Chapter 25
Shatter Every Window Till It's All Blown Away
Aria stared down at her hands, avoiding saying anything to her therapist. It seemed that the closer she got to the beginning of the school year, the more depressed she got. She wasn't sure if it was actually school that was the problem, or everything else.
"You're very quiet this week," Dr. Michaels observed after a few minutes. "Any reason particular?"
Aria shrugged. "Not really. I'm still processing everything with Ezra."
Dr. Michaels nodded. "We haven't talked much about that. Would you like to?"
Aria shook her head, looking up at the window. It had been raining and storming through the final days of July, and the sky was a dull gray. It didn't do much to affect the heat, though. "It was stupid. He apologized."
Dr. Michaels folded her hands in her lap. "Sometimes apologizing doesn't make things better, though. It sounds okay at the time because you don't want to fight, but when you have time to think about it all, it doesn't feel any better."
"So how do we fix it?" Aria asked.
"I'd like to get in touch with Ezra's therapist and arrange a joint session. He's a friend and I've consulted with him on other cases." Dr. Michaels explained.
"Okay." Aria said nervously. "How would that work?"
"We would set up a designated appointment time for the four of us to meet, and instead of talking about what's bothering you or him, we'll discuss what's causing the strain in your relationship, and how what you've both been through has affected it."
"But…" Aria chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. "What about the age difference?"
Dr. Michaels exhaled a deep breath, that Aria was sure meant something bad. "Legally, I don't know anything that's happening to have to involve the police. You're not endangering yourself or anyone else, and Ezra isn't either. Unless that were to change for some reason, I have no reason to call the police."
"Okay," Aria murmured.
Dr. Michaels pushed up from her chair and walked over to her desk. She flipped through an appointment book and then stopped. "I've got some open time in three days. I'll call Adam and see if he's got anything open at the same times." She looked back up at Aria. "In the meantime, I want you to keep journaling. Even if it's bad. It's better to get those emotions out than to let them stay buried inside."
Aria nodded, pushing up off the couch. She brushed her hands down the pleated jean skirt she was wearing and grabbed her bag from the couch. She walked out of the room a few moments later and then headed out from the building. Once she was outside, she jiggled her keys in her hand, looking around. The heat was hot and sticky. She'd only started letting herself wearing the occasional mini skirt since Grady's trial, and even then, she felt uncomfortable any time someone touched one of her legs.
She walked over to her car and got into it before starting it and pulling her seatbelt on. She pulled out of the parking space and then drove out of the lot and into the city. There were a lot of places she could think of that she could go instead of going home, but all of them ended in her ending up back at home anyway, which was really the last place she wanted to be.
She drove through the city for a while before eventually driving across town and pulling up in front of Holden's house. She had seen him a few times since the night at Alison's grave, but he, like everyone else, had a life to live. He had places to go, people to see, and things to do. And since he'd lived out of the country for over a year, he had family to visit that he hadn't seen since before leaving.
She got out of her car and walked up to the house. She knocked twice on the door and then ducked under the small overhang next to it. It was beginning to drizzle, and she didn't want to gt wet.
The door opened a moment later, and Holden smiled at her. "Hey, Aria!"
She attempted a smile back at him. "Hey. Are you doing anything right now?"
He shrugged. "Watching baseball. Come on in."
Aria stepped past him and walked inside the house. The screen door slammed shut behind her and she jumped momentarily before closing the main door behind her as well. She followed Holden down the hall to the family room. He walked over to the end of the couch furthest away from the doorway, while Aria took the end closest to it, leaving a cushion between them.
"How've you been?" Aria asked after a few moments.
Holden shrugged, grabbing a chip out of a bowl on the table and munching on it. "Bored the past few days. We're flying to Seattle the day after tomorrow to go visit my mom's sister and her family, and then driving down the coast and spending most of August in California. Yippee."
Aria chuckled. "What's wrong with California?"
Holden shrugged again, looking over at her. "Not much, if you're a teenage girl." He paused and then looked over at her and smirked. "Hey! How about you go and shop all the west coast stores and hang out at the beach, and I'll stay here and have fun!"
Aria laughed, shaking her head. "We're going to Spain when Mike gets home from camp, so that we can spend three weeks on the beach in Barcelona."
Holden laughed. "Planning to come back the same color as Oprah?"
Aria shook her head, rolling her eyes. "You know I'm not a beach bunny. That was always Alison's thing. I just tagged along so that she wouldn't yell at me for not joining them later."
"Sometimes I wondered how you girls could stand her," Holden commented.
