A/N Please keep reviewing. Your comments/questions let me know where I should clear things up and the things I need to explain more in depth.

"Everyone dies." Aria was standing outside Ezra's front door late on a Friday night.

"What?" asked Ezra from inside the doorway.

"I reread your book. Everyone dies at the end," she repeated.

He sighed. "Do you want to come in?" She followed him inside, not to the living room, but into the kitchen. She sat at the table while he poured her a cup of tea and set a plate of cookies down in front of her. "Your mother brought them over yesterday," he explained.

She sipped her tea before setting it down on the table. "You lied to me."

He looked down and stared at the patterns in the wooden table. "I lied to myself. I thought that if I didn't tell you, I could protect you."

"My dad told me about your mom, about how she died. I'm sorry," Aria told him sincerely.

Ezra drank some of his tea before setting it back down on the table. "As soon I turned eighteen, I rejected my inheritance. Money didn't save my mom, and it consumed my dad."

"What happened?" ventured Aria. She nibbled on a cookie.

"My dad wasn't happy with me. He became even more upset when I majored in English instead of business. He agreed to my terms, though. Sometimes, I think that the less I could bother him, the better."

"But you ended up with all the money anyway."

"I did," replied Ezra. "My father left everything to his brother, Wesley, and Uncle Wes, who didn't have any children, was supposed to leave everything to Dad. But Uncle Wesley died a few months before Dad did, making his will void, and then Dad died. There was another will, an alternate one that Dad had made up after Uncle Wes passed. He never told me about it. He left me everything."

"Ezra," began Aria uncertainly, "doesn't the Fitzgerald family have dozens of businesses? You're not working long hours in an office somewhere, and you're not exactly business minded…" her voice trailed off.

"Well, when I first heard about everything, about the new will, I wanted to give everything away, but Isaac, my lawyer, said I couldn't do that. It something about how the will was worded and the business structures. I am completely silent partner. I am hoping that eventually Isaac will figure out a way I can give my stake in these businesses to the business partners."

Aria sighed. "You're dad died three years ago. Why did you wait so long to tell me?"

"Do you remember that I was in California so long after Dad died?"

Aria nodded. "I had always thought it was because of Jackie."

"No, it was because of the will and all the complications that went with it." Ezra sighed and rubbed his eyes. "All that money has caused me nothing but pain and hurt. I didn't want it touching you, all that pain and hurt."

"It's touched me anyway, Ezra." Aria took a sip of her tea and looked at him expectantly.

"Everyone dies at the end. The book. Everyone dies at the end. I never had a real family, and then, suddenly, my family was dead. All I had left was you and your family. My family was destroyed by wealth. I didn't want to destroy the only family that ever felt real to me."

"The Springers," said Aria suddenly. "You had Grandma and Grandpa."

"I didn't know it when I was a kid," explained Ezra. "They were my mom's family. And they lived all the way in Pennsylvania. I was young. I thought that if my dad couldn't bear to look at me because I looked too much like my mom, then they wouldn't be able to stand the sight of me either. When I was in college, though, I started calling and writing letters. The plan was to move to Rosewood or nearby after I graduated to get to know them better."

"But the car accident happened."

Ezra nodded. "I graduated a month afterward. They left me their house. I figured that if I couldn't get to know them in person, then at least their things, their possessions could tell me something. Something about them and about my mom."

"And the job at Rosewood High. Did you plan that?"

"That just kind of happened. I told you that I had forfeited my inheritance. I did need some way to support myself. I majored in English and I did want to teach. I just didn't think I would get hired here in Rosewood. I thought my chances of teaching in Philadelphia were better, of finding a job there."

"Well," said Aria finishing off her tea, "that leaves us in our current predicament."

"Yes?"

"I'm not mad that you told me, Ezra. Or even that it took you so long to tell me. You're the same Ezra you were yesterday. You're the guy next door, the one that lent me books and nourished my love of literature and art. You're the guy that took me and my friends on the Halloween Train when were fourteen because you wanted to be nice not because you had to." She sighed. "I'm mad because of the way you told me. When you wrote that resignation letter to Rosewood High, it just brought up everything that was wrong with us. It confirmed this feeling of being slutty and dirty, and, and doing something wrong." Aria paused for a moment to gather her thoughts before continuing. "But telling me that in the middle of trying to get sex from you." She shook her head. "That made me feel like more of a whore than you will ever know."

