(A/N:) Okay, to all of those who hate John (which I'm pretty sure is everyone who would like John) get ready to hate him even more after this chapter… enjoy!
13.
When the cab had pulled up to Aria's house, she glanced at her watch and saw it was almost two in the morning. Groaning, she rubbed her tired eyes before paying the taxi driver the cab fare. "Have a good night," the driver grunted.
"Yeah, you too," Aria mumbled while hobbling out of the cab. As he drove off, she stumbled up the driveway and eventually got to the door. She huffed as she dug through her purse for her keys, but before she could find them, the door swung open to reveal an irate John. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked through gritted teeth harshly.
Aria sighed and simply walked past him into the dark house. All the lights had been turned off hours ago. But once she was a couple feet inside, John grabbed her by the arm, yanking her back. She looked at him with disgust as his cold fingers wrapped around her upper arm. She wretched her arm away and answered angrily, yet quietly, "I went out, John! It's no big deal!"
"No big deal?!" John repeated, following Aria as she strutted into the kitchen. "Aria, it is a big deal! You ran out of here with no mention of where you're going or when you're coming back and then when you do, you come back reeking of scotch and gin!"
She raised her arms before slapping them to her side. "It's not a big deal! So I went out and had a few drinks for the first time in the last damn decade! You do that weekly, so why the hell is this so awful?!"
"Lower your voice, please," John ordered spitefully. "The kids are asleep and I don't want them to wake up to their drunk-off-her-ass mother."
Aria snarled her lip at him before turning around and grabbing an apple from a bowl on the table. "By the way," John continued, "don't worry about the laundry or the dishes or packing the lunches. I did it all while you went out and got shit faced."
Aria whipped her head around so fast she was surprised her neck didn't hurt. "Do you want a medal, John?! I do that stuff every day of my goddamn life! Excuse me for taking a break for one night in the last seven or so years!"
John rolled his eyes and growled, "It's not my jobs to do those things!"
"Oh, and it's mine?!" Aria countered. John nodded and Aria scoffed. "Last time I checked, we were both parents! We both have to take responsibility for our kids! We both should be making their lunches and feeding them dinner! You shouldn't dump all the responsibility on me!"
"Yeah, but I have to go to a real job and make money for all of us! Don't act like I don't do a damn thing around here!" John argued back.
Aria looked at him in disbelief and questioned angrily, "A real job?! What, my job is fake?" She gulped before walking towards him so they were standing face to face. "And you know what? You don't do a damn thing around here! Yes, you work, but that's only eight hours of the fucking day, John! The rest of time, you expect me to wait on you hand and foot! I'm not your slave, John! I'm your fucking wife!"
"Then start acting like one! And start acting like a damn mom, too!"
Aria flinched; you could call her a bad wife all day long, but if you insulted her parenting, she wouldn't have it. She put her all into parenting, trying to do everything physically possible for her kids ninety-nine percent of the time. She tried to talk to them, get them into the best schools, get them the nicest things. And hearing John insult her parenting, when he didn't try even half as hard as her, snapped something inside of her.
Before she knew it, she had lifted her hand and slapped John hard across his face. His cheek was pink and you could see a hand print. Gulping, Aria took a step back upon seeing the wrath in his eyes. "D-don't talk to me like that," Aria ordered as she backed away.
John clenched his jaw before repeating her action and slapping her equally as hard across her face, his wedding ring creating a slight gash in her cheek. Aria yelped and clutched her cheek once he pulled back his hand. Tears instantly rushed in her eyes and she crumbled to the floor. John took a step back and a wave of guilt crashed over him, but he couldn't find it in him to say sorry.
As she held her face and leaned against the kitchen island, John sighed. "Get up and go to bed, Aria. You need to sleep," he ordered, surprisingly soft in tone. He walked towards the staircase before glancing at the couch then back at his wife, who was sobbing and groveling on the kitchen floor. John gulped down the lump in his throat as he watched her. He just lost his temper, he didn't intend on hurting her. "I'll, uh, I'll take the couch."
XXXX
"Aria, sweetheart, please hurry up," John pleaded impatiently as he stood outside their shared bathroom door. They had been silent all morning, simply glancing at each other when they shuffled around the kitchen for coffee or passing each other in the hallway. "Aria, I need to get into the bathroom."
Aria rolled her eyes as he begged outside the door. She didn't usually take this long to do her hair and makeup and overall prep for the day, but due to the bright red gash on her cheek that John had created last night, makeup took a little more time than usual.
"Baby, I'm going to be late to work if you don't hurry up," John stated, tapping his foot on the wooden floor. "Aria, what's taking you so long?!"
She clenched her jaw before leaving the mirror and swinging open the door. "I have to cover up this goddamn gash in my cheek, John! You have nobody to blame but yourself!"
He flinched, knowing she had a very good point and that the fresh wound was his fault. "Just hurry up, okay? It shouldn't be that hard to put some makeup on it."
Aria gaped at him and snapped in a retort, "It shouldn't be that hard to know to not slap me!"
"Lower your voice, please," John hissed through clenched teeth.
She looked at him incredulously, appalled that he wouldn't even admit that he was wrong or say sorry. Aria just didn't want to look at him anymore and decided she would do her makeup later. "The bathroom's all yours, John," Aria mumbled brokenly as she walked past him and headed to her closet. John felt another twinge of guilt, but he was too prideful to say a simple 'sorry.'
XXXX
"Mom, where did you go last night?" Chloe asked once they pulled to a stop light.
