Chapter 10
Waiting For Rain As I Stand In The Desert
Ezra sighed as he pushed papers together on his desk on the floor of his lecture hall. Ethan was seated in a chair in the top row on the other side of the room, scribbling notes down into a notebook, though Ezra was sure they weren't notes about what he'd been teaching. He sat down in the chair at his desk and rested his head against the palm of his hand. He wasn't going to give his parents the satisfaction of knowing it, but his exhaustion was certainly starting to get the best of him.
"Ezra?"
He looked up towards the door. Byron was standing there holding an armful of books and papers.
"What's up?"
"Two PM meeting for the English department," Byron said.
"Really?" Ezra whined. He exhaled a heavy breath and pushed up out of his seat before moving papers around on the desk again, trying to pull everything together. He finished settling papers back into their perspective folders and then picked them up off the desk and headed over to the door. He had half a mind to leave Ethan sitting in the class room and not tell him where he was going, but as he moved to cross through the doorway, Ethan spoke.
"Going to leave me here all alone? I'm not going to disappear that easily, EJ."
Ezra rolled his eyes, turning to look back up at his father. "I am seriously annoyed by the fact that you keep calling me that. I'm not a kid anymore, and you really haven't done anything to actually prove that you want to attempt to be a parent again." He took on a perplexed expression. "So, I'm gonna work. Maybe you should attempt to do that too."
Ezra followed Byron down the hall. They stopped off at his office long enough for him to drop his class notes off and grab a notebook and legal pad before he and Byron headed down towards the conference rooms in the English department. They barely had five minutes before the meeting was going to start.
"Have you eaten anything yet today?" Byron asked as they passed vending machines.
Ezra shrugged. "Not all that hungry at the moment."
Before Byron could lay into him like his parents had been, he walked into the conference room and took a seat between the Western Lit professor and a woman who was teaching a course in expository writing. The meeting started a few minutes later, once everyone had settled into chairs and the dean of the department took his place at the head of the table. Carafes sat on several parts of the table, and in front of each seat, glasses had been filled with water. There were also cold cuts laid out on plates across the table. Ezra scrawled the date across the top of his legal pad and then leaned forward and grabbed his glass. He took a long drink from it and then leaned back in his chair.
-
When I fall asleep I feel you with me
-
Aria dropped into a desk in the front row of her mother's classroom and crossed her arms, pouting. She had a feeling that this requirement of constantly having to be in the same place as one of the adults was going to grow old quickly. She was already getting bored with it.
Ella looked up from the paper she was grading and frowned. "I told you to bring a book. We're going to be here at least until five." "Can't I just have Spencer drop me off at Hollis?" Aria whined. "I've spent so much time studying at home, I feel like my head is going to explode if I study any more."
"Aria, Dr. Sullivan, Ethan, your father and I all agree on the fact that we want you and Ezra kept safe. I realize that the major reason we're doing this is because we want to keep Ezra safe, but we want to keep you safe too. I know nothing compared to Dr. Sullivan and Ezra's father, but to the best of my knowledge, an opportunistic rapist will probably strike again given another opportunity."
"Fine." Aria said sternly. "Then can I at least go get a book from the library?" She looked out into the hallway and then whipped her head back around fast. "Spencer's right out in the hallway. I'll walk over and back with her. Please?"
Ella pursed her lips for a brief moment and stared Aria down for a few minutes before nodding. "Fine. Do it quickly."
Aria shot up out of her seat and grabbed her bag from the floor. She dashed out into the hall, over to Spencer. Spencer shut her locker and turned to face Aria.
"What's up?"
Aria sighed. "Under house arrest." She leaned back against the lockers and crossed her arms. "You know, you'd think I would enjoy spending unlimited time with Ezra, but all I really want is to not have to spend every single moment under somebody's watch. It's barely been sixteen hours and I'm sick of it."
Spencer chuckled sympathetically. "Isn't it better than the alternative?"