"I am truly sorry, Aria," Ezra told her. "I never meant to make you feel like that. But you would have felt like more of a whore, I think, if I had told you after it happened."

"Maybe," conceded Aria.

"We are wrong in so many ways," admitted Ezra. "But I think we are more right than we are wrong. We shouldn't let the circumstances define us."

"Shouldn't we?" she asked, her eyebrow arched.

"Aria," his eyes slid shut in pain. "Please don't give up on us."

"I talked to Simone," said Aria suddenly.

"What about?" questioned Ezra warily.

"You. She said that you've been lying to yourself for a long time."

"About what?"

"She said that you loved me even when you were with her." Aria looked into his blue eyes, questioning him.

"Do you want to know when I first fell in love with you, at least when I first realized you were someone special in my life?"

"Tell me," prompted Aria.

"I had just come back to California. It was early on a January morning, a Saturday because I had woken up extremely late and you weren't in school. You rang the doorbell and offered me a plate of cookies. You had wanted to check to see how I was doing, to make sure I was alright. You were so warm and cheery, and I had spent the night with someone who I knew wasn't a good person. I've kept going over that moment over and over again in my head." He shook his head helplessly. "I've realized that that's the only time I never invited you in."

"I thought you were going to say it was the day I walked into your classroom."

"No," answered Ezra thoughtfully. "I think that's the first time I saw you as a woman, as a very attractive woman. Maybe you never noticed it, but Khan was drooling over you that entire first class. It made me want to punch him."

Aria laughed slightly. "When I was in Iceland, I met someone. His name was Oskar. I thought he was funny and smart. And he spoke English well. Anyway, after we had been dating for a while, he started to pressure me into doing things, and I couldn't make myself do them." She shut her eyes and then opened them. "I didn't know why then, but I do know why now. It was because I was waiting for you."

"I suppose we're going to have to keep on waiting," said Ezra. He finished his tea.

"You were right to insist we wait until after I graduate. I would hate myself afterwards."

"It would certainly make your dad happy, and I wouldn't want to do anything to make him want me to skin him alive."

"Now that Mom and Dad know about us, I wonder what they think," thought Aria aloud.

"I think they would be happier if you were a couple years older and I was a couple years younger," replied Ezra honestly.

"That's the one thing we can't change," answered Aria hopelessly.

"We could cool things off until you turn eighteen," suggested Ezra. "You're birthday is right around graduation."

"I think we should get to know each other better before we go any further," said Aria. She shrugged. "I know that sounds silly since we've known each other for years, but I still think it's a good idea."

"It is a good idea. We need to get to know each other as adults in an adult relationship. But graduation does imply some change regardless of us."

"Is this your way of asking me where I'm going to go to college?"

"Yes," answered Ezra sheepishly.

Aria smiled slightly. "I've applied to UCLA, U of Penn, NYU, Columbia, Hollis, of course, a few liberal arts schools in Massachusetts."

"If could go anywhere, where would it be?"

"If I could go anywhere, where would you want to live?"

Ezra sighed. "Aria, it doesn't work like that. You can't pack up your high school English teacher and take him with you to college."

"I thought we had been over this," let out Aria in frustration. "You are more than just my high school English teacher."

"Okay, okay." Ezra thought for a moment. "I think you should go where you want to go, but I really do love my teaching job."

"Okay, so UCLA and Massachusetts are out. Hollis?"

"I think you would feel too stuck, too stifled if you stayed here in Rosewood. And I think you would hate feeling as if your dad were looking over your shoulder the entire time. College is a time to act stupid and make mistakes."

"U of Penn, NYU or Columbia?" asked Aria.

"I think you would really like living in New York," offered Ezra. "But I don't want to make your decision for you."

"Well, let's see where I get accepted. I haven't gotten any letter yet."

"Good idea," he answered. "UCLA…I know you've always wanted to go to California. Let me take you one day," he suggested.

"Do I get to see the house you grew up in?" she asked.

"I told you about it once," said Ezra thoughtfully. "Don't you remember? You asked me about it once. The house in Beverly Hills with fifteen bedrooms…

"…the pool and the tennis courts. The house made out of limestone? I remember. That was your house?"

"That is my house," replied Ezra. "I own it even if people are renting it out."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," said Aria quietly, "now that I know you're a Fitzgerald. Still the idea that you grew up in that mansion and then moved to this." Aria gestured to her surroundings.

"That house in California is cold and impersonal," he explained, "and I took the best, what I liked best about it, and brought it here."