Rubbing her pounding head, Aria groaned under her breath. She opened her mouth to answer – and lie, of course – but Matt cut her off. "When did you come home?"
Chloe nodded, wanting to hear the answer to that too before interrogating further, "And why were you and Dad fighting? I heard you two late last night."
Aria willed the light to turn green so she could drop them off quicker, but the longer she glared at it, the longer it stayed red. Matt added, "And how did you get that scratch on your cheek?"
Aria took a deep breath and snapped a little, "I don't have the answers, okay?!" Her kids winced slightly and she held her head in her hands. Her kids' constant questions that had horribly negative answers were not helping her raging hangover.
Chloe just rolled her eyes at her mom and noticed the light flick to green. "Green means go," she murmured under her breath as she unlocked her phone.
"Wh-what?" Aria asked, glancing in the backseat.
"The light's green, Mom," Matt clarified, preventing Chloe from giving an explanation full of attitude. Aria sighed and began to drive again. The car was only filled with the sound of Chloe's keyboard clicks and the radio before Chloe asked, "How do you not have the answers to those questions? They're pretty straight forward…"
Aria bit her cheek and huffed, "Chloe…"
"Did you mean you don't have the lies you want to tell us ready?" Chloe corrected in an irritated tone.
"Chloe, don't start. And don't use that tone, you know I hate that," Aria stated, resting one arm on the edge of the window and holding her head in one of her hand's as she drove.
Chloe scoffed and asked, "Mom, 'where were you' is a simple question! You just took off and Dad was all, like, freaked and you wouldn't answer your phone and-"
"I do not need to report to you where I am at every second," Aria interrupted angrily. "And I don't need to report to your dad or your brother either, okay?"
"God, why have you been acting so weird? You've been pissing everyone off and-"
"Chloe! Do not use that word, you know better," Aria reprimanded as she pulled into the school parking lot. "Now go, you're gonna be late."
"Yeah, because you took forever to leave the house," Chloe countered.
Aria gaped at her daughter and was at her wit's end. "Once you get home," Aria started, staring down at her daughter, "I'm taking your phone."
Chloe just scoffed and rolled her eyes, knowing her dad would let her keep it. "Whatever, Mom."
Once Matt and Chloe both got out of the car, Aria sped out of the school lot at fast as she could and head to the office. She gulped as she drove, feeling tears rush to her eyes. John's words of how she hadn't been acting like a mom recently and those thought of self-doubt crept into her mind. As she pulled to a stop sign, she slammed her fists against the steering wheel before gripping it tightly and willing away the tears that were threatening to spill. She had spent way too much time on her makeup to ruin it by crying.
XXXX
Aria popped two more ibuprofens into her mouth before returning to the manuscript she was working on editing. But as hard as she tried to go through the words and story on the page, she couldn't focus for the life of her. Her thoughts were scrambled everywhere; one part of her mind was thinking about her kids and their sudden resentment towards her, another was thinking about John and how painful it had been – emotionally and physically – when he struck her, and another thinking about Ezra.
He'd called her once this morning before she left the house, but she ignored it, not wanting to hear what he had to say. Aria knew she had left their conversation very open ended at the bar last night, but she liked it that way. She didn't want to totally reject him, nor could she accept him.
As if her thoughts mirrored his at that exact moment, his secretary stepped into her cubicle. "Mr. Fitz wants to see you in his office right away," she explained. Aria figured as much.
"Uh, can you tell him I'm busy?" Aria plead as she held the manuscript she was working on up. "I have to get through this as soon as possible."
"He said it was urgent," the secretary explained simply.
Aria rolled her eyes and muttered almost silently under her breath, "Of course it is… Um, tell him I'll be right there."
The woman nodded before heading back to her own office. Once she turned the corner, Aria held her head in her hands again and tried to get a plan of action in her scattered mind. She finally planned to just not say anything at all and nod or shake her head at whatever Ezra said. A fraction of her hoped her called her in to legitimately discuss business, but she knew that wasn't the case.
Taking a deep breath, Aria got up and smoothed out her purple, silk blouse. One thing she was worried about him bringing up was the very clear gash in her cheekbone. Nobody had brought it up yet, but she caught a handful of people glancing her way in a confused manner when she went into the break room.
"You can just head in," Ezra's secretary assured as she drew closer to his office door. Aria nodded curtly before wrapping her hand around the cold, steel door handle and walking inside. Ezra offered her a warm smile once she entered, but his boyish grin faltered when he spotted the mark on her cheek. He would definitely bring that up once he finished getting a few other conversation topics off his mind.
"Please, sit," Ezra advised, motioning to the two arm chairs across his cherry wood desk. Aria nodded and gulped as she sank down in one of them and focused on the pen cup on his desk. She smiled a very tiny bit as she saw the identical pens bunched in the cup. The same pens Ezra always used. He hadn't changed at all, yet she felt like she had become a whole new person.
He stared at her, waiting for her to say something and break the ice since the ball had been totally left in her court from the night before. But after a few minutes of incessant ticking from the clock on his desk, Ezra sighed and made the first move, "Aria, I think we really need to talk."
(A/N:) So a lot happened in this chapter! What was your favorite part? And I can't wait to see what all you Anti-John people (aka readers) think of what he did!
PS I hope you enjoyed this long chapter because the next one isn't that long… but good news! I wrote a LOT more so I'll be updating sooner!
Please review!
-Mandy (also, I'm MandaPanda2228 on twitter so I suggest you follow me because I post updates on updates for this story and some spoilers ;) )