A/N Thank you for the wonderful reviews. They keep me motivated to keep updating. Unfortunately, this is the last update for the night. I'll be back tomorrow. Enjoy chapter 6!

The fall of 2009 passed quickly and quietly. Mike had entered seventh grade and joined the junior high basketball team. Byron had been made head of his department, and Ella showcased some of her pieces at a local art gallery. Aria started going out with Holden Strauss, and Ezra and Jackie were still together. Eventually Thanksgiving rolled around, and then Christmas and New Year's in quick succession. At fifteen, Aria thought that her life was complicated and she was somehow different from the rest of her classmates.

When, years later, she told Ezra how she had felt during that fall, he would reply, "Maybe there's some truth to it."

Perhaps there was more truth to her feelings. Aria had her first boyfriend and she was completing her first semester of high school. She was already feeling pressured about college and her future. The arguments that seemed to be increasing in regularity between her parents didn't add any peace to her life. But what happened in the fall of 2009 was nothing compared to the spring of 2010.

It was early on a Thursday morning, Thursday morning March 11, 2010 to be exact, that Ella called Ezra and asked him to take Aria to school. She was going to take a sick day. Aria walked to Ezra's driveway, where he was waiting for her in his silver Camry.

She got in the passenger's seat silently and placed her bag on the floor. Ezra noticed that she was wearing sunglasses and her hair was in a messy bun. She sipped coffee from her travel mug the whole way to school. "Is your mom okay?" he asked eventually.

"She'll be fine," replied Aria, her voice monotone.

"Did she manage to find a substitute or should I let Principal Hackett know when we get to school?"

"She got one," replied Aria, looking out the window.

At the red light, Ezra took a moment to look at her. She looked tired and stressed, and she was uncharacteristically close-mouthed. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked now. He was pushing it, and he knew it.

"I'll be fine," responded Aria. She took a sip of her coffee before adding, "Eventually." When they reached the school parking lot, Aria quickly jumped out of the car without saying a word.

He puzzled over what had happened during the day, and he even spent a portion of his lunch period looking for her in the crowded cafeteria just to check on her. He was concerned. Aria waited for Ezra at the entrance of the school after she had been dismissed for the day. She followed him to his car, ready for the ride home, when he turned to her and opened up his bag.

"It's The Scarlet Letter," he said. "The protagonist of the book is a woman who felt singled out by society for being adulterous." She fingered the paperback book in her hand but didn't respond.

Ezra sighed and got into his car, steeling himself for the silent drive home. He noticed that she fingered the book during the drive while she looked out the window, distracted.

When he pulled into his driveway, she immediately took off her seatbelt for a quick exit, but Ezra put a hand over hers, stopping her. She looked up at him, her eyes silently questioning.

"Do you want to tell me what's really going on?" he asked gently.

After a moment, she leaned back in her seat, her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Mom and Dad had a big fight last night," she mumbled.

"I know they've been having problems lately," he answered. "But what's wrong with you?" He looked at her, willing her to respond.

She sighed. "I'm scared. I'm worried that my parents are going to split up, that I won't have my family anymore." She looked at him, her eyes filling with tears.

"Oh, Aria," he breathed out. "You know I love your parents as if they were my own, right?" She nodded in response. "Then, please trust me when I say that you're parents are going to be okay."

"You promise?" she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

"With my whole heart," he answered. She looked up at him with her big hazel eyes before giving him an awkward hug from across the seat.

"Do you mind if I spend some time reading in the tree house?" she asked. "I don't want to go home right now."

"Sure," he responded. Secretly, he was glad that she wanted to do something so normal, so routine, even if reading in the tree house had become a less frequent pastime. That night, Aria wrote in her leopard print journal "Making it through."

However, things took a turn for the worse less than a month later on April 9, Hanna announced to her friends that her parents were getting divorced.

"I'm so sorry Hanna," exclaimed Spencer. "What happened?"

"My dad wants to marry the woman he's been cheating on my mom with. Isobel. The witch woman," she spat out.

"Are you going to be okay?" asked Emily. She had been sitting next to Hanna, and now her hand was rubbing her friend's back in an attempt to comfort her.

"Eventually," responded Hanna. She looked miserable, and Aria automatically sat up in her seat when she heard the word that sounded like an echo of what she had said weeks ago.

"We'll help you through it," said Aria sympathetically.

Hanna looked at her friends. "I know you will."

Aria's journal entry for that was written in red ink. The word "divorce" was blocked in all caps and next to it was a single question mark.

Two weeks later, on April 17, she and Holden broke up. The feeling was mutual. They both understood that they were better off as friends rather than involved in a romantic relationship. But Aria's journal entry was cryptic, simply stating that "Nothing is ever going to be the same again."

May 30, 2010, the second day of summer vacation, Aria remembered exactly where she was when she heard the news. She was sitting at home watching TV when her mother came into the living room and sat next to her. Sensing that something was the matter, Aria turned the TV off and faced her.

"Alison DiLaurentis went missing," said her mother without preamble. "Ashley Marin just called me to let me know. I thought that you might know something, anything that would allow her parents to find her."

"Wow," responded Aria. She looked at her mother in shock for a minute before answering. "I don't know anything. Nothing." She shook her head. "Alison kept her friends close, but she liked to keep her secrets closer."

Ella gave her daughter a hug before saying "Let me know if you think of anything, anything at all."

Police came and questioned Aria that week, and while she wasn't exactly calm as she answered their questions, she managed to keep a straight face and repeat what she had told her mother. She didn't know what to think anymore, or feel. Her journal entries from May 30 to June 3 simply read "Alison." The name was written dozens of times as if by writing her name, Aria could find out what happened to her friend, and her childhood.