Aria's pout returned to her face. "I don't like either option. Let me phone a friend for option C."
Spencer laughed. "Didn't I hear you say something to your mom about going to the library? Let's go. I've got four hours of studying to do before I do my homework."
Aria scowled at Spencer as she pushed off from the lockers and they headed down the hall towards the library. They entered the room a few moments later and Aria headed off for the fiction novels.
She perused the shelves for a while, searching for a specific book. Spencer followed a few steps behind her and tapped quietly on her phone as Aria ran a finger over spines of books, searching for the right label to the book she wanted.
Time wasn't high on Aria's priority list as she turned the corner to the other side of the shelf and continued through the alphabet of authors names. Spencer followed after her, continuing to keep her attention on her phone. When she bumped into Aria, Aria looked up at her.
"Okay, I know you and your phone share an invisible tether, but it's never like this," she said. "What's up?" Spencer shook her head. "It's… can you just hurry?" Aria crossed her arms again. "Spencer, what's wrong?"
"Melissa has been having early labor pains all day. She's been in the hospital since noon. My parents told me to stay through the end of the day." Spencer said.
Aria's eyes grew wide. "What? Spencer, go!"
"But you-"
"I'll be fine," Aria insisted. "My parents are more worried about me than they need to be. Go. And call me when you know something."
Spencer nodded. Aria hugged her tightly for a few moments, and then released her. She watched as Spencer headed towards the exit, and then turned her attention back to the books. Her eyes flitted over the titles, and a moment later, she found it. Free Fall, one of her favorite books. It was the follow-up to a book whose plot a man and a woman who shared a child together. In the first book, their shared daughter brought them back together after five years and pulled them away from their 'second choices' and back to each other. Free Fall was supposed follow them as they continued repairing their relationship, and dealt with the fallout ending the relationships they'd been in when they had come back into each other's lives.
The first book had come out after Ezra had come back from New York, and Aria had enjoyed the irony of how it seemed to draw symmetry to her own life. While they didn't have any children, there was certainly a push-pull element to their relationship. He tried to push her away to Noel, and then when he came to his senses, he had to pull her back in.
When the second had come out just after she and Ezra had told her parents about their relationship, Aria was sure someone was reading her journal, as all the elements in the book character's lives tried to pull them apart, but they persevered. It had been a quote from the book that had driven Aria to tell Ezra that they needed to fight harder for their relationship.
"What worth is there in the trying, if you give up on it when it gets too hard?" Aria looked up at Ezra as she closed the book and rested it in her lap. "I keep reading that over and over, and it's not making me feel any better, Ezra. Are we really going to throw in the towel now because my parents told us no?" Ezra shook his head at her, as he stopped pacing and turned to face her. "Your father threatened to call the police, Aria!" He breathed several heavy breaths, trying to get past the knot tightening in his throat. He walked over to her and squatted down in front of her, resting his hands on her knees. "I want to be with you, Aria. But at the cost of my job? My reputation?"
Aria settled her book beside her and leaned forward, cupping her hands around his face. Tears brimmed her eyelids as she rested her head against his. "I don't want to try to get my parents to listen. I want to make them listen. Force them to come down to our level and listen, whether they want to or not.
Ezra laughed once. "What's the worth in trying if you give up when it gets too hard?" Aria smiled. "Exactly."
She walked out of the library with the book in hand and flipped the book open as she made her way towards her mother's classroom. The school was pretty empty, except for kids who were staying after for tutoring and extra-curricular activities. For the most part, the school was silent, except for the cafeteria and the gymnasium.
She turned the pages over until she found the page she was looking for. She already owned the book, but she doubted her parents would be going home until all of this blew over, and she didn't want to be without her favourite book. As she found the page, the lighting on the book became dark and then before she knew it, she had stumbled backwards and hit the floor.
"I'm so sorry," she said, rushed. She reached forward and grabbed her book. A hand extended to her.
