I hope this gives a little closure to some of the other storylines I had going on earlier, especially concerning Alison's death which I changed from the series to add emphasis to some other points I was trying to make. I hope this doesn't feel too rushed. Please review!

Aria couldn't remember what happened in the ensuing months after she and Ezra agreed to take a break. She would always be able to recall particular moments in flashes of memory, but it was her journal that kept most of these events recorded. The days seemed to go by in a blur, as if all the events in her life flew by her in colored haziness. School and home melted together, and friends became family. However, she could recall with perfect clarity the last day of her junior year of high school—June 1, 2012

The school bell rang to release students for the day, and she sat in her desk as the room cleared out. Emily gave her a knowing look as she exited the classroom. Ezra watched his students leave, walking them to the doorway, before going to sit in the desk in front of Aria.

Aria rested her elbows on the desk and leaned forward slightly, "What if it had never happened?"

"Which part?" he asked looking at her.

"All of it," she answered. She paused, "Do you wish you could go back?"

"Sometimes," he admitted. "I wish I could see my mom again. A part of me wants to go back and forgive my dad for everything."

"Us?" she asked quietly.

"No." He shook his head firmly. "Never us."

"What if you hadn't been my neighbor?"

"You mean your teacher."

"No," she repeated. "My neighbor."

He shrugged, "You would be the pretty girl who sat one row over from the windows. And I would be wondering what it is you thought every day while you sat there."

"Sometimes I wish I could go back," she admitted. "That I could go back and tell myself everything was going to be okay. That it would all work out. To have patience."

He leaned his head to the side. "We've talked about this." He sighed. "There are all kinds of love in this world, Aria. This is what we're supposed to do right now."

"I know," she responded looking into his eyes, "but sometimes it's really hard."

Ezra opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Hanna's knock on the closed door. "Your friends are waiting for you," he said instead.

She got up from the desk and grabbed her bag. "See you later?"

"Always." He watched as she exited the classroom and began to talk to her friends.

Her journal entry read "sometimes you have to go back so you can move forward."

The summer of 2012 was one the most relaxing phases in Aria's life. It was her last chance at being a kid, and she embraced it wholeheartedly. The sleepovers at Hanna's, the day trips to the Hastings' cabin, and the nights in Philadelphia reminded Aria wholeheartedly of what she had missed while she was in Iceland. She had missed just being part of the rest of the world. Although her life had grown both infinitely more complicated and substantially simpler, the same could not be said for her friends' relationships.

"Maya and I broke up," whispered Emily as her friends congregated in her bedroom. She had just run what seeme to be miles, sweat stuck to her body, and her hair was messy in its pony tail.

"Em," exclaimed Spencer. "What happened?"

Emily fell to her bed, "She couldn't be the person I needed her to be." Hours later she would tell them about the continuing drug use, the half-truths, and her running away to California. June 26, 2012 Aria wrote in her journal "Is it the same thing or is it different—people being what they are and people being who they are?"

Aria renewed her relationship with her dad the same time that Spencer and her father ceased to be on speaking terms. Although her friends asked her what they had disagreed on, Spencer would not tell them.

"Maybe Mr. Hastings had an affair," suggested Aria.

"I bet it has something to do with Melissa," chimed in Hanna.

"No, I think he lied to her about something important," guessed Emily. "But what's so important she couldn't tell her friends?"

This speculation led Aria to write her longest journal entry of the summer. On July 2, 2012 three pages of writing ended with the thought "life is too short to go through it angry and unforgiving."

Caleb and Hanna cemented their relationship, and she spent several weeks in California meeting his mother. "It was so great," she gushed. "His house is amazing and his family was so nice to me, but his story is so sad," she sobered. "Who would give up their kid in the first place? If it were my mom, I don't know if I could face her."

July 17, Aria asked the silent pages of her journal "What does it mean to want the best for your children? Are the benefits they gain worth the heartache they'll have in the process?"

July 21 was Ezra's birthday, and Ella cooked Ezra as special dinner to commemorate, and the Montgomery family sang him their original rendition of Happy Birthday. It was only when Hardy showed up to drag him to a bar that Ezra left the comfort and warmth of their home.

"He's family," said Ella as she cleaned up the dishes.

"More than that soon enough," grunted Byron as he inclined his head toward where Aria was sitting in the living room.

August 2 Spencer dragged her friends to the cabin, giving them little explanation and reason for her need to run away from the rest of the world except for some incoherent babbling about something she had found at Melissa and Ian's house. "Do you remember when we came up here with Ali?" she asked in a rush, pulling her car into park.

"Yeah," answered an annoyed Hanna, "Why?"

"I think she hid something here, something that connects to her death." They spent the night ransacking the house, looking under floorboards and furniture until Aria found something in a vent. It was a small wooden box.

"Is this what we're looking for?" she asked holding it up to Spencer.

"I think so," answered Spencer, rifling through it.

"Is this Ian?" asked Emily, holding up a photograph that had been wrinkled on the sides. There was a picture of Ian next to a tree that had his initials and Alison's carved into it.

"It totally is," exclaimed Hanna. Underneath the false bottom of the box, Spencer found a hard drive. Plugging it in to her computer, Spencer clicked on the file. It was a video of Alison and Ian dated May 27, 2010, only days before Alison had died.

"Do you think…?" breathed Aria.

"I don't know." Spencer admitted. The friends looked at each other, wondering what they should do with the knowledge they had just gained. In the end, they didn't have to do anything. Ian Thomas committed suicide three days later on August 5. He left a note explaining the circumstances of Alison's death, a declaration of his everlasting love and devotion to Alison, and an apology to Melissa for everything. He left his wife in shock and three weeks pregnant.

Aria, Emily, and Hanna went to the funeral on August 8 to support Spencer as the perfect Hastings family image crumbled down. What was even more surprising than the stoic Melissa Hastings crying in public, was the sight of Spencer as she leaned on Toby Cavanaugh's arm. "They looked cute together," gushed Hanna as she waited for the funeral to start. As the memorial ended, Aria felt, at long last, that a particular chapter of her life had been closed. Some of Alison's secrets had gone with her to the grave, and others were buried with Ian, but at least her death was one mystery solved in Rosewood.

"It was an accident," Aria told Mike. "They were meeting each other and she slipped and fell on a rock. She hit her head, and Ian panicked. He left her in the yard and her body was buried under all the dirt and construction the DiLaurentis' were doing to their house that year."

"It's creepy," Mike shuddered. "To call what twisted emotion he felt love."

"There are all sorts of love in this world," Aria shrugged, "some purer than others."

The last two weeks of summer flew by in a daze as the world said good-bye to Ian and Alison and unearthed secrets became public knowledge and open to public speculation. It was freeing, Aria thought, to have no secrets from her friends or her family. On August 23, 2012, Aria's last year as a high school student began.

Emaya fans please don't worry. Maya comes back later in the story.