Whispers in the Dark

- Chapter Twenty – Misery Business

The dinner part of the dinner party was rather quiet as Aria's parents, Ella and Byron tried to make small talk with their guests. Aria and Ezra kept stealing glances across the table and Elliot Partha kept excusing himself to repeatedly call the babysitter.

Cory sat quietly next to Jason, trying to dodge the disappointed look her own dad was giving her.

The whole dinner was painful, to say the least but it didn't compare to the after dinner tea and coffee being served in the living room.

Aria politely went around trying to top everyone's drinks off, when out of the blue Nancy Partha looked to Cory's dad, Austin and said, "It's so strange seeing you without Megan, neither of you ever missed one of these dinners."

Cory swallowed hard at the mention of her mom's name and glanced over to Jason when she felt his arm slide around her, she and her dad hardly ever spoke of her since her disappearance.

"Yeah, she always loved these." Austin nodded, glancing over to Cory for a moment before he sat his coffee mug down on the table.

"Has there been any new developments in her case?" Byron questioned his friend, and Ella nodded, "Any news at all?"

"No, uh… I speak to the lead detective on the case at least once a week and so far nothing." He answered, but it was clear this was the last thing he wanted to be talking about.

Cory swayed slightly, feeling dizzy and like she couldn't catch her breath anymore. She tried to not think of her little brother since his death and now that her mom was gone, she never let herself think about her either. She couldn't, the pain and loss was too much for her handle and honestly she was afraid if she let those feelings in, she'd lose herself trying to find ways to cope with it.

"You two were on a cruise when she disappeared, right?" Nancy asked, but it was clear everyone in the room already knew the story.

"So, uh… Ezra do you like teaching at Hollis?" Cory asked, trying to get the focus off her dad and the line of questioning switched up to something a little less soul crushing for her family. Aria shot her a friend a look with wide eyes and Cory nervously laughed as she backtracked, "I mean, uh… Mr. Fitz… sorry, I'm not sure what to call you now."

Ezra was silent as he looked at her for a moment, it was barely an hour ago that he'd learned she knew about his relationship with Aria and even though she'd tried to assure him the secret was safe with her –it was clear that the teenager didn't do well under pressure and it was clear she was frazzled on many levels that night.

"Well, I'm not your teacher anymore so I think a first name basis is appropriate." He finally said, clearing his throat before continuing, "I'm still trying to get used to the change but it's a nice change from teaching high school."

"I bet so." She nodded, looking to Jason as the room fell quiet but he gave a small shrug. He had no idea what to talk about either, in fact he was just meeting almost everyone there for the first time.

"You seem to be doing fine on campus, from what I've seen." Austin pointed out, hoping to keep the current conversation going and keep the Partha's from prying into his wife's disappearance.

"I still feel a little lost." Ezra admitted with a laugh.

"During dinner you mentioned spending some time in Ireland?" Elliot Partha asked, and Ezra looked around the room. He was uncomfortable enough as it was and now it seemed as though everyone wanted him to take the spotlight in leading conversations.

"Yeah." He nodded in thanks as Byron handed him a crystal glass with some of the scotch he'd brought as a gift to the party before continuing, "I'd decided I was either going to Japan or Europe. I ended up biking through Conor's Pass on my way to Kerry."

Even though Aria already knew the answer she asked for everyones else's sakes, "Why did you pick Ireland?"

"I love Joyce and Beckett. I wanted to see where they started." He explained.

"That's amazing." Cory spoke up, "Conor's Pass, now that's the highest mountain pass in Ireland, right?"

"It is." Ezra nodded.

"And you did it by bike?" she pushed further, clearly intrigued by the idea. She'd always wanted to travel abroad, see what the world had to offer outside of Rosewood, Pennsylvania.

"That's really great." Byron congratulated him.

"You know, I've got a bike in my garage… every morning it mocks me." Elliot joked.

Pulling his eyes away from Cory, Jason laughed as he said, "Ah, don't worry… you'll get back on it –just have to add a baby seat."

