Aria walked through the front door of Ezra's house. Her heels echoed on the hardwood floors, and she quietly walked past the entryway and into the living room. Finding both the dining room and the kitchen empty, she walked down the hallway, stopping for a moment to examine one of the paintings she found hanging on the wall next to the laundry room. Studying it closely, she stepped away when she was satisfied with what she had seen, and walked one door down. It was closed, but she opened it easily. She found Ezra at his desk, writing something carefully. He was so deep in thought, that he barely noticed when she slid something across his desk.
"Aria?" he asked questioningly, looking at what she had set before him, somewhat startled and disoriented out of what he had been focused on.
"Read it," she urged him, gesturing to the envelope she had placed in front of him.
"Okay, give me a minute," he said uncertainly as he tore open the tightly sealed letter. As he took a moment to read it, Aria paced restlessly across his study, fingering and absently studying the titles. She took several seconds to look at the empty space above Ezra's empty head and out the window. It used to be a perfect view of the tree house, once upon a time.
"This is good news," said Ezra pleased. "Really good news." His tone was one of glowing admiration, the kind he would use on a student who performed particularly well on an exam or had written a touching piece of work.
"It it?" asked Aria, her eyebrow raised, reminded that Ezra was her teacher and she was his high school student.
"You don't think so?" asked Ezra confusedly, looking up from the cream colored page and at where she stood across the room.
"I haven't read it," admitted Aria. "Spencer was waving hers around a week ago, like a proud peacock," said Aria, a hint of laughter in her voice. "But she's a Hastings. She probably had early admission or something."
"Aria," said Ezra gently, "You got into Columbia. Of course this is great news."
"Columbia, huh?" said Aria, turning her attention back out the window. "That's all the way in New York City."
"A couple of weeks ago, you wanted to go as far away as California for school." Ezra rose from his seat and walked over to her.
"So much change," said Aria looking up at him. "And new challenges."
"You will love it there," he assured her, squeezing her hand.
"It's not home," said Aria. "No Emily or Hanna or Mom or Dad or Mike. No walking next door for a book or a quick chat or a kiss," she finished absently. "No going to The Brew for a cup of coffee. No going to the Grille for a quick bite." She reached up and stroked his cheek softly. "No seeing you every day." They stood like that for a moment before she pulled away and began fingering the angel pendant at her throat.
"I will miss you too," said Ezra, replying to her unspoken statement. He tugged at her arm and led her to one of the big easy chairs he kept in his study. He sat in it and pulled her on top of him.
On his lap, she was eye-level with him, and Aria studied his carefully before responding in the form of a kiss, the first one they had shared in a while. It was urgent and it was needy, but it was slow and giving at the same time. It was deep and led to another and another, stopping only when Ezra felt tears on his cheeks.
"Why are you crying?" he asked her, wiping her tears away with his thumb.
"Because it's really happening," she answered. "It's one thing to talk about it, to apply to these schools. It's another thing to know that you're really going away."
"You spent the whole year away," he responded, prompting her to finish her thought. "Across an ocean."
"But we just found each other," she exclaimed. "We just found each other and now we have to say good-bye. I hate saying good-bye." She bit back a sob and furiously rubbed at her face with her hands. "I could go to Hollis," she offered suddenly. "I wouldn't have to leave. Nothing would change."
"You hate me," answered Ezra swiftly. "You would feel tied down and bottled up and you would resent me for it. Maybe not right away, but you would."
She was silent before climbing off his lap, and turned her attention out the window. "What does this mean for us?" asked Aria.
He got up from the chair to stand beside her before responding. "This means I visit you in New York. I have an apartment there. It's in Manhattan, not far from Central Park, right across from the Met."
"What's it like?" she asked. "On the inside?"
"It has four bedrooms, I think," he said, furrowing his brow. "Maybe five. I'm not sure. It has a living room and a dining room and a study. A kitchen. The view is supposed to be spectacular."
"You've never been there?" asked Aria, her voice woodenly surprised.
"It belonged to Uncle Wesley and he used only when he was in New York which wasn't often."
"It's not homey, then," concluded Aria. "Not like here." She gestured to her surroundings
"You could change that," suggested Ezra.
She changed the subject. "I have to go tell my parents about Columbia."
