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Aria's POV
As I stuck my hand through one of the big holes on the side of Lucy's incubator, her own little fingers met mine and curled around my index finger.
"We have only been feeding her sugar water, for the time being." Dr. White told us. "I don't think she could have handled milk up to this point."
"Is that… healthy?" Ezra asked her, uncertainly.
"Well it is all we can give her. We are not sure if she can tolerate anything else." She explained. "I do not know how long she is going to have to be in the incubator. We are just going to have to take it day by day until she is healthy enough to go home."
"How long do you think that will take?" I asked, my voice dripping with sadness.
"It could take weeks, or it could take months." Dr. White replied.
More tears fell down my face as I looked at Lucy again. She had wires taped in so many different places on her chest to monitor her heart rate, her breathing, and more. Her big brown eyes, however, were wide open and staring at me, as if she was trying to memorize my face. The tape on her face that held the tube in her nose to help her breathe was stuck on her in such a way that she had a hard time making facial expressions. For having so many wires and tubes attached to her, she was staying surprisingly quiet. We had only heard her cry once and that was the moment she was born.
I turned to Ezra, who was watching Lucy with just as much love and pain reflected in his eyes.
"I wish I could just take all her pain away. That has to hurt so badly, being secluded in an incubator with wires and tubes all over her." I said softly.
Ezra wrapped his arms around my waist and held me close to him. I deeply admired his strength right now, because I had no idea how he had been able to hold all his emotions in. I had already broken down into crying fits multiple times but Ezra has only shed a few tears. The past few days had been so hard on everyone. My parents and friends tried not to show it, but I knew that they had a hard time seeing Ezra and I in so much pain. I was only a teenager, and all this had to happen to my baby.
I had been released from the hospital the day after Lucy was born and Ezra and I were only allowed to see her during visiting hours. It was so sad and frustrating to have to leave her when the hours were over. I felt so guilty going home with Ezra every day and leaving her in the hospital, a place full of strangers with no one she really knew.
It has been exactly fifteen days since I gave birth to Lucy, and things had only gone downhill from there. About a week after she was born, she was one pound and fifteen ounces, meaning she had started losing weight. That was the complete opposite of what Ezra and I wanted to happen, because she already weighed so little. It made me start to wonder if these doctors really knew what they were doing. Don't they know the dangers of newborns, especially preemies, losing weight? Dr. White seemed like a great doctor at first, but now I am honestly not so sure. We saw Lucy cry again on her one-week-old birthday, which was a good sign.
Ella, Byron, Mike, and the girls have been visiting us everyday. Toby, Caleb, and Samara had visited us a few times too, bringing flowers, chocolates, candy, and anything else they can think of to help us get through this.
"She can go home when she gains some more weight. Four pounds is the minimum weight we allow newborns to be when they can go home."
I stayed quiet as more tears slowly fell down my rosy cheeks.
"She's gained a little bit though. Currently," Dr. White flipped through some of the papers on the clipboard in her hand before speaking again. "She weighs a little over two pounds."
"Later tonight we are going to try feeding her milk and see how she takes it." Dr. Casey chimed into the conversation.
"That's good." I nodded. Giving her milk would help her gain weight, which is what needed to happen.
Dr. White glanced at her watch before looking up at us again.
"You have ten more minutes and then I have to send you home." She said sympathetically.
I slid my hand through one of the holes in Lucy's incubator and she grabbed my finger once again. I watched as she moved her legs up and down in anticipation. I moved some of her dark hair away from her face as I tucked it back into the little pink hat on her head. I could not wait to take my baby home.
…PLL…
"Aria, we need to stay strong. For Lucy's sake. You can't beat yourself up about this! It's nobody's fault!" Ezra tried to reason with me.
After we got home from the hospital, everything came crashing down upon me. It was all my fault. Everything that was happening to Lucy. There had to be a way I could have prevented this. There was something that I just was not careful enough with during my pregnancy. There had to be some reason why she was born premature.
"It's my fault." I cried out angrily. Why could he not understand that this was all my fault?
"I must have done something wrong during my pregnancy to make my water break!"
"No Aria! You did not do anything! There is no solid reason a woman's water breaks! Dr. White said it is mostly caused from brain signals from the fetus. There was no way you could have controlled that!"
Ezra was about to say something, before a knock on the front door interrupted him.
I made my way over to the door and opened it, greeted by Spencer, Hanna, and Emily. Emily and Hanna looked troubled, while Spencer had a look of pure frustration and irritation on her face. They all walked past me and into the living room where Ezra was, without saying a word.
