I do not own PLL.
I wrote this before I wrote Chapter 8, and it is one of my favorites. I hope you like it as much as I do.
One more chapter (a really epic one), and one more insert and the story will be finished. We're almost there!
The first knock was expected, and Ezra didn't look up from his paperwork when he heard knuckles rapping against wood, the sound filling his office at Hollis with sharp sounds. "Leave your paper on the table next to the door, Mr. Rivers, and I'll take a look at it," he said sullenly. He was marking a paper, circling the black and white letters with red pen, when a female voice answered.
"I had a crush on you," the voice said quietly taking up the empty space in his doorframe. "In high school, I had a crush on you." Ezra looked at Aria, who was walking closer to him as she spoke. "That's why I kissed you that night in the bar," she continued softly. "To see what it would be like. I didn't mean to hurt you or lie to you." When he ignored her and looked back down to his grading, Aria sat in the empty seat across from his desk. "I didn't mean to fall in love with you or make you fall for me."
Ezra sighed and then put down his pen. He looked at her and rubbed his face with his hand. When he began to speak, he was unable to mask the raw emotion in his voice. "I didn't even remember you. And you were right there all along. In your words." He looked away.
"Words are a way of letting out what we keep locked inside," said Aria philosophically. She crossed her legs, and leaned back in her chair. "I was hurt my last year of high school. All I knew how to do was write. And you encouraged that." She paused for a moment. "I'm not that person anymore. I'm not hurting anymore."
"Just stop," let out Ezra, the words coming out harsher than he intended. "It went too far, Aria. The game. You should have told me who you were before I took you home that first night. You should have kept your fantasies to yourself."
"But they weren't fantasies," she protested weakly. "I never really thought of you in that way. Not until you were interested in me. And you were interested in me, the me that I am now. Maybe we didn't go far enough," she theorized. "We never actually slept together. Maybe if we had you wouldn't see the girl you knew ten years ago."
"Thank goodness we didn't," Ezra told her, shaking his head in relief. "I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror right now."
Aria cleared her throat before posing another question. "If I hadn't ended up in your class that year, if there had been some fluke in the schedule, and you hadn't been my teacher. If I hadn't broken down in your class and cried, would you feel like you do now?"
He responded with silence.
"I didn't think so."
"What are you doing here, Aria?" he asked tiredly.
"I thought it was obvious," she replied. She reached for his hand across the desk, brushing it.
He recoiled and repeated, "What are you doing here, Aria? At Hollis?"
Snatching her hand back, Aria straightened in her seat. "Today I'm talking to Professor Adamson's last class. I came to tell you that I'm leaving for Reykjavik tomorrow. I also talked to my publishers. I've done the bulk of my work already, so I can continue working from Iceland if I want."
She got up, grabbed her purse, and walked to the door. When she reached the entryway, she turned back around and looked at Ezra who sat dejectedly in his chair and stared down at the papers in front of him, cradling his head in his hands. He looked tired and worn. His tie was crumpled and his shirt was wrinkled. "It wasn't all fun and games for me," she explained one last time. "At first it was. But then it became something real. Whatever we had, it was real."
"When?" questioned Ezra, looking up at her. "When did it become real to you?"
"When you invited to your house that first night, and I saw…everything."
"And what's everything?" he asked harshly. "My book collection, my living room, my kitchen?"
"No," she said, her voice soft but firm. "When I saw a house that I could grow old in and a man I could raise children with. That," she finished slowly, "that's everything." She swallowed. "Good-bye, Ezra."
When Ezra looked up, Aria was gone. He thought he could hear her heels in the distance, faintly clicking on tile and wood flooring as she walked away from him. He didn't stop her.
The second knock was anticipated, and unwanted. But when Ezra saw the dean standing in the doorway, he ushered the man in and urged him to take a seat. Byron Montgomery sat down calmly, cool and collected, as he surveyed the objects in the room. Ezra shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He couldn't remember the last time the dean had come down to his office for a talk, and he suspected that the reason had nothing to do with English department.
"Aria informed me last night that she wasn't sure she was going to come back to Rosewood for a while."
Ezra was silent, unsure of how to answer.
Byron cleared his throat and continued. "I thought she was coming home for good this time. She told me she was tired of traveling." He got up and paced the room for a moment, looking at the books and paper littered around the office. "I thought she had found a reason to stay. I suppose I was wrong." He stopped moving when his gaze caught a picture on the far end of the room. "Aria took this didn't she?" he asked, indicating the photograph. He studied it for a few seconds. "I recognize her work. She can do something with perspective that most people can't." After looking at the photo for a few moments longer, Byron once again sat down across from Ezra.
Byron sighed. "Aria has been running away since she was eighteen. She ran away after high school, and she just never…stopped. I used to think she was running away from something, away from the tragedy of her mother's death. But I think," he took another breath, "I think she was running towards something, looking for something that took her a long time to find."
"Did she find it?" asked Ezra, suddenly finding his voice.
