A/N: Ask, and you shall receive...
Chapter 6
You're Still An Innocent
She looked at him like he was ice. It made him sick. There had been a time when she looked at him, hell, gravitated towards him, like he was fire. But it seemed these days, she only looked at him as if he was colder than anything she'd touched. Like he was damned with her, damaged beyond repair without her.
"I said you don't know what you're talking about," Aria insisted.
He'd found himself standing in his office, trying to talk to her because she'd had a crappy. He was trying to sympathize with everything she was going through, without making her feel pressured or like he was belittling what she'd had to put up with. But she had dismissed him like nothing more than an unwanted phone call. And that made him feel low.
Ezra shook his head, bringing his good hand up to his forehead. He rubbed it, frustrated.
"You know, people are capable of understanding what you've been through," he told her harshly.
"You have no idea what it's like!" Aria cried. "You don't know-"
He whipped his head around at her, glaring at her with so much fire inside of him, he felt like he might actually shoot it out of his head. "To hell with the idea that I don't know what you're talking about! I know what you're talking about more than you know what you're talking about!"
Aria shrank back against the top of his desk. He'd never yelled at her like that before. She'd never even heard him speak that way, to anyone. "Ezra-"
"No, Aria!" He shook his head as tears burned over the edges of his eyelids. "I can't even…"
It took everything in him not to find another wall to punch. Didn't know how much this hurt to even think about? She had to have figured out something that he was dealing with. She had to have just at least an inkling of what it was that he'd been keeping from her.
Aria looked around the room, tears filling her own eyes. She was scared, but she wasn't quite sure if she was more afraid of his emotions at the moment, or what he was going to do to himself because of them. He'd already broken his wrist in the midst of everything.
He sucked in a deep breath between clenched teeth and shook his head again as he blinked, and tears began to run down his face. "I get it, alright? I didn't want to tell you any of this."
Ezra looked up at her, angered by the fact that more hot tears filled his eyes. "Was my senior year of college, Aria." A knot was tight in his throat, threatening to keep every word he was trying to say keep from getting out. "And someone was going after guys on campus."
Aria stared at him, torn between being angry with him for not telling her sooner, and scared of how upset he was. "So?"
Ezra looked down at his cast. He clenched and unclenched his fist. "He broke in when Hardy was out of town visiting family. I liked to sleep on the bottom bunk when he was gone so I didn't have to do the ladder.
I woke up, and he was behind me, and I couldn't move. I tried to scream, and he shoved a sock in my mouth, and then shoved my face down in the pillow so I couldn't spit it out. I screamed as loud as I could when he finally. And the funny thing was, all I could remember thinking was how awful that sock tasted, and how I was going to do laundry once it was all over.
When he finally got off, I thought maybe he'd leave, but then he made me lick him. MADE me suck on him. He came on my face and then FORCED me to get off. And while he did he got off a third time.
He left the key to the handcuffs in one of my hands and left me there. When Hardy came home, I had barely moved, beyond getting dressed."
"Did they catch him?" Aria asked softly.
Ezra shook his head. "And he came back. I was his first and only repeat victim. Something to do with getting revenge, because I put the article on the front page of the Hollis paper. The last time, he followed me right back from the infirmary and jumped me with my door open. Everyone was in class, and I just given the police a statement. When they finally came along, he locked the door and then tortured me until he was satisfied. He beat the hell out of me too."
Aria's shoulders we slumped as she sat on the desk, her arms tightly crossed. "What about Jackie?"
Ezra forced laugh as several tears fell from his eyes. "She didn't believe me. She said that it wasn't possible. Jackie said a lot of things, and we didn't speak for almost eight months. That day, that photo you saw of us from Italy? She had messaged me. She was working with one of the other victims, and wouldn't you know it, he said he knew me. She asked him how. He told her he'd seen a photo of me when the police asked if he knew any of the other victims. We even met once. He came by the dorm when I was packing my things to move into my apartment. Asked if we could talk. I asked him why. He showed me his discharge papers from the hospital."
"Someone raped you, multiple times last year…And you're just now telling me?" Aria said. She was having trouble absorbing the information.
Ezra forced a gulp down, nodding his head. "I didn't know where my life was when I met you. I was trying just to get through things day to day, and you made things a whole hell of a lot better. When I found out I was your teacher, I pushed you away because I didn't want something to happen to you where I ended up hurting you like I'd been hurt. But when I came back from New York… I'd seen my mom and brother while I was there. They both knew about what happened, and they knew I was seeing someone, without even saying anything."
