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XConcr3t3 Jungl3 5urf3r

Presents

Let Me Be Your Affliction

A Pretty Little Liars Fanfiction

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Song lyrics Carrie Underwood- Starts with goodbye.
I do not own Pretty Little Liars.

Summary: Love - a wildly misunderstood although highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain, causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise and the lips to pucker.

~Author Unknown

Chapter Four:
Pneumonia

It'd been four days since she saw Jason with Melissa, four days since he took a piece of her heart. Even when she's with Ezra, her mind can't help shifting to him. How is he? What's he doing? Does he miss her as much as she misses him? Questions swirl around like a tornado sucking he in and leaving her numb to the things around her, especially him.

Right now, they're on the couch- him with his arm around her and he with her head on his chest starting mindlessly at the movie pretending to be interested. But Ezra Fitz is a rather observant man, knowing something was amiss.

Ezra: "Hey, is everything okay?"

Immediately she's snapped from her thoughts ready to play cover up to her emotions like she had been all week.

Aria: "Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't I be? I've got a boyfriend who's ready to tell my parents about us and in a few days we can go to a movie at the theater without caring who sees."

Suddenly, Ezra's the quiet one as he wonders how to piece the statement together.

Ezra: "About telling your parents… I think we should wait. I mean, with everything going on with Mike and—"
Aria: "Don't you dare use Mike as an excuse."

She jumps back from him as if his touch burns as bad as his words.

Aria: "What's really going on here Ezra?"
Ezra: "Nothing, I –I just don't think now's the best time to—"
Aria: "There's never going to be a best time, Ezra. Don't use timing as an excuse for chickening out."
Ezra: "I'm not chickening out; I'm just delaying it a bit."
Aria: "No, no delaying! Now or never, Ezra. What's it going to be?"

The hesitation speaks volumes and as if on cue, Jason's voice screams in her head.

Jason: "-but, for what it's worth, if you were me I'd be shouting it from the rooftops not hiding it."

Ezra was her first… first real relationship, first love, first time but they'd been stuck in this dance so long that they became it. They take a step here, step there, throw in a turn, maybe a pickup in pace. Sure they never fall apart, their love never fades but it doesn't strengthen either. They maintain, never grow and she's only seventeen. She needs to be able to grow.

xXx
And he wouldn't understand,,
So hard to see myself without him,
I felt a piece of my heart break,
But when you're standing at a crossroad,
There's a choice you gotta make.
xXx

Aria: "I can't do this anymore."
Ezra: "Wait, Aria. C'mon. Let's talk about this."
Aria: "No more talking. We've talked this thing into the ground."
Ezra: "Are you breaking up with me?"

Tears. Her tears. His tears. So many tears setting the tone of the heartbreaking scene. She wishes somehow, someway, she could ease her pain maybe even take it all away- just pluck it out of him like a weed from the soil but she knows she can't stop his pain any more than she can stop hers.

xXx
I guess it's gonna have to hurt,
I guess I'm gonna have to cry,
And let go of some things I've loved,
To get to the other side.

I guess it's gonna break me down,
Like falling when you try to fly.
It's sad but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life,
Starts with goodbye.
xXx

Aria: "I-I am."

He wants to get up and stop her, talk some sense into that pretty little head of hers but he can't. Something in him is paralyzing him, leaving him to watch helplessly as she scoops up her purse and head for the door. He's a literary professor, he should know some magic words that will get her to come back, something that will make everything wonderful again. There's gotta be something that'll make up for his hesitancy, for every little problem that turned into this massive wrecking ball.

Ezra: "Aria."

She freezes at the sound of her name, one hand on the door and the other clutching her purse. Whatever he'd had concocted flies out the window as he sees the determination in her eyes and the strength it's taking for her to do something neither had been strong enough to do when they started their relationship.

Aria: "Goodbye, Ezra."

xXx

Aria Montgomery makes her way up Bridgewater Terrace to retrieve her car from Spencer's silently cursing her decision to wear heels that morning. Her cursing becomes audible when the light drizzle of rain turns into a torrential downpour in the time it takes to blink. As her pace quickens, she narrows her sights on the Hastings driveway, determined to make it there before she's completely drenched. But fate has other plans.

xXx

He'd been sitting on the porch having himself a momentary lapse in strength, staring at the amber liquid swirling around in the glass he had sitting beside him. He could drink it. He could numb the pain of knowing she was with Ezra Fitz doing god knows what (he'd seen Ezra pick her up from Spencer's). He vaguely wonders what she sees in the guy, or more importantly what she doesn't see in him, when he quickly banishes the thought realizing it's only adding to the pain- another drop in the ocean.

A tempted hand grabs onto the glass and moves to bring it to his lips when he snaps some sense back into himself. He wasn't this guy anymore. His hand grips the glass tight before he pulls back and launches it off right towards the Hastings. Just as he hears the glass shatter, what was a drizzle transforms into a pouring rain. Letting out a frustrated groan, he stands up and clutches the railing.

That's when he sees her moving past and his body reacts wanting nothing more than to be near to her. He calls out her name- once, twice, three times- before he finally manages to reach out and get a hand on her shoulder. Immediately her attention snaps back to him and he realizes someone grabbing your shoulder in the dark could be taken as startling. He gives her a second to relax before finding his voice.

Jason: "Hey."
Aria: "Hey."

Suddenly the world melts away with the rain and it's just the two of them, eyes locked and hearts beating out of their chests.

Jason: "What're you doing out here, crazy girl? You're going to catch pneumonia."

A smirk turns up the edges of his lips as he moves his hand down from her shoulder towards her elbow.

Aria: "I could ask you the same question."
Jason: "I don't know. I just saw you and my feet kind of did the rest."

She laughs one of those soft sweet laughs that make his body scream out for her but he restrains himself trying to stand by his words that he wanted all of her or none of her.

Jason: "Your turn. Why're you out here?"
Aria: "I'm going to get my car from Spencer's. "
Jason: "I'll walk with you."
Aria: "Whata' bout catching pneumonia?"
Jason: "Well I think you're worth the risk."

He holds out his arm for her to take turning his body towards the Hastings' house but she doesn't take it. Instead she blurts out the five words he thought he'd never have the pleasure of hearing.

Aria: "I broke up with Ezra."

Those words definitely caught his attention; he turns back to read her face for any sign of a lie wanting to jump for joy when he found none.

Jason: "So where does that leave us?"

He was trying to be a gentleman and stop himself from jumping her bones. Eyes almost disbelievingly watch the brunette move in so that their lips were just inches apart.

Aria: "I think this is about where we left off."

Joy. Pure joy coursed through him, driving the boy the other few inches that took their lips off a collision course and straight into a fiery crash of passion and happiness. His hand moves up to gently cup her face as they come up for air as if to feel if she's really there giving him what he's wanted for so long.

Jason: "I think you should come inside and we should get you out of those wet clothes."
Aria: "Right I mean, after all, we wouldn't want to catch pneumonia."

He loves the way she teases him; hell he loves everything about her. She's Aria freakin' Montgomery and more importantly, she's his… Finally his.

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