Hello lovely people!
This story has been on my mind for quite a while. It's probably a lot different from what I normally write, but I'm super excited to share this with you.
I'm going to make this full length, and I plan on treating it like a story, not just a Fanfiction. It's going to be whimsical and intense, but I can guarantee that this ride is going to be exciting. I have major plans for this, and I'm going to show you a side to Ezra Fitz you've never seen before. This is my real style of writing, and I'm already invested in this story, so I hope you like it!
I have the next chapter done, so I'll update when and if the response is up to par. If you like it, let me know! Reviews keep me motivated to write :)
10 Years Ago
A little girl stood barefoot in the mud, the legs of her jeans bunched up to her knees and covered in dirt. Her hands were covered in a mixture of mud, cookie crumbs and celery-coloured stains, and were currently clutching of all things, a sticky, warty, slimy, green toad.
Aria had read in the big book that sat at the end of her bed, that frogs were magical creatures- that they were princes in disguise. The princess merely had to plant a single kiss on the head of the animal, and it would spring to life and fulfil all of her wildest dreams.
As soon as she had read those words, Aria had been tempted.
The seven-year-old smiled innocently at the toad, oblivious to both the falseness of the story, and the current mud-covered state of her body. Aria excitedly puckered her bow shaped mouth, slowly inching her head towards the toad to kiss it.
And the second before she did, the ugly green amphibian let out a loud croak and slid its way out of her grasp.
"Hey!" Aria cried, frustrated, watching sadly as the toad hopped along the ground to get back to the river. Her hands clenched into fists and her lips jutted out. Aria wanted that prince-in-disguise more than she wanted any pair of roller skates or yoyo, and so in a split decision she was suddenly chasing after it. Her bare feet slid and slipped on the slick marsh of the riverside.
From between the trees, a boy was watching.
Aria's mother had warned her always about playing by the river. The banks were slick and the river was fast- and most importantly, Aria wasn't good in water. However the child was excited, frustrated and dangerously determined- the only concern her mind was catching that blasted toad.
She smiled as the ugly green creature finally stopped, sitting silently on the side of the very edge of the riverbank. As carefully and as quietly as she could, Aria squat behind it.
Eyes narrowed, knees bent, Aria cautiously leaned, hands hovering over the toad. She didn't want to scare it. The mud felt awfully slick beneath her feet, and even though her body was dangerously close to falling into the rapid river, the toad was almost in her grasp.
Again, almost as if to mock her, the creature croaked, then bounced into the crashing waves of the river. At the same time, Aria's heel sunk like an anchor into the cloud of mud that made up the riverbank and her small body went forward, tumbling into the water.
It was rough- more rough than it appeared from the land, and from beneath the opalescent surface of the water Aria tumbled and twisted and pounded back-and-forth like a rag-doll. Her big hazel eyes burst open and her small arms desperately reached for the surface, but the rushing water carried her onwards, refusing to let the small, terrified child escape its raging depths.
From his place beneath the trees, the boy bounded.
There was a splash; a noisy splash, and suddenly the whitewash in the angry river tripled as something plunged through it. Aria, lips blue from lack of breath reached towards the thing pushing through the water, her only innocent fragment of hope that it was her prince coming to rescue her.
Just as the thing reached her drowning body, Aria's head made a furious collision with the bottom of the river. The last thing she saw was the iridescent glitter of the water and the last thing she remembered were the crystalline blue eyes of her prince.
1
Even though my mother can barely see, she blatantly refuses to shift her lawn chair out of the blaring trajectory of the sun rays. Brows squinted and retinas sizzling, she calls me from across the yard to request I bring her her tumbler of iced tea.
The journal in my hands is discarded and I sigh, grabbing my mothers diluted beverage from behind me on the picnic table.
"You'd really ought to think about moving," I advise, tone condescending as I pass her the drink. My mother doesn't verbally thank me, instead she shows her appreciation by swigging thirstily at her straw. "You're going to get melanoma."
Ella only laughs, brushing off my advice as if it were senseless babbling. My eyes roll without instruction at her juvenile behaviour. While she sits there in the sun, listening to the sound of her skin frying, I'm lathering on layers of sunblock and writing in the shade. It says a lot about the difference between my mother and me.