He walked over to her so that he was standing in front of her, but he didn't touch her. "I hated falling in love with you. That's why I left. I hated feeling that vulnerable again. If I could be so vulnerable that someone could come after me in what I felt like was my home, then what stopped them from coming after me at my apartment."
Aria reached her hands up and gently cupped his cheeks. "I get it."
Ezra shook his head. "I thought I could keep this from you. I thought that if I never said anything, then you would never know. Ever since that night, though…Ever since I was in that room with you at the ER…" He closed his eyes, tilting his head down towards the floor as a pained expression covered his face.
"What about the ER?" Aria asked, coaxing him gently.
He opened his eyes and sighed a heavy breath. His shoulders dropped as he looked her in the eyes. "That room, where you had your exam. The last time I saw that guy, before he disappeared, I told you he beat me up really bad. Up to that point they were having trouble even getting anyone to give anything in way of DNA. I just wanted him caught, so I let them take everything. But I hate that room. I won't let them treat me in there, even if it means waiting."
"So when we were in the ER the night Grady raped me, that's what brought this all back up for you?" Aria asked.
Ezra shook his head. "No, I d-…It was a mix of things, because I tried to bury it. All I know is every night since then, it's come back clearer and clearer. "
Aria shook her head, blinking several tears away. "I don't want to be the reason this is happening to you."
Ezra grabbed her hands in his and shook his head. "This is my fault. You can't bury this, Aria. It'll come back to get you. I should know."
Aria looked down at his cast, and then to his other wrist. "That's why you broke your wrist. Is that why you tried to kill yourself too?"
Ezra gulped, following her line of vision down to his wrists. He'd never told her much beyond the fact that he'd been through something really terrible, that led to the suicide attempt. He had also told her that his mom and brother had been the ones who had stopped him.
"Can I ask you something?"
Ezra lifted his head up off the back of the couch and groaned as his neck popped several times. "Of course." He tightened his arms around her as he tried to shake off his exhaustion.
Aria brushed her thumb over the scar on his left wrist. "Why would you do this to yourself?"
Ezra looked over her shoulder at the faded scar. "You know I had an entire 21 years of life before I met you."
Aria nodded, turning in her seat to face him. "You never struck me as the kind of person who would hurt themselves, though."
Ezra shook his head and shrugged. "I did try to kill myself, I'll admit to that." He pressed his lips together for a moment, trying to find the right words. "Things happened, before I had done it. Things that affected my life in ways that I can't really explain right now. But it was bad. In the worst way."
Aria exhaled a long breath. She gently let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"It's alright," he said softly. "My mom, and my brother were both there. They changed things."
Aria shook her head, reaching up to wrap her arms around Ezra's neck. She pulled him tight against her, shaking her head as tears began to run down her face.
"I wish you had just told me before."
Ezra brushed his hand through her hair, kissing the side of her head. He pulled back gently and looked her in the eyes.
"Do you remember when you came to me and told me about Jenna? How afraid you were that I would see you differently?" He asked.
Aria nodded. "You thought I would think less of you for this? Why would I ever think less of you because of rape?"
"It's a lot more common with women," Ezra replied. "I was nowhere near ready to face it when it happened, and when it kept happening, all I wanted to do was forget. When I started remembering these last few days, I was right back I that place. I ran from Hollis last April because I was terrified, and then when I came back to work here, I thought everything was okay. I thought because he was gone, things would get better. But it seems like it's just gotten worse."
"Of course it has," Aria said matter-of-factly. "The person who hurt you is out there somewhere instead of jail where he should be."
"But you're-"
Aria shook her head at him. "Grady's every step is being watched by cops. I'm afraid of a lot of things, including him, but I'm not afraid that he could do it again."
"Doesn't matter," Ezra said dismissively. "He's not in town. He hasn't been around in over a year."
Aria laced her fingers around Ezra's neck, shaking her head as she struggled to keep his eyes focused on her. "You can't tell me that it doesn't bug you that he might be out there somewhere, waiting."
Ezra shook his head at her. "I can't let that get to me. If I thought about that, I'd never sleep. I did everything I could to help the cops."
"Sounds more like you're trying to talk yourself in to being okay with it," Aria murmured.
Ezra shook his head. "Whatever."
"Well, I-" Aria cut off, looking over towards the door. "Dad."
