Where It All Began

"You like someone who can't like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot." – John Green

People always say that it hurts at night and apparently screaming into your pillow at 3am is the romantic equivalent of being heartbroken. But sometimes it's 9am on a Tuesday morning and your standing at the kitchen counter waiting for toast to pop up. And the smell of dusty sunlight and earl gray tea makes you miss her so much that you don't know what to do with your hands.

He had fallen for this girl, who was so much more than pretty. She was smart. She was funny. She was brave. She had a past that wasn't all that lovely, yet she still put a smile on her face and never looked back. She was a lionhearted girl. And as much as she liked to say that she didn't deserve him, him being his brother, Wesley, he often felt is was the other way around.

It was a day of homecomings, the kind of day that people saved ridiculously expensive bottles of champagne for. But as Ezra Fitz puttered around his kitchen that morning, he wished that he could just spend the night in with a bottle of scotch and his Labrador named Bennet. His heart still skