"I can explain."
Aria tucked her chin down into the bottom of her neck and tried not to choke on what Ezra was beginning to say. Before she knew it, Aria found herself sitting up to see Ezra better. If he was going to try and explain himself she wanted to make sure she could hear him, and see him, clearly.
"Wrong answer." She said simply. Her words contained no anger, no sadness, no emotion at all.
'Wrong answer' bounced around hauntingly in Ezra's head. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to say. He didn't know when he should say it. So he stood, with his shoulder pressed against the door frame, waiting to take a cue from Aria.
"Why do you lie to me, Ezra?" Her bottom lip began to quiver, but she pushed firmly on it with her upper, and internally summoned it to stop. She finally had the upper hand, she had been waiting for this moment since the morning she saw his phone laying on the bathroom counter.
She didn't give him a chance to answer though.
Aria found herself on her feet now, arms crossed, starting to walk the perimeter of the room.
"I always wanted to paint these walls a really beautiful shade of yellow. That way, when the sun peeked in between the cracks in the curtains in the morning, that baby's room would just glow." She was starting to talk with her hands now.
"The sunbeams would warm the wood floor in the afternoons and we could put blankets on them for the baby to play on. First we'd do tummy time, and then we would learn to crawl. And eventually this room would only be for sleeping because once they learned to walk the rest of the house would be fair game."
Aria stopped in the middle of the room, and stared out the window at the maple tree again.
"I have always imagined you, holding him or her right in front of this window. Reading them stories at bed time. You two would look so angelic, with the moon's light shining behind you...making your hair glow. Bouncing off of your cheeks," She turned and walked over to Ezra and lightly ran her fingertips over his cheeks.
"But we don't get to have that anymore."
Without realizing what she was doing, Aria raised a hand and threw it across Ezra's face.
She hit him. She had never hit him, or even dreamed of hitting him, the entire time she had known him.
Not thinking, she raised her hand and hit him again.
Before she knew it she began sobbing, and shoved past him to leave the empty nursery.
Ezra stood alone and stunned. He knew he deserved it. But he had never seen Aria so upset before, and knowing her couldn't chase behind her and help made the sting in his face feel worse.
Aria was yelling now, from across the hallway.
"You can pack up your things and just go be with her Ezra. You have made a mockery of our marriage, " she wiped at her eyes and tried her best to regain her composure, to no avail, "I can't even believe you would come back in to our home after what you did to me."
Aria finally broke.
Ezra had thought she had been broken for years, but she was only cracked. Everything could have been healed, sewed back up. But a love child with your ex-mistress, who used to be your wife's best friend doesn't make for easy living.
He heard her breathing shallow and quickly, the sobs getting stuck and then exploding out of her throat. He knew she was having a panic attack and he left where he stood in the door way and quickly found his way in to their room. She had sunk to the floor, sitting with her back up against the frame of their bed.
She screamed for Ezra to get away from her.
"Just LEAVE. Leave me ALONE Ezra." She threw her hands at him to push him away from her, but Ezra forced her in to his arms, wrapping them tightly around her shoulders.
Aria's body was tired. It was tired of crying. Tired of pushing him away. Tired of feeling empty.
She sat stiffly sobbing in to Ezra's shoulders for a moment. He had buried his face in to her shoulder as well, eyes open staring at the bedroom wall.
'What have I done?' was all he could manage to process in his mind.
Aria calmed herself enough to regain some of the fight that was left in her, and she quickly began shoving Ezra away again.
She stood up and grabbed his duffle bag from the bottom of their closet. Aria started filling it up with things. Not caring if they matched, went together or were appropriate for the days ahead. After it was filled she zipped it shut and set it on his lap and walked out of the room.
Ezra's chest tightened, and his throat felt like it was swelling closed.
Tears streamed down his cheek and fell on to the duffle bag, tear drops turning parts of the the bag a darker shade of blue. He had nowhere to go. His mother hadn't spoken to him in at least a half dozen years, his brother was studying abroad, he had no other family.
He had alienated himself from everyone else.
Aria was all that he had.
Staying with Hanna crossed his mind for a moment, but he blinked and the idea was gone.
'Not the best place for her to find me...' Ezra thought to himself.
His concentration was shattered when Aria stormed back in to the room and stood in front of him, nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot every few seconds, chewing on her sleeve in rage.
"In case you have forgotten what it means to have a packed bag, it means get out. I need you to get out."
Ezra looked at her, shocked.
"I SAID GET OUT."
Her voice broke and tears slid down her cheeks once more, but there were no sobs. No treacherous sounds of pain escaping from her throat.
She saved those for when Ezra was gone. She followed him to the front door and slammed it, hard, behind him as he found himself on the front porch. Aria slid her back down the door and cried like she had never cried in her life.
Ezra placed his palm flat against the cold door and just listened.
All he could do was listen.