"No, I am." Her head suddenly whipped up, and she attempted to pull her hand back as she came to stand on both her feet. She tried once again to pull her arm free, but Grady's grip held on hers. She shuddered as he tauntingly backed her up against a wall.
"We need to talk," he said mockingly. "The things you're saying are really affecting my life right now."
Aria stumbled over her feet and laughed as she gripped the railing of the winding staircase in Spencer's home. Her parents were out of town and she had decided to throw a small get-together. Of course, because they were in high school, the small get-together had quickly turned into a crazy party, and while she wasn't trashed, she was definitely tipsy.
"C'mon Aria. Let's get you out of here." Her head spun as she looked up at the tuft of curly black hair and brown eyes she'd known since her first day of preschool. "Holden, you can't leave, but I should. I'm so late for my date."
"I'll get you home."
"You're sick," she growled. She shoved him forward and started heading down the hall again. She only made it five or so feet though, when he grabbed her arm and spun her around. He clapped his hands down on her biceps and grasped hard. He was at least a foot taller than her and towered over her. Aria cowered as she started to tremble under his grip.
"Tempt me, Montgomery," he seethed. "I'll do it again."
"Do what again?"
Aria popped her head around Grady's shoulder and spotted Mrs. Welsh. But before she could say anything, he was twisting a story about someone bullying her and making himself look like the hero. The mere idea of the story he was spinning made her sick to her stomach, but she didn't waste her time waiting around. She beat-foot it into her mother's classroom and then slammed the door shut behind her.
-
Lift it up like a banner
Hold it up over me
-
Aria stared out the window as she rocked back and forth in the rocking chair in Ezra's bedroom. Her history textbook rested in her lap, but she wasn't actually reading anything in it. She hated being stuck constantly around adults, but Grady's words were clear in her head. For the first time in days, she understood the fear that coursed through Ezra with the knowledge that his attacker was still out there somewhere.
And sure, Mrs. Welsh had seen them in the hallway, but the stories around school were wildly misconstrued. Most of the student body bought his version because he was friends with Noel and Sean. Aria hated it, but she knew that when they went to trial, evidence would stand up better than his lies would.
She looked over to the bed where Ezra was curled up into the blankets. She knew he had been watching her the night before when she slept because he had told her, but she hated knowing that he was so physically exhausted that he could barely make it through a day.
She closed her history book and leaned forward, resting it on the desk before she got up and walked over the bed. She rested a knee onto the mattress and then crawled onto it and laid down. She rested her head on the crook of Ezra's arm and snuggled up against his body before closing her eyes. He groaned wearily; he'd only been asleep for forty minutes or so. His eyes fluttered for a brief moment as he looked down at her and then closed his eyes again as he wrapped his arm around her.
"Okay?" He murmured.
Aria nodded, pressing her face into his chest. She breathed in his smell and let it comfort her as she laid there in his arms. His breathing grew shallower as he drifted back to sleep, and she turned her head slightly. She rested her head against his chest and listened to his heart thump softly while her fingers traced small circles.
"When are you going to get it through your head that I meant it when I said I would go to the police?" Byron's voice boomed in Aria's ears as she stood next to Ezra. Her hand was wrapped tightly in his, and he was as determined to refuse understanding now as he had been two weeks ago. Tears made slow paths down her cheeks as she looked up at Ezra. He breathed shakily and nodded.
"You want me to leave, but your daughter said something to me, and she was right. When we came to you before, I tried to level with you and listen to your opinions." Ezra looked down at Aria and then back up at Byron. "Now I'm going to make you listen to me."
Aria looked to her mother as she stood next to Byron. While he looked as if there was no changing his mind, there was conflict in Ella's eyes. She could see how this truly affected Aria.
"I tried to do things your way, and I know you and your wife want to brush this all under the rug. But I can't. No matter how hard I try not to, I love your daughter. Not because of the fact that she makes me happy, or makes things feel more real than they've felt in longer than I can remember...Aria saved my life, in more ways then I'll probably ever be able to explain to you."
