Chapter 6:

ARIA POV

Weeks had passed since I broke up with Ezra, which meant weeks had passed since I last spoke to him. He called, texted and emailed, but I was reluctant to replying to anything. It had been extremely tough not being able to embrace him in my arms, to extensively kiss him, and just to call him my own, but what he did was almost unforgivable. Yes, almost. He cheated on me, which is possibly the last thing I could have imagined him doing, but all his goodness cancels out that one thing he did wrong. I believed in forgiveness, but I knew I wasn't ready to forgive just yet.

My friends weren't tuned in to what had been happening with Ezra and I. I suppose I had been quite secretive about it all though. I bottled everything up, but I decided to tell my friends everything as we sat down for lunch in the cafeteria. I had to get everything off my chest, it was becoming too much and they were literally the only people I could talk to about this.

"Look at that storm out there." Spencer said as we all started on our hamburgers. Today's lunch menu wasn't the nicest it had ever been, and I barely just picked at my food. "I hope it's gone before we have to drive home."

"Yeah." I groaned. If the girls didn't know something was up by now, they never would.

"What's wrong Aria?" Hanna asked, placing her hand over mine. She could sense that I was upset.

"Look there's Ezra!" Emily squealed and pointed to Ezra as he walked into the cafeteria. I had forgotten that he was on supervision duty every Thursday.

When I didn't turn around to engage in some sexual eye contact like I normally did, my friends knew what was going on.

"Ok Aria, spill!" Hanna said sternly. She was probably the best person to talk to when coming to matters like these. "What did he do to you?"

"He cheated on me." I said bluntly. I didn't want to broadcast that I was a victim of man-whore syndrome. I'm over-exaggerating, but I still didn't want to alert people that I had been cheated on.

"He did what?" Spencer gasped. "I'm going to talk him right now!"

"No Spencer!" I called as Emily pulled her back. "He knows what he's done. And he feels terrible about it."

"Well he should. Nobody deserves that, especially you." Hanna comforted me. To my surprise, it was actually working.

I took a bite of my burger, hoping they wouldn't ask anymore questions. Enough was enough for one day. A part of me wanted to get everything out, but another part me felt embarrassed when talking about it.

"Do you want to talk about?" Emily asked nervously as I kept my head down in my food.

"Okay." I agreed reluctantly. Although I didn't want to spill everything, I felt my friends deserved to know. "Do you guys remember about three weeks ago? When Ezra was really late for class. Do you remember when I went to see where he was?"

"Yeah!" They all nodded and stared at me, intrigued to know more.

"Well, I went to the teacher's lounge to look for him and the door was open. So I peeked my head in and there he was, lip locking with Ms. Anilom. I almost had heart failure!"

"Who's Ms. Anilom?" Hanna asked. She was never really clued in when it came to school.

"The woman who he's talking to now." Emily hesitantly said. I turned around to see for myself.

Ezra was stood there beside Ms. Anilom. He was chatting with her, acting like there was not a care in the world. I didn't know how he could just stand there in front of me and talk to her. I didn't know who he was anymore.

"Is it just me or does her hair look like a wig?" Hanna mentioned. Trust Hanna to bring something like that up in conversation, although I had noticed it before.

"Maybe she has alopecia Han!" Spencer warned her not to be so judgemental, but Ms. Anilom's hair did look really false.

"So are you two over then?" Emily asked, ignoring Hanna and Spencer's argument over Ms. Anilom's hair.

"Yeah." I told her regretfully. "I broke up with him when he came looking for me to apologise. A part of me wants to forgive him though."

"WHAT?" Hanna said rather loudly when she heard me say I wanted to forgive Ezra. "You cannot forgive him Aria. He cheated on you. Once a cheater, always a cheater. You deserve better!"

"But surely all that good things cancels out that one bad, Hanna?" I told her, standing up for Ezra. I wasn't sure why I was standing up for him after what he did though.

"You really do love him, even though it pains you to right now. It's really cute." Emily said comfortingly. Emily was always so sincere, while the other two were quite opinionated. Sometimes too opinionated.

"I believe it's worth fighting for!" I told her, very sure of myself. I then turned around and took a quick glimpse at Ezra, who was still talking to Jackie. They both had huge smiles on their faces. She probably cracked a joke about me or something. After all, she was a conniving little bitch.

"Okay I get the whole fiasco Aria, but at least teach him a lesson!" Spencer blurted out after swallowing her last drop of Orange Juice. "Show him what it feels like!" I thought about what Spencer had to say. Maybe she was right, maybe I did need to give Ezra a taste of his own medicine.

"Well, Ezra did say he thought something was going on between Ryan and I…" I slowly said, thinking of the idea.

"Perfect!" Hanna said and jumped at the sound of my plan. "He won't do this to you again once he realises how much it hurts."

"Of if I have something to do with it!" Spencer evilly said with a cunning grin on her face.

"Spence!" I moaned while begging her not to.

"I'm sorry Aria. You're just so tiny, and I love you. Nobody should ever hurt you!" At times, I absolutely could kill Spencer, but now I really loved her.

"I'm sort of using Ryan though, isn't that just as bad?" I asked my friends. I really liked Ryan. Not as much as Ezra, but he was really sweet and sincere.

"Don't be such a worrier Aria, just do it!" Spencer demanded as I nodded in agreement. As much as it pained me to use Ryan, Ezra needed to be taught a lesson.

My friends and I were discussing how I should go about this until we were rudely interrupted by the sound of Ms. Taylor's annoying voice over the intercom.

"Staff and Students, a tornado warning has just been issued for the next few hours. We have been warned to stay indoors until this storm passes. It is highly recommended that everyone remains in the school building until told otherwise. We have no confirmation on when we can leave yet, but we reckon we'll be here for quite some time. Thank you!"

After Ms. Taylor completed her announcement, everyone's face could tell a horror story. Nobody wanted to be trapped in school, and especially not me. I slowly turned around to look at Ezra again. This time he caught me, and gave me that escalating eye contact until it was awkward and I turned away. Ezra was going to be taught a lesson, even if it pained me to do so.

A/N… REVIEW FOR MORE. LACK OF REVIEWS ON LAST CHAPTER UPSET ME =(

Hey guys! Sorry I've been so bad with the updates but I can't tackle all my school work, let alone write chapters for this. I just had extra physics on a Friday night (never do physics), so I thought I'd write a chapter afterwards. It seriously SUCKS. But it is a filler. I brought the girls into it to, wasn't right without them =)

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HarryLovesGinny09. She said her birthday was today and she wanted me to upload, so I did just that. Hope you have an amazing day!

Lot's of love, Becky x