Matters of the Heart

Chapter 6: High School Never Ends

Chapter 6:

High School Never Ends

Aria called Emily shortly after Emily's run in with Ezra. Emily had just pulled in her driveway when her phone rang. When she answered, Aria was already talking. She rambled about how she had forgotten to take her phone off "Airplane" mode when her plane landed in Boston. She had just gotten her messages. She was completely flustered and could barely talk without stumbling over her words. Emily couldn't understand a word she was saying. She sounded like she was having a panic attack. Emily tried to talk her down from it.

"Aria, hit the 'off' switch. You're gonna blow a circuit. Just breathe."

"Oh, this is nothing. This is just level two. I haven't even gotten to level three yet!" She exclaimed. Emily was very familiar with Aria's self-proclaimed levels of her freak-outs. She wasn't surprised Aria was threatening to go to level three. "This is bad, Em! I swear I had no idea that anything like this was going to happen. I never would have left Rosewood if I thought for one second..." She started hyperventilating.

"Okay, okay. Calm down. Try your yoga visualization techniques."

"All I'm visualizing is me in an orange jumpsuit!" she cried. "I look guilty as hell right now."

"But you're not. We know you're not." Emily still didn't know what Aria had done when she left the hotel, but she needed Aria to know that her friends were not going to turn on her.

"That doesn't matter!" She was shrieking now. Emily had to pull her phone away from her ear because Aria was talking so loud. "I thought this was over. How is this not over? How are we still stuck in this nightmare? It's been seven years and we're still riding this friggin A-train. We're never going to get away from this are we? This is insane. Oh, my God. I think I'm gonna pass out." She was talking so fast she was forgetting to breathe.

"Stop pacing and sit down." Emily instructed.

There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

"How did you know I was pacing?" Aria's voice was a little bit calmer.

"Because I know you." Emily shrugged. "And I didn't hear you uncork a bottle of wine, so I figured you were burning a hole through your carpet."

"It's a Norwegian throw-rug," Aria said meekly.

Emily laughed.

"This is all my fault." Aria sighed. "Whoever this is must have been keeping tabs on me. When I left town I declared open season on all of us."

"Look, we don't know anything yet. We're going to figure it all out...together."

"How are you so calm right now?" Aria asked.

"I wasn't last night. Believe me. I dumped an entire plate of grilled chicken salad all over the floor." Emily tried to make Aria feel better. "I had all night and this morning to process it."

"Well, can you talk me through a fast-track of that process? Because I've got this work dinner I've got to go to tonight for this huge book deal. It's the whole reason I had to come back to Boston. And the last thing I need to do right now is have a nervous breakdown in front of my boss." Her voice sounded muffled.

"Stop chewing your fingernails." Emily could hear her teeth clicking together.

"Okay, you've got to stop doing that. It's freaky." The clicking noise stopped. Aria let out a quiet whimper. "My boss is calling me. What am I going to do?"

"You're going to take the call, you're going to work your charm like you always do, and you're going to take charge...because you're Aria Montgomery, and you got this."