"What do you mean?" asked Aria, she followed Ezra's gaze to the small painting that hung on the wall behind him. It was of an eighteenth century woman pouring milk into a pitcher. "That's not a…"

"A Vermeer?" finished Ezra. "Yes it is."

"Wait a minute, and that painting over the fireplace. I always thought that was an imitation, but is that a," Aria swallowed. "Is that a Manet?" She looked over her shoulder and into the living room.

"Yes," he answered. "And there's a Monet in the dining room and a Warhol in the study."

"Ezra," exclaimed Aria. "Your house is practically a museum." She paled. "What else don't I know about?"

"My mom loved art. It's what she majored in in college. I thought it would be a nice touch putting up all this art in the house she grew up in. Some of her works are up too. Some of the watercolors on the staircase and paintings in the guest bedrooms."

"Oh," said Aria, her voice small.

"Are you still mad at me?" he asked gently. "I understand you were upset about the way I told you."

"I got angry, well besides the other thing, I got angry because I thought you still thought of me as some little girl who needed to be protected from the truth. The, the truth about sex, about you, about your family, about your money. I don't need to be protected anymore, Ezra. I'm not a little girl anymore."

"I think you made that abundantly clear to your parents at dinner the other night," said Ezra dryly.

"Yeah, Dad's not very happy with me, and neither is Mom for that matter."

"Well,"

"Well," agreed Aria. She looked around the kitchen. "I suppose I should go, before it gets too late."

"There's one more thing you need to know, Aria." Ezra sighed. "And you're not going to like it."

"Please don't tell me you have a kid somewhere out there," joked Aria. "I don't think I could handle being a stepmother at seventeen."

"No, no kid. I promise." He took a deep breath. "I do, however, haven an ex-fiancée."

"Please don't tell me," Aria let it hang.

"It's Jackie. From when I dated her the first time."

"I never liked her," said Aria through gritted teeth.

"Apparently your instincts are better than mine. Once I figured it out, I couldn't believe I had been so stupid. We dated in college. She was my first serious girlfriend. I asked her to marry me and she said yes. She broke up with me. We didn't speak to each other for years, and then she showed up at my dad's funeral. And, as luck would have it, she got a job at Hollis that was going to begin in a few weeks."

"That gold-digger," spat out Aria.

Ezra nodded his head. "You got that right. She broke up with me when she figured out I gave up my inheritance, and then she got back together with me when she found out I inherited everything anyway."

Aria leaned back in her chair. "I'm glad you told me."

"I'm glad I told you too,"

"No more secrets?"

"No more secrets," promised Ezra firmly. Aria smiled. "Aria," began Ezra hesitantly. "Feelings, feelings are complicated, and they don't always make sense, but promise me that you will always tell me how you feel even if you think I won't like it."

"I will," answered Aria easily, "If you'll do the same."

"Done," said Ezra.

"I really should go home now," said Aria, glancing at the clock on the wall. She got up from her chair.

"You could stay," offered Ezra. "We could watch a movie."

"What happened to taking it slow?"

"We are taking it slow. We are just going to sit in the living room and watch a movie. We'll even leave the curtains open so we're not tempted to do anything your parents might not approve of."

Aria thought for a moment. "You make the popcorn while I pick a movie?"

"Butter or no butter on your popcorn?" returned Ezra.

April 2, 2012

I finished rereading Ezra's book today. I guess I should say Elliot Harding's book. That's Ezra's pen name. Everyone dies at the end. Why? The only people left are Meredith and Ian. Is it supposed to be some kind of commentary about Ezra's own life? Does he think everybody is going to leave him? If it is, that's an extremely bleak outlook on life. But in his own way, everyone has left Ezra: his grandparents, his parents, and we even left him for a year to go to Iceland.

Or maybe it's about hope. Everyone dies because there is a new beginning, a new story to start. That would be wonderful, wouldn't it, if it were a happy ending instead of a sad one? Maybe it's about living our lives without the hurt and pain of the generations that came before us. On the other hand, how can we be who we are without the generations of the past? I think I'm having an existentialist crisis…

Ezra's mom's name was Felicity. Felicity means happiness and it means joy. From what dad told me, Felicity Springer did not live a long or happy life. She was snubbed by her husband's family and didn't visit her parents nearly enough. But maybe she was true to her name and happier than I think she was. I guess only we can measure how happy or sad our own lives are, give ourselves sad or happy endings.