Aria lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. She had been in the psych ward for 40 days now, almost two months, but had been struggling with her illness for 6 months now, ever since the Halloween train and being locked in a crate with Garret Reynolds' dead body had triggered her schizophrenia. The event still haunted her whenever she tried to sleep, so much that she had hardly slept for weeks.

Her thoughts turned to the new guy Ezra. He seemed nice; he was the first person she'd gotten to be friendly with for a while. She had pushed her friends away when the illness started to take over her and had been scared to let anyone get too close. She didn't have any friends in the hospital either, she was shy as it was and the schizophrenia had eaten away at her personality until she was almost mute. Talking with Ezra was the first time she had felt alive for a long time.

But she was still worried about letting him get too close to her, the last thing she wanted was for him to see her at her worst, Aria had driven everyone else away. She had no friends left, her Dad thought she was making it all up, Mike was scared of her and even her Mum was wary around her. When she had a meltdown it wasn't pretty and she didn't want anyone who she cared about what they thought of her seeing it.

Aria sighed and turned over to the other side of the bed. She eventually decided to be friendly towards Ezra but not to let him in. The moment he saw how messed up it really was inside her head he was sure to want nothing to do with her.

The next morning after breakfast was group therapy. Ezra hadn't seen Aria at breakfast so he ended up eating his cornflakes on his own and then went down to the room set aside for group therapy. It was the thing Ezra was most dreading about being in hospital, the last thing he wanted was everyone in the ward to know all about him.

He got to the room where all of the chairs were set around in a circle. There were a few couches and the other chairs looked pretty comfy which created a pretty relaxed atmosphere. He took a seat and waited as the room filled up. One of the last people to enter was Aria who took a seat as far away from everyone else as possible.

When the room had about 10 people in the therapist walked in and took a seat.

"Good morning everyone" He said "For those of you who are new my name is Chris and I just want to let you know that this room is a safe place, nothing you say here will leave this room."

Chris smiled "So as there are a couple of new people in this group today we'll start with a couple of games before we get into the other stuff"

As a group they played two truths and a lie and a name learning game where everyone had to say their name and an animal a fruit and a random word beginning with the first letter of their name. Soon Ezra felt like he knew everyone in the group a bit better and so he felt a little more comfortable.

"Ok so now we are going to talk about the best and worst things about being in hospital. So I will go around the group and everyone will say one thing they like about being in hospital and one thing they dislike about being in hospital. Ok I'll start with Alice"

Everyone in the group said their answers except Aria who just shrugged when it got to her. Chris sighed and decided to move on instead of confront Aria, obviously having had that argument with her before.

When it got to Ezra he said "One thing I dislike is group therapy" Which everyone, including Aria, laughed at "And one thing I like is meeting new people" He said looking directly at Aria. Aria looked back at him for a couple of seconds before drawing her eyes away and Ezra could have sworn he'd seen her blush.

After group therapy there were school lessons until the afternoon and then there was free time. Ezra went down to the common room and saw Aria sitting in a corner drawing. He walked over and sat next to her.

"That's really good" He said looking at her drawing of a manga girl.

"Thanks" Aria replied not looking up

"So how's your day been?" Ezra asked

"Fine" She answered still not looking at him

"Good" Ezra said starting to feel uncomfortable at Aria's one worded answers. What had happened to the chatty girl he'd met yesterday?

"I'm sorry, can you go, I don't like people watching me draw" Aria said finally looking at him

"Oh sure, I'm sorry" Ezra said getting up. He walked away and sighed, he'd really gotten to like Aria yesterday and needed a friend to survive this place.

Aria sat and thought about what she'd just done with regret. Pushing Ezra away had hurt more than she thought but she knew it was what she had to do. She couldn't allow herself to get close to anyone.

Thank you for the reviews last chapter, I hope you all like this chapter! ihavealifeiswear asked if there was going to be any other characters from the show in this story and I wasn't going to put anyone else in but it was quite a good idea so I'm considering it. Leave in your reviews who else you might want to put in the story. The only person I wasn't going to put in was Mona because I thought it was too complicated with them knowing that she is A.

Thanks for reading!