A/N: The last chapter. Are you serious!? Yes I am... I started this story in January and then put it off til April after writing the first six chapters... I love it so much, and it was such a learning curve for me to write. I seriously hope you guys loved it as much as I do, because it meant so much to me to write it, and even more that you guys read it! This little baby wasn't even ever going to get posted because Katie (bitemeimirish) never thought that anyone would read about such a taboo subject. I'm amazed that you guys have, and have come with me this far, and I thank you so very much! I Love you all! Muahs!
Chapter 35
Take Me As I Am, Bad Or Best
Six Months Later
Maybe it was cliché, but she could've sworn that in the time it took for that red cap to come floating back down into her hands, the last two years of her life flashed before her eyes, reminding her of all the struggles, pains, accomplishments, and successes she'd made. She dropped her head back forward and found herself looking into the sea of people that were here to celebrate with herself and her classmates. Somewhere in the group was her family. She could hear Mike calling her name, even though she couldn't see him. Anne, Ethan, and Elijah were roughly twenty feet away waving to her. And of course, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily were just feet away, coming to tackle her in a fit of squeals and giggles. Ezra was the only one not in attendance.
Her body hit the ground hard as she laughed with her friends. The Rosewood Day graduation had been the day before, and she had been grateful for that fact, as it gave her the ability to attend her friends' graduation, and for them to do the same for her.
After the Rosewood Day graduation ceremony, she had joined her parents back to Spencer's parents, where Mr. and Mrs. Marin and Mrs. Fields had also joined all of them for a joint family celebration. Jason had also dropped in, where the girls had given him an honorary diploma in Alison's name, given specially from the mayor. In mid-March, it had been revealed that Garret had been the one to murder their friend, and the case had been officially closed. Ironically enough for Aria and her friends though, all hell seemed to break loose after that.
Toby got his own apartment in Philadelphia and asked Spencer to move in with him – and she did, after she'd turned eighteen.
Caleb left Rosewood after the first semester of school ended and moved to California to live with his mother. He and Hanna had actually managed to maintain a long-distance relationship during that period. Aria was pretty sure though, that what really blew Hanna's mind was when Ashley started dating Detective Wilden again, and the two actually got serious. Graduation day for her friends had also been their five month anniversary, and, after asking Hanna's blessing, Wilden had proposed to Ashley.
Emily's father had gone missing for several days over seas, but was found, and he was sent home for several weeks before returning back to Afghanistan. She'd also found herself in a bit of a tryst between Samara and Paige before ending things with Paige to give her relationship with Samara a second chance.
And of course, her newest friend, Katie, had managed to find herself in a few skirmishes that always ended up having the funniest stories. Aria's favourite senior year memory still rated as the water balloon fight she'd joined Katie and Samara on. It had been something the entire senior class had gotten involved in, but instead of water being in the balloons, they had been filled with finger paint.
It had taken Aria nearly three days to get all the paint off her body, and nearly twice as long for the school to get the paint off the soccer field.
For herself, she didn't feel as if hers second half of senior year was as crazy. As promised, Ezra had packed up and moved to New York just after Valentines Day. They had stuck to their promise of visiting each other, and split the weekends amongst themselves for who took the two hour drive to see one another. He had moved into his parents old place after Anne had signed over the lease to him.
Still, things became strained, and there had been a brief amount of time when Aria wondered if they were going to be able to make it work, or if their relationship was simply destined to fail. That fear was quickly squashed a few days later when her acceptance letter from NYU arrived. It had been on a Friday on which she was supposed to take her turn to drive to see him, and in the midst of all the fighting they'd been doing, she wasn't sure that she wanted to make the trip before the letter had come. She'd ended up making the choice to go after mulling it over, and in the weeks leading up to graduation, they worked through their issues. It had come to a realization to the both of them that the major reasons they'd been arguing was that, with Ezra having moved away, they had put less work into making their relationship work, and both were putting heavy pressure on themselves to do well with where they were in their own lives.