Aria rolled her eyes again, shaking her head in disregard. "She was Alison. Hanna used to say that she could make you feel really special when she wanted to. And she could."
"Yeah," Holden agreed. "But she could also make you feel like gum on the bottom of her shoe whenever she wanted. That couldn't possibly have been fun."
Aria shrugged. "She did a lot of cruel things, but Alison's brutal honesty wasn't always a bad thing. And she did a lot of other things for us too. As much as I might want to hate her for the things that she did that were bad, she did some good things too."
"What if she were here today though," Holden asked. "What if she was still alive and she knew about you and Ezra, and she said bad things about him? Or what if she told you that you asked for Grady to hurt you?"
Aria laughed sadly. "If Alison were alive, there wouldn't be Ezra, because knowing her and how she was with Ian, she would've made a play for him the minute she saw him, regardless of how I felt about him. And either she would say that I deserved what Grady did and we'd never speak again, or she'd find a way to permanently hurt him."
"Best friend or worst enemy," Holden inferred.
"Pretty much," Aria murmured.
-
You asked me how long I'd stay by your side
So I answered with only just one reply
-
Aria slammed her textbook shut and looked up at Ezra as he walked out of the kitchen carrying a tray. Her parents were busy as usual, so rather than spending the evening at home alone, she'd opted to hang out at his apartment instead. Even though it was still awkward between them, she preferred the awkwardness to being alone.
He settled the tray on the table and moved a glass of iced tea off of it and handed it to her. She took it gratefully from him and took a long drink from it.
"So good," she murmured, taking several gulps of it.
Ezra chuckled, grabbing his glass of the tray as well as he moved a bowl of hummus onto the table and then placed a second, larger bowl beside it, filled with scoop chips. "Do you remember last October when we got that heat wave, and we holed up in my apartment that first Saturday-"
"We drank iced tea all day because it was all you had," Aria giggled, taking another drink from her tea. Ezra had placed a lemon slice inside of it for her, just the way she liked it.
"I hadn't had the chance to go shopping yet," he defended casually, though he laughed too as he sat down.
Aria nodded, smiling as she turned from looking at him to the windows facing out to the city. "That heat didn't really have any chance of competing with how ridiculously hot it is right now, but that was a good day."
Ezra nodded as well. "Yeah, it was. That was one of the first days in a long time that I didn't find myself wanting to live inside a bottle."
"I thought you didn't like alcohol because of your dad," Aria asked as she scooped hummus with a chip and then popped it into her mouth.
"You would be right about that," Ezra said, Except that there was a time last summer when it was very easy to crawl inside a bottle and stay there for a few days. It was towards the end when I moved back to Rosewood. I stopped before I let it get too far because every time I diddrink, it reminded me of what my dad had said to me that night on the phone, and I couldn't keep doing it. But it was still hard there for a while."
"And here I thought all I helped you get over was Jackie," Aria said lightly.
Ezra shook his head, reaching up to wipe a bit of hummus from the corner of her mouth. "Aria, you helped me get through things a lotworse than breaking up with Jackie just by being there."
"Like what?" She asked too quickly to realize what she was actually asking. She paused for a moment and then spoke again. "I mean, if you don't mind talking about it."
"No," Ezra said, shaking his head. "Like, do you remember the morning before our first real date? You were teasing me about the tie from across the quad?"
Aria nodded, blushing slightly as the corners of her mouth pulled up into a smile.
"I had a hard time sleeping the night before and had a lot of nightmares, and when I got to work that morning, I was really glum, but then I saw you and you did that motion of tightening a tie, and I laughed, and it made everything better, because I knew that I was going to get to spend my evening with you, and that was the best possible thing that could happen." He explained.
Aria's cheeks reddened even more, though she couldn't help but smile. "After you told me everything, sometimes I wondered, and still do sometimes, if I just made everything worse."
Ezra pressed his lips together for a moment and then reached out and grabbed her hands gently in his. "You have never made things worse by being here with me. If anything you made them better. And honestly, I think if anyone else had been here with me last week, I wouldn't still be alive. No one else would've been able to stop me."
Aria chewed on the inside of her bottom lip for a few moments as she bounced her feet against the floor. Tears peaked at the corners of her eyes. "It helps, hearing you say that. Cause I just thought I made it worse."
Ezra shook his head, letting go of her hands and reaching up to cup her face. "No. You kept me from doing something really stupid."