"You cycle?" Ezra questioned.

"Yeah. When I first took off from college, I did the Kona coast." Jason admitted.

"That's where they hold the triathlon, right?" Byron questioned.

"Yeah, I wanted to clear my head before I came back here." He explained, "riding those lava fields is like being on the moon, you know?"

"I can just imagine, I've always wanted to just take off do something like that-" Cory tried to say but couldn't even finish her sentence when her dad cut her off and directed his question to Jason when he asked, "Took off from college? You couldn't have been there for more than a year."

"I needed to take off and get my head clear more than I needed to sit through endless lectures." Jason argued with him.

"I think it's really great." Cory said leaning against Jason's side with his arm still curled around her.

Austin opened his mouth to shoot what she'd said down. In his mind that wasn't 'great' at all, it was just another primary example of how Jason wasn't near as changed as she swore he was. It was another reason to keep his daughter away from him.

But before he could say anything the doorbell rang and Aria went to answer it, calling out for her mom and dad when she saw it was Barry, a local police officer. He said he needed the Montgomery's to come down to the station that they had Mike there. In a hushed tone he said he'd been caught breaking into a house, but Cory was standing close enough that she overheard it.

Not wanting to make their guests feel unwelcomed after an already uncomfortable night, they asked Aria to stay at the house and tend to the guests while they went to get her brother.

It wasn't much later that the Partha's left to get home to their baby, and Cory's dad said they were leaving without giving her much of a choice in the matter. Jason left at the same time they did and she barely even had time to tell him bye before her dad yelled for her to get into the car.

The drive home was a tense silence, the seconds felt like hours until they were finally home, she'd hoped to be able to retire to her room for the night and maybe talk things over in the morning once her dad had –had some time to cool down, but that wasn't the case as he stopped from her going up the stairs and demanded she sit down on the couch.

"Dad, I know you're mad but-"

"Mad? Mad doesn't even begin to cover what I am right now. You lied to me for god knows how long and then you choose a night in front of my friends and colleagues to show up on Jason DiLaurentis' arm? What the hell made you think that was a good idea?" He asked, trying to keep his voice steady but by the end he was yelling at her.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she stubbornly fell back into the plush couch cushions and shook her head back and forth. This was exactly the kind of situation she'd been trying to avoid.

"You know what people say about him right? People here still think he could have had something to do with what happened to his sister and seeing you with him, you know they're going to talk about you too." Austin yelled when she didn't say anything back to him.

"I don't care." She shrugged.

"You don't care? What you do reflects back on this entire family and is going to follow you for the rest of your life. All I have ever done is try and protect you-"

This time she didn't let him talk as she angrily yelled back, "This entire family? Look around dad… we're the only ones left, we don't even have a family anymore!"

"Don't say that!" Austin yelled back at his daughter, but she wasn't finished as she yelled over him, "And none of this even has anything to do with Jason, if you'd just give him a chance you'd see he's nothing like what you think he is."

"I know who he is Cory." His voice was quieter than before.

"You don't, not really." She lowered her voice to match his, "He's really great… he's nice and he doesn't judge people like everyone else does. He's funny and so smart-"

"Is that so? Less than an hour ago he was saying he couldn't cut it through his freshman year of college."

"That is not what he said. He left because he needed to clear his head, he wanted something different and I understand that… I understand him and I really like him, dad. Most of the time I feel like I'm suffocating in this town and around everyone all of the time, but I don't feel like that when I'm with him. I feel free…" Tears stung at her eyes as she tried to explain what she was feeling but knew it was pointless, he never understood how she felt or why she felt the way she did.

"Because he puts ideas into your head!" Austin's voice raised despite his best attempts to stay calm. In his mind Cory was on the right path until she'd gotten involved with Jason and from there he'd watched her life spiral out of control and he was sure he'd never forgive him for that.

"You act like I'm brainwashed or something!"

"It's the only thing that makes sense, I mean how else does someone go from being a straight A student to drug addict over night?" He shouted, his face growing red with rage.

