A/N: You guys are so spoiled... I'm going home. Might post chapter 25 tomorrow! :)

Chapter 24

The Last Thing On Your Mind

Monday came with an eagerness to test Aria's frustrations. As promised, her mother brought photos. But rather than bringing in just a few for Aria to choose from, she brought an entire album that she'd been putting together since Aria was a baby. At lunch time, she found herself standing in her mother's classroom, flipping through the album.

She picked up her sub sandwich off the desk and took a bite out of it as she flipped past a page filled with baby photos of her. She chuckled as she stared down at a photo of she and Mike. He was a little over a year, and it was her third birthday. They were both covered in cake frosting. She was also missing her two front teeth.

Ella was moving books into boxes on the desk next to Aria's. She looked over at the photo and chuckled. "I remember that birthday. You broke your tooth-" "Running into the end of the table," Aria said with a laugh. "There was blood all over my dress."

"Your grandmother went nuts when that happened. She was so sure that you'd go back to daycare the next morning and that someone would say you'd been hit."

Aria smiled, turning the page. She came across a photo of she and Spencer from the first grade. Nearby was a photo of she, Hanna, and Alison. She ran her fingers down the photo.

After a bit of procrastination, she finally decided on a few. She flipped the book back to the front page, where her youngest photos were. She still hadn't decided on a baby photo. There was the option of taking one which showed Ella holding her. She was about a month in the photo, and Ella had her cradled in her arms. Next to that photo was a picture of her from the same day, except Byron was holding her. He was cradling her as well, but she was awake, and he was smiling at the camera.

Near the bottom of the page was a photo of her a few months older, up on her hands and knees smiling and attempting to crawl. Given the current situation with her parents, she decided on that one. She pulled the flap of the album back and pulled the photo free. She flipped the album shut once she had the photo, and then settled it on the desk and tucked the photos into her bag. She wrapped her sandwich up and grabbed it off the desk. "Thanks."

"Aria."

Aria ignored her mother's voice, walking over to the door. She reached out for the door handle, but Ella repeated her name, this time more firmly.

"What?" She said, annoyed. She turned in her spot and looked back at her mother. "What is it that you want so bad?"

Ella stared back at her for a long moment, and wondered if the conversation was a lost cause. After all that had gone on in the last month, she wondered if maybe things had finally gone too far to fix anything.

"You know your father and I still care about you," she said.

Aria shook her head, struggling to hold in her laughter at her mother's comment. "Actually, I don't. Where were you, mom? Where were you when I was getting shoved into lockers? When a group of girls kicked me to the floor last week? When all I wanted was for you to listen to Ezra and me about our relationship. I needed you to be on my side, and you shut me out and kicked me out of my own home!" Ella folded her hands in front of her and pressed her lips together, taking a deep breath. "Your relationship with Ezra-" "I already know what you think of my relationship with Ezra!" Aria told her. "And I don't care anymore. I don't care that you don't like it or that you think I should be with someone my own age, because after everything that's happened Ezra was there. And he never told me I had to leave or I wasn't welcome anymore."

Aria turned back to the door again and reached once more to open it. Her hand rested on the doorknob, but Ella spoke once again.

"I understand that, but I wish that you would give me a chance to listen now." Ella said. "I still care about you, Aria, and so does your father. We just want you to give us that chance."

"After all this time?' Aria asked. Her voice was raw and strained. She didn't understand why her parents wanted her to talk now, after weeks of nothing. She shook her head. "I don't know. It's one thing for me to have a relationship with Mike. It's another to let you and dad back in."

"Aria-" Aria shook her head, looking back once more at her mother as she finally pushed the door open. "Wishing is just waiting on something that's never going to happen. I should know."

-
In the shadow, here I am
And I need someone by my side
-

Aria walked into class on Tuesday morning with very little resolve to say anything to her mother. Her mind was swimming with all of the things that her mother was bombarding her with the last few days. It didn't help that her father also seemed to be trying to reach out as well. The sudden change was like whiplash to her after all that had happened.

She settled into her desk and pulled her notebook out. She opened it to a fresh page and then uncapped a pen placed it on the end of the pen. She chewed on the end of it as she stared down at the blank page. Writing usually let her expel all of her pent-up feelings, but she didn't even know where to begin with everything going through her head.

Just a week before, her parents were absolutely useless to help either she or Ezra in their own respective situations, and now it was like a light switch flipped.

She'd be lying to herself if she didn't admit that a part of her wanted her parents to wake up and realize they still cared about her. She'd wanted that for weeks. But the constant back and forth in her own mind with all of the things that had happened was making her nuts, and it was a lot easier to shut her parents out the way they had shut her out, than to open up her emotions and let them back in after the ways they had hurt her.

She heard footsteps, and looked up. Ella walked into the classroom. She looked back at Aria as she crossed through the doorway, but then walked to the desk at the front of the room, wordlessly. Aria looked back down at her notebook.

The room was awkwardly silent for a while as she sat and stared at her blank notebook page. Ella said nothing, and Aria made no move to say anything either. As like any other day though, eventually students began to file into the classroom. Aria finally looked up when Spencer, Hanna, and Emily walked in, ten minutes before class was set to start. They each walked over to her. Hanna sat on Aria's left, while Emily sat in her regular desk, and Spencer sat in the desk in front of Aria.

"Why did you come in here before us?" Spencer asked. "Your mom-" "Wouldn't say anything unless she wanted to start an argument that the entire junior class could hear," she replied. "She's upset with me, and that's great. It's exactly what I want."

"You want your mother upset with you," Spencer asked quietly. "What do you have to gain by keeping her angry with you?"

Aria dropped her pen onto her desk and folded her hands over her notebook. "Keeping my parents angry with me leaves them too upset to say anything to me about anything that's gone on these last few months."

"Okay?" Hanna said. "Wha…" She shook her head, not quite sure what to say in response to Aria.

"You're supposed to be getting emancipated in a week," Spencer emphasized softly. "What if things-" Aria shook her head at her best friend. "Things aren't going to change in one week, Spence. And I'm not going to let my parents start meddling in things that they don't, and refuse to understand. I need more distance between them and myself, not less. If they really cared about me, it wouldn't have taken the things that it did for them to realize what I 'supposedly' mean to them."

"You're sure you're not going to regret this when it's all said and done," Hanna asked. "I mean, yeah, it's just a week to us, but for you, in a week, your parents won't have any legal say in your life anymore. And you know how parents can be if they lose a child to emancipation."

Before Aria could say anything else, Ella spoke up and told everyone to get to their seats. A few minutes later, the bell rang and class began. She had very little power to focus on what her mother was talking about, though.. The things her friends had said continued to run through her head repeatedly. She remembered being thirteen, and hanging out almost every day with Alison at her house. Jason and Melissa had shared a mutual friend who had gotten emancipated at sixteen. His parents had been neglectful for years, and he had finally mustered up the courage to get out on his own just a few weeks after his sixteenth birthday. It had helped him get into a situation where he was better surrounded by people who could help him, but detrimentally affected his relationship with his parents.

As the day passed, she couldn't get the thoughts out of her head of how that might affect her relationship with her parents. For over a month, emancipation seemed like the logical thing to do. Her parents wouldn't let her come home, and things had been strained. But Hanna's words repeated over and over in her head like a bad pop song. What if she was making the wrong choice?

Eventually the day came to a close, and she spent most of the afternoon at Hollis, having the afternoon off to work on her art project. She was almost finished with it when Ezra joined her in the room.

"You've been quiet all day." Aria looked up at him as she settled a paintbrush into a Styrofoam filled with water. She grabbed a paint-covered paper towel off the table and wiped her fingers off. She tossed the cloth back onto the table.

"I've got a lot on my mind," she said softly. She placed her hands under the seat of the stool and moved it off the table. She walked over to one of the shelves where projects were placed to dry, and she settled it on one of the shelves.

Ezra leaned up against the doorframe and tucked his hands into his pockets. "You've got more than a lot on your mind. You've never been this distant with me."

Aria shook her head at him as she walked back over to the table. She picked up her cup of water and the paper towel and walked over to the wastepaper bin. She dumped the water down a large sink and then tossed both away.

"It doesn't matter," she insisted. She walked back over to the table and grabbed her bag and phone off of it and then walked over to the door. Ezra stood up straight and stepped out of the room as Aria came to stand in front of him.

"I'd say it does," he replied. "Whatever it is that's bothering you obviously isn't something that doesn't matter."

Aria shook her head, and things were relatively silent between them as they walked towards his office. When they reached it, Aria pushed the door open and walked over to the couch. She sat down on it while Ezra pulled the door shut behind them and then walked over and sat down next to her.

