Mikes pov

Why does life have to be so hard? Why is everything always so complicated? Why did everything have to change, couldn't it all just stay the way it was before?

These are the questions that play over and over again in my mind as I lie here in my bed at midnight unable to sleep. The house is quiet, or at least I think it is, but I really can't tell thanks to the heavy metal music blaring through my iPod earphones.

My father is spending the night with his home wrecking tramp for the 5th time in 2 weeks... and Aria... well the noises she and Ezra are making in her room are the reason for my musical choice. The loud tone of the instruments and almost scream like lyrics are perfect for drowning out their moans. Now all I hear is the occasional thud when her bed hits the wall. I'm just thankful it's them, not my father and the whore like the other night. Knowing your sister is getting laid is one thing, but your father that's a different thing altogether. It's a mental image no child should ever have to picture, let alone witness 1st hand when they walk into their father`s home office seeking homework help. At least I haven't had the pleasure of walking in on my mother and her new boy toy... yet. Aria has though. The other day she told me she caught them in a full out make out session in my mother's classroom! Seriously what is it these days with people not having the common courtesy to lock their door or wait till their alone before jumping each other's bones?

Sexual escapades aside, I'm sure Meredith is the kind of scank who deep down is actually really nice and doesn't mean to; sleep with her married professor, destroy his family and treat his children like they're some kind of STI. Zack well I haven't made a decision about him yet. We haven't been formally introduced and I only met him once while grabbing coffee with Aria at The Brew. He seems like a decent guy but I can't help but feeling like he has some deep dark secret or hidden agenda (it seems EVERYONE in this town is hiding something)

As for Aria, we've always been closer than most other siblings I know. I can honestly say that never, in my wildest dreams, would I have thought that I would be the younger brother of a 16 year old who is openly screwing her former English teacher. Don't get me wrong Ezra is a good guy. I'm sorry I punched him (I was doing the man a favor. If I hadn't Bryon would have and he wouldn't have stopped at one punch). I can see now that the feelings he and my sister have for each other are real just by the way they look at each other (it's sickening how lovie dovie they can be) but what is don't get is why they thought it was a good idea to pursue the relationship in the first place. He could have completely lost his teaching licence and been imprisoned and she would be forever known as the slut who slept with her English teacher (and if she got pregnant ... that woulda opened a whole other can of worms). If I was in their position, just the public scrutiny alone would be a major issue.

It seems everyone in my family is dating someone who isn't even close to their own age. My parents are both dating someone younger than them. Ella is 10 years older than Zack and Bryon is old enough to be Meredith's father for crying out loud. Then there's Aria who instead of going with the trend and dating someone younger, she's dating someone older (obviously). I got to say the fact that my parents current love interests are around the same age as my sister's boyfriend ( give or take a few years) is beyond awkward and definitely going to make for awkward family get together . But apparently love knows no bounds and who am I to judge, there's obviously something wrong sense I'm the only single one in the family. I'm pretty sure the neighbors dog gets more date then I do and he`s fixed.

Oh well at least they're happy. Everyone is almost 100% content with everything going on around them. Everyone but me. Sure I'm happy, at the moment I have no reason not to be, I'm not the one who was being stalked by a psychopath and who lost 2 friends in less than 2 years. I'm not the ones dealing with a divorce and the fallout of a 20 year mirage. I'm just the one who has a front row seat to all the drama and either just barely weasels out of it or gets caught right smack in the middle.

My life is far from being horrible. Yeah I had a bout with depression, made some stupid mistakes, hurt the people I love and got charged with breaking and entering into some old rich guy`s house, but many people have it a lot worst. I mean just look at my sister's friend Ali... or Maya, the girl Emily dated... they're dead so imagine what their families must be going through. My family is forever going to be messed up but at least they're all still alive.

Basically I don't know what I'm complaining about. I guess its just sometimes I wish I could go back to the way things were before all the changes. I wish I could go back to the way things were before the divorce, before my sister went through hell with that stalker, before my depression, before Aria dated her teacher, before we moved back from Iceland, before we moved to Iceland, before Ali went missing. I wish I could go back to the way things were before life got all mixed up and complicated.

Though I would never openly admit it, I miss the way things used to be when Aria and I were kids. I miss being an innocent child without a care in the world. I miss when all we did on Saturday morning was watch cartoons and when Sundays consisted of family picnics and car drives to no set destination.

Things were perfect back then, then Bam I turn 12 and everything gets screwed up. Dad cheats (though Aria was the only one aware of it at the time and he promised it was over and asked her not to tell) and because of that we move to Iceland just before my 13th birthday. Just when I start making friends, Byron the almighty, decides it's time to pack up and move back home.