Ezra turned his head and looked over as well. Byron was standing there.
"I was headed out. Your mother said you were here," Byron said.
Aria nodded. She looked back to Ezra. "Can we continue this conversation later?"
Ezra looked down at the floor and then at her. "Your parents know, Aria."
Her jaw dropped, though Ezra quickly shook his head.
"I didn't tell them," he insisted. "I can't stop your parents from reading the paper, though."
Byron nodded guiltily from the doorway. "We had hoped he would tell you."
"Well, great, then,," Aria murmured. "Lets go. I'm super hungry."
Ezra couldn't help but laugh. "You know, so am I."
-
Lie awake at night
You keep running through my mind
-
Dinner brought the most pleasant conversation that either Aria or Ezra had been a part of in days. It was also the first time since everything had happened either of them had eaten something more than few bites of food.
"Are you sure you don't want any ice cream," Ella asked Ezra with a chuckle. Mike had been in the midst of telling all of them a joke that he'd heard earlier in the day just moments before.
Ezra shook his head, grabbing the glass of wine Byron had given him when they had all sat down to eat.
"I'm good. Thanks, though." He tipped the glass back and swallowed the little that was left in the bottle.
Aria licked from her own cone, which had been topped with mocha mudslide. "I've got homework," she murmured to him. "I'll see you later?"
Ezra looked up at her and nodded. "I'll come up before I leave. I swear I won't flake this time."
Aria leaned down and pecked him on the lips before she and Ella walked out of the kitchen and headed towards the stairs.
Byron settled his own glass along with Ezra's into the dish washer and then closed it before opening the fridge as Ezra pushed up from the table.
"Ezra."
He looked up at Byron. Byron had a beer in his hand, extened towards Ezra. "Let's talk."
Ezra looked at him nervously. The last time he'd had a serious conversation one-on-one with Byron, it had been Byron telling him that he was going to call the cops so that Ezra would never be able to see Aria again.
He walked across the room and took the bottle of beer tentatively, and then followed Byron through the kitchen, out onto the deck in the back yard. Byron gestured toward the seat opposite to the one he took.
Ezra walked over to it and sat down across from Byron. "What's up?"
"We have had a real conversation since I ripped your head off that day in the apartment," Byron said. "At least, not a normal one. With all of the things that have happened lately-"
"You mean Aria being raped and my whole life becoming public knowledge to everyone in this family but Aria?" Ezra asked blatantly.
Byron cleared his throat, but nodded nonetheless. "Ella and I have done our best to keep away from asking two many questions-"
Ezra turned is bottle of beer on the table. He moved it down to the corner and used he edge to pop the top off. "Aria and I have had to field through a lot of things since we first met. I always planned on telling her, but a month turned into two, turned into six, and it seemed a hell of a lot easier to sweep it under the rug when being around her meant that I didn't have to think about any of it."
"Out of sight, out of mind," Byron asked.
Ezra nodded. "I never understood how people could say that they had been through something like that, and then didn't think about it, and basically forgot about it until something brought that memory back. But that night, after sitting in that trauma room with her, all I could think about was being in the room 11 months earlier while doctors were poking and prodding and doing things that I didn't want anything to do with.
Byron just nodded. Ezra took a long drink from his beer.
"I'm sorry, you wanted to talk about something," Ezra said.
Byron nodded again. "Yeah. As I said, Ella and I have done our best to not ask too much, because we don't want to make you feel that you have to tell us your life history right now. But I had to ask you something after talking to Hardy.
Ezra chuckled and raised his eyebrows, taking another drink from his beer. "I hope he sold the information to you. Might as well get somethingout of telling all my secrets."
"It was really more so something you said," Byron clarified. "He told me to ask you."
"Is that so?"
Byron nodded. "The day you and Aria came here and said you were going to be together regardless of what happened, you said something."
"I said a lot that day," Ezra replied. "But what is it that stuck out to you?'
"After you got so upset, and broke your wrist, something didn't add up. I mean more than what already didn't. I kept scrambling to figure out where the pieces didn't fit, but I kept coming back to that statement you made to me out here that night. When you looked at me and said she made things feel real again. That she saved your life. At the time, I thought it was all something to do with her making you feel better after a bad breakup. But after that night…"
Byron shook his head.
Ezra leaned back in his seat,, turning his bear on the table. He nodded. "I tried to kill myself. Yes."
"Why?" Byron asked. "When?"
