thought was the love of my life. How the hell did I screw it up this badly? How could I let anything come between me and Aria? "Aria, I know you're not going to believe me, but I wasn't in love with her. I never was and I'm certainly not now. I did not get her pregnant. I've been with three women in my life, you, Jackie, and Maggie. Alison was… different. Please, can we go back to the cabin and talk?"
The lift started to move, I only had seconds to convince her to let me talk.
"No, Ezra. If everything I've ever known about us has been built on a lie, how could I trust anything you have to say?"
We were nearing the ground now, "Aria, please. If you don't want to come back to the cabin we can… uh, I can stand outside your car and talk to you and if you ever feel threatened at all, you can drive away. Please, I have never lied about how I feel about you." I didn't know what else to do and she couldn't have been angrier at me so I leaned forward and kissed her before she could protest or move away. She responded and began to kiss me back until she violently broke away.
"What the hell, Ezra? If you want me to trust you enough to talk, you cannot do something like that. I need you to stay here long enough for me to get to my car and lock the doors" she dismounted the chairlift. Was she going to give me a chance to do this? She's far more than I deserve. "I need my keys and I need you to not follow after me until you know I've been gone long enough that I'll feel safe" I handed her the keys and nodded.
As she began to walk away, I couldn't stop myself, I had to ask. "Aria!" She paused, but didn't turn around. "Is forgiveness possible?" She walked away without answering. Whether or not she thought it was, I am going to do everything I can to convince her to at least hear me out. I stood there and waited for what seemed like forever as I mentally followed her route, waiting until she'd be at least halfway there before I started off.
Was she going to wait? Or would I get back to the cabin and find only my car there? I could only have faith that some part of her loved me enough to keep her there. I rounded the last gathering of trees and saw her car, with a soft glow coming from the driver's side, indicating that she was on her phone. I moved to the driver's side but I kept my distance so it wouldn't startle her. I could hear her voice drifting out of the window she had kept cracked.
"No, Han, I'm fine. I know it sounds like I've been crying. I'll explain once I get back. He's not A. I promise, he's absolutely not A. He's something else and I'll be home to explain soon. I'm not in danger."
I froze. A? A was after them again and I'd enlisted Mona's help for my project. How could I have missed that? I'd been following and researching the girls for over a year! How did I miss Mona starting up again? Or the arrival of a different A? Rage instantly filled me. Suddenly, Toby's, Paige's, and Caleb's actions started to make more sense. They all knew but Aria hadn't told me about this new A. That was what she meant by hurting her and her friends on the chairlift. Why hadn't she told me? Had she always been afraid that is was me?
I cleared my throat. "There's a new A?" I said, loud enough that she would hear me.
"Crap, guys, I've gotta go. I'll fill you in later." She dropped the phone and looked over at me. "I think we have something more important to discuss first, Ezra."
"Not more important than your safety. You did lock the door, right? If there's a new A, I want you to be able to floor it out of here. I don't care if Mona comes and clocks me from behind, get out of here." I moved closer to her car and she didn't turn the key and leave right then, so I figured I was okay to move even closer.
"Really? You're worried about my safety now? What about when you started following me? Or getting close to me and making me fall in love with you just to use me? Were you concerned about my well-being then?" She was seconds away from bursting into tears again.
"No! Aria, I told you, it was never like that. I had planned to get to know you girls by getting close to you as your teacher. I never intended for us to get together. All I could think that day when you walked into Snookers was that you were so beautiful. It was a chance meeting and I let myself do what I would have done had I not known who you were. I even knew you weren't being completely honest with me about wanting to teach and leaning toward English and I still found you absolutely enchanting. The bathroom, that wasn't planned. That was me letting my passions get the best of my judgment." She had to believe me.
She looked determined to find a mistake in my story. "And homecoming? What was that?"
"That was me being stupid. I wanted to walk away from it all, it would have been smart. I wanted to just go back to being your teacher. I could have and my research would have been so much easier. I couldn't stop thinking about you. The same thing with Camp Mona, picking you up in the rain, the play, Ritten House Square… countless times we could have just fizzled out and I couldn't just let you be. I love you Aria. It took about five minutes in that pub for me to realize that you were somebody special and that I wanted to keep you in my life as something more than research."
Words had always been my strong suit. The way that Aria worked with art, I worked with words. I was hoping my talent wasn't failing me now, when my words were all that stood between me and losing the love of my life forever.
She looked a little less distressed and maybe even a smile had started to creep on her face as I spoke, but she shut it down and leveled me with a hard stare. "You said you never loved Alison. But what I read clearly said that 'she could lie to you with a kiss.' That definitely implies that you kissed her.
"I did." She scoffed and turned the key to start the car. "Wait!" I did kiss her, once. Just once Aria. Since Spencer showed up there, I'm guessing you knew about the Heart and the Huntsman? We were discussing her writing. She was clearly interested in me and I was just interested in mentoring a young writer. I let her kiss me hoping that she wouldn't feel anything and would give up. That's obviously not what happened. But I saw her teasing countless other guys that summer. She was so charismatic that her real age didn't show through and with Cece there to help her, she could have had almost any guy on that beach."
I leaned down so I was level with Aria's eyes. "I promise you, Allison never meant more than someone to mentor when I knew her. Then she became my… obsession to discover the truth so that I could write about it. It's disgusting for a person to act that way, but I've been doing it. I'm sorry. I promise that she has never been someone I've loved. I love you, Aria. Not anyone else and I will spend however long it takes proving that to you, if you'll let me."
It was all I had. I had no more to explain unless she asked me specific questions.
She leaned her head forward against the steering wheel for a moment and then sat back up. "There's just so much more that plays into this relationship now, Ezra. I don't know how to deal with this. I don't even know where to begin to process this. I… how can you expect me to take this in?"
Was she actually considering this? "I don't know, Aria, all I can tell you is that I love you and anything you'll let me do to show you that, I will. Just say that word."
Her expression changed. She looked like an idea had just popped into her head. "Okay, you asked if forgiveness was possible. I need you to prove that you're on my side. On our side. I'm going to tell the rest of the girls to meet us wherever all of your equipment is and you're going to help us figure out who A is. Then we can talk about where we go from here, got it? Get in." She unlocked the door. "And call Spencer to let her know where to meet us."
A/N: So what do you think? I'm still holding out hope for this couple.