"A"nother Chance At Love

Aria and the Liars are in college and they thought they escaped A when they left Rosewood... but A always finds her way back. This story follows the TV series plot only.

The forest was dark, damp and cold. A hooded figure was approaching her, and she didn't know where to run. She saw a path to her left and sprinted, hoping to outrun the hooded figure. She ran for what seemed like miles until she came across a river. There was a body doing the dead's man float. She laughed when she realized it was Ezra.

"Okay joke's over, you got me. Nice touch wearing the black hood."

The body didn't move.

"Ezra?" she asked. "Ezra!" she screamed.

The hooded figure appeared in front of her, floating on the water.

"You thought you could escape me, couldn't you?"

Aria awoke with a start, sweating and panting. The sun was pouring out of her window and she relaxed when she realized it was just a dream. She looked at her alarm clock and saw that it was 7:30. Damn it, she thought. I hate waking up before my alarm.

She rolled over and faced the rest of her room. She saw her roommate, Jane, fast asleep in her bed. Aria was jealous of her. She never had problems sleeping through the night.

She sat up and checked her phone. No messages. She was hoping to hear from Ezra or Hanna, they were usually her good morning texts. She sighed and stood up, undressing and grabbing a towel from the laundry basket. She wrapped herself in the towel and grabbed her shower caddy and room key, and walked out of her room. She walked down the hall toward the bathroom, not knowing that today would be one of the worst days she's had in a long time.

Ezra sat at his desk, watching his 8am class take their first exam of the semester. Half of the students looked worried while the other half seemed like they would fall asleep any second. He didn't blame them, Shakespearean Plays wasn't the most exciting class on campus.

His phone buzzed and he flipped it open. It was a text from Byron.

How do you like living in Seattle?

Ezra tried to think of a good lie. He hated lying to Aria's parents. It was her idea in the first place though...

Aria was banging furiously on Ezra's apartment door. "OPEN UP! HURRY" she yelled.

"God she is impaitent," Ezra muttered as he jogged over to open the door. He swung it open and she was jumping up and down smiling while holding a huge envelope. He took it and looked at the return address: Los Angeles. His heart skipped a beat.

"Aria! It's a big envelope...you got in!" He smiled.

"I know, I know but I wanted to open it with you!" The excitement in her eyes was something he could not bare. It was just too good.

He handed it back to her. "You do the honors."

Aria ripped it open. A bunch of papers fell to the floor, but Ezra saw the one she was looking for. He picked it up and handed it to her.

"Dear Ms. Montgomery, we are very pleased to inform you that YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES OH MY GOD!"

Aria screamed the last part and jumped into Ezra's arms. He picked her up and twirled her a few times. "I better call the University and tell them I accept their job offer. Two weeks is a long enough wait for them!" Ezra said.

Aria watched him excitedly. "Yes hi, may I please speak to someone in the Human Resources Department at the University of Southern California? Yes I'll hold."

Aria knew that the news of Ezra leaving Rosewood for L.A. the same time as her would be suspicious and she already worked out the perfect lie. She just had to convince Ezra to go with it. Somehow.

"Professor Fitz! Professor Fitz!"

Ezra snapped back to reality as he realized one of his students was calling his name. A girl in the front row was raising her hand and smiling politely. He erased the text from Byron and walked toward her, wondering if he would get to see Aria today.

"So tell me about your friends again, I keep forgetting stuff, you know me, absent minded," Jane said over breakfast in the cafeteria, trying to make conversation.

Aria used her fork to play around with her scrambled eggs. She wasn't really in the mood for talking, her dream was beginning to bother her. She didn't want to be rude though, so she took out her phone and flipped through pictures until she found one she liked.

"The blonde one is Hanna, she's my best friend and she's going to NYU. The next is Spencer, she's at Harvard, and Emily is at Texas A&M."

"What about the one on the end?" asked Jane.

"What do you mean?"

"The other blonde. Not Hanna. She's next to Emily." Jane pointed to the picture.

Aria didn't even realize Alison was in this picture. Her heart started pounding and she didn't know what to say. She wasn't ready to tell everyone in her new life about Ali.

"Oh... That's Ali."

"Where does she go to school?"

"She doesn't."

"Is she taking a year off? That's pretty cool."

"Yeah, something like that." Aria half smiled and stared down at her food.

"I love hearing all of your stories from high school. Philadelphia seems so much cooler than San Francisco. My school was so boring."

You have no idea how not boring Rosewood was for me, Aria thought. "I don't live in Philly. Rosewood is in the suburbs."

"Oh, right." Jane muttered. She then started talking about how her strict Chinese parents never let her have any fun. Aria wasn't really listening. Her thoughts went back to Rosewood, to the two years when her and her friends were tormented by A. Half the reason she even considered moving to L.A. was to get away from A.

Her phone buzzed. It was a text from Ezra.

Dinner tonight? Koreatown?

Aria smiled and accepted the invitation.

"Come on let's go to Psychology, it's almost 9," Jane urged.

"Right. Class," Aria laughed and stood up looking out at the campus around her. The string of palm trees leading to the building her and Jane's Psychology class was in reminded her that she was far away from Rosewood, far away from bad memories. And that was enough to get her through each day.

If you like this, please tell me so I continue it. If not, I won't worry about it. Also does anyone know how far UCLA and USC are from each other? I've never been to L.A. so I don't know how close Aria and Ezra would live from each other. Thanks for reading!