"I really wish you would tell me what's wrong," Ezra said.

Aria looked up at him - looking back and forth between his eyes as she contemplated what to say, if anything at all. Ezra reached forward and grabbed both of her hands in his own.

"You know there's nothing you can't tell me. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong for feeling something."

"It's not that I feel like I'm doing something wrong," she said softly. "I just feel stupid. And seriously conflicted." She said.

"About your parents?"

Aria shook her head, trying to ward off the tears that were threatening to fall. "You know, all this time that we've been dealing with this crap because of my parents, I was so sure about stuff.. I was absolutely sure that I was making all the right decisions and that I couldn't be wrong because my parents weren't there for me."

Ezra nodded understandingly. "So you're questioning whether getting emancipated is the right thing to do?"

Aria looked down at the floor. "I never thought any of this would happen. For all of the things that I considered would happen when we told my parents about us, this wasn't one of them. I never thought we'd end up in a situation like this. And I hate that after all this time, my parents suddenly decided they want to change their minds. It gives me a headache and makes me sick to my stomach, just thinking about it all."

Ezra tilted his head towards hers and reached a hand up under her chin to make her look up at him. "Then maybe you should consider whether you're actually making the right choice."

"I-" Ezra shook his head at her. "Don't. Don't dismiss what I'm telling you. In a week, you're going to be standing in a court room with a really important decision to make. You need to be sure that you're making the right choice. I'm not going to be angry, regardless of the choice that you make."

"Are you sure?" Aria's voice shook.

Ezra nodded. He reached up and pushed her hair out of her face, cupping her face in his hands. "Regardless of the choice you make, it's the right one for you. All I care about is that you're happy. Everything else will fall into place like it should."

Aria nodded. Her shoulders drooped slightly with relief. One of her biggest fears had been that if she wavered at all in her decision, that she would lose Ezra. After all, her parents had reacted that way.

She looked back up at him, brushing the thoughts to the back of her mind. "I know this sounds incredibly cliché, especially now, but how was your day?"

Ezra shook his head, forcing a smile. "It was fine. Nothing special."

"You sure?" Aria asked.

Ezra nodded. "Typical day in my life."

Aria narrowed her eyes at him. "Okay, I know you as well as you know me. So why are you lying to me?"

"It's really doesn't matter," Ezra insisted.

Aria shook her head at him. "I'm pretty sure you said the same thing last week when I asked you about the bruise on your face." Her jaw dropped slightly. "Is that it? Did someone-" Ezra shook his head. "No. No one hit me. There wasn't any physical fighting."

"Then what?" Aria asked.

"I don't want you worrying about things that aren't important with everything that's already going on. You've got finals next week, and-" "And nothing," Aria insisted. "What is it? My dad? Did my dad say something? Or someone else? Hardy? Adriana? Jackie?"

Saying Jackie's name had been a stretch for Aria. She hadn't seemed to make any waves for them since the first week after Aria and Ezra had told her parents about their relationship. Even so, she knew that she shouldn't have entirely been surprised when Ezra opened his mouth to say that it was her that was causing trouble.

"It's that big of a deal," he said with insistence. "She's jealous, so she's trying to stir up trouble. The best thing to do is ignore it. Otherwise you'll just be letting her win, and that's what she wants."

Aria shook her head at him. "So I'm just supposed to sit back and let it be okay that she's making threats to you? You could lose your job-" Ezra shook his head, placing a finger over her lips. "She's not going to do anything. She may be a little crazy, but Jackie knows there's no place for her in my life. She knows she can't get what she wants by threatening anyone or doing anything stupid."

"When people can't get what they want by being stupid, they usually employ other methods," Aria said in a reminding tone.

Ezra raised an eyebrow at her. "And what makes you so sure about that?" "I watch all the crime dramas," she said assuredly. "CSI, Law And Order, Criminal Minds… At least when I have the time."

Ezra chuckled. "Well I assure you, Jackie is nothing to worry about. Don't waste your time. I certainly don't." He pushed up from the couch and walked over to his desk and began gathering this things so that they could leave.

Aria pushed up from her spot on the couch and slipped the straps to her bag up her arm, onto her shoulder. She tapped on the screen of her phone, checking for new text messages. There weren't any.

"Really? You're not worried that one day she's going to make good on all her threats that she's made?" Aria asked.