"What's going on?" I asked them, as I closed the door behind them.
"Remember that text A sent us at the hospital?" Spencer asked as she sat down in an armchair by the fireplace and put her head in her hands.
I sat down next to Ezra and nodded. "I never read it through. I deleted it so Ella would not see it."
"Well, now's the time to read it. A sent the same text to all of us." Spencer reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She searched her phone for the text. Once she found it, she handed her phone to me.
I gasped, as I looked at the most recent text from A.
"I wonder how the police will like these pictures? We'll find out soon enough. –A" Attached to the text was two pictures. My fingers trembled against the phone as I clicked OK to open the attachments.
The pictures were both of Ezra and I. The first picture was of him and I kissing in his old classroom, and the second picture was of Ezra holding my hands in his in his old classroom. From the background of the pictures, one could clearly tell that we were at school.
I was speechless as I handed Spencer's phone over to Ezra so he could read the text and look at the pictures.
"Holy shit." I faintly heard him mutter under his breath.
"When?" I whispered.
"When what?" Emily furrowed her brows in confusion.
"When is A going to show these to the police?" I cried out desperately.
"Let's find out." Hanna said. She took Spencer's phone from Ezra and quickly sent back a reply.
"What did you just do?" Spencer asked.
"I asked this bitch when they were sending the pictures in." Hanna replied angrily.
We all waited in silence for A to respond.
"See what it says!" I cried as soon as her phone chimed with a new text.
"It says…" Spencer grabbed her phone from Hanna's hands and opened the new message. She read it, before slumping back against her chair in defeat. "It says 'That's for me to know and you to find out. –A' "
I groaned loudly. That definitely did not help at all.
"You guys really should have been more careful! Anyone could have seen you two kissing in your classroom and taken a picture, and A decided to do just that!"
"It does not matter anymore! Ezra can't get in trouble, he is not my teacher anymore and I am at the age of consent! And my parents approve-"
Spencer started shaking her head as soon as the words "Ezra can't get in trouble," came out of my mouth.
"Yes, yes he can. He committed a crime. It does not matter how long ago it was, or the fact that your relationship with each other is legal now, it was illegal at one point, and he still pursued it. And…. Ezra being the older one would get in trouble. Not you."
I shook my head at Spencer. This was not possible. This could not be happening right now.
"Aria, if I committed a murder five years ago, and they never found out that I was the one who did it until today, I would still go to jail! The amount of time that has passed does not change the fact that I committed a crime!" Spencer tried to get me to understand.
"No." I whispered. I turned to Ezra, who had immense fear written all over his face. I got up from the couch and slowly walked over to the window, looking outside, but not really seeing anything. How could A have so much power over us? Why did A want to ruin our lives so badly?
"We have to do something to stop A!" I suddenly exclaimed as I turned away from the window and faced them all.
"There's nothing you can do, Aria!" Spencer got up from the couch and walked over to where I was standing. "Except maybe change your names, flee the state, and never come back."
"Then we'll do just that!" I cried.
"No, we won't Aria! We can't!" Ezra also got up from the couch and walked over to me. He took my hands in his and tried to reason with me.
"Why not?" I yelled in frustration.
"Because our daughter is currently lying in an incubator at the Rosewood hospital, unable to breathe on her own! We can't leave her! Anywhere we go, she's going to!"
"Of course Ezra!" I exclaimed angrily, as I pulled my hands out of his. "Do you really think I would ever leave our daughter? You honestly think I would do something like that? Don't you know me better that that?" I cried, as tears started pouring down my face.
Does he really think that low of me? That I would actually leave my newborn daughter? I could never do something like that to her.
"I'm sorry Aria. I didn't mean that. I'm just… frustrated." He said quietly.
We both were overreacting. But that is exactly what A wants. They want to drive a wedge between Ezra and I. A wants to do everything in their power to hurt me in any possible way they can, starting with the two most important people to me; Ezra and Lucy.
"What if you guys pretend to break up? Stop seeing each other and make A think you have broken up. Then A will have no reason to send the pictures to the police. The only reason they are doing this now is to hurt you, Aria. No offense Ezra, but A could honestly care less about you if you had no connection to Aria. If you are not with Ezra anymore, than A has no reason to send these pictures in!" Emily exclaimed.
"It could work." Ezra shrugged.
"You guys are forgetting, A knows everything. A will know you are lying." Hanna reminded us.
"Not on my watch she won't." I muttered angrily under my breath.
"Wait, A's a girl?" Ezra asked, astonished.