"We're not in high school anymore!" Hanna squealed cheerfully as she and Emily pulled Aria up from the floor. They would both be heading to California in a few weeks because they were both planning to attend UCLA, even though all the girls had agreed that they would return to Rosewood in December for Ashley and Darren's wedding. Caleb would be attending UCLA with them.
Spencer was headed to Connecticut and would be attending Yale. She and Toby were planning to stay together, though he hadn't yet decided if he was going to follow her to Connecticut.
"No, we're just devoting another four years of our lives to more schooling," Aria said with a laugh.
"Girls, squeeze in for a photo!" Aria wasn't sure who said it; it was one of their mothers, and she wrapped her arms around Hanna and Emily while Spencer stood on the other side of Emily. They all smiled brightly, and Mrs. Hastings snapped a photo of them.
Samara, Katie, and Eden joined them a few moments later, and Aria's parents came along a few moments after, insisting on taking more photos. It was only a few seconds later though, that the girls were pulled off into different directions with their own families. The room had started to empty out as people headed off to their various destinations.
"Why don't we head out," Ella said. "Your father's already headed back to the house to get the grill started up."
Aria linked her arms through Spencer's and Hanna's arms as they walked, and the action reminded her of the day she'd gone back to school and had assumed that Ezra was cheating on her. Her mindset was so entirely opposite from that day though, and there wasn't anything anyone could do to remove the smile from her face.
They headed out of the school and made their way through the crowds of people before Aria stopped in her tracks, halfway across the parking lot. Her friends and family continued walking, and Hanna and Spencer only stopped and turned a few paces later when they realized she wasn't walking anymore.
Her eyes narrowed for the briefest moment through crowd before she took off in a sprint, running past her family and her friends. Only when she'd crashed into his chest with her arms wrapped tight around his neck was she stopped by the force of gravity, though he nearly stumbled off his feet. The flowers in his hand fell and he chuckled, wrapping an arm around her too.
"I'm so sorry," Ezra said as she leaned back far enough to see him. Suddenly her lips were on his, and he was speaking between kisses. "I. Tried. To. Get out of. The field trip. And I drove. As fast. As I could."
He lowered her to the ground a moment later, and she was reminded of the kiss they had shared in the parking lot at Rosewood Day when he resigned to go work at Hollis. She finally released her hold on him a few moments later and Ezra chuckled, brushing a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry I missed your graduation."
"I'm sure at least three people attending the barbeque at my parents place got it on video tape," she replied. She wrapped her arms tight around his neck and buried her face in his neck, sighing. They hadn't seen each other in more than two weeks because they'd both been preparing for final exams, and then, as part of the job he'd taken on, he'd been required to chaperone a class trip to D.C.
Their parents caught up to them a few moments later, quickly flanked by her friends.
"Ezra, you made it back," Anne said cheerfully. Hugs were exchanged among family members before Ezra finally managed to pick up the flowers that Aria had knocked from his hand when she had thrown herself at him.
"These are for you," he said, though it didn't carry as much effect as it would have if she hadn't knocked them to the ground. She chuckled and thanked him for them before slipping her free hand into his. The large group began making their way across the parking lot once more, and split off to head towards their own cars.
Aria walked to Ezra's car with him and he opened the passenger door for her before circling the car and getting into the drivers seat. They each buckled themselves in and then he started the car and pulled out onto the road. The roads were shiny from rain, which had been the cause for her graduation being indoors.
"How was your fieldtrip?" She asked as he drove.
Ezra shrugged. "It was a bunch of teenagers whining about being surrounded by adults instead of being able to go out and party. But it was okay." He looked over at her as Aria grabbed his hand in held it in her own. "Wish you could've been there with me."
She smiled at him and then looked out the windows. "If I had done that, I wouldn't have been able to pack everything I own into a dozen boxes so that it can all be moved to New York."
"Really?" He asked. "Only a dozen? You fit your shoes into under a dozen boxes?"
"Hey!" She squealed. Given that he was driving and she couldn't hit him, she lifted his hand to her mouth and bit the back of his hand, hard enough to hurt but not enough to draw blood.
"Ow!" He whined, though he was laughing as well. Aria rubbed her thumb over the bite mark to soothe the superficial wound.
