A/N

I haven't forgot about you guys. Another update should come relatively soon (hopefully within the next week).

BlueSkyMournings I do not attend the University of North Texas and I did not grow up in the area. I actually go to college in Tennessee, but I am from Texas. If anyone can figure out where in Texas I'm from, I'll give them a snippet of something from the final chapter of this story. The city I grew up in starts with a B.

WARNING:

Some content has to do with race-related issues. I'm sorry if I offend anyone. I don't mean to at all but add some perspective instead. I am a bi-racial (bi-cultural, bi-ethnic, bilingual) child myself.

Hanna received the first letter, on May 8, 2012. When she saw the white envelope bearing the emblem of the Art Institute in Los Angeles at the bottom of the stack of mail her mother had left her on the counter, she had groaned, believing it to be a notice of some misfiled paperwork. She gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes as she opened it, and then open her mouth in shock when she read it. Not only had she been accepted into the Art Institute, but she had been granted early admission into their school of fashion. Such an entrance was due to a scholarship she hadn't known she applied for. She told her mother the news, squealing with delight as she did so.

May 9, 2012, Emily received the second letter. She found it stuffed in her mailbox, fat and thick bearing the green initials of the University of North Texas, a liberal arts school near her father's Texan military base. She opened it alone in her room after depositing the rest of the mail on the kitchen table. Her shoulders were tense and her expression were worried, the sinking feeling in her stomach told her that it was her tuition bill, an expense her swimming scholarship alone would not be able to cover. But as she tore the letter open, she breathed a sigh of relief. The letter announced that in addition to her swimming scholarship, the university had received a federal grant for students who had parents in the service. Her schooling would be entirely paid for, and included enough money for a small yearly living stipend. Her father heard the tears in Emily's voice when she called to tell him the good news.

Spencer and Aria received their letters the same day—May 12, 2012. It was the day before their English final. Spencer shrugged when she saw the letter from Columbia, certain it was her rooming assignment or tuition bill. She said nothing as she read it, but she smiled softly afterwards. The letter was about a scholarship she qualified for and received, paying for her tuition and living expenses. Spencer knew that it was a gift. That letter from Columbia meant that she would no longer live her life at the whims and expectation of her parents. She would be able to make her own choices.

Aria let her cream-colored envelope sit on her desk for a few hours while she purposefully ignored it, giving herself the illusion of control. Before she went to bed for the night, she finally opened it, and smiled. She texted Ezra the good news. Through the generous donation of a distinguished member of the Columbia community, Aria had qualified for free room, board, tuition, and a stipend from the English department stating that it was in return for working at the Columbia student bookstore. She went to bed that night with a weight lifted off her shoulders and the shoulders of her parents.

Ezra received Aria's text and smiled as he stared out of his bedroom window and at the great big oak tree that glimmered in the moonlight. A tree house had stood on its branches, once upon a time. He shook his head and looked at the angel figurine on his nightstand. Angels, his grandmother had said, angels. They were around even if you didn't always know they were there.

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It was the last scheduled exam of the day, and the last exam that many of Mr. Fitz's twelfth-grade English students would take at Rosewood High. It was a bittersweet moment he thought as he surveyed the class. Noel Khan was talking to his friends about flashing the principal at the next day's graduation ceremony. Holden Strauss was sitting quietly and listening to is iPod. Jenna Marshall sat in her usual seat in the front row, cool and calm was ever. Mona Vanderwaal was filing her nails as Hanna told her about the new dress she had bought. Spencer was furiously studying her notes. Emily looked slightly panicked as she tapped her pencil on her desk and looked straight ahead. Tyler Sperling was carving something into the soft wood of his desk. And Aria was re-reading the last pages of a familiar teal-colored novel. Yes, thought Ezra softly to himself, he would miss this class most of all.

Ezra cleared his throat as he leaned on the edge of his desk, calling his students to order. They sat at their desks at varying paces as Spencer anxiously shoved her notes into the satchel at the foot of her desk and as Aria put her book in her purse.

