7. [Ezra]
The door to her apartment is the only one not decorated for Halloween; fake cobwebs hang from the door to her left, but hers is like a blank canvas, bare except for the tiny plaque proclaiming #14.
A tall blonde let him into the building; brushed past him on her way out with a nod and a wide, flirtatious smile. And now, as he stands there in front of Aria's door, gripping the strap of his messenger bag with both hands, he's keenly aware that he's shaking slightly, that his heart might very well beat right out of his chest. He isn't even sure why he's nervous, but this all feels strangely like a job interview, a bizarre audition for the life he could have had.
He takes a deep breath, raises his fist and knocks twice, the sound echoing down the empty hallway. She opens the door and stares at him, her eyes wide as she stands there, her hair dripping wet, dressed in a fluffy white robe that falls to the middle of her thighs. Ezra cannot help but glance at her legs, his eyes travelling upwards to focus on the beads of water that cascade down the graceful column of her neck before disappearing beneath the fabric. She clears her throat and pulls the robe tighter around her body. "Ezra? What are you doing here?" She asks him, her eyes narrowing.
"I…" he starts, but the words seem to escape him. "I don't know. I guess…" He stops, shakes his head. "Today was your deadline for the new pages for your book but the subway isn't running and I called you but you never answered, probably because the power is out and, I knew you lived downtown, had your address from the publishing houses' files and I guess…I was just worried about you." He says, barely stopping to breathe. He feels suddenly sheepish, embarrassed to have been worried; but after all these years, his need to protect her is still there, as though it never quite left him at all.
Her gaze softens slightly. "Um, come in, I guess," she says, as she gestures to the couch behind her. "It's messy, I wasn't expecting anyone. I'll get changed," she tells him, her voice all business, firm and slightly cold.
Ezra sits down on her couch as Aria rushes off to the bedroom and looks around at her apartment. The living room is small but cozy, the couch, strewn with pillows in all different shapes and colors. There's a bunch of mismatched antique chairs surrounding a wooden table, off to the side of what looks like a small kitchen. There's some art on the walls, a painting he recognizes, maybe Goya, he thinks, and several he doesn't, a patterned rug on the floor, a large black desk facing the window; it's cluttered with papers, her laptop, a discarded cup of coffee, a magazine, some books.
On the wall there's a framed photo of Aria with a guy, a muscled, body builder type; in it, Aria sits sideways on his lap, kissing his cheek as he smiles wide, his mouth full of ridiculously straight, white, perfect teeth. Ezra thinks of his first picture with Aria, brown paper bags pulled over their heads, laughing at the camera like total goobers.
Aria returns a few minutes later, dressed in jeans and a royal blue sweater that brings out the green in her eyes, her hair tossed in a messy bun atop her head. Even at her most casual she looks more beautiful than any woman Ezra has seen before; for just a second he has to remind himself to breathe.
She sits down across from him, in a big green armchair with a woven blanket tossed over it. "Do you have any pages I can look over?" Ezra asks, wiping his sweaty palms against the sides of his pants.
"My laptop is dead," she replies. "Everything I've written is on there," she says. "No power, no pages," she says, shrugging her shoulders.
He nods, and they sit in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes before Ezra speaks again. He tells her he brought sandwiches, asks her if she's eaten. She tells him no, and he pulls the bag from the deli out of his messenger bag, offers her the one labeled Aria. It's mozzarella cheese and tomatoes with pesto sauce on whole wheat, her old favorite. He still remembers it, years later, as if he could forget a single thing about his first great love, perhaps his only great love, he thinks.
They sit there, quietly chewing and Ezra is stunned by how strange the situation is. He can remember countless meals in 3B, bagels and buttermilk pancakes in the morning by the table, ice cream in bed. Back then, if you had asked him how it would feel, ten years out, to be here with Aria, the last thing he would have said was awkward; and yet here they are, sitting in awkward silence eating sandwiches at a tiny table in Aria's apartment.
Between bites, Ezra tries to start a conversation; one he knows is long over due. But before he can get the words out, she tries to stop him, holding her hand up, shaking her head. "No," she says. "It's fine, you don't need to do this."
"Please, just let me say what I need to say. Please, Aria." He can feel the words on the tip of his tongue; he needs this, he needs to tell her the things he's thought over and over, laid in bed contemplating on long, lonely nights.
"I loved you," he says, his eyes locked on Aria's. "I loved you probably from the first minute I saw you and I left because I thought it was the right thing to do, because I loved you. I left so you could have a life, Aria, a life without all of the rumors and secrets and gossip, a simpler life. You deserved more, more than dates in an apartment, more than I could have given you. I left because of Malcolm too, but he isn't the only reason I left and you have to know that." He swallows back a lump in his throat, but the floodgates are open now that he's started speaking, and he can't seem to keep the words at bay.
"I know that you probably don't love me now, might not ever love me again and I'm not asking you to, but I can't accept you hating me. I just want you to be happy, but for better or worse, we have to find some way to work together. So please, tell me what I can do, anything to make things right between us, to be friends, at least."
Ezra watches Aria intently; she's staring vacantly at the half eaten sandwich in her lap, chewing on her bottom lip. When she finally looks up, she looks so miserable, so pained that it breaks Ezra's heart; he wants so badly to wrap his arms around her, to be the one to comfort her in times like this.
"I don't hate you," she says, her voice low and sad. "I don't know how I feel, really. I loved you too. I know I was only 16, but I loved you so much and you left, without so much as a word. And then one day out of the blue you show up and we have to work together? It would be confusing for anyone," she finishes, the words fading into a deep sigh.
Ezra nods. "I should leave, maybe this wasn't a good idea," he says, but doesn't move. He wants her to stop him so badly, but all she replies is, maybe. He's about to get up but before he can she rests her hand on his arm, ever so softly.
"We can still work together," she tells him. "I always valued your opinion; you were always a great editor back then, even if you were kind of biased," she says, the corners of her lips cracking into a smile.
Ezra watches as she walks to her desk and pulls out a small notebook; its cover is worn out, corners bent from overuse, with an ink stain in the middle of it shaped vaguely like a tennis racquet. "I know I'm barely done with this book," she says. "But I wrote down some new ideas, nothing concrete, but just…" she trails off, handing him the notebook.
Ezra nods, holding the old notebook in his hands tenderly as he reads each idea. He can't help but notice there seems to be a theme in all of them, a prevailing sense of longing, a yearning for something better, something else.
Ezra leaves her apartment a short while later, walks down the street towards the train, wondering what to think about this new Aria, this girl he feels he barely knows yet has so much history with.
AN: I wasn't too happy with this chapter, I couldn't get it to read the way I wanted to even after a ton of editing, but I figured if I didn't post it, I never would, lol! I'm also toying with the idea of bumping the rating of this up to Mature for possible content in later chapters, and I'm wondering if you would all keep reading if I were to do that? Please feel free to let me know in a review :)