She took a deep breath and then reached over and grabbed her bag from beside the couch and began to rummage through it for her journal. "I wrote you something a while back. I was waiting for a time when…" She paused, looking up at him. She shrugged. "You know, I want to say a time when things were better, but honestly, I think I just wanted it to feel right."
"Okay," Ezra said curiously. "What is it?"
Aria finally pulled her journal free from her bag and then stood and walked over to his piano. His mother had had it moved after he'd been released from the hospital. As she sat down, she looked over at him, her brow knit in confusion.
"I thought you said you weren't supposed to live alone after getting released from the hospital." She questioned.
Ezra nodded. "I'm not."
"So?" She asked.
"I'm not," he said again.
Her brow furrowed further in confusion. Ezra chuckled.
"Hardy's moving in," he said. "He's taking that back room. Apparently he's been on a hunt for a new place to live since he broke up with the girl he was dating before he started seeing Jackie." He shuddered slightly as he said Jackie's name. The idea of those two dating still made he and Aria weird-feeling. "Anyway, what is it you've got for me."
She turned her attention back to the piano, lifting the cover up. "It's a song." She placed her hands on the keys and pushed on a few of them before she began to play.
"I never meant to wither
I wanted to be tall
Like a fool left the river
And watched my branches fall
Old and thirsty, I longed for the flood
To come back around
To the cactus in the valley
That's about to crumble down
And wipe the mark of sadness from my face
Show me that your love will never change
If my yesterday is a disgrace
Tell me that you still recall my name…"
Ezra stood from his seat on the couch and walked over to the piano, leaning down over it as she played. She looked up at him and smiled as she proceeded into the second verse.
"So, the storm finally found me
And left me in the dark
In the cloud around me
I don't know where you are
If this whole world goes up in arms
All I can do is stand
And I won't fight for anyone
Until you move my hand
And wipe the mark of madness from my face
Show me that your love will never change
If my yesterday is a disgrace
Tell me that you still recall my name…"
She proceeded into a short piano solo, closing her eyes as she let the music flow through her before going into the bridge.
"In the shadow
Here I am
And I need someone by my side
You've become so
Hard to stand
And I keep trying to dry my eyes
Come and find me
In the valley
And wipe the mark of sadness from my face
Show me that your love will never change
If my yesterday is a disgrace
Tell me that you still recall my name
And wipe the mark of sadness from my face
Show me that your love will never change
If my yesterday is a disgrace
Tell me that you still recall my name
ooh
Tell me that you still recall my name, no
Tell me that you still recall my name…"
Aria looked back up at Ezra as she finished the song. He smiled back at her and walked around to the piano, sitting down on the bench next to her.
"That was really beautiful," he murmured. "Thank you."
Aria shrugged, smiling back at him. She turned her head a moment later and looked out the window at the city.
Ezra tinkered his fingers over the keys on the high end of the piano for a few moments before Aria whipped her head back around and looked at him and smiled. "I love that song!"
Ezra nodded, smiling back at her. "It always made me think of you. It was a long time before I realized how suggestive it was with our relationship."
"Switch places with me," she said a moment later. Ezra raised an eyebrow at her, confused before he obliged and moved off the bench so she could scoot over. He walked around the bench and sat down on the other end.
Aria began to push the keys and Ezra pushed the right keys on the low end as she began to sing.
"If you are a cliff-hanger ending
I'm the one that doesn't know anything
Like a magpie and a ring
I am always going to be looking right to you
Oh, you capture my attention
Carefully listening,
Don't wanna miss a thing
Keeping my eyes on you
Got me on my toes…."
She stopped playing a few moments later, but still smiled as the song continuing running through her head. "I used to drive Spencer, Hanna, and Emily nuts playing that song. They always used to tell me I needed to find a different song to play when I was thinking of you."
"The song that made me think of you never changed," Ezra replied.
"Happiness?" Aria asked.
Ezra shrugged. "That's a given. But the song that was playing when we were making out in the bathroom."
Aria giggled for a moment. "Reckless One. I haven't heard that one in a while."
Ezra nodded. "Hardy's car broke down in November, and I'd drive him to work, and every day he'd threaten to smash the CD if I played that song one more time. Of course, then I countered with threatening to leave him to walk all the way to Hollis, so he stopped saying it."
Aria's smile slowly faded away, and her eyes drifted down to the piano. "A lot's changed in less than a year."
"A lot's changed in more than a year," Ezra muttered quietly under his breath.