Ezra chuckled, looking up at her as he stuffed a book into his bag. "Jackie's bark is worse than her bite, I promise. She can talk a lot of smack, but she can rarely back it up. Our failed engagement should be proof enough for you."

"Do you ever wish it hadn't failed?" Aria asked suddenly. The words came out of her mouth before she was even aware of what she was saying, and she wasn't quite sure why she was even asking. Yet, once the words were out of her mouth, a part of her actually wanted to know.

Ezra gave her an odd look. "Where did that come from?"

Aria shook her head, shrugging her shoulders. "I don't really know. But do you?" He sighed and shook his head, walking over to her. He wrapped his arm around her and led her towards the door. "Never. Not even for a split second."

-
When the time comes,
Baby don't run, just kiss me slowly
-

From the time Aria got out of bed on Wednesday morning, her nerves were running like crazy. She was totally unsure of anything that would happen over the next eight or so hours, but she knew that she needed to speak with her mother and attempt to clear the air. She and Ezra had agreed the night before that neither of them would speak to her father until further notice. Part of the reasoning behind it was so that there weren't anymore arguments between Ezra and Byron. The other part of it had to do with the fact that Aria wanted to make sure things went alright with her mother before she tried reaching out to her father.

Even so, the mere idea of speaking to her father made her nervousness escalate almost to an unreasonable level. It had bee over a month since she'd spoken to him, and except for a few chance sightings, she hadn't really seen him, either. She was excited to be taking a chance and trying to see how things might work if she spoke with her mother, but she was also entirely terrified of being hurt once more. Ezra kept reminding her that whatever was meant to be, would be, but she still couldn't shake her nerves. In a matter of hours, she would have answers to questions that she had coveted for weeks.

As it was, the morning was not on her side. She spilled coffee all over the front of the dress she planned to wear to school, and ended up changing into a canary yellow tank top and a jean skirt, and then slipped on a pair of ballet flats before racing out the door towards school. She just barely made it into the building and to her locker before the bell rang, and she was several moments late for class. She was grateful when her mother didn't yell at her and only motioned for her to take her seat.

The craziness seemed to end there, but then it was as if the clock were against her. Once class ended, several students stayed behind to ask questions about homework, and Aria still needed to get back to her locker to grab things she'd forgotten because of being late. She couldn't duck out of study hall, as her mother had a second period class as well.

Eventually though, the clock ticked towards eleven thirty, and Aria stared at it with bated breath, waiting for the lunch bell. When it finally rang, she shot up out of her seat and made her way down to the lunch room and purchased herself a slice of pizza before heading back towards the English hallway. She walked down the hall to her mother's classroom and then stood outside the door for a few moments. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. The weight of all the things riding on this impending conversation was back on her shoulders and pushing down on her chest. She kept taking in deep breaths, and after a few long moments, she managed to muster the courage to open the door.

Ella looked up at her as she stepped around the door and then pulled it shut behind herself. Neither of them had said anything to the other since Monday. An awkward silence began to fill the air, and Aria's nerves began to get the best of her again. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a long, deep breath before opening her eyes again.

"Why didn't you do anything last Monday?"

She wasn't sure why those were the words she started with, but she knew it was also a question that had weighed on her mind for the last ten days, and she desperately needed an answer to it. She had needed her mother in that moment, and her mother hadn't been there.

Ella seemed to watch her for a few moments as if she was unsure Aria actually wanted to know, or if she just wanted to start another fight. She had to take a leap of faith just like Aria did, and hope neither of them drowned.

"I didn't think you wanted me to," she said finally. "I had been on the phone with your father, and like I told you, I heard the fighting. But by the time I got to the door and saw that it was you, I wasn't sure what to do. A large part of me wanted to be a mother and yell at those girls for what they had done to you. I wanted to hurt them like they hurt you, but I knew I couldn't do that. I knew it was better for me to stay out of it. And, when I had seen that you saw me, I wasn't quite sure what to do about that, either. Your father and I hadn't been there for you. It felt a little bit hypocritical to go to you after all of that." "But your mind changed after I was out for two days," Aria asked.

Ella shook her head. "I was worried sick for those two days that you weren't in school, Aria. I wondered how badly you were injured, if you were okay? I wondered if those girls had hurt you bad enough to put you in the hospital. It terrified me to see you all beat up like that. For all the things I ever expected to see you do and see happen to you, being beat up wasn't one of them. So when you came back to school on Thursday, I asked if you were alright because I genuinely wanted to know."

