Aria

After her small crying session, the morning seemed to run rather smoothly. It was only on very rare occasions that Aria ever cried, but it seemed at the moment she was crying much more than often. This displeased her. Moving to New York had been a dream come true for her; she was working at one of the most renowned schools in the city, she had a fairly good apartment, Summer had been accepted into the best infant school and the pay Aria received was way more than she could have expected. But - like most of her dreams - everything had seemed to fall apart within a matter of days of arriving. Now, it wasn't just her who was picking up her broken pieces, it was Ezra too. Did she want to be so involved with him so early? Could she allow him to weave his way back into her life after 6 years of constant wishing for his return? The saying ' be careful what you wish for ' was beginning to become more and more real for Aria. However, Aria couldn't ignore the ache in her heart that yearned for him. It was time for her to admit to herself that those feelings were still there and would most likely never disappear. After all, if they hadn't disappeared after 6 years then it was most likely they never would just go away.

Her second lesson that day was teaching a slightly misbehaved class who were new to the high school this year. This class had to be her least favourite so far as none of them seemed to have any love for English at all. Aria could never quite understand how people couldn't like English. Sure, if you weren't good at writing then it must seem like a bore. But how could someone dislike reading? Delving into a book and becoming so immersed in the characters that you believe they're all real is one of the best feelings in the world. How could children hate something so wonderful? One of Aria's biggest wishes was that Summer grew up to adore books and writing as much as she did. Already, Aria read to her every night.

During her second lesson of that day - 3rd period since her second had been a free one - she had the class doing they're assignments in silence since none of them seemed to quite understand that they had to actually do some work during a lesson. Currently, the topic she was teaching was poetry and she'd been teaching them some of the more technical ways to analyse a poem and how to talk about them correctly and compare them in an essay for their exams. Today, they were studying a poem by Robert Frost. While the pupils were silently doing work with glum looks on their faces, Aria was getting on with some assignment marking. A light knock on the door interrupted all of them.

" Hey Aria so about-" Ezra walked through the door with a small smile on his face, not quite noticing that their were other pupils in the classroom. Instantly, Aria's eyes widened slightly and she looked directly ahead at the class - who were all now staring at Ezra strangely - to try and indicate to Ezra.

" Hi Mr. Fitz, what can I do for you?" Aria said politely, keeping her voice bright. A slight hint of red flushed Ezra's cheeks as he spotted everyone else and he quickly improvised.

" So about that book you were telling me about. I think it's a great idea that it be added to the school curriculum, so I was just wondering if you had a copy so I can clear it with the head?" Aria held back a giggle and instead smiled.

" Um, let me just have a check in my draws... but I think it might be at home..." Aria replied, ducking down to pretend search through her draws. As she did this, she heard a light scribble of a pen and Ezra moved to stand in front of her desk so that he was blocking her view of her students. When she looked up, Aria saw that he'd wrote ' Dinner tonight?' on a scrap piece of paper. Immediately, Aria was reminded of the time she had done this herself when she had been asking him out to the art exhibition. Again, she held back a giggle.

" Well... I can't seem to find it... but I'll have a good look for it at home," Aria said, while nodding to indicate that she wanted to go. Ezra's smile brightened and he moved towards the door, scrunching up the piece of paper.

" Ok, thanks," Ezra said happily.

" Miss?" Their conversation was suddenly interrupted as a girl in the back corner of the room waved her hand impatiently.

" Yes Danielle?" Aria replied, hiding her annoyance. Danielle was one of the many pupils that she disliked in this class and Aria believed Danielle had probably never read a full novel on her own in her life.

" What exactly is the point of this? I mean it's just poetry, it's boring," Danielle challenged, and Aria tried not to look phased or angry by her question as she knew Danielle was only doing this to annoy her. For the moment, Ezra didn't leave since he was curious about how this situation would turn out.

" I think the point of it, Danielle, is to get you through your exams so that when your old enough for a job, you can get a much more professional one because of your english results," Aria replied, not wishing to delve into an argument about poetry.

" But why do I even need to learn about this? Why do they even put it in exams? I mean I'm never going to use it in later life... I'm never going to need to know what Onomato- whatever it's called is!"

" Poetry is an important part of literature because it tells a story in a set number of words and each word is unique and equally as important. In a novel, connectives are over used and while reading people are most likely to skip words out. Whereas in poetry, you read every word and each word contributes. It's much harder to write a world renowned piece of poetry than a novel because of this. As a matter of fact, Poetry helps you understand the world more as it can explain things that you've never thought about or have scene before in few words and it allows you to delve into a world of your own. Different poems can be understand in a thousand different ways so it also allows you to explore your imagination more and be more creative. It's a great skill to have in later life, if that answers your question," This silenced Danielle and Ezra was now staring at Aria in wonder with a small smile on his face. Though Aria hadn't wanted to go on a small rant about why poetry was good, she was glad she had as she now felt as if she'd finally gotten through to Danielle a little more. Maybe not as far as convincing her to read for fun just yet, however...

