Hey guys! So I don't know if you remember the scene between Aria and Jenna in 2x03, when they're in the pottery room and it's dark and Jenna asks Aria to light a candle so that she can "see" her artwork, but it's possibly my FAVORITE scene ever done on this show. So intense! But there wasn't any closure between Jenna and Aria, like, at ALL, so this came to my head! This is what I would want to happen between the two of them. Just a small drabble. Nothing huge, or necessarily good. Enjoy! Oh, and, REVIEW!
"Blow out the candle," Jenna growled, her words hanging in the air like olive oil in a glass of water. Aria stood there, motionless. The candle was still burning, illuminating Jenna's in the most haunting way possible, from her yellow-toned skin to her thin, ruby red lips.
Aria hesitated, at a loss for words. "Jenna…" she started.
"Blow. It. OUT!" Jenna snarled, sending a ripple of chills up Aria's entire body. Even when covered by large, Gucci sunglasses, the anger and fear in Jenna's eyes was still eminent. Finally, Aria leaned over and blew out the candle.
Without even bothering to check back to see if she'd forgotten anything, Aria ran off. She tripped over a tray of paintbrushes, but immediately grabbed the doorknob and picked herself back up. She flung open the door to the pottery room and darted through it, racing down the hall as fast as she could possibly run on her little legs until she reached the entrance to Hollis College. She stopped at the stairwell at the front entrance, gasping for breath. Suddenly, her breath stopped short in her throat.
She had left Jenna in the pottery room!
She looked back into the school, unsure of what she should do. How could she have left Jenna in the dark?
Wait, what difference will it make? she suddenly realized. She can't see anyway! She won't be able to tell that it's still dark!
With that thought in mind, Aria finally caught her breath well enough for her to start running again; running all the way back home. As far away from Jenna Marshall as possible.
The next day at school, Aria broke away from her friends to go to the music room. Sure enough, sitting at the piano was exactly the person she expected to be sitting there.
Jenna.
Aria apprehensively walked into the room toward where Jenna was sitting. There was a group of kids sitting around the room staring at Aria, but Aria ignored them.
"Jenna?" Aria said hesitantly. Jenna turned around to the sound of Aria's voice. Aria shifted her weight nervously between her toes and her heels. "It… it's Aria."
"I know," Jenna said curtly. "I recognized your voice."
Aria flinched at Jenna's indirect snap, but Jenna continued. "Although, it was a little hard for me to distinguish it between another familiar voice. It belongs to a certain girl who goes by the name of Anita? Maybe you know her?"
Aria tried to make a comeback, but found that she couldn't say anything else with everyone staring at her the way they were. Aria turned toward the group of people surrounding her.
"I'm sorry, this is kind of important. Could you…"
Even though she had left the statement open-ended, she was annoyed that they hadn't picked up on what she was trying to imply. She blatantly completed the sentence with, "… like, not be here right now?!"
The group of kids scowled at Aria's bluntness as they trudged out of the room. Once the room was empty, Aria turned back to Jenna. "We need to talk."
"Something tells me I won't be doing a lot of talking," Jenna said bitterly.
Aria sighed. "Look, Jenna. I'm sorry. I… I didn't mean to upset you-"
"Well you did," Jenna interrupted sharply.
"I know that," Aria started again, trying her best not to get frustrated. "I just… when I found out you were in that class with me, I was a little scared."
At this, Jenna laughed. But it wasn't a typical light-hearted laugh that you would hear after someone told a funny joke. No. It was a dark laugh that was enough to make Aria melt at her feet in pure terror.
"W-w-what's so funny?" Aria asked shakily.
"You," Jenna admitted. "You're scared of me."
"Well why shouldn't I be?" Aria snapped. "You've been walking around this school, all up in me and my friends' business, hanging what we did to you over our heads!"
"That's exactly it, Aria," Jenna said coolly, but Aria, for the first time, detected a hint of distress in her voice.
Jenna continued. "Don't you hear yourself? What you did to me. You're the one who blinded me, remember?"
"That was an accident," Aria whispered.
"I don't care," Jenna said blatantly, her voice cracking. "You let me open up to you like that. You pretended to be someone else so that you could… you could make fun of me!"
At this, Aria suddenly softened. "Jenna," she said quietly, "I wasn't making fun of you. I was trying to reach out to you."
Jenna looked up at Aria, but, for the first time, said nothing.
Aria took this as her cue to continue. "I know this might be hard for you to believe, but I really do have a heart. All four of us really feel bad that this had to happen to you."
"No, you don't," Jenna argued. "You just feel bad because it includes the possibility of you getting caught."
"I know it seems that way," Aria agreed, tears suddenly forming in her eyes, "but it's not like that." She quickly wiped the tears away with one swipe of the back of her hand. "If there was any night in my life that I could take back… that would be it. We're the reason for so much of what you've had to deal with this past year, and…" Aria finally let out a shaky breath. "And I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am."
Jenna was speechless. She continued to look up at Aria, still sitting properly upright at the piano bench. Finally, she stood up, cane in hand. "I think you're the first person in your little group of friends to actually apologize. Thank you for that."
Aria let out the breath that she didn't even know she was holding. "Really?"
"Really," Jenna said with a small smile. "And… I'm sorry for reacting like that. I just… felt a little…"
"Vulnerable?" Aria suggested, and Jenna confirmed this with a nod of her head.
"It's okay to feel like that sometimes," Aria said understandingly. "And… you really don't need to feel afraid of us."
"I know," Jenna said sadly. She maneuvered her cane forward so that she could walk toward the door to the music room. Before she could reach it, however, she stopped in her tracks.
"For your sake," she began, "I hope you guys find out whom it is that you're afraid of."
Aria was disoriented by this answer. "How… how do you…"
"Don't question it," Jenna said with a shrug, still facing the door with her back turned to Aria. "Just figure it out. And soon."
And with that, she clapped her cane onto the hardwood as she inched forward, out the door.