"It's so weird," she said as they came to sit at a stop light. "Everything in my room fitting just into a few boxes. It's funny what you realize you don't want anymore or don't need when you're going somewhere completely new."
Ezra nodded, understanding where she was coming from.
Aria looked up at the stoplight and then back at him. "Can I ask you something?"
Ezra nodded, looking at her. He looked up at the adjacent lane's lights, and moved his foot onto the gas, waiting for the light to turn green as the other lanes' light turned red.
"Will you marry me?" She asked, completely serious.
There was no answer, but the car suddenly lurched before coming to a complete stop and they both were thrown forward in their seats. Their seatbelts restricted them, and Ezra thanked God for good breaks as he looked up at the light. It was now green.
He gently pressed on the gas, and once they had eased across the intersection, he dared a glance over at her. "…Are you serious?"
Aria nodded, still holding his hand in hers. "I don't mean next week or next month, or even next year. Just…" She shrugged. "Will you?"
Ezra said nothing as they drove through the remaining streets until they were parked outside her parents home. Everyone else had already arrived, and from the distance, they could be seen in the back yard of the Montgomery's, talking and generally just having a good time.
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled something out before removing his seatbelt so that he could turn to face her.
"I was going to ask your parents' blessing first," he said with a soft laugh. "And then ask later, when the time felt right. You beat me to it."
Aria smiled at him, blushing. "I love you Ezra, and I may not know much, but I know I love you, and I want to be with you forever. I want to marry you, and have babies with you, and grow old together."
He smiled and looked down at the box in his hand. He opened it and revealed the ring inside. It was simple; a sapphire stone held within the confines of the ring. She loved it.
He pulled the ring from the confines of the box and then took Aria's hand in his own. "Yes, Aria, I will marry you."
They shared a celebratory kiss before getting out of the car and heading up to the house, where everyone greeted them excitedly. Aria let her friends pull her aside where the conversation was a mix of excitement and sadness; excitement for what was to come for each of them in the next few months, and sadness for the fact that, except for Hanna and Emily, they would be split up. She said nothing about the ring, and either her friends didn't notice or didn't ask, but she didn't mind. Becoming engaged was something she was happy to keep to herself for a while, because if she Ezra half as well as she thought she did, there would be a 'real' proposal for the benefit of their friends and family sometime in the future.
But for them at their core, their relationship had been made up of private moments, from the very beginning. And while they had come out to the public about their relationship, she was only too happy to let the private moments continue. It was in those moments that they really knew each other, and knew what their relationship was at its core.
As the sun started to set, her guests began to disperse, until it was just her parents, Ezra, and Mike. Mike and Byron had headed into the house to help Ezra with the boxes as Ella sat at the patio table they had in the back yard with Aria. Aria was turning the ring absentmindedly on her finger.
"Must you really go tonight," Ella said, though her tone wasn't angry. It was merely the plea of a mother quickly coming to the realization that her baby was about to leave the nest. And that, unlike the more typical situations, there was very little chance that Aria would ask to return.
Aria chuckled, shrugging. "I love him, mom." She took a deep breath and looked around the yard. "And he's right. This town carries too many memories. Alison's death, Mona….Grady…"
Ella reached across the table and squeezed Aria's hand. "I know, sweetie. I was merely making a futile last-ditch effort as a mother."
Aria smiled, squeezing Ella's hand in return. "Thanks, mom. For everything this past year. I don't know that I would've gotten through it without you."
Ella smiled even more so. Her gaze fell and then drifted back up to Aria. "When's the wedding?"
"What?" Aria was surprised. Had she seen the ring earlier?
Ella chuckled. "Sweetie, Ezra pulled us aside after you two got here and explained how your proposal nearly got you two killed."
Aria blushed. "I've never really been very patient, have I?"
Ella laughed once more. "No, you haven't."
Aria looked down at the ring on her finger, turning it back and forth on her finger as she did. "I wonder what a stranger would think of me, if they knew nothing but the last two years of my life."
