Author's Note: So I wrote this last week and just got around to typing this up. It's a short little oneshot based upon Jason DiLaurentis and Aria Montgomery. I don't own Pretty Little Liars. Enjoy!
It was a late May evening when she met him, at her new school friend's house on a Friday night. She was seven, as was her friend, and he was nine, two years older and he seemed to much smarter. She looked up to him, like he was the best, but she knew she had to hide that from Alison. She didn't like her brother, and she wouldn't like it if she knew that her friend wanted to be his friend as well. It was a childish thing, typical behavior for seven year olds.
After all, Aria was hers, and hers only. She had no intentions of letting that change for anything.
Aria, however, had different intentions. She tried to hide it, but she became fond of a pretty young Jason diLaurentis, and once in a while, when Alison was out of the way, he'd talk to her and tell her things he learned and teach her about things she couldn't even fathom at a young age. One day, when Alison was forced to have Jason with her as supervision to the park down the road from her house, he was her first kiss... While Alison wasn't looking, of course. She was off making some friends with a pretty little blonde about their age. They were ten now, and Jason was twelve. Afterwards he said it was weird. He was too old to be kissing her, and he never wanted to do such a thing ever again.
Aria was heartbroken after that.
It wasn't long before Jason was claiming that he was too old to be playing with her. He was too old to be with a child, let alone his sister's friend. He made it clear to her that he was no longer interested in being her friend.
After that, her puppy love faded and more than anything, Aria was angry at Jason - angry that he defriended her, angry that he thought he was too good to talk to her, angry that she ever let him be her friend in the first place. After all, she had gone against her best friend's will just saying hello to him all those times she'd been over to their house.
Eventually it was gone - all of it. Aria grew in to a beautiful young woman, Jason took a wrong turn and ended up drunk and high all the time. Secretly, Aria loved it. She loved knowing that he wasn't getting the perfect life he had told her he would one day have.
Jason, however, thought he could still deserve Aria, after the way he'd broken her sweet little heart at such a young age. He thought of her, how pretty she was becoming, how much he missed talking to her and sharing secrets with each other, and he thought of how he kissed her - she was his first, too-, and how he'd ruined everything with her for nothing. At the time, it had seemed perfectly reasonable, and it was. At that time, the age difference wasn't right, they were at different stages of development and had different values and wants and everything.
But he'd denied her a friend - such a basic thing in life, especially while young.
She still talked to him, though, especially after he came back, after Alison's funeral. Everything had seemed wonderful, he'd loved life in the hands of her, seeing her around and telling her things and having her listen, and listening to her.
Though she'd gotten over her puppy love for him, the feelings he had for her had only grown.
After years, he'd fallen in love with her.
After years, she returned the heartbreak with a few simple words and a badly timed kiss.
"I get it, you're not available," he said to her, by the porch in front of his house as he saw her in the arms of another man - a man he himself recognized. Jason had seen him throughout the school a few times - he was the new English teacher. Secretly he expected that much of wild, unpredictable Aria.
He handed her a box of Alison's things that he found, and let his break as he watched her get in to the teacher's car and drive away.
Well, he'd deserved this one.