Aria awoke to the sound of something loud slamming. She jumped into a seated position on the bed, and Ezra's arm fell from where it had rested across her ribs to her lap. He groaned and pulled his other arm down from over his eyes and looked over towards the door.
"What was that," he murmured.
Suddenly Byron appeared in the doorway with a smile on his face. Ella stumbled into him a moment later, smiling as well. "Sorry about that! We'll be quieter!"
Aria rolled her eyes and dropped back against the bed as Ezra covered his eyes again. They laid in silence for a while as they both slowly started to wake up. She wasn't sure how long she'd been sleep, but it couldn't have been more than half an hour or so, because the sun was only starting to set. She looked over towards Ezra and brushed her thumb against his jaw. He groaned softly and moved his arm up behind his head so that he could see her.
"You sleep okay?" He asked.
Aria shrugged. "I barely got to sleep."
Ezra moved his arm around her head and brushed strands of her hair off her face. "How was school?"
Aria looked down at her hands as she lifted them up to pick at her nails. "It was alright. Nothing too special happened."
"Really?" He asked, shaking his head as he narrowed his eyes at her. "That guy didn't corner you in the hallway?"
Aria rolled her eyes. "How did you find out?"
Ezra chuckled and pointed his eyes towards the doorway. "The parents talk. Specifically outside my office, when they think I'm sleeping. I overheard your dad telling Ethan about it. If wasn't pretending to rest, I probably would've jumped up and hunted the kid's address down."
"Please don't," Aria begged. She turned over on the bed and rested her upper arm on the bed, letting her fingers dig into her hair while her other hand rested on his chest. "The last thing we need is more trouble."
"Maybe someone should wake the children and tell them dinner is ready!"
Aria and Ezra shared a glance and they both giggled before moving off the bed. Aria walked out of the room first and Ezra followed after her, slipping his arma round her waist as they walked down the hall and into the kitchen.
"C'mon outside you two," Ethan said cheerfully. "It's beautiful out here."
They crossed past the kitchen counter and walked out to the backyard. If the size and beauty of the inside of Anne's home was any indication, the outside was just as beautiful. It arced out in a wide half-circle that was entirely landscaped. The backyard was separated from other homes by elm and pine trees that were at least twice the size of the three men.
Byron held a glass of scotch in his hand as they all stood outside the home, while everyone else had water or soda. Steaks were finishing up on the grill, and Anne occasionally stepped inside to check on potatoes she was cooking. The mood was light and wildly different from the atmosphere that had surrounded them all for the last twenty-four hours. There was a comfort in the chatter, instead of fear and discomfort.
Eventually, they all settled at a picnic table on the large deck that sat outside of Anne's home for dinner. Aria end Ezra sat side by side, while Ella and Byron sat between Anne and Ethan. Conversation was still light and unfocused. It shifted continuously from Rosewood Day to Hollis, to things that seemed entirely irrelevant.
By the time the sun had finally fallen under the horizon, they were all sated in ways of food, and conversation had slowed some. Aria and Ezra stuck to their general picking at their food, though they both seemed to eat more than usual.
Ezra pushed up from the table first, taking everyone's plates into a stack and carrying them inside of the house. Aria watched as he walked over to the dish washer and loaded the dishes into it, one by one. She pushed up from the table as well as the conversation among their parents shifted to a more serious manner, and they started talking about Grady and Ezra's unnamed assailant.
She walked into the house and leaned against the counter as Ezra pushed the dishwasher door shut and stood up straight. He turned around and filled a glass with water before taking a drink from it.
"I'm extremely bored," he said honestly.
Aria giggled. "Me too. Your mom's got a great house here, but-""It's not home," he finished for her. "Although, I'm not sure I'm staying in that apartment after all of this is said and done. I haven't signed a new lease yet, and I'm not risking staying in that place if he knows I live there."
