She sits in her bed with her knees curled up to her chest – Aria's given up on trying not to think of it as hers by now, petty mental rebellion isn't going to make any difference – and stares across the room at the static on the TV, hoping that if she watches it for long enough she'll fall into a trance, hoping that the white noise will keep her from suffocating under the weight of hour after hour of silence.
Ezra hasn't moved her, at least not yet, but he did bring in an old TV for her. It doesn't have any signal, of course; it has a built-in VHS player, and Ezra left her with a small stack of old movies. She doesn't know if he's trying to butter her up so she'll give him answers or just providing her with some source of entertainment because he's sick of her sulking, but it doesn't matter. She doesn't want to watch old movies. Old movies are what Ezra said he saw in Aria but really saw in Alison, the sophistication and mystique of leading ladies in a time gone by, the glamour of Grace Kelly, the coy smile of Audrey Hepburn. She's never been what he wanted. She's not his leading lady; she's not even his Lolita. She's a replacement for the real thing.
She didn't bother to turn on the lamp or the naked lightbulb on the ceiling today, which means the room is only illuminated by the glow of the crackling static of the television screen. She doesn't have a clock, and it's not like there are any windows, so she has no idea what time of day it is.
She hears a door slam. It sounds like a heavy door; it might be the entrance to this basement, or bunker, or whatever the hell it is. She hears footsteps pounding, getting louder and louder, and then moments later her door swings open with such force that it slams against the wall.
"What did you do?" he asks.
It's Ezra, but it's – his eyes are wider than she's ever seen and his jaw is tight and he's glowering at her, she's seen him angry but this is almost unhinged, this is – he strides across the room to her. "Aria! What did you do?" This time, he's practically bellowing.
"Wh-what?" she asks. She's quivering like a scared insect.
He grabs her by the upper arm and yanks her to her feet with a sharp tug; she clamps her teeth together to keep from whimpering in pain. "I saw the footage, Aria," he says, and her name sounds like a threat in his voice, it sounds like murder, a blade across her throat.
"Of what?" she asks.
She knows what footage he's talking about, of course: the footage of her going into his office. She's been afraid of this ever since. But she knows she can't know what he's talking about, not if she's going to be convincing, and even through the searing heat of her panic she knows not to let herself know this.
"You went into my office," he says, and then he shakes her for emphasis. His grip on her arm is going to leave bruises. "What were you doing in my office?"
She blinks at him. "That?" she asks. "That – I was looking for Advil, Ezra! I had a headache, I was looking everywhere–"
"And you thought you could go into my private space?" he asks.
Aria doesn't have to force her tears, but she does have to force herself to say what she needs to say next. "I've been doing that for over a year," she says, her voice soft, and then she lets him hear the quiet sob that follows.
Ezra just looks down at her, face inscrutable.
"I swear, Ezra, I was just looking for Advil, I swear," she says, voice trembling. "I'm sorry, I – I won't do it again."
Neither of them speaks for a moment. "No, you won't," Ezra says at last, but he lets go of her arm, and she backs away from him on instinct. She doesn't sit on her bed – something about that feels too vulnerable, even though she's fully dressed and he hasn't shown the slightest interest or inclination since she found out – but she stumbles backwards until the backs of her calves are pressed against the baseboard of the bed, and she holds the red mark on her arm where he'd gripped her with his other hand.
"What did you see when you were in there?" Ezra asks.
Aria swallows. "Photos of Ali," she says. "Um, there were papers on your desk. It looked like financial stuff. I didn't look at them, though, I just saw numbers."
Ezra smirks, letting out a low hum that sounds like something halfway to a chuckle. "I guess you wouldn't recognize tax forms, would you?" he asks.
Ezra's never been inclined to make comments about her age; they'd always been so entrenched in the idea that age was just a number, that it didn't mean anything. Now he can't pass up an opportunity to mock her about it, to patronize her, as though he's making up for the last year of biting his tongue about it. She'd always assumed they were on the same page about her maturity. It had never occurred to her that he'd been humoring her the whole time, keeping his real thoughts to himself.