"That's not fair…" she argued, but her voice wasn't raised any longer. If he'd intended to knock some of the fight out of her with his words that's exactly what he'd done with that low blow.

Wiping a tear that rolled down her cheek from being so angry and feeling like nothing she said mattered she asked, "Why are you just so willing to blame Jason for everything that went bad in my life?"

"Because you were a different person before him, you were-"

"Stop it!" She yelled shaking her head back and forth as she wiped the mascara laced tears from her cheeks, "You just want to blame him because it's easier to do that than to admit that I'm not the person you want me to be."

"I never once said that!" He argued.

Standing up she tucked her hair behind her ears and said, "You didn't have to… you told me before that you knew you wanted to be a doctor from the time you were a little kid. You've told me so many times how you worked and put yourself through college and med school and I know you want me to have everything figured out like you did, but I'm nothing like you and you just can't accept that."

Her arms dropped to her sides weakly as she breathed, "I see it in your eyes every time someone brings up mom or Ryan, you always look over at me like I'm the last person in our family you wanted to be stuck with. You lost the wrong kid, right? That's what you think? That it should have been me that died that night and not Ryan… well, welcome to the club dad, because I've thought the same thing… every single day since we lost him."

Her voice was hoarse and broken as she said what she was feeling and her dad stared back at her with his mouth hanging slightly open from shock at what she'd said.

Her own mouth was open as she tried to take a breath, but it felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the house and she couldn't breathe.

Without another word to him she turned and left the house, leaving the door wide open behind her and not even pausing when she heard her dad yelling after her.

~()~

"Cory?" Jason greeted with a surprised look on his face when he opened the door of his house that quickly turned to concern when he saw the mascara smeared across her cheeks and her red rimmed, bloodshot eyes.

"Hey." She greeted back feigning a weak smile as she looked around the dark front yard and then turned her attention back to him as she apologized, "I'm sorry, I just… I wasn't really sure where else to go and-"

"Hey, it's okay." He quickly assured her, "You don't need a reason to show up here, come on."

As he started to lead her into the house his hand brushed against her arm and he realized out loud, "You're freezing."

"I've, uh… sort of just been wandering around town for a while." She admitted, nodding in thanks as he guided her to the couch and wrapped his jacket around her.

"Did you and your dad get into a fight?" He questioned, trying to get her to tell him what was going on without pushing her to the point where she'd shut down.

She didn't answer, just slowly raised her head and looked around the once familiar living room which looked nothing like it used too. The furniture was sparse and there were floorboards pulled up and stacked in a far corner.

Following her gaze around the room he asked again, "What happened?"

"Yeah." She hoarsely replied, clearing her throat she explained, "We got into a fight but it didn't really have anything to do with me and you or the dinner tonight… it was more about how I manage to screw up everything and how I'm the last person out of my family my dad would chosen to have around."

"He said that to you?" Jason asked, anger clear in his voice as he watched her.

"He didn't have to." She whispered, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she bit down hard, fighting back more tears. "I just felt like I couldn't breathe anymore, like if I stood in that house another second I was going to suffocate… so I ran."

Jason got the sense that there was more to the story than what she was telling him, he always felt like that around her anymore. Like for every word she said, there were two more she held back.

"You could have called me." He quietly said, as he scooted closer to her on the couch and put an arm around her, pulling her still shaking body against him.

"I just needed to be alone, I think… I don't really know. I ended up at my old house. The people who live there now… they filled in the pool, did you know that?"

He shook his head back and forth even though she wasn't facing him.

"There's not a pool anymore." She repeated, pulling in a rattling breath, "There's dirt and grass and a swing set with a slide where it used to be. It's like it was never there… at first I didn't even realize I was standing where my brother drowned. How is that even possible? Everything is all sealed up and it's like it never even happened…"

He was quiet, not sure what to say or if there even was anything he could say to make her feel any better.

She pinned her eyes shut as her mind drifted back to the night she'd lost her brother, her hands balled up into fists in her lap with hatred at herself for not knowing he was in the pool and putting the cover over it. A minute, that's all it would have taken for her to walk outside and check the pool before she hit button by the door to put the cover on.