Aria rested her chin on her knuckles, furrowing her brow. "Where will you go?"
Ezra shrugged. "I'll probably stay here for a few weeks while I find a new apartment somewhere in the city. Maybe Philadelphia. It's only a 20 minute drive."
"But-"
Ezra shook his head. "I know we've talked about New York, and LA and Seattle, and a dozen other cities, but that's next year, and it's a long way off from college acceptance letters. For now, I need to find somewhere that is actually in Rosewood, but close enough that I don't have to quit my job."
He settled his glass of water on the counter and then reached over and pulled her hands out from under her chin, squeezing them lightly in his own. "I'm not leaving. We didn't fight for our relationship as hard as we did just to lose it like this."
Aria squeezed Ezra's hand tightly in her own as the silence between them and her parents wavered on. She was entirely grateful that Mike was out of the house with friends.
"You," Byron finally said, pointing to Ezra. "Outside." He pointed towards the sliding doors in the kitchen that led out to the back yard.
Aria gulped as Ezra looked down at her and gently released her hand. He took several steps forward before she wrapped her hand around his bicep and pulled. He looked back at her, but her eyes turned towards her father.
"Don't hurt him."
Ezra pushed her hand off of his arm and walked out of the house, closely followed by Byron. Aria turned towards her mother. Ella hadn't moved much or spoken since Ezra had insisted that they listen.
"Mom-"Ella raised a hand to Aria as a dozen thoughts rushed through the older woman's mind, from the initial conversation they'd had after Ezra had come to them the first time, to the argument that was had the next morning, and all the conversations she'd had with Byron since.
"So this thing that's been going on with Holden the last few days," she said. "He's known about this?"
Aria started picking at the bright blue nail polish on her nails. She opened her mouth to say something, but there was only thing that made sense. She'd said it before and yet it seemed that every time she tried, she was shot down. But she had to keep what she'd said to Ezra at the front of her mind.
"I love him, mom. Not this stupid, childish, brainwashed way that you and Dad think, but real honest love." She whimpered and tears fell from her eyes. "I just want to be with him, mom. And I know it doesn't look right, but-"
"But nothing, Aria," Ella said firmly, shaking her hands at her. "It doesn't look right because it isn't right."
Aria crossed her arms over her body. "I won't give up, mom. I can't give up just because it's hard now."
Ella narrowed her eyes at Aria. "Because it's hard now? Has it really been that easy up to now? Aria, your father and I are trying to save you- hell, we're even trying to save Ezra, from a world of pain."
"I'm not hurting mom!" She cried. "At least because he's hurting me. What's hurting me is you and dad keeping us apart. And if you keep doing it, we're just going to keep finding ways to see each other."
Ella shook her head at Aria. "You're really going to fight your father and I like this?"
"I'll do whatever it takes to be with him," Aria replied.
"What's that you're reading?" Ella asked.
Aria looked up at her briefly and then held up the book. Ella chuckled.
"I thought your and Ezra's thing was old novels." Her mother said as she crossed the room. She sat down on the couch next to Aria and passed her a cup of tea. Aria took a sip and then settled it on the table nearby.
"I love To Kill A Mockingbird and Sense and Sensibility is still my favourite, but something about these books…" She looked up at Ella. "Their determination to fight for each other and make it work, even when everything has pulled them apart. Something about it just gets in my head."
"Familiarity?" Ella chuckled, taking a sip from her tea. "I read the original novel shortly after you bought it. You left it in class, remember?"
Aria nodded. It had been right after her mother had been hired on at Rosewood Day as a substitute. "And what did you think?"
Ella shrugged. "I remember after you and Ezra came to your father and I the second time, I saw you had that book on your desk, and it was open." "To what page?" Aria asked.
Ella offered her hand, and Aria passed the book to her mother. Ella flipped through the book and then stopped a few pages too far and flipped backwards. She began to read.