Later on that afternoon, an hour after the school hours had finished, Aria exited her classroom and headed down the hall towards the exit to pick up Summer. Aria hoped that Spencer would be alright to look after Summer again, even though Aria had asked this favour of her a lot lately. Quickly, Aria texted Spencer to ask and explained why. As she was doing so, she passed Ezra's office and he was just locking it up, ready to leave.

" Hey Aria... I'm glad you decided to come tonight," Ezra greeted her, and Aria looked up from her phone, a smile growing on her face.

" Hey, and yeah me too. I agreed to start things off slowly and I think this is probably a good way to start at least," Aria said.

" I agree. So I'll pick you up at about 6 from your apartment?"

" Yeah, sure. That would be great," Aria answered. " What's the dress code by the way?"

" Um, well it's nothing too fancy... it's just I know you like Italien food so I thought that we might go to one of my favourite Italian restaurants in the city," Ezra babbled, and Aria chuckled.

" You still remember?"

" Of course I do,"

" Well I'll see you tonight then," Aria said as Ezra began to prepare to head down the hallway to the exit.

" I can't wait," Ezra said, quickly stepping forward and planting a small kiss on Aria's cheek. Her heart fluttered madly at the feeling of his lips and Ezra smiled, before - almost hurriedly - walking away. With a new found happiness bubbling inside of her, Aria stayed frozen for a moment before beginning to start walking, a small bounce in every step. However, just as she began to walk, Aria was stopped by a tall, familiar figure stepping in front of her.

" What's tonight?" Olivia Clark demanded, looking down on Aria with narrow eyes. Since she'd almost bumped into Olivia, Aria was standing quite close to her and had to look up to actually speak to her. It was a shame that such a horrible person taught another one of her favourite subjects. Aria couldn't understand how someone like Olivia could have a love for art; Olivia greatly reminded Aria of Danielle.

" What are you talking about?" Aria asked, her mind stepping off of cloud nine and back into reality. What did any of this have to do with Olivia?

" You and Ezra... You're both going out somewhere?" Olivia stated, a hint of venom in her voice.

" Why?" Aria asked, a frown forming on her face.

" Because you've known Ezra for practically two minutes, little girl. I've known him for 4 years, so I think it's probably me who deserves to go out with him to dinner. I wouldn't dwell too much on your little crush since we've had something going on for a long time now and I wouldn't want you to get hurt... I mean he clearly doesn't like you in that way... he may even just want to talk to you about books and all that rubbish since you are his new employee and he needs to get to know you more," Aria had to hold back her laughter. The genuine look on Olivia's face proved that she wasn't joking about what she said to Aria. Olivia genuinely thought that Ezra liked her. But the fact that Olivia said they'd had something going on for a long time now caused a slight bit of jealously to bubble within Aria.

" I'm sorry, but I don't actually think that this is any of your business. I mean, if you had something going on with him then he clearly wouldn't have asked me out. Maybe you don't own him as much as you believe you do, as clearly you're currently talking about him as if he's a possession," Aria said back, keeping her voice calm but with a warning edge to it like Olivia did. What she said clearly hit a nerve in a Olivia.

" Listen, little girl. Your new, I understand that. But there are things you need to learn around here, okay? Ezra Fitz is off limits to anyone but me. He's never asked anyone on a proper date but me. So your little dinner with him is a welcoming gift of his that he was kind enough to offer, since he's incredibly sweet like that. So, like I said before, don't get your hopes up honey, otherwise they're all just going to come crashing down,"

" Look, Olivia. I tried to polite, but you've been nothing but a bitch towards me so back off. I've been through more shit than you could ever imagine so before judging me by my small size, actually get to know my story first. You pretend and strut around thinking and saying that you know everything, when really you know nothing," Aria snapped, her voice raising slightly. She only just managed to refrain herself from shouting.

" Ha, you've been here two minutes Aria. You know absolutely nothing about what's happened between me and Ezra. You're new, I understand that, but you have to learn," Olivia said back, the bitterness rising in her voice. The whole conversation was very laughable for Aria as she knew that Olivia clearly had no idea about what had happened between herself and Ezra. Plus, even if they had dated once then they clearly weren't dating now. Ezra would have told her if that was the case and Olivia would, no doubt, be much more rude to Aria if she was being cheated on by Ezra with Aria.

" You know, I could actually say the exact same thing," Aria said with a couple of sarcastic nods, causing a confused frown to form on Olivia's face. With that, Aria stormed away with a satisfied smirk on her face, proud of herself for handling the situation quite well in her opinion.

Yes, I know I haven't updated in ages and this isn't exactly the most plot-filled chapter but it's an update! I finally got some inspiration from watching Aria and Ezra's reunion scenes in 5x03. I'm already longing for them to get back together on the show, which is why I wanted to write about them being together here! Really hope you like the chapter and I'm so sorry about the irregular updates - hopefully more will come soon! Thank you for all the continued support and lovely reviews :) they mean a lot!

-DareToDream