She wonders if this is what it felt like for her mother to find out her dad had been hiding an affair from her – to find out Aria had been hiding his affair from her for two years. Maybe this is what she deserves, to go from being the betrayer to being the betrayed. She wonders what Alison would have to say about her, what A would have to say about her –
– she knows what A has to say about her. He's standing right in front of her, and he's already said it.
Aria bites down on her lip, and squeezes her arm tighter.
Ezra sighs and looks over his shoulder, like he's already bored of her and out of patience to see if she'll provide any entertainment. Then he fixes his gaze on her and raises an eyebrow. "When's the last time you changed your clothes?"
Aria shrugs. "I don't know."
"Well, it's been too long," he says. "You were wearing the same outfit in the footage."
"It's not like I packed for –" Aria stops herself mid-sentence.
Ezra smiles. "Check the closet," he says, and then looks her up and down. "Then again, they may not fit you anymore. Ah, well, you'll make it work."
"You went shopping for me?" Aria asks. Her voice shakes a little.
Ezra laughs. "I'm not sure I quite captured your… unique flair," he says, and Aria's skin crawls at the assessment of her style. "Take a shower and change. I'll get some lunch ready." The Spencer in Aria's brain files away the fact that it's lunchtime, but Aria can't really find it in herself to care that much right now. "Oh, and," Ezra holds a hand out in midair, "um, put on some makeup, would you? You look a bit like a corpse." He strolls out of the room, and she hears him lock the door from the other side.
The second his footsteps fade out of hearing she clamps her hands over her mouth and shudders with her whole body, a silent sob, the kind so forceful it hurts her stomach. She takes deep breaths for a few moments, squeezing her eyes shut to hold back the flow of tears, and then, once she pulls herself together enough, makes her way over to the closet and opens it.
It's full of dresses. Almost all of them have the kinds of cinched waists and flared skirts she used to wear a lot back when she and Ezra first met; the kind she'd since started trading in for more sophisticated silhouettes and avant-garde figures. The kind she'd mostly stopped wearing in order to look older. She doesn't know what message Ezra's trying to send, that he liked it when she dressed younger or just that he doesn't like her style, but either way the implication makes her feel ill.
There are a few drawers in the closet; she opens the top one, which is full of all sorts of patterned tights, and then the second, which is full of bras and underwear – a week ago, Ezra buying her nice underwear would have seemed sexy to her, but now it makes her stomach drop.
She goes to the bathroom attached to her room and showers. She steps under the stream of water, and all of a sudden, she remembers what Maggie had called her, just a few weeks ago: "… a kid who maintains her grade point average by sleeping with her teacher."
She turns the knob to run the water as hot as she can, as though burning a layer of skin off will make her feel less gross about herself.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thinks about how Hanna would give her props for driving up Ezra's water bill, and the thought makes her smile a little but it doesn't make her laugh. There's a razor in the shower, so she shaves even though she doesn't want to, because if Ezra minds her not wearing makeup then he definitely won't be pleased at her having armpit hair. She hates that showering makes her feel even a little bit better, but it does, if only because she no longer smells like the woods where everything had gone wrong, where her life had changed forever. She's spent too much of the last couple of years being terrified in the woods, but this had been the worst of all; she's definitely never getting a cottage. If she ever gets out of here, that is.
She brushes out and dries her hair, puts on her makeup, working on autopilot; she does herself up just enough to have followed Ezra's instructions. She puts on a black dress and a pair of patterned black tights. Not a single pair of shoes in the closet looks remotely comfortable; she goes with a pair of black booties with a low heel. She hates feeling like she's dressing up for him. She hates that he's choosing her outfits, like she's a little doll he gets to play dress up with. Her clothes have always been her strength, her armor, her art, hers, and now she doesn't even have that anymore.