"'Your parents will never change their minds,' Riley said incessantly. 'Too much time has passed, and you've had to deal with too much because of me. It'll never change.'
But its this part," Ella said. "Under it, highlighted in blue." She looked over at Aria. "It was this."
Aria smiled. Her favourite part.
"'Pessimism never won a war,' Devon replied. 'And I thought you were willing to do whatever it took?'
'I AM,' Riley insisted. 'But-'
'Then but nothing. What's the worth in trying, if you get up as soon it gets too hard, Riley?'
An unwavering silence fell between them, until finally, Devon spoke once more.
'I'm not giving up on this — us. What we have means everything to me, and I'm not going to let people pull us apart because they don't understand.'"
Ella passed the book back to Aria with a smile. "Something tells me that's your favourite part of the book."
She shrugged slightly, turning the book back to the page she'd been on. "It's among them. I swear it wasn't planted-"Ella shook her head. "No, Aria, I would never say that. But I saw how you had that line underlined and then circled in pen, and I realized what it must mean to you. It's why I went to Ezra before you father did. Why I changed my mind sooner."
Aria bit down on her bottom lip as she set the book on the table next to her and grabbed her cup of tea. She shifted on the couch so that her back faced the corner of it and looked back up at Ella. "Did finding out about what happened to him make you and dad change your minds?"
Ella smiled sadly. "Her certainly does believe that, doesn't he?"
Aria nodded. "I think he feels like its unfair if you judged him because he thinks you and dad see him as damaged now."
Ella shook her head. "That is not how we see either of you. And if I'm being honest, I think if your father and I had known about Ezra's past when we found out you two were dating, we would've been more scared than anything. Especially if we had known that he wasn't dealing with it. Things like that eat away at a person in the worst way. I would've hated to have had to see you go through losing him over something caused by all of that."
"I was scared."Ella and Aria looked up. Ezra was standing in the doorway with his hands tucked in his pockets. He pressed his lips together in a thin line and then bit his tongue for a moment, nodding.
"I was terrified, actually," he continued. "I think in the back of my mind, I knew he was still out there, and talking about it makes it real. If I didn't have to talk about it, then I didn't have to deal with any of it, and I could sweep it under a rug. With Aria, I could be someone else; someone who wasn't who I used to be, and someone who wasn't one of the students attacked by the campus rapist. Every day got a little easier, and I stuffed it a little further down."He paused for a moment, staring down at the floor. "And then you were walking through the door at your house, and I knew everything before you even said it, and we were at the hospital in that room…"
"But it was never your fault," Anne spoke from behind him.
Ezra shook his head, though he didn't look up. There were a few tense moments of silence. Finally, Ella spoke.
"C'mon children. Let's get you tucked into bed."Ezra chuckled softly, slowly lifting his head up to look Aria. "We better shoo so the adults can talk."
She pushed up off the couch and grabbd her tea. Both Aria and Ezra said their good nights to their parents and then walked off towards Ezra's bedroom. They each climbed onto the bed and snuggled down under the blankets, but sleep didn't come easy. They both could tell that it wasn't going to be an restful night.
Aria rested her head on Ezra's chest, rubbing his back under his shirt as they laid there, talking quietly.
"Do you think this will be over soon?"
He shrugged, running his fingers lazily through her hair. "I hope so. My father seems to think that if the guy is still out there, he'll do something before the end of the year. Says he won't be able to resist it. "
Aria tilted her head up and looked up at him. "Does that scare you?"
"It terrifies me," he said honestly. "I mean, you know how they always tell you that you'd never let it happen again, given the choice? How some people go catatonic and block everything out, but therapists always tell you fight or flight will kick in, and you'll do everything you can to make sure it never happens again?"
Aria nodded.
"It doesn't take that long for a repeat offender to make you feel like it's your fault that things keep happnening to you. And even with our fathers at Hollis…" Ezra shook his head, staring off at a random spot on the wall. "I can't help but think that this guy is going to strike when I least expect it."