"A little sun isn't going to hurt, Aria." Ella inspects me, eyes falling disapprovingly on the skin of my milky-white bare shoulders. "And you could use a little, you're like a ghost."
I roll my eyes again. Twice in the same minute- nice.
Instead of perusing a cringeworthy conversation with the unfortunate woman who gave birth to me, I retreat from her lawn chair, back to the shade. Our ancient picnic table is positioned beneath the peach tree in the front yard, paint peeling and boards missing as always. Ella doesn't let me write in the tree itself anymore- she says it's about time I stopped climbing trees, and so until she gets up from her own personal tanning station, I'm contained to the table.
Still agitated, I pick up my dull stub of pencil to continue my journal entry. Just as I do, however, a noise to my left distracts me, pulling my attention from my notebook's wrinkly pages to the driveway two houses over.
Dragging a black bag of trash down the gravel-covered driveway is him. Him; that guy, that lad, that random, antisocial and very strange boy that has lived there our entire lives and has never so much as offered me the casual "hello". I am truthfully unable to coherently describe my feelings about that guy, other than the fact that he creeps me the hell out and that I see him as nothing more than a human-shaped bag of questions.
The mess of curly hair on his head is dishevelled and unruly, thick tendrils hanging into his narrowed eyes. His shoulders are wide and he's lanky, but there's noticeable build to his structure. Despite the weirdness he portrays, I'll give it to him that he's beautiful.
I wish I knew his name.
He finishes dragging the bag of garbage, and one-handedly shoves it into the aluminum trash can. His upper body curves inwards as he exhales deeply, resting his hands on the lid of the trash bin. His eyes look down at his hands, then towards the road, staring at it almost longingly.
And his head turns, those same narrowed, lonely eyes colliding directly with mine.
My chest fills with the short intake of breath I take, the gasp an instantaneous reflex to the eye contact. It's strange- a foreign feeling, but not uncomfortable. I can't help but feel guilty; no, he's never said hello, but neither have I.
How is it he's been there forever, and is still nothing more than a stranger?
For a fraction of a second, a piece of a broken smile tugs on the corners of his mouth, and before I can even return it he's already back-on and returning up the driveway. I'm suddenly very guilty for not smiling back. An excess of saliva in my throat forces me to gulp. I feel like something forced all the air from my lungs and then pumped them back up again.
"Aria," my mother's crooning voice brings me back into focus, and the natural aura of irk is returned. I turn to look at her sunburnt body, amazed at how she's the nerve to chide me in such a state. "You stay away from that boy, Aria. He's trouble."
My eyebrows furrow. "You don't know him, and neither do I." Why I'm being defensive, who knows.
She hesitates. "I'm not challenging you. I'm telling you." She initiates her I'm-a-parent-and-I'm-in-charge stance, pulling a T-shirt over her body. Finally, in a tone of sternness, Ella looks at me intently, but only to repeat her previous message. "Stay away from that boy, Aria. He's trouble."
My mother has a nasty habit of piquing my interest. Or maybe I have a habit of doing the opposite of what I'm told.
Either way, I have always been three things; impossibly imaginative, recklessly adventurous, and wildly curious. My brain is always running on high alert; anything sounding even remotely exciting catches my attention like the first sentence of a good book. The real bait for my biting curiosity, however, is the cute little word "don't".
"Don't eat the jalapeños, they're too spicy," had lead me to stuff three of those suckers into my cheeks at the shiny age of only five, and I had learnt my lesson the hard way for that mishap.
"Don't change the channel," had lead me to a mentally-scaring episode of Untold Stories of the ER at six, and is the reason I still to this day can't so much as look at a trampoline.
"Don't play by the river, it's dangerous," came very, very close to leading me to death's door- and hadn't I been lucky, I would have drowned to death at seven.
I should have learnt my lesson years ago about the consequences of disobeying; but I just couldn't, and still can't help myself. "Don't" just doesn't roll with me. If she'd really wanted me to stay away, all my mother had to do was ignore the boy. I would've forgotten about him instantly, my minimal attention span fleeting onto something else. If she had merely ignored him, we wouldn't be in this mess.