"Um, we don't know. But honestly, what guy that we know would have the motivation to do something like this to us?" I asked the girls.
"Noel?" Ezra suggested. "He knew about us and he tried blackmailing me because he knew I was dating you."
"But that was something he only had against me." I said. "Not on all of us." I motioned towards the other girls. "Plus, A would not do something to us that would end up backfiring on themselves. When A put those midterm answers in Noel's locker, Noel got suspended. If Noel was A, he definitely would not have done that to himself."
"A did that?" Ezra exclaimed.
I nodded.
"I thought A is the bad guy." Ezra said slowly.
"He is." I paused. "She is. They is."
Ezra raised his eyebrows at me at my grammatical mistake.
"They are!" I exclaimed.
"That's what you get for dating an English teacher." Hanna smirked.
"So why would A do something nice for us? A saved our relationship by putting those midterm answers in Noel's locker." Ezra said.
"Whenever the bitch gives, she takes." Spencer snarled.
"Always?" Ezra asked, trying to find some sort of good side of A.
"Ezra, I got run over by a car because I knew too much, remember? A thought I had seen them so she had to do something about it… Actually…" Hanna paused. "You were probably too busy making out with Aria to notice…"
I shot Hanna a nasty glare.
"But A did not do that Hanna. Noel did." Emily reminded her.
"Maybe Noel and A are working together? Have you ever considered A being more than one person?" Ezra raised his eyebrows at us.
I had to admit that it was a valid thought.
"But why would A get Noel suspended to save you and Ezra? I don't think A is that nice, considering Noel was going to get Ezra fired. If I was Noel and I was working with A, there would be no way that I would let A get me suspended." Spencer said.
"That is because you are Spencer Hastings. Noel probably had different motives, if he agreed to it." Emily said.
"Guys I honestly don't think Noel's working with A." Spencer shook her head. "I mean, he does not even talk to us at school anymore. He only really talked to you, Aria, if that."
"Can I see your texts from A again?" Ezra asked me.
I grabbed my phone from the coffee table and handed it to him. I watched him concentrate on my phone as he reread all the texts from A.
"Aria, look at this." Ezra motioned for me to come over and look at my phone. He showed me a text from A that was signed "-A" and another that was signed "-A."
"It could be two different people." He said.
A high-pitched trill suddenly sounded throughout the room. All of our faces drained of color as we recognized the sound of our four phones ringing in synchronization.
Emily slowly picked up her phone and opened the text. As soon as she read it, she let out the huge breath she had been holding.
"It's just my mom. She wants me to come home so we can have dinner together."
"Mine's Caleb. He said he misses me and wants to see me." Hanna blushed.
"Toby." Spencer shook her phone in her hand in front of us.
"We'll see you guys later then." I sighed as I watched them leave the house.
I turned to Ezra when I heard the front door close.
"What do we do now?" I asked him.
"You heard them. Maybe we need to pretend we've broken up to fool A so they will not send these pictures in." He scooted closer to me on the couch.
"No! I cannot lose you Ezra!" I exclaimed, as tears started pouring down my face. "I can't. I just can't."
"You are not going to!" Ezra wrapped his arms tightly around me as I cried into his chest. "I promise…" He whispered. "I promise to always be here for you and Lucy. A will never be able to tear us apart."
I lifted my head from his tear-stained shirt and looked into his eyes.
A cannot take Ezra away from me. No matter how hard they tried. I had too many people in my life that I love and need to protect. And A is not going to be able to do anything to stop me from doing just that.
A ringing interrupted my thoughts. I grabbed my phone from the coffee table and looked at the caller ID. It was Dr. White.
My heart rate suddenly sped up and my palms started to get sweaty. She never called Ezra or I unless something was wrong with Lucy. I looked up at Ezra, who was watching me, as I answered the call.
"Hello?" I answered, my voice shaking in fear of what she was going to tell me.
"Aria. I am sorry, but I have some bad news for you and Ezra."
My body started shaking in nervousness. I felt my eyes welling up with tears before Dr. White had even told me the news.
"We fed Lucy a little bit of milk earlier, but she could not handle it. We have moved her from the incubator to an isolette. We stopped the feedings but her stomach is swollen and extended. We think she has an infection."
My phone fell out of my hands as I broke down sobbing. Ezra rushed over to me and held me tightly. Tears rapidly streamed down my face as I buried myself into Ezra's embrace. This all had to happen just when I thought things could not get any worse. I started to wonder if there was any hope at all for Lucy and what she was going through.
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