-
I checked your phone, cause it was beepin'
Are you alone, I know you're creepin'
-
Aria stared out the window of Dr. Michael's office, watching water flood down over the window. The current storm taking place outside was at its peak, and each rumble of thunder was rattling the building with its ferocity. She had shown up a bit early, but yet again it was mostly because she didn't want to be at home alone.
The door opened behind her, and she turned her head as Ezra walked into the room with Dr. Michaels and Adam. Ezra and Adam both were a bit wet from being outside, though Ezra was more so than Adam. Adam was dressed similarly to Ezra, in khaki shorts and a white button-up t-shirt, while Dr. Michaels was in a midnight blue pencil skirt and a powder blue blouse. Aria had opted for high-waisted red shorts and a white t-shirt for the day.
"Why don't we all sit," Dr. Michaels offered as she closed the door to her office. She pulled a chair aside for Adam and then walked over to the air conditioner and turned it down a few levels before returning to her seat.
Aria walked over to Ezra and sat down on the couch next to him. She curled one leg under her as she did so and folded her hands in her lap nervously. She felt out of place, not quite sure how they were supposed to proceed. Dr. Michaels and Adam both got settled as well and then Dr. Michaels spoke.
"Why don't we start with the glaring obvious. How do you both feel about your relationship?"
Aria and Ezra exchanged a look and then looked back at Dr. Michaels, still confused.
Adam scooted forward in his chair, looking up from the legal pad he was writing on. He lifted the hand he was holding his pen in and waved it as he spoke. "Since you argued, how do you feel?"
"We'll alternate," Dr. Michaels said when neither Aria or Ezra said anything still. "Aria why don't you start. And the next question, Ezra can."
Aria shrugged, wringing her hands together. "I don't know. I mean I guess we're okay. I don't really know how to feel. I know he didn't mean what he said, but…he still said it."
Dr. Michaels and Adam both looked up at Ezra. Ezra looked over at Aria sorrowfully. "I feel like she doesn't trust me – or trusts me less than she did before. Like she thinks I actually think the things I said."
"Do you?" Dr. Michaels asked.
Ezra shook his head, looking back at her. "No. I said it because I knew it would make her stop trying to stop me, and part of me didn't want her to. But now it's like no matter what I do or say, it's still hanging there in the air."
"Is that how you feel, Aria?" Adam asked.
Aria shrugged. She cursed the tears already starting to fill her eyes. "I don't want to. But it makes me wonder if he wouldn't feel the same way if I told him he deserved what happened to him. Not because I believe that, but because it hurt worse than anything else he's ever said or done."
Ezra turned to look at her. Her confession very clearly had hurt him. "You feel that way?"
She looked up at him, shaking her head. "No. But you look at yourself like you don't deserve anything, and the idea that you saw me the same way hurt so much. Almost as bad, if not worse than knowing that's how you feel about yourself."
"I don't know how to find the worth in things the way you do," he replied, forcing the words past a thick knot in his throat. "I don't know how to look at people I knew before all of this and act as if I can just move on with it all. I know it's because you're trying really hard, but when I look at my parents or Hardy or Jackie, all I see is what isn't there anymore. I see disappointment for what I used to be, and what I never will be."
"But that's not how I see you," she whispered.
"Sorry to cut in here," Adam said, looking up from his legal pad again. "Ezra, do you believe she's telling you the truth when she says that?"
Ezra nodded, looking back at his therapist. "Aria would never say bad things about or to someone."
"And what about you, Aria?" Dr. Michaels asked. "Do you think Ezra would really say those things and mean them?"
Aria shook her head, reaching up to wipe the tears out of her eyes. "He's not that kind of person. I guess that's why it was such a shock. He's so passive most of the time, and I'd never really actually seen him get that upset."
Dr. Michaels nodded. "I want you both to do something. I want you each to name three things you admire about each other. You can take turns."
"Right now?" Aria asked.
Dr. Michaels nodded. "And I believe its your turn to start."
Aria glanced up at Ezra quickly. "I admire his strength. He calls me strong, but he's been through worse, and he still gets up and continues to live life every day."
Dr. Michaels and Adam both looked to Ezra. He looked down at Aria.
"I admire that she's willing to do whatever it takes to keep someone when she loves them, even if it means she's going to get hurt." Ezra said.
"I admire that he was willing to do whatever it took to make sure no one in his family got hurt these past few months," Aria continued.
"I admire her ability to try and see good in people, even when everyone else says there isn't any left." Ezra added.
Aria looked up at him and reached over, slipping her fingers inside his. Ezra looked down at their intertwined hands as she named her third thing.
"I admire that he's willing to bury what he's feeling to take care of me and make me feel better."