My book slips from my fingers and and I don't even bother to catch it, letting it fall against the hardwood floor with a thud. The glossy paperback is too new, anyways, and you really have to break in a book before you can fall in love with it.
I wonder the boy's name. He looks like an Ethan- I don't know why, probably what I'd call him if he were a character.
I'm an idiot.
A moment later, Lolita is off the floor and in my hands again, and I'm hanging off the edge of my bed, head and shoulders dangling upside down. With a drill-sergeant like attitude, I force my eyes to my page and force myself to concentrate on the words there.
Where did I even get Lolita?
Why did I even get Lolita?
It doesn't take much to lose concentration, and before I'm even aware of it, I'm daydreaming about the boy my mother resents so much again. Exasperated and irritated with myself and my involuntary persistence, I spitefully hurl my book at the other wall and head to my window. The California sun is still blazing, sun burning every creature that dares walk beneath it.
There's a tree in my back yard, one that's ridiculously overgrown, limbs twisted and protruding way out into the backyard next door- between mine and the boy's. You can climb said tree, and it gives you a perfect view of his yard...
Aria, stop it.
I've tried my very best to stop this obsession. I have tried my whole life to not be as blatantly nosey as I am. I've never snooped for Christmas presents, I don't pick up the other receiver when my mother is on the phone (anymore), and I didn't read my mothers collection of erotic romance novels when I was twelve. (That might have because of my little tolerance for senseless plotlessness, but I still didn't.) But, something in my brain is wired the wrong way, and thus, I have zero control over the magnetic yank I have towards things that are forbidden to me. My conscience gave up years ago. When Aria gets curious, Aria is the equivalent to a demonically-possessed lemur. Once I'm in, there's no going back.
Before this week is over, I'm pretty sure that boy will go from the creepy, to the creeped.
Lip between my teeth, my fingers press against the hot glass again, my nose crinkling at the dirt I failed to wash off. I know there isn't much time until I cave, being as will-powered as a ticking time bomb.
And in a split decision, one of pure, unadulterated impulsiveness, I decide to virtually climb the tree in my back yard so I can spy on the boy two houses over. It occurs to me how easily I could inspire a Lifetime movie.
Second place on the list of things I hate, just under the word don't, falls shoes. As weird as it sounds, I can't stand them, and as soon as I reach the tree my saddle shoes are kicked to the ground and left in the grass. Using my noodle-y arms as leverage, I hoist myself into the tree, wheezing all the way until I'm securely balanced on the strongest branch. I straddle the arm, sitting on the ends of my skirt. I hadn't even bothered to change.
Like a snake, I use my arms to pull myself, belly down, along the branch. Once I've reached the end I freeze, satisfied with my perfect view of the second house over's yard. His yard. My mouth curls up in satisfaction. I feel like a sleuth- like Angelina Jolie in Salt.
It occurs to me how much I need a life.
The waiting game commences then, and despite my lengthy rest of doing nothing, I don't get bored. Instead, I take the time to inspect every detail of the boy's yard, from the withering fruit tree in the corner to the watering can without the handle, to the rusted crowbar leaning against the fence. It looks eerie and desolate- like there hasn't been a trace of joy out there for quite some time. The grass is neglected, the fence in need of a layer of stain; maybe his mother is a single parent like mine, and simply doesn't have the means of yard maintenance.
His house is composed of brick and siding, the dull blue colour stained and faded with age. The windows are piled up with mounds of stuff behind them, only I can't make out with what. On the second story, there is one big bay window, the glass contrasted and darkened by the shadows and the glare. I pull my head up, cramming my neck for a better view. The tree groans in protest.
I can't make out much, only what appears to be stacks of books. The stacks are both high and wide, and for a moment I wonder if there are more books there than in my room, and I'm not sure if that possibility threatens or impresses me. I tilt my head a little further to the right, and nearly gasp- the book on the top of the stack has the same white spine as my copy of Lolita, and I was pretty sure no one else dared read it.