"I'm a horrible person…" She breathed out, thinking she'd been quiet enough he wouldn't hear her.

"No, you're not." He argued, turning sideways on the cushion more so he could face her, even though she refused to look over at him as she nodded, "I am… I'm the worst. I haven't even been to his grave since we moved back…"

"Which is understandable-" His words were cut short as she pulled out of his arms and stood up, his jacket that had been draped over her shoulders fell the floor with the sudden movement and she ran her hands through her hair, pulling at the roots as she said, "Just stop it, stop being so nice and understanding. I don't deserve it… it's my fault he's dead."

"Don't say that." He argued, standing up with her. "He drowned, it was an accident… didn't someone break into your house that night or something?" He tried to remember back to when it had happened.

Cory's face twisted in pain as she remembered Alison helping her come up with a cover story for the police when they called them. "It was my fault."

Turning she put her back to him, thinking if he knew the truth. If he found out her brother's death was on her hands because she'd been completely careless, she was afraid he'd never be able to look at her the same way.

If there was something she wouldn't be able to handle it would be seeing him look at her the way she looked at herself in the mirror –she was sure that would kill her but she was so sick of all the secrets too. All he'd really asked of her since they got back together was that she was honest with him and she hadn't been about so many things.

He turned her back around to face him, as he took her face in his hands and said, "You have to stop that, what happened wasn't your fault and guilt like what you're carrying around right now… it will destroy you. Trust me, I know."

She knew he was talking about how he thought he'd hurt or killed Alison, but there was a difference. Jason didn't hurt or kill his sister and even if he'd carried that guilt around for a year with him, she knew she'd carry the guilt of being responsible for her brother's death until the day she died.

But there wasn't any way he could understand that unless she was honest with him and told him the truth about the night her brother died, every last detail.

"Jason, I…" Her voice trailed off and she cupped a hand over her mouth as she darted towards the downstairs bathroom, feeling like she was going to be sick at any second.

"Are you okay?" He asked as he stepped into the doorway and watched her leaning over the sink some as she pulled in some deep breaths.

"Yeah, I didn't get sick or anything…I just feel nauseous." She explained, closing her eyes and wishing she'd went home instead of letting him see her for the mess she really was.

"You probably need to eat, you barely touched your food at diner." He reminded her.

Shutting the water to the sink off and turning to face him she nodded, "Yeah, my stomachs been a knot of nerves all day… I don't think I've eaten anything."

"Which is partly my fault." He took some of the blame himself, "I shouldn't have pushed you to tell your dad about us if you weren't ready."

"It's okay, he was going to find out eventually." She weakly said, swallowing hard as she apologized, "I'm sorry for… everything."

"Don't be." He said as he stepped forward and pulled her against him in a tight, protective embrace he added, "I'm glad you're here."

A/N - I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update! I don't think I've ever been so bad with updates on this story before.

I don't have much of an excuse other than life being busy in general and I've had some sort of stomach virus I can't seem to shake -I start feeling better then it knocks me down for a few days again.

But as long as you guys are still reading I'm going to try my hardest to get back to updating once a week. ^_^ Probably mainly on Tuesdays, but we'll see how it goes. lol

You can follow me on Tumblr for fanfiction related content and there is a link up on my profile here for a playlist I made of songs I felt complimented this story.

Thank you all so much for sticking with me and to everyone who's been subscribing/adding this story to your favorites. I appreciate it all so much!

Speaking of being thankful... I owe a huge thank you to Momsen-xxxx, LiLuLo12, RHatch89, Heartless-Princess33, xxxRena, Lucy Greenhill, Cassie-D1, xxXWolfsLullabyXxx, RACpri, gRaNgErRaNgEr93, Emisonluvr4ever, SmellYourScentForMiles, sarahmichellegellarfan1, mavricktag, YourTruly98, BloomingBlueMoon85, and to Avalongirl55 for reviewing chapter 19. You're all amazing!