"Today," began Ezra, "is the last time you will sit at those desks." He swallowed and held his hands up. "It's also the last day that I will stand here in front of you." He let his arms drop to his sides and continued. "When I started this class, in August, I didn't expect to learn what I've learned." He paused for effect and then shrugged. "Yes, sometimes teachers learn things too." The class laughed softly. "We've read many things this year, things about people whose lives don't turn out the way they expect them too, about authors who couldn't anticipate the endings of their own works." He cleared his throat. "You are not taking an exam today," he announced. The class burst into anxious and excited whispers at this last statement.

He headed to the chalkboard as the last of the mutterings faded and wrote three things, his chalk squeaking as the marks were made. At the top of the list was the name MR. FITZ, underneath it was the word PARENTS, and the final word was ME. He turned his attention back to his class. "I want you to take out a sheet of paper and something to write with." His class complied, making as little of a disturbance as it could. "I want you to write three words." He pointed to the chalkboard. "The first word is what you think I expect you to do after you graduate. Take a moment to think about it."

He watched as the class wrote their word down, some students taking more time to think about it than others. "Okay, the second word I want you to write down is what you think your parents expect you to do after graduation." This time pens and pencils scribbled furiously as they scratched on the paper. Ezra waited a few minutes before continuing. "That last word I want you to write is what you expect for yourself after graduation. Take as much time as you need," he cautioned them.

When every student was done, Ezra was back at his initial position, leaning on the front of his desk. "Now," he announced slowly, "I want you to hold up that piece of paper." Every student complied, but he saw that they looked at him oddly. "Now tear it," he instructed, "into tiny pieces." The sounds of paper ripping echoed throughout the classroom, and within a matter of seconds, every student had a pile of notebook confetti on their desk.

"Every expectation that you think I have of you, that you think your parents have for you, that you think you have for yourself, you should get rid of right now," he told them firmly. "If you only live by what you think other people expect of you, of what you expect for yourself, then you're not really living. Expectation means that there aren't any surprises, that there are no twists and turns. Expectation is the lack of spontaneity. Expectation is boring," he announced authoritatively. "It means that you have limited yourself. And worse than that," he continued, softening his voice, "it means that you have allowed others to limit you." He sighed. "I want everyone to take out another sheet of notebook paper." The class complied with only a few titters and rumbles.

When everyone had a sheet of paper on your desk, he began again. "Things evolve. Things change. This semester, we have witnessed the evolution of British literature. But more than that," he gestured to the students in front of him, "we have witnessed changes in ourselves however subtle that they may be. I want you to think, to really think, about the one thing you want for your life. What do you want after graduation? What will you want when you're rocking on your front porch with a dozen grandkids and a wife you've been married to for fifty years? What will you want when you're some hot-shot on Wall Street? When you see your child take their first steps?" He paused. "Take some time to think about it, and then write one word to represent the one thing you want for the rest of your life, the one thing you want to achieve."

Ezra watched as students wrote down their words, one after another. Some students took the time to think about the word they chose, considering every possible option to convey what they meant before writing it down. Aria was not among these students. Some students wrote something down only to scratch it out or erase before writing down another word before writing down another word. Aria was not among these students either. Instead, Ezra watched as she quickly wrote down her word and then looked up and out the window.

"Does everyone have a word?" When the class assented, Ezra instructed them. "Date the top of your page with today's date. It's the thirteenth." When every student had complied, he told them, "Take the page you wrote and fold it half and then in half again." When everyone had completed the task, he smiled at them. "Take it with you, and remember it. Look at it twenty years from now and see if it still applies. For some of you it will, and for some of you it won't." He shrugged. "Sometimes people want different things at different parts of their lives, but if you chose your word wisely, then you'll realize that the most basic thing you want is something you can strive for your entire life. It can make you a better person or," Ezra shrugged, "depending on what you want and how badly you want it can make you the worst version of yourself." He reached for the teal-colored book on his desk.

"This last fall, I read this book." He held it up for his students to see before opening it up to the marked page. "It's by a new author. His name is Elliot Harding, and the book is titled When Angels Fall." He paused. "I want to share something with you." Ezra began to read aloud:

Ian found Meredith alone on the beach. She was wearing the same dress she had worn the day she had finally learned the truth about her parents. Her knees were up against her chest and she rested her chin on top of them, staring out at the wide expanse of the ocean.

Although she didn't say anything, and although she didn't move, she heard Ian come up behind her. "Do you know why I love the ocean so much?" she asked him as he sat next to her in the sand.