He smiled at her, a smile, she noted, that was both hopeful and sad. "Go tell them," he urged. "They'll be excited." She nodded as he continued. "You're not Spencer Hastings, you're Aria Montgomery, and I've always known you would do great things."
Aria cocked her head to the side. "How?"
"After I had known you for a while, a few months, I think, after I moved here, you came over with Emily. You girls needed help with your English essay. You wrote your essay with such feeling that I just knew then, all those years ago."
She half-smiled at him. "See you later?"
"Always," he replied as she turned to leave the room.
She had been gone for several minutes when Ezra pulled a glass bottle from one of his desk drawers and poured the amber liquid into a glass. He finished it in three quick swallows. He poured himself another glass. When he finished his second glass, he slumped in his desk chair, a posture of near-defeat.
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"We've spent some time this semester discussing Nihilism," said Ezra sitting on the corner of his classroom desk. "What do you think it means?"
"It's about destruction," offered Emily.
"Oh, okay," said Ezra crossing his arms in a friendly manner. "In what way?"
"Destructing the past. It has no meaning in modern times," she explained. Although her voice had confidence, it shook slightly.
Ezra smiled at her in encouragement. "That's one way of looking at it. Does anyone else have another definition?"
"Life has no meaning," said Jenna. "If the past does not have meaning for the present, then one can conclude that the future also gives the present no meaning."
"Does the present have any meaning at all?" asked Ezra. "Or should it be destroyed also, like the past?"
"The present is what we know right now at this moment," called out Holden from the back row. "Once the moment passes, then the knowledge we have at that moment," he snapped his fingers in one swift motion, "ceases to exist and we know knew things."
Ezra nodded his head. "Then how can we really know anything at all?"
"We can't," said Spencer, her eyes wide.
"What about things like love or hope? Can we know things like that, for sure? What about morality? Someone talk to me about morality."
"If we can't know," answered Aria uneasily, "then we can't know between right and wrong. Morality doesn't exist either."
"But then how do we know the difference between right and wrong?" asked Hanna.
"There is a difference, Mr. Fitz," chimed in Mona with a naughty smile, "right?"
"We can think there is a difference between right and wrong, but is it real or do we make it up?" questioned Ezra, tapping his temple with his index finger.
"So maybe we don't know the difference between right and wrong," smirked Noel. "Maybe there is no such thing as love or hope. Maybe we don't know anything." He paused dramatically at this before continuing. "Then what's the point?"
"The point to what?" asked Ezra philosophically.
"The point to life," clarified Noel, his eyes glittering with challenge.
Ezra shrugged his shoulders and casually swung the leg resting on his desk back and forth. "I don't know, Mr. Kahn. Perhaps you could enlighten the class as to what you believe to be the meaning of life." Noel flushed as the class laughed softly, a scattering of giggles, while he bit back a biting response.
"If we go back to what Emily said," said Ezra, getting up from his leaning position and walking over to the blackboard. "Nihilism is about destruction." He wrote the word destruction in large letters that took up most of the space on the board. He turned back to his class. "But maybe destruction leads to rebuilding." Ezra erased the word destruction and then wrote the word rebuild in smaller letters on the board. "See," he gestured.
"All you did was wipe the board clean, Mr. Fitz," said Tyler hesitantly, "and then wrote something else."
"You're correct, Mr. Sperling," said Ezra, his voice loud and crisp. "I did erase what was on the board and I did write a new word." He cleared his throat as Tyler began to smile with self-assured confidence. "But you are also incorrect." The beginnings of Tyler's smile disappeared.
"I had to destroy the old word in order to write a new one," he explained. He set the chalk down and looked at the open book on his desk. He looked back. "It's like a good-bye," he illustrated. "We have to say good-bye to certain things in order to say hello to others." He paused for a moment before continuing, "Please turn your textbooks to page three hundred-and-forty-two."
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"Ezra," called Ella, rapping her knuckles against his open classroom door.
"Oh, hi," said Ezra, looking up from the essays he was grading. "Did you need to talk to me about something?" He eyed her. She looked like she was about ready to go home for the day. She had her purse on one shoulder and her red leather purse-bag that she used as a briefcase was being held in her left hand.
"Yes, actually," said Ella, sighing. She walked over to the front row of student desks right in front of his larger teacher desk. She placed her bags in the seat before leaning against the desk part to face her colleague.
"What's wrong?" asked Ezra uneasily.
