ezria::forget me not

17

Chapter Seventeen

"We wait around a lifetime

for one person, we can find

in a moment with someone else. "

- Stephanie Klein.

Aria

"Sit down." Confused, Ezra sat down on the couth with his hands folded together in his lap. I stood before him, just as short as I always had been. These were the only moments when I would ever be as tall- or taller - than him.

"What's going on, Aria?" I could tell just by his tone of noice that he was even more nervous for what I was about to lay on him. What would be worse? Telling him that he had some secret kid that he didn't know about? Been there, done that. I realized a while ago that my life was like a really bad Lifetime movie. "Does this have to do with your plan?"

"Yes." It was then that I grew an ounce of confidence. He wouldn't be that mad, would he? His leg was jiggling and you could almost hear his heart beating, no matter the short distance between us.

"Go on." I bit my lip, twiddling my thumbs. I did have a right to be nervous to say it out loud.

"Ezra, when I tell you this, I want you to hear me out and listen to everything I have to say. Can you do that?" I was talking to him like a baby, plus I was being unknowingly ironic. Why would he listen to me say that it was Alison who caused the accident? Afterall, thats his almost ex-wife, and mother of a daughter whom he loved so very dearly. Of course he wouldn't return the favor of listening when everything he said to me when he was writing the book went through one ear and out the other.

"Okay? Can you just tell me? You're starting to scare me." I sighed, looking him straight in the eye, looking for a shred of something- anything. They just stayed a deep ice blue.

"I was out late last night." He was following and encouraging me to continue with small head gestures. "I was with Jason DiLaurentis. In case you didn't remember, that's Alison's brother, who told me that he wasn't allowed to have anything to do with yours and Alisons family, and I know why.." Ezra scrunched his forehead.

"Alison always told me that it was because he got back into drugs and alcohol and she didn't want him around Marley while he was still hooked. But why should I beleive her now? She lied to me about my entire life?" He laughed nervously. "But, why did she keep him away, the real reason?" Sucking in every molecule of oxygen, then swallowing my pride, I belted it out like it was a song that I couldn't keep inside my head.

"Alison was the one who caused the accident."

Breathing ceased to be heard, but two hearts pounding against two ribcages wasn't enough to justify what I had just done. I had officially ruined everything; it was demolished in a pit of Alison's 'I told you so'. She knew that just this would happen, build our relationship up to such a fragile point, just to loose the pieces in the dark once again. If things stayed silent much longer, I was sure my void would return and be just as big as it was before.

"She wasn't in the car. She paid Jason to hit you. Alison wanted you to either die or have seviere brain damage..which was pretty successful." I refused to cry. It wasn't a time for me to be crying. I had no reason to shed a tear in his direction right now. Our story had always played out as him as the strong one, but not today. He crummbled. He let out of a few before bottling it back up. He wiped his face, and stood up.

"Perhaps I should go. Y'know, get some air. Is that- Is that okay?" I walked over towards him, putting my hand on his bicep. Ezra watched my hand and looked me in the eyes, just as i had a few moments ago.