"She's a lot like her dad," replied Byron. "I married my second wife, Meredith, when Aria was in college. I was trying to replace Aria's mother. I loved her so much even though I know that she could never love me in the same way. Meredith and I divorced three years after we got married." He looked down at his hands for a moment before directing his gaze to the younger man. "She will try to find happiness somewhere else, and she will fail. She loves you, and she's in love with the life she imagined with you."
"I'm sorry," let out Ezra, his voice thick with emotion. "I'm so sorry. But I can't sentence her to that kind of life. Everyone will always wonder. Didn't you?" He looked at Byron helplessly, confusion and pain in his eyes.
"Zack did," admitted Byron, referring to Aria's stepfather. "He loves her almost as much as I do. But no, I didn't. Even with everything Jackie accused you of. The Aria I know would never fall in love with a man like that. And the Ezra Fitz I know would never be that kind of man." Byron paused before he added, "Otherwise, you wouldn't be this torn up about it."
Ezra searched for the words to say, but they refused to be spoken.
"Aria has a rare quality. She can make people fall in love with her. She gets that from her mother. But when she loves them back, she loves them fiercely and unconditionally." Byron took a piece of paper from his pocket and set it down on Ezra's desk.
"What's this for?" he asked, looking at the crumpled post-it.
"It's in case you want to give her a reason to stay," replied Byron, getting up from his chair. "You know," he said, looking at Ezra one last time, "I hired you because of all the good things Aria said about you when she was in high school. And I like you," the older man said simply. "Having you as part of my family, it wouldn't be such a bad thing."
Ezra looked down as the piece of paper in his hands and read it. When he looked back up, Aria's father was gone, leaving him alone with his thoughts…and conflicted emotions.
The third knock was barely a knock. Instead, it was a quick rapping of the knuckles as a brown-haired woman breezed in and plopped down on the seat across from Ezra's desk. "I set you up," Spencer let out bluntly. "With Aria, I set you up. I made sure you would both be in the bar alone that night. Toby thought the whole thing was nuts," she added in his defensive. "He knew you wouldn't like it."
Ezra ignored his friend and continued working on his computer, the clicking of his mouse the only sound that he emitted.
"I know you don't like me setting you up, but you were so perfect for each other. I just knew you were meant to be together." She waited for a response. When it wasn't forthcoming, she continued. "I grew up with Aria. I was with her the night her mom died. Did anyone tell you how she died?" Greeted with silence, Spencer decided to elaborate. "Her mom died in car accident driving to Aria's eighteenth birthday party. It was December, her senior year of high school, and the roads were icy, and some moron under the influence was driving the car behind her. Aria felt really guilty for a really long time. It took her years to get over that guilt. It will take her years to get over this."
"She knew better," muttered Ezra quietly.
"Maybe," agreed Spencer. "But maybe she was taking a chance. She's not the same person she was ten years ago. The traveling was good for her, but it's time for her to stop. She what holds Zack and Byron together. She's all they have of Ella, and they're all the family she has left."
"She can stay for them," said Ezra, never taking his eyes off the screen.
"And what kind of life would that be?" asked Spencer. "They would have her, but what would she have? Reminders that her mother isn't there to glue them together anymore?" Spencer sighed and leaned back in her seat before continuing. "Professor Adamson offered her her job, now that she's retiring. Aria could've been the photography professor here at Hollis. Did you know that? That's the news she wanted to tell you the morning you broke up with her. She was going to stay for you. She was going to be there for you."
"What do you know about relationships, Spencer?" yelled Ezra suddenly, scattering the contents of his desk all over the floor. "You've been engaged to Toby for three years, yet you refuse to wear a ring and set a date! You don't even acknowledge him as the man you're going to marry."
Spencer was suddenly silenced, the shock on her face apparent. She looked at her friend and saw fury in his eyes. And pain. "Most people don't think Toby and I are a good match. I have a PhD and he has a GED. I'm a professor, and he's a carpenter. But it works for us," she said slowly, quietly. "Our life works for us. You have to figure out what works for you. What people think doesn't really matter. It only matters what you think of yourself. And what Aria thinks of you."
"She lied to me," said Ezra, his boiling anger stilling into silent rage. "And so did you."
Spencer got up from the chair. "You talk about lying as if you had nothing to do with this. You didn't remember her! She told you, and you couldn't remember. I don't think you're mad at her-or at me. I think you're mad at the fact at the fact that she didn't make an impression on you until she was sliding her tongue down your throat. And that's your fault, not hers."
When Ezra looked back up at Spencer, she was gone.
That night, Ezra came home later than usual. It was dark out, and he stumbled over something as he tried to unlock his front door. It was a package. Taking it inside, he wondered why the mailman had left it there instead of next to his mailbox like he usually did.
Ripping apart the brown packaging paper, Ezra received his answer when he saw what it contained. It was a black and white photograph of his house. He studied it carefully, remembering the day Aria took it. It was the day he told he loved her for the first time. They were happy then, he was happy then.
Turning the picture frame so that he could look at the photo from different angles, Ezra realized that black and white film really meant the picture was taken in shades of gray. But also saw that Aria had taken a picture of his house, but she had made it look like a home.