Ezra shook his head, looking around the dark yard. Only the porch lights illuminated the yard.
"I couldn't stand living in the dorms anymore. My grades had dropped so far that I wasn't going to graduate if I kept going at the rate I was, and most of the problem was the fact that I couldn't sleep at night.
About a week before I got my apartment, I went up to New York for the weekend, to see my mom and my brother. She knew something was up, because I hadn't returned calls in weeks. I wasn't really talking to anyone that I didn't have to. I was dodging my professors because I didn't want to deal with what had happened, and I definitely didn't want to tell them.
Anyway, I was at home and every single time my mom asked what was going on, I kept putting her off. I wouldn't discuss anything that had to do with me. By Saturday night, she was making comments about calling Hardy, my best friend, and I- I just couldn't. I couldn't deal with her knowing, with she and my brother knowing. It felt like too much.
Ezra scooted forward on his chair and began removing his watch. The thick band always kept the scar on that wrist covered.
"I knew how to break a razor blade, so after she had gone to bed, I broke one and cut both of my wrists until I knew I'd cut veins."
He shook his head, looking down at the table as he tossed the watch band down onto it. Byron's gaze fell from Ezra's face to his wrist. He reached across the table and gently pulled Ezra's arm forward, bringing the scar into light. It was four inches long, and wider than most scars that he'd seen before.
"I guess could say that I got lucky. My mom hadn't gone to bed at all. She made good on her comments, and called Hardy. I don't know how either of them knew, but he told her to check in on me and make sure I was okay. I had just dropped the razor when she walked in. She called 911, and made my brother come in and hold towels against my wrists until the EMTs showed up."
"Damn, Ezra." Byron's voice was sot, filled with sorrow. He brushed his fingers over the scar. The comment wasn't intended to hurt Ezra. It was simply the only thing Byron could think to say. For how little he had known Ezra, truly. For how harshly he had judged him when he'd first met the man, and all awhile, he really had no idea.
"I wonder if Aria ever would have told you, if she hadn't been forced by the state she was in when she came home," Ezra mused. "It killed me to have to tell that story to my mother. Anyway, when I got out of the hospital, I got an apartment my first day back in Rosewood, and told Hardy I was moving out of the dorm. Once I was out of the dorms, I sucked down all the extra credit and did all the make-up work that I could do. I barely pulled most of my grades up to a C average by the time finals rolled around. All but one pulled up to a B minus when finals were over."
"You failed one of your finals?" Byron asked. It seemed illogical to him that Ezra could've been failed anything. Wouldn't he have just told his professors?
Ezra shook his head. "I got an A in Advanced comp," he said with a chuckle. The very same class he now taught. "The only prompt given was where life would go after college. I had no fucking clue."
Byron nodded as Ezra pulled his arm back across the table. He went to work trying to get his watch back on.
"Did any of your professors know?"
Ezra shrugged. "I'm sure some of them guessed. It was public knowledge that there was someone sexually abusing students on campus and that he had a type. I met a few of his other victims, but, ah, suffice to say, he never went after any of them four times."
"Why?"
Ezra took another drink from his beer. "Police think it's because I was the person who wrote the first article about someone hunting male students. I was the editor in charge, and I made sure it went on the front page. And I mean, I wasn't exactly a jock; I was an English major. But I had friends that were."
Byron shook his head disapprovingly. He took a drink from his own beer. Things were silent for a few minutes.
"Does Aria know," he asked after a few minutes.
Ezra was attempting to scratch his palm under his cast. "Aria knows something very bad happened. She's seen the scars including the ones on my back, but she doesn't ask questions, and I don't talk about it. All I ever told her was that some really bad things took place. Things I wasn't ready to explain at the time."
He took a deep breat hand looked Byron in the eyes for the first time since they'd come outside. "Truth be told, I wasn't going to stay in Rosewood. My mom really wanted me to move back to New York and take a job at NYU. I had applied for the job at Rosewood right after graduation, and then took off to New York for the summer. I met Aria two days after getting home."
Byron nodded silently as they sat there. "So, when I asked if she'd been in your apartment that afternoon- I mean when I insinuated…"
Ezra couldn't help but chuckle. "Sleeping with anyone at this point would mean explaining at least twenty different reasons why they can't do this or touch me like that," he explained. "Considering Aria didn't know anything, you've got nothing to worry about."
Ezra tipped his beer bottle back and took another drink from it, finishing what was left in it. He looked down at his watch. "I should get going."
