Ezra...

"I'm pregnant."

The words fell haphazardly out of her mouth, and I remember feeling this uncanny and compelling sense of urgency to grab them before they hit the ground. Before they shattered into a million pieces and took her with them. I was obviously in shock, but I was equally in pain. By the look on her face, I knew she wasn't exactly overjoyed with the news.

I invited her in and told her to have a seat because I wasn't sure how much longer she could stand. Her usually bright and chipper face wore a ragged apathy. She looked weathered, like the world had cheated her. Maybe it had.

"Have you written about it?" I don't normally pester despairing people such odd questions, but with her, it seemed only natural. Aria was a thought hoarder, and her single form of release, like mine, could be found in the written word.

Taking a seat beside her, I could tell by her slight smile that I'd struck a chord with her. I understood. I might've been the only one. The thought made my heart swell in vain. "Only a little..." She confessed. "The words don't come."

When she closed her eyes and bowed her head like she was going to cry, I attempted to console her. "This isn't bad news, you know. A baby is no reason to cry." I realized only after I said the words that I could be wrong. Lots of people cry about babies. Aria was allowed to cry too.

Rubbing my hand over her back, I eased closer to her. What futile hope I had at bringing her back to me was drowned in the gaze she cast upon me. Full of despair and loneliness, it screamed silently like the bars of a prison cell. "It isn't Liam's."

I suddenly found that I couldn't breathe. My mind flashed back to the time we shared together. The night we swore never to mention again.

"You don't think..." I wondered aloud. Of course she thought, that's why she had come. My head was spinning and suddenly I was unable to comprehend my own thoughts. I was numb.

It was only when Aria opened her mouth again that I was forced to reenter reality. "Without a doubt," she sneered, letting out a detached, fate-filled chuckle. It stung more than it should have. "I haven't been with anyone like that, except you, for a very long time."

"May I?" The question came out like I was hoarse from bronchitis. When I reached my hand out toward her belly, she understood. And much to my wonderment, she visibly sighed in relief.

The soft touch, awkward as it was, sent invisible vines from to heavens winding their way around the two of us, encapturing us binding us together.

"I was afraid you were going to be angry. I don't want to put words in your mouth about how you do feel, because I don't think you know yet, but I can tell you aren't angry, and I think I can handle anything else."

I could tell from the despair in her voice that she'd thought about this for much longer than she let on. My mind drifted off to a place where I saw her tossing and turning, night after night, worried sick of being alone and worried sicker to open up about it.

"Am I the first person you've told?"

She nodded her head in toward her chest and that's when a steady stream of silent tears began to cascade down her face. She brought her knotted fist up to her mouth and stared at my coffee table in silence.

I wanted more than anything to calm her, to offer her a bit of solace, to comfort her in a way that made her truly feel better, but I didn't know where to begin. Nothing I said would change the circumstances. Aria and I were having a baby.

Aria...

I had thought at first that I was mistaken, almost like some sort of cruel joke I was in the midst of playing on myself. But then the test came back positive and I found myself sitting in floor of my bathroom in my apartment in Philly weeping.

Flashbacks of that afternoon leapt into the forefront of my mind, memories I'd let my mind ponder and caress over and over again only nights before.

Back then, it was too good to be true. The secret dreams I'd had for years since our last "slip" had danced through my mind. At first, I had been ashamed, willing myself to let go and move on. But as the years went by and I dated Patrick and Daniel and Logan and Ryan, he always managed to wind his way back into my mind and tug at my heart.

Of course, I never told anyone this. No one could know.

Patrick was a sharp-minded business man from the city. We'd met when I first arrived and he'd asked me out to take his mind off of some girl named Joanna. He was an open book about his past, but I couldn't manage to muster the strength to share mine. It felt like he was barring into my soul, and eventually, it did us in. He went back to Joanna. I went back to writing.

Daniel was goofy and shy and worked at whatever place would hire him for a few months. I liked him because he didn't remind me of Patrick, but I didn't actually like him all that much. When I brought him home to meet mom and dad (at their insistence), we all sat through an uncomfortable silence over dinner so tangible you could've sliced through it with a knife. He left then and there, and I don't think anyone was all that hurt from it.

