Love, Aria

Chapter 27 | Aria

Thursday, January 23rd, 2020

"You know you guys didn't have to come with me."

I had gotten to my dorm last night and decided to not go in, but instead stay with Leslie and Lindsey for the night. I explained everything that had happened and how I had already gotten a ticket for an early flight out of California, and they had immediately decided to come with me.

"Of course we did." Lindsey replied, waving her hand as we handed our boarding passes to the security officer at the airport. "We're the three musketeers man! We have to stick together, and especially in times of boy problems."

"And this is the ultimate boy problem." Leslie chimed in. "I don't think I've seen a guy behave this poorly in my entire life."

"I have." Lindsey nodded. Leslie and I looked at her in surprise, to which she laughed, "Hey, I have my own summer romances guys."

I sat down next to the aisle on the airplane, my purse tucked between my legs and my eyes glued to my phone screen. I had blocked everything that could possibly come from Brenden: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, his phone number...everything that reminded me of him was gone.

Except the memories.

Memories had a funny way of simultaneously being the best and worst things in a person's life. On the one hand, they could give feelings of joy and happiness, remembering the wonderful times in the past. But on the other hand, they could give intense pain and suffering, remembering the wrongs done to you by those you once loved.

I wished that there was something about my mind that could shut it off; a switch that could turn off all memories of him. His name, his face, his smile, his laugh...everything should be gone. Everything should be erased from my mind, wiped away as if the past three years had never happened.

How I wished everything could be gone.

Lindsey and Leslie traded stories about the trip as the plane flew into the air, and I couldn't help but feel such love for them; they had cut their month-long trip down to just a week simply because I was in pain. We were leaving the sunny beaches of California for the snowy cities in Virginia, and they were by my side.

"So what are we going to do when we get back?"

Leslie and I were both a bit taken aback by Lindsey's question.

"What do you mean?" I replied, "We're going to go back to school."

"Why?" Lindsey laughed, "I mean, we have excused absences for the next three weeks. Why don't we just...go somewhere else?"

"That could be fun." Leslie nodded, "I mean, we could just hang out and take little trips every day instead of going to school at the crack of dawn."

I thought about that. It would be a lot more fun to go out and distract myself with my friends than to go back to school and have everyone wonder why we were back so early.

"I like that." I said. "We should definitely do that."

Lindsey nodded, happy with her idea.

"But hey, I was just wondering if you guys wanted to catch dinner when we land? There's this place about three miles from the airport that I absolutely love--"

"Excuse me?" A finger tapped my shoulder as I was finishing my sentence, and I turned around, expecting to find an annoyed flight attendant. Instead, I found a boy who looked to be around my age, with dark brown hair that was flipped up in the front and sparkling blue eyes that made me want to just stare at them forever. "I'm so sorry if this is forward, but I couldn't help but notice how incredibly breathtaking you are."

I could hear Leslie and Lindsey making kissing noises from behind me.

"I'm Jason, by the way. Jason Menck. And you are?"

I smiled slightly, completely mesmerized by the sweet boy in front of me.

"Aria."

Get it? Her last words in the book were "Love Aria"? I love putting the title in there.

WELL that's it for this book!

Haha just kidding. Did I scare you?

But it's the last real chapter of the book. The next will be a "letter from the desk of Aria Hall" addressing everything, because the ending was so sudden that it's like what?? What happens? Does she date this new guy? Does she totally hate Brenden? So ya'll get some ANSWERS.

Then there might be something(s) after that too. I haven't decided yet.

BUT no matter what, make sure to check out To Whom It May Concern on Monday!

Is there anything you wish had been different in the end of Love, Aria? Let me know in the comments!

-Katherine