He pushed back from his seat, and Byron stood as well.
"You know you always have an open-ended invitation to stay here."
Ezra nodded. "I'd rather not be a bother," he said as he stepped through the patio doors, into the house.
Byron shook his head at Ezra. "We don't consider you a bother."
Ezra dropped his empty bottle into the recycling bin and looked over at Byron.
"I scream in my sleep," he explained. "A lot. Ever since that night in the ER….Most nights, I wake up shaking and covered in sweat. I don't want to subject Aria to that."
Byron stared at him solemnly. "You know, trust be told, the only time I haven't heard Aria scream in hier sleep is when she knows you're here."
Ezra stared down at the floor. He didn't want to make Byron feel like he didn't care about Aria, but he didn't want to subject her to worry when she had her own issues to deal with. Telling her about everything that afternoon had been hard enough.
"When are you going to stop running from her? From being honest about everything?" Byron asked.
Ezra looked up at him. "I can't now. It wouldn't be fair."
Byron shook his head at Ezra. "And going about it this way is fair to you? You'd be amazed at how understanding Aria can be."
Ezra nodded. "I know she is. And that's why it wouldn't be fair."
"You know, far be it or me - the person who almost destroyed it all - to give you some advice on how to keep your relationship with my daughter going, but, it seems the selfish choice you've made in over a year was falling in love with her. And every day that you keep burying what you've been through to make her feel like you're paying attention to her is undoubtedly only going to make your suffering worse."
"I'm not suff-"
"Bull." Byron rolled his eyes. "I call your bluff. Someone who isn't suffering doesn't scream in their sleep, or hide something as painful as multiple rapes."
Ezra took a deep breath and shook his head, walking towards the sitting room. He grabbed his bag off the couch. He looked up towards the door, only to see Ella standing there in front of him.
"Seriously? What's with the double team here?"
Ella crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway. "We're worried. I told you that you've become a serious part of this family. And while I respect what you've done to try and be fair to Aria, we're worried all of this is going to drive you into hurting yourself. Again."
Ezra clenched his jaw. "With all due respect, you do not know me. What I've been through is my business. And what I do about Aria is my business too."
"And if I have to pick up my daughter off the floor because you withhold information with the intent to 'help' her, I'll guarantee you, you'll be sorry about it," Byron said sternly. "I respect the fact that you want privacy, but a year is a long time to keep a secret that deep. Someone's gonna get hurt, Ezra. We'd rather it not be you or Aria."
As if on cue, she was leaning over the banister of the stairs. "Are you leaving?"
Ezra looked up at her. "I'm coming up."
He looked at Byron, and then at Ella. With a heavy sigh, he dropped his bag near the stairs and proceeded to climb the stairs. He followed Aria into her room and sat down on the bed next to her.
"Were you fighting with my parents?" Aria asked.
Ezra shook his head. "They're having a disagreement with me about certain things. Anyway…"
"Will you stay, please."
Her tone broke her heart. For as much as she was trying not to sound like she was begging, Ezra could hear it in her voice. He knew he had clothes in his car, but he worried that he would wake her up if he woke up screaming. But his mouth betrayed him.
"Yeah. I've got a bag in the car. Just let me go grab it."
Aria released his hand tentatively, and watched as he exited the room. She stepped into her bathroom and turned on the faucet, using the spare time to brush her teeth and then she pulled her out of the bun she'd had it up in all day. When she walked back into her room, Ezra came up through the hallway. He must've stopped in the bathroom in the hall, because he'd changed into a loose pair of sweatpants.
He dropped his bag next to her dresser and then walked over to the bed. Aria flipped the lights off and then walked over to the bed and laid down next to Ezra. He moved his arms and granted her room to lie down next to him.
After a while, they both laid there still awake. Aria looked up to see him staring down at her.
"What're you think about," she asked.
Ezra shrugged. "You."
Aria blushed, struggling to hold in a giggle. "What about me?"
Ezra rolled his eyes. The answer was so cheesy, but it was true. "How much I love you."
Aria smiled. She pushed her weight against him to move further up on the bed. She pressed her lips to his. Ezra moved his hands into her hair, kissing her back. It seemed like it was been forever since they'd kissed. But as their lips pushed each others apart and Ezra's tongue brushed over hers, it burned with so much unrelenting and harsh passion, that if there was one thing that was clear to the both of them, it was how much they still loved each other.