Ella shook her head, pulling gently on Aria's hand to make her daughter look up at her. "They'd think you were strong and determined. That you fight for what you deserve, and you'd move heaven and earth to help the people you love."
Aria looked up at Ella "You have to say that because you're my mom."
"No," Ella disagreed. "I have to say that because it's true."
-
I'm gonna love you like I've never been broken
I'm gonna say it like it's never been spoken
-
The drive to New York was only filled by the generic sounds of their cars and the stereo as Aria followed Ezra back to New York from Rosewood in her own car. Her parting gift from her parents had been a GPS so that she would know how to continue if, for some reason, she and Ezra got separated on the highway.
By the time they reached the city, it was late, and they headed down to the garage and parked the cars. They each grabbed a box and then headed out of the building, and Ezra waved down a cab before giving the driver the address to the apartment. They would retrieve the rest of her things in the morning.
The drive to the apartment was quiet, as the three of them all seemed tired from their own daily events. When they arrived in front of the building a few minutes later, Ezra handed over a few bills to the driver and then he and Aria got out and retrieved the boxes from the trunk of the cab before heading into the building. Aria followed Ezra through the lobby to the elevator, where they rode it up to the apartment.
They stepped inside, and Aria quickly settled the box on the floor, looking around the room. There was new furniture in the family room, as well as Ezra's baby grand piano. The TV was centered in the middle of the entertainment system, and the large floor-to-ceiling windows gave a generous view of the city.
"You tired?" Ezra asked as he pulled his shoes off.
Aria shrugged. "A little. Not enough to go to sleep yet."
"Do you want the tour then?" He asked. Aria nodded.
She pulled her boots off and took his hand before letting him lead her down the hall. He led her to the master bedroom first, which was nearest the end of the hallway, and opened the door.
The walls were painted a soft shade of teal, and the bed had the same bedding that had been in his apartment back in Rosewood. There were two desks in the room, on either side of a dresser that sat in the middle. There was a TV mounted on the wall a few feet above it. There were bedside tables on either side of the bed, which had a wooden frame.
And of course on the farthest wall, there were bookcases filled with books of all shapes and sizes.
"This used to be my parents room," Ezra explained.
"Did you not want to go back to your old room?" Aria asked.
Ezra shrugged as he pulled the door shut. They stepped across the hall, and he showed her the bathroom briefly, just so that she knew where it was before he led her back up the hall a few feet and stopped at the door that led into his old room. His hand rested on the door knob for a moment as he looked back at her. "I don't know. Maybe. I just didn't want to be in that headspace again. All the memories, you know?"
Aria nodded.
He turned the knob to the door and pushed it open before reaching over and turning on the light so that she could see into the room. There were a few bookshelves left in the room, but they were bare. It was otherwise empty, except for a few boxes sitting inside the room, unopened.
"I figure at some point we'll figure out what to do with it." He said.
Aria walked into the room, looking around. There was nothing left in the room to suggest that it had ever been his room, but it only took a few seconds before she spotted the oddly colored wood on the floor. She knelt down onto the floor and ran her fingers over it and then turned to look back at Ezra.
"Do you regret it?"
He stared at her for a moment. "No. Because, including a long line of other things, I believe that those events led me to you. And any reality where you don't exist in my life isn't one I want to know."
She smiled wanly at him and then pushed to her feet and walked back over to him. He flipped the light switch off and pulled the door shut before they headed back down the hall into the family room. Ezra led her around the corner into the kitchen, and showed her where everything was before they each grabbed a water bottle and headed back into the family room.
Aria stood in front of the windows, staring down at the street as Ezra sat at the piano, pressing his fingers on the keys. She turned and looked at him a moment later.
"Wait a second," she said. "You didn't show me Elijah's old room!"
Ezra chuckled. "There's nothing in it. It's empty, other than bookshelves."
"Have you figured out what to do with it?" Aria asked as she walked over to the couch and sat down.
Ezra looked up at her, smiling coyly. "I've got a few thoughts."
Aria raised an eyebrow at him, curious. "Like what?"
Ezra looked over at her, chuckling softly. "It's not set in stone, but Hardy's asked if he might stay here for a few weeks."