She closes her eyes and breathes. Think, Aria, think. Ezra's going to have lunch with her, which means she needs to suppress everything she can and focus on getting something out of this, out of him. Ezra's having lunch with her; unless he's deliberately trying to deceive her about the time of day, that means he's free to be here for lunch, which means it must be a weekend. It's been almost a week, then, and that's not really a surprise but it leaves her feeling hollow. She's sure her friends have figured out what's happened to her, but for all she knows they're being threatened into silence, and with her mom in Europe and her dad in Syracuse all the time, there's no one but Mike to notice that she hasn't been home, and she has no idea how much Mike's even been around the house, nowadays. She hasn't been at school, but Ezra works at the school, and he's freaking A; he can fudge the attendance records, or make sure the administration is informed that she's down with a bad case of mono, or something. She's never been the one whose parents are always out of town while her life falls apart – that was always Spencer, in that big, empty house – and just thinking about it makes her feel more alone than ever.
So she'll think about something else. Wilden – she can try to figure out why Ezra knows Wilden wasn't the one who got Ali pregnant. She can enter this lunch armed with a mission. It's something, at least.
She looks at herself in the mirror just long enough to know Ezra will approve and to let that thought make her feel sick, and then walks to the door of her room. He's unlocked it by now – he must have done so while she was in the shower. She turns the knob and walks out towards the kitchen.
Ezra made a salad. Something about that, the fact that Ezra prepared food and didn't just order something in or grab something from a nearby store, makes her want to cry – then again, maybe he's just making sure she doesn't see any labels that could clue her in as to where they are. "Much better," he says when he sees her, and she ignores him and takes a seat at the table. She serves herself. Part of her thinks she should wait for his okay, now that she doesn't know what will set him off, but the last thing she wants is him to serve her so she decides the risk is worth it. The salad is fine when Ezra's cooking has always been great, but then she's not a priority to him anymore, so it makes sense he wouldn't care to put in the effort.
"Why are you doing this?" she asks. "Do you have more pictures or something?"
"Not exactly," Ezra says. "I wanted for us to… talk."
Aria blinks at him, keeping her eyes wide and blank. "About?" she asks.
"About Alison," Ezra replies. "And your father."
For a moment, Aria's chest is ready to seize in panic. He must have figured out where that photo of Alison had been taken, and that she'd lied to him about it, and – if she panics, she risks giving something away. She can't panic; she can't even think about the reason she has to panic.
"…yeah?" she asks, after a moment.
Ezra rolls his eyes. "Cut the crap, Aria. You know about them."
"Yeah, she knew about Meredith and she was blackmailing him for money," Aria says. "She was threatening to tell my mom. That's… everyone knows that, now." By everyone, of course, she means she and her friends and presumably the A-Team, but there hasn't been anyone else that mattered for a long time. The game was all there was, no matter how much they tried to fight it, and there wasn't any space for anyone else.
"Do you think Ali was sleeping with your father?" Ezra asks.
"No!" Aria doesn't even think before she's throwing the word across the table at him.
Ezra raises an eyebrow. "That was emphatic."
Aria feels sick at the very suggestion. "No, he – just, no." He's not like you, she thinks, but that thought makes her feel even more nauseous.
"Hm," Ezra says, and looks back down at his plate. "I haven't found any proof, but I was curious, with your dad having a penchant for young blondes and all. Maybe you're right."
She can tell from his tone that he isn't going to give her anything more, which means this is her chance to strike. "Wait, why are you trying to figure out who else Ali was with that summer?" she asks.
Ezra looks back up at her, amused. "Oh, come on, Aria. We both know there were plenty of others, and this is Alison. There's a good chance she's managed to keep a few under wraps for this long."
"Then how are you so sure you're the one who…" Aria can't finish the sentence, can't get out those words, but she can tell that Ezra knows exactly what it is she can't bring herself to say. "How do you know it wasn't Wilden, or Ian?"
Ezra studies her for a moment, and then the corner of his mouth quirks up. "It wasn't Ian, the timelines don't match up."
"And Wilden?"
Ezra's smile widens into a smirk. "Alison was already pregnant when she met Wilden," he says.
Aria doesn't want to think about what that means, but she knows, by the dropping of her stomach and the bile rising in her throat.
Alison was pregnant all summer, she thinks, dizzy even though she's sitting down and even sicker than before. The entire world's been pulled out from under her feet so many times by now she's not even sure she has a center of gravity anymore; she's anchorless, all alone, and spinning, spinning, spinning.