When I first met Logan, I thought I had cured myself of whole the Ezra thing. He was handsome and gentlemanly and of old money. He wanted to be an entrepreneur, and his options were virtually limitless considering the amount of money that floated around him. It was all good and fine until I realized that his millionaire complex made him subtly hate everyone except for himself, including me. It took a lot of guts, but I left him, same as he'd already left me.

By the time Ryan came along, I'd sworn off the idea of falling in love again. It had been four years of exhausting spiral, and for the life of me, I couldn't think of a single reason why it would be worth it. But he captivated me. That's how he managed to nestle his way into my heart.

He was an adventurer, a daredevil, a risk taker. And the way he carried himself made me want to be all of those things with him. Until it came down to it and I chose a once-in-lifetime job opportunity at the publishing company where I currently work while he went traipsing off to Cambodia without a second look back.

It had stung for months. Of all the men I'd ever loved, he was the only one who left unfazed by me. Call me a little selfish, but I had hoped for at least a moment's worth of raw emotion when I'd informed him I was staying behind. Ryan didn't work like that.

I threw myself into my new career full-force to get my mind off of the fact that I was 23 and single without the slightest bit of direction in my love life. I told myself if I devoted myself to writing and became a published author I would be happy and I would forget all about him.

Truth was, every time phrases and words interlocked in my mind, begging to be written down for safe keeping, all I thought about was him.

Ezra...

I was cursed with the mind and heart of a hopeless romantic. And it haunted me everywhere I went. She haunted me everywhere I went.

There was something about her, the passion, the risk, the endurance, that made her stand out above all the rest. In my life, I'd dated many women, but she was the only one who managed to capture my heart and never let go.

Our relationship was never the same after I came clean to her about my true intentions of coming to Rosewood. I'd sufficiently proven my innocence, and she'd forgiven me a hundred times over, but something was off. We weren't us anymore. We were them.

I had thought that when we made love after I showed her my scar, the awkward friction would be obliterated, but it only made matters worse, driving an invisible wedge further and further between us.

The separation was palpable. Some days I felt like I was drowning in it. All I wanted was relief, someone to rush in and save me, usher me into a whole new existence.

That's when Nicole came into my life. She was wide-eyed and majestic with long, stringy brown hair that begged me to follow her out the door. In and of herself, she wasn't all that spectacular, but the places she spoke of tantalized me, drawing me away from the cold, dark world I'd grown accustomed to.

So when she asked me to accompany her to South America with Habitat for Humanity, no decision was needed. I would go. I would absolutely go. I would quit my job and do something good. I would leave my entire life behind and start again. I would fall in love with Nicole along the way. I would. And I would forget about her.

Everything went according to plan. I left with resounding applause for my bravery and sacrifice and selflessness, all the while, silently hoping that she'd show up to see me off. I didn't know what I would do if she did. Half of me wanted to ignore her, to pretend I had moved on. But I knew in my heart I couldn't do it because the other, louder half, screamed for me to take her behind a building and kiss her until we were both senseless and she'd convinced me to stay. That isn't bravery or sacrifice or selflessness. That is insanity.

Nevertheless, I'd gone with Nicole and expected a change of direction. When it came in the form of midnight searches through dense jungles and camo-clad rescue teams, I should've known. It was all wrong. And it was all my fault.

Upon my return to Rosewood, buried at the bottom of the bottle, I was met with a plethora of grief-stricken pitiers. Their comfort was smothering. It was nearly unbearable, knowing that they believed I was in love with her, when that wasn't it at all. I'd wanted to be, but that didn't count.

And then she came back around. When we met up again after five years, it felt like the first moment of vacation, where you inhale an exaggerated breath of ocean air just because you can. I let my senses marvel at her, indulging in all of the things they had been denied for so long. It didn't matter that we didn't speak or touch. Simply being in her presence was more riveting than any adventure I embarked upon in South America.