Things are great for a day or 2 then Ali`s body is found and everything goes to shit again. Aria is grieving her friend`s death so she gets ALL the attention. Than Meredith the whore makes her presence know and thanks to some anonymous source Ella finds out about Byron's affair with the Tramp. My parents split and get back together. All the while I'm pushed to the backburner, no I'm pushed way passed the backburner I'm so far back I can't even feel its heat, like I no longer matter.

With all that is going on in everyone else's lives, I become virtually invisible. It gets to the oint where I'm able to sneak out of our house and into the houses of other people to steal things numerous times. This craft is something I picked up from my sister and her friends due to the amount of times they snuck in and out of the house when Ali was alive and the amount of times I've been drug on their shopping trips . let's just say Hanna unknowingly taught me a thing or two.

My plan was always to only steal a few things that I could use to sell for money or something else that could help me escape from this messed up town. One time I got caught by none other than Jason Dilaurentes but sense he had this massive crush on my sister, and hates he police, he just brought me home where my sister gave me a warning but didn't tell my parents. I really should have listened to her too because the next time I wasn't so lucky. The police busted me and guess who they contacted... yup my parents right in the middle of a dinner party with some coworkers, Ezra and Jason. As if that wasn't bad enough, I was charged with B&E but thankfully got off with a fine and a few months community service. I wore that ugly orange jumpsuit and picked up trash... Got to follow in big sisters footsteps right?

From there things continued to spiral out of control. Seriously if that wasn't enough to send a 14 year old boy into a depression, than I don't know what is.

I know now that I acted out for attention. I missed the way things were ( I still do sometimes). Everything was changing so fast and I couldn't do anything about it. Sometimes I just wanted to end it. Kill myself and id`e stop hurting. I tried it once but then I heard my sister laughing. She hadn't been happy in so long but now that she had Ezra (which I didn't know about at the time) she was happy and I knew that my committing suicide would end that. Aria is more than just my sister she is my closest friend, the one person who is there for me no matter what, and I just couldn't take away her happiness like that. I didn't want Aria or anyone else I cared about to hurt the way I was hurting. So I started cutting. At the time this was the best solution I could come up with. It was the only pain I could control and I wasn't hurting anyone else while doing it... at least not directly and not on purpose. My friend Gavin caught me one night and gave me this long guilt trip like lecture on how his cousin was a cutter and accidently cut so deep that he bled to death before they could get him to the hospital. He died in his mother's arms. Hearing that put an end to my week long Emo phase.

By this point my mother Ella was already pushing for me to see a shrink. She claimed it was doing wonders for Aria and helping her to get her mind off things. At the time I believed it but now looking back I think the activities her and Fitzy were engaging in (in his apartment) are what really took her mind off things. Well much to my dismay I started seeing my own therapist and low and behold my mother was right. The sessions did help. Things were going great until the almighty powerful forces decided to destroy everything again. It was as if god was saying "ohm things are going splendid in the Montgomery household. Time to put a stop to that".

So one night I hear some voices and come down the stairs only to end up smack in the middle of the shit show that was Aria telling my extremely pissed parents about her illegal relationship with her former teacher. Things, from then on, spiral out of control again, eventually cool down fast. Just when I think things are finally back to normal and everyone is happy again everything goes to hell. The masquerade ball happens and not only is Maya, Emily`s girlfriend, found dead but the whole town finds out that Mona vanderwal is a crazy psycho bitch. She's been stalking my sister and her friends for months all the while pretending to be Hanna's best friend. Suddenly my sister, her friends and our families are the talk of the town again. Than my parents spring this divorce out of nowhere and one week later my mother moves out AGAIN. Fast forward a week later , that super scank Meredith is back in my father`s life... mine and Aria`s too. Aria and my father are still sort of at odds with each other about their relationships . It's a good thing he's out with his Hoe tonight because Aria would be grounded for life. He dislikes Ezra and she wishes a bomb was dropped and only whipped out Meredith ( I can't say I blame her though because I feel the same way) Anyway because my father is uncomfortable with Ezra spending the night at the house, Aria practically lives with him in his apartment. The only reason she's he is because I didn't want to be home alone, otherwise she would have made up something about spending the night at our mother`s or one of the girls houses. Surprisingly our mother has really come around a lot and doesn't seem to mind Aria and Ezra being together ... I think its cause her mother's intuition tells her it's too late to do anything about it because they already did the deed many times.

Throughout my thinking I've come to the conclusion that my life will never be sunshine and roses, Nothing in this town ever really is. My life is just too messed up to ever be normal again but now thanks to the shrink I know some ways to deal... and if my sister ever does become an author who writes a bestselling novel about her upbringing, I just may become famous and who knows maybe it'll be such a big hit they`ll want to make a movie out of it... I could be director.

Well that's enough deep and personal stuff for one night.

-Mike