Curiosity tugs me forward again, and I lean even farther out on the branch. A loud creak booms a warning, but I don't even notice- I'm too wrapped up in the books in the window. In fact, I'm almost too wrapped up in said damned stack of books to notice the curly headed figure heading out of the back door.
The branch creaks again- and then a loud snap jostles me from my focus. The tree slowly but surely begins to tilt, my weight dragging down its main support system, and in horror I realize that I'm stuck- I can't get to the trunk of the tree without breaking the branch I'm on.
I'm trapped in a collapsing tree, ten feet off the ground.
"Mom?!" My hands reach up for one of the smaller branches above my head, frantic for something to grab a hold of. However, much to my misfortune, any of the arms that have the strength to hold me are out of reach. A twitching in my chest alerts me of just how fast my heart pounds- and as if she could possibly hear me, I wail out for my mother again.
From the next yard over, the curly haired boy spies me in the tree.
"Mom, help!"
My gaze lands on him just as he sprints toward me, big eyes bugging out of his head. As if the task were nothing difficult, the boy runs straight for and climbs over the fence, as if he has the same agility as Spider-Man. The tree groans again, and a set of panic-induced tears well in my eyes.
He stands directly below me now, under the tree, chest heaving in an attempt to recover from the sprint.
In a voice I wasn't aware existed, the boy holds out his arms. "The branch is going to snap. Lower yourself down."
"I can't!" I look down at the ridiculous drop from up here to the ground. I'm barely five feet- I can't land without a broken back. "I can't reach."
"You have to! Just slowly get down- I won't let you fall." He looks petrified, but at the same time prepared to catch me. The muscles that make up his arms fill me with a little reassurance.
As slowly and as carefully as possible, I swing my leg over the branch. Inch by inch, I lower myself out of the branch, heartbeat whizzing harder and faster with every second that passes. Once I'm dangling, the boy lines his arms with my waist.
"Let go," he whispers, gritting his teeth at the tension in the tree. "I've got you."
Throat essentially blocked off, I clench my eyes and let go of the tree. Heart lodged in my throat, I'm convinced I'm dead until I feel a firm grip holding my waist, and a second later, my bare feet are back on the grass.
He caught me.
"You caught me," I open my eyes to find myself less then an inch away from the guy's chest, and I awkwardly take a step back. "How in Christ's name did you catch me?"
"You're the size of a kitten," from this close up, a can properly judge the guy's appearance. His jawline is perfect, covered in a thin smattering of stubble. He looks about twenty- and looks even better up close. "You weren't that hard to catch."
My breathing is still uneven, and for a moment I just stand there, trying to relax again. He watches me cautiously, intensely, eyes filled with compassion.
"Are you okay?" He asks softly, raising his eyebrows.
"I will be. Thank you," I find his eyes again and blink. "Thank you."
"What were you even doing in that tree?" A worried crease forms along his forehead.
"I was-" my head suddenly blanks and I panic, desperate for an excuse. I can't exactly say I was spying on you. "Looking for squirrels."
Way to go, Aria. I feel like stabbing myself in the face with a fence post.
"I mean," I offer a slight chuckle, attempting to play my blunder off cooly. "I left a squirrel feeder up there and I was trying to get it."
He nods. "Just don't try to climb that thing again, alright? You might not be as lucky next time."
I shake my head, letting out an uneven breath. "Thank you, again-"
"Ezra," he replies softly, before offering me a slight smile. "I'm Ezra."
His voice is a melodious mix between bells and satin. My throat constricts, and I realize for the first time the sheer ridiculousness of this situation. A blush covers my face.
"Thanks Ezra," I break away from his eyes sheepishly, glancing at the gate to my neighbours backyard. I doubt Mrs. Rosenthal will be very happy to have two hooligans traipsing about her tomatoes.
"You're welcome," he offers me one last heart-squatting grin- the kind of smile that is crooked and straight-toothed and makes me want to drop my panties right here, right now. And then he walks away, heading straight for his fence, as if there wasn't a gate twelve feet away. Mouth slightly ajar, I watch the unorthodox rippling of his biceps as he hops the fence once again, and disappears.
Ezra.