"We're not at home, Ezra," began Ella without preamble. "We're at work, and here I'm not your neighbor or your mother-figure or even your mother-in-law." She sighed. "Right now, I'm a colleague which is why I wanted to do this here instead of at home."
"Do what?" asked Ezra.
"I got elected by some of the teachers to come and talk to you." Her shoulders slumped slightly. "They're concerned about these rumors going around about you and a student."
Ezra let out a deep breath. "I've done as Byron asked; I backed off."
Ella nodded. "I know," she replied sympathetically. "Unfortunately the rumors have gone viral." She sighed. "I've thought about it."
"I've thought about it too," cut in Ezra. "The school year is almost over. Soon, students will graduate and go off to college. August will come again and new rumors will start floating around." He choose his words carefully.
"I'm going to ask you this and only ask you this once," continued Ella smoothly. "Answer the questions honestly and I can give a report to the teachers with a clear conscience."
"Okay," said Ezra uncertainly. "I will."
Ella took a deep breath. "Have you slept with any of your students?"
"No," said Ezra, taken slightly aback.
"Have you ever marked a student grade higher because of any sexual favors they might be giving you?"
"No."
"Have any students offered a sexual favor to you in order to have their grades marked higher?"
"No."
"Have you ever had any kind of relationship with any of your students?"
"I like to think that I have a relationship will all my students," answered Ezra. "However, I have lived next door to Aria for years, and I would say that I have a different kind of relationship with her and her friends because we've known each other much longer than they have been in my classroom."
"Why do you think these rumors started, about you and a student?"
"I think people look at things and think they see something when they're seeing something else."
Ella smiled. "See. That wasn't so bad, was it?" She got up to pick up her bags. "Now I can report back to those vultures with a clear conscience. See you tomorrow, Ezra," she called as she walked out the door.
Ezra watched her go. He had chosen his words carefully, but it was only after he reviewed the entire exchange in his head that he realized that Ella had chosen her words carefully too.
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Aria looked out her bedroom window before sighing and pulling out a book from the drawer by her desk. Ezra had given it to her yesterday. Aria reread the title page before she turned to the first chapter. Winesburg, Ohio it read. She looked at the inscription on the book. For When you leave Rosewood…Ezra had written.
She sighed and read the first sentence. Ezra had been spending a lot of time at work lately. She wondered why. He cherished her even if it wasn't always at her beck and call, even if they didn't hang out at his house as much as they used to. She knew that. But he seemed preoccupied with something recently. Suddenly, she turned back to the inscription page. He was preoccupied about her leaving.
Aria looked to where the letter from Columbia sat on her desk. Was he afraid that she would leave and come back someone other than the girl next door? Was he just as afraid as her and unwilling to admit it? Was he still hurting from the past? Was she who thought all those things and put worries and wonders in his mind?
Abruptly angry she threw the book across the room. She hated being afraid, which is exactly what she was now. She hated change, which is inevitable. She hated challenges, difficult, heart-wrenching, life-altering challenges, which life is full of. She wasn't thirteen and he wasn't twenty-two. Suddenly that change seemed sudden and hurried.
Grabbing her journal from the bedside table, she began to write. After she had scrawled the first few sentences, her anger had quickly abated. Her hurried strokes began to become calmer and more peaceful. Her thoughts began to settle as she stopped thinking about the what-ifs of her life.
"You okay?" a voice asked suddenly from the doorway.
Startled Aria looked up from her bed, "Yeah, I'm fine, Mike," she answered easily.
Her brother noticed she wasn't smiling. "Are you sure? I thought I heard you throw something?" he asked pointedly.
"I did," she supplied calmly, refusing to explain.
April 18, 2012
When do we grow up? Is it a look in our eye, something we do? Is it the way we talk or the way we feel about a certain thing? Is it recognizing the difference between childhood and adulthood or recognizing that there is no difference between the two? Is growing up knowing that Death knocks on our doorstep, taking people that we love with it? Is growing up knowing that one day Death will come for us too?
When do we fall in love? Is it when we know we will do anything for someone? Is it caring for the needs of another? Is it a look, a word, a motion, or a feeling? Is it an act or a deed? Is it a song or a verse? Is it an action or the result of one? Is it the answer or merely a part of the equation? Is it knowing or knowing that we don't know?
When did I grow up?
When did I fall in love?