Ezra gulped, running his thumb over the back of hers, over the blue polish coating her nail. "I admire that she can see things in me that I'm pretty sure haven't been there in more than a year."
-
Two black Cadillac's driving in a slow parade
Headlights shining bright in the middle of the day
-
Byron walked into Snookers and raised an eyebrow as he walked over to the bar. Ethan was seated on a stool, twirling a glass of amber liquid on the counter.
"I thought you were in AA," Byron commented as he sat down.
"I am," Ethan replied, continuing to twist the glass. "Just contemplating the current situation."
"Which is?" Byron asked.
Ethan's eyes flitted to the corners for a moment and then back in front of him, down into the liquid inside the glass. "Whether or not I'm going to drink this."
"Why would you want to do that?" Byron asked. "You've finally got your family back. Your kids don't hate you, you helped protect your son from someone who sooner would've killed him-"
"You protected my son from someone who sooner would have killed him. All I did was leave him vulnerable to that very same person so that I could go bail my other son out of jail. My priorities are oh so clear." Ethan chided.
"You can't really think that lowly of yourself," Byron replied. "You did what you thought was best for both your sons at the time. No one actually thought that he would strike on the last day."
"Still doesn't change the fact that I wasn't there," Ethan said.
Byron opened his mouth to reply, but then stopped as he realized that Ethan didn't mean just that he hadn't been there when Ezra had been attacked at Hollis. He was also referring to the past year before he'd gotten his act together.
"Why would you want to throw away everything you've fought so hard to get back now," Byron asked.
"Because I don't understand how terrifying it is to watch my child suffer," Ethan rebuked. "After all that was what you said, wasn't it?"
Byron shook his head. "I shouldn't have said that. I was angry at Ezra for upsetting Aria, and when you wouldn't let me yell at him, which was the right thing to do, I took it out on you. But I never should've said that to you."
"Why not?" Ethan questioned. "It's true. I haven't got a single clue as to what it's like to watch my child suffer. I spent years watching other victims suffer, but never once in the last eight years have I done anything to be there for my sons when they were suffering."
"No, but you've been there for them the past few months, and I'm pretty sure that if you do this now, Ezra would never forgive you for it. Your sons love you and respect you. It's clear when you're with them that they're glad to have you back in their lives. But I don't think Ezra would ever let you back into his life if you did this."
"Oh?" Ethan asked. "And what makes you such a genius in the works of my son?"
"Nothing," Byron replied. "But I havespent the last year getting to know him, and even though the events of the past few months have changed a few of those views, your son is too passive to tell you that this would hurt him more than anything else you could do or say. He's too nice to tell you all the ways you hurt him, and he's too ashamed to tell you how much it means to him that you've been there since all of this happened."
Ethan whipped his head over to look at Byron. "How the hell do you know these things!?"
Byron shrugged. "My daughter talks to her mother. My wife talks to me." He reached out and moved the glass of alcohol away from Ethan. "The way I see it, you've got two choices. You can drink this, I'll walk out of here, and at some point your family will find out about this, and you'll lose both your sons.
"Or, you can walk out that door with me right now, go to an AA meeting, and keep your family for another day."
"And what if I still want to drink after one meeting," Ethan replied.
"Stay for the next meeting," Byron replied. "And the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that. Until you don't feel like going to get a drink anymore."
"What makes you think that will work," Ethan asked.
Byron shrugged again. "I really don't know if it will. But there were a lot of times when I was growing up that I wished my father had done that instead of getting drunk again. And, the way I see it, for as much as my daughter my be able to help your son with everything he's dealing with, he's going to need you and his mother for a while too. You're his parents, and you're the only two people he's going to feel okay running to when every other avenue is exhausted."
Ethan laughed. "My son hasn't trusted me like that since he was five."
"I don't believe that," Byron replied. "But then, I guess it's your choice if you're going to let your conscience beat you into a corner and take you from your family again." He looked down at his watch and then stood. "I've got to get across town to the new Chinese restaurant. Our children are expecting us." He turned to walk out the door and then turned back a few feet away. "Are you coming?"
Ethan looked up at him for a moment and then turned back to face the bar. Byron shook his head and turned and walked out of the bar. He was halfway to his car before Ethan came running up beside him.
"Tell Ezra I'll see him later."
Byron watched as Ethan walked around him and headed towards his car. "Where are you going?"
Ethan looked back up at him as he pushed his car key into the lock and turned it. "AA meeting."
Byron gave a small smile. "Good for you."