Aria sat up straighter. "He's going to move here to be with Sasha?"
Ezra nodded, tinkering on the piano keys. "In a few weeks. I told him I'd talk to you about it. He only wants to stay long enough to find a job and then either move in with her or get a place of his own."
Aria smiled. "That's sweet."
She laid back on the couch, fluffing the throw pillows behind her as she watched Ezra continue to fiddle with the keys, not actually playing anything that sounded like any part of a song.
"Are you going to continue to fool around or actually play something?" She teased after a while. Ezra looked over at her and smiled before sitting in silence for a few moments. When he figured out what to play, he placed his hands back on the keys and began to play.
Aria immediately knew the song he was playing, and a smile crossed her face as she watched him play. She wondered if, in the depths of everything he had gone through two years earlier, Dr. Sullivan had ever considered the idea that he might find himself in that very same room years later, finding a way back to the piano to play just for the sake of playing, instead of doing it to keep from hurting himself or trying to escape the turmoil he had suffered through.
Her eyes drifted shut, and the memories of that night back in her bedroom more than a year earlier ran through her mind. She remembered how disconnected she had been to everything, and how cold he'd been to her. How she had heard him punching the wall after that, but hadn't known what it was at the time, only that the sound had scared her. She could look back now with a slightly more objective view of where they had been at that point in their lives, and shake her head at some of the actions they had made, whether out of fear or any other emotion. She knew that she was still recovering, even more than a year after the fact, but her trauma didn't dominate her life, and she didn't let herself give the memories the time of day. Grady and the things he had done to her were in her past.
"You know there is an upside to feeling like this, right?"
Aria could swear that Hanna had become the life coach she'd never asked for. She wasn't quite sure what it was that was driving her emotions, but for the past few days, she'd just felt like utter crap. She didn't have very much drive to do anything other than lay in bed and hide from the world.
Hanna reached over and pulled the earbud out of Aria's ear. Her brow furrowed a moment. "That song is so depressing."
"What do you care?" Aria asked, finally looking up at her friend. Her tone was angry and frustrated. "You know nothing about how I feel right now! You haven't been through what I have!"
Hanna seemed to shrink back at Aria's anger towards her. "I didn't mean…I'm sorry, Aria."
Aria breathed heavy, angry breaths for a few moments before forcing herself to remember that it wasn't Hanna that had hurt her. "No. I'm sorry." She was quiet for a few more moments before running a frustrated hand through her hair. "What were you saying?"
"I was saying there's an upside to feeling the way you are," Hanna said tentatively, clearly afraid of having her head bitten off again.
"How do you figure?" Aria asked.
"Because," Hanna replied. "If you've hit rock bottom, the only way you can go is up. Things can only get better."
Aria sighed and leaned back against the wall behind her. She stared out her bedroom window.
"And regardless of what that song is telling you right now, you can be fixed, Aria."
She opened her eyes sometime later to find that she was wearing a different t-shirt, and tucked under the confines of a heavy blanket in a strange room. She looked around her, grateful to be in the comfort of Ezra's arms, until she remembered that they were in New York, and that she didn't have to be scared. She exhaled a breath and then turned and looked up at him. He was fast asleep. She snuggled closer to him and rested her head on the middle of his chest, staring down at his bicep as she laid there in the darkness. Innately, his arms tightened slightly around her. A moment later, she heard him laugh, and she couldn't help but giggle softly to herself. He was laughing in his sleep again. That was so much better than his screaming.
She reached her hand up and brushed it over his naked torso where the ink was pressed permanently into his skin.
Serenity. For the promise that he wouldn't be afflicted by the things that had affected him anymore.
She looked down at her hip as she moved her hand and moved her shirt up slightly. Her own tattoo was smaller, but it was just as personal. It was the word Innocence, for the choice she'd made to not let what Grady had done take away everything innocent about her, and the kind of person that had made her for the previous seventeen years of her life.
Serenity meant to be calm and untroubled. The definition of innocent was to be pure and uncorrupted.
That didn't sound like a bad life to her.