"And dad?"

"Your father wanted to know as well," Ella said. "It's my understanding that he tried to ask Ezra how you were doing, but he was stonewalled."

"Dad didn't deserve to know anything," Aria said firmly. "After how he's treated Ezra these last few weeks-"

Ella nodded, gesturing towards one of the desks in front of her for Aria to sit. Aria walked over to one tentatively. She sat down on top of it and crossed one leg over the other. She took a bite of her pizza as Ella spoke.

"I'm well aware of the things that have gone on between your father and Ezra as of late, and I'm less than pleased about it. I certainly didn't agree with his choices made surrounding the girl who was attacked there. It wasn't right for him to assume things of Ezra, under any circumstance. But it doesn't change the fact that your father and I were and are worried about your well-being. All we ever wanted for you was to raise you in a safe environment." Aria settled her pizza on the desk next to her, and used the napkin that came with it to wipe her mouth and hands off. "And yet you kicked me out. One kind of negates the other."

Ella nodded again. 'You're right. And I will admit that our decision to kick you out was a rash one. We could have made better choices. The entire situation could have been handled differently. Better. But those things have already happened, and they can't be taken back. I only hope that somehow we can make them better." "How?"

Ella shook her head as she shrugged. "I'm honestly not sure, Aria. By talking? I suppose there's a part of me that hopes that if we try hard enough, we can figure out where all the cracks in our family developed, and somehow we can fix them so that maybe we can get back to some semblance of what we used to be."

"Okay," Aria said, nodding in agreement. "But what about Ezra? I mean do those changes include him? Or are you and dad hoping that if things are made to look pretty long enough that I'll leave him and it'll just be the four of us again?"

"No," Ella replied. "Your father and I don't expect anything of the sort. But it's going to take us some time to warm up to the idea of you and Ezra being together. I realize how stupid that sounds when I know you've been living together for over a month, but it doesn't change the fact that we still need time to process this." Aria nodded, and for a few moments, the room grew silent again. She stared down at a random spot on the floor and listened to her own breathing and the ticking of the clock. She wasn't quite sure what else to say.

"You know," Ella said after a few minutes. "When Ezra showed up at the police station, I was so sure that Spencer was the girl he was seeing. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't entirely formulate a belief around that situation, that put him in the position as the bad guy. I know your father and I never gave you and Ezra the chance to speak and tell the whole story about your relationship, and that was wrong. And unfair. But," she said, "I think we were scared. Or at least I was. I very easily saw Ezra as this young man who had a very convenient vantage point for a predator. And maybe that's just a common reaction when your child comes home and tells you they're dating their teacher, but I honestly didn't know how else to view it."

"If I had known he was going to be my teacher…" Aria spoke softly. Part of her wanted to be able to tell her mother that if she had known Ezra was her teacher when she met him, she never would have flirted with him, or kissed him in the bar the day the had met. But as much as she wanted to say those things, she couldn't. "I want to tell you things would've been different, but I can't. Too many times I've asked myself that question, and I wouldn't change what Ezra and I have for anything. He's been there for so much more than I ever should've even thought I could ask for." She laughed, and shook her head. "I don't think I know any other men who would open their home to their girlfriends when their parents kicked them out because of who they're dating. And if he was just like all the other teachers who do things like that with their students, he probably would have sooner skipped town."

Ella nodded. "You're probably right."

Once again it was quiet. Aria chewed quietly on her pizza and stared out a window while she pondered all of the conversations she'd shared in this room, both with her mother and with Ezra. She had never imagined that when the school year started, that this classroom would become such a staple for her.

"So what do we do now," she asked finally.

"We take things slow," Ella told her. "I know that, given the situation we've put you in, that we don't have the right to ask, or even tell you, to move back home. Honestly, I don't feel like that would be right, anyhow. I realize your father and I put you in a very tough position, and there are a lot of conversations that need to be had before we should even start discussing things like you moving back home, should you decide to. Make no mistake, though. We still care about you, and ultimately, we would like things to be okay for our family again." Aria nodded. She finished her slice of pizza and then wiped her hands and face again with her napkin. Slow worked for her. She just hoped that by the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around, that she'd be entirely sure of the decision she needed to make.

A/N: OH, and um... you're never going to see what's coming next, coming. It'll be the last thing you'd even expect. Good luck guessing though! :) Review!