He shook his head. "No."

Meredith sighed and drew a pattern in the sand with her hand. "It's because out there, past the horizon, nobody really knows what's there. There could be anything really. I always thought there was something romantic about it, something that could just make everything all better." She took a deep breath. "It wasn't easy, you know, for me to grow up in the sixties or even the seventies. All the white kids said Mama was a whore, and all the black kids said that Daddy was gonna leave us someday for a white wife because he and Mama weren't really married." Her fidgeting fingers found a seashell. She palmed it and felt the irregular grooves and hard edges for a moment before throwing it into the ocean where it landed with a loud splash, sinking below the surface. "My parents lied to me," she finished.

"They didn't, Merry. They protected you," said Ian softly. "And I am so sorry for what happened to them."

Meredith took a sharp intake of breath. She looked at him sadly. "Ian," she began tenderly. She lifted her hand to stroke his cheek, a motherly gesture. "It's not about what they did. It's that they didn't tell me. I grew up my whole life with these expectations of what I thought my parents wanted for me, of what I wanted for myself. It turns out the whole thing is a lie." She exhaled. "What expectations did you grow up with?"

Ian thought for a moment, a look of puzzlement and concern washing over him. "So you're not really mad at them?"

"I was for a long time after I found out," she told him, "but I think I was more mad at myself. Because I cared about what other people thought when I shouldn't have. Life should be about what I want. That's how Mama and Daddy lived. They lived how they wanted to, what they felt was right. They wanted to get married, so they married even if it wasn't an official marriage. And they told the world something in the process." Meredith took a moment to study Ian carefully, and the lines around his eyes and his forehead told her that the young man was suffering much more than a person should. "What do you want, Ian? What's the one thing you want out of your life?"

Ian shrugged. "What is it you want, Merry?"

Meredith turned her attention back to the ocean. "The horizon," she said. "I want to know what it beyond the unknown."

Ian thought carefully for several minutes. "Fulfillment," he finally answered. "I want to do something to make the world a better place."

They odd pair sat on the shore silently for a few minutes, and eventually Ian rested his head on Merry's shoulder. "Merry?" prompted Ian after a few moments.

"Hmm?" she replied.

"Thank-you."

"For what?"

"For being the mother I lost."

Merry smiled silently to herself in response and squeezed Ian's arm in affection. "Ian?"

"Hmm?" he answered sleepily.

"Thank you for being the son I never had." Ian was quiet in response and Meredith looked down on her shoulder to find him fast asleep, exhausted by the night's events. She brushed the hair out of his face and watched the sun rise.

After he finished the last sentence, Ezra cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the class, setting the book down on his desk. "Your assignment is to look at the word you picked twenty years from now and see if that's still what you want," he repeated. " Remember what you want not what you expect." He stopped for a few moments to study the faces in front of him, the last time that they would all be together in this room. Aria caught his eye, and she smiled softly at him throw the silk curtain of her hair. "Class dismissed."

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The night, her last night as a student of Rosewood High, Aria sat with Ezra on the sofa in his living room. She was resting her head on his chest as he read through some of the mail Ezra had gotten from his lawyer.

"Ezra?" asked Aria softly.

"Hmm?" he prompted, his eyes never leaving the page he was reading.

"What was your word? You know, the one for what you want? You read that excerpt from your book, so you must have a word, right?"

Ezra set down the papers on the coffee, and looked down at her tenderly, rubbing her upper arm with the hand with the one he was holding her. "Hope," he told her quietly. "I want every day to be filled with hope instead of despair." He was silent for a moment. "What's your word?"

Aria furrowed her brow before reaching into her pants pocket, taking out a folded sheet of paper. She handed it to him without words and he read it silently. When he finished, he handed the paper back to her. She folded it back up and put back in her pocket before leaning against him once more.

Ezra kissed the top of her head. "I'll do my best to make sure that happens."

She kissed him in response. They sat still for a few moments, and Ezra made no move to reach for his mail.

"Aria?"

"Hmm?" she responded lazily.

"Thank you for being someone worth waiting for."

Aria was silent for a moment. "Thank you for waiting," she replied.

She fell asleep like that, with her head on Ezra's chest.

Mr. Fitz

Final Exam

May 13, 2012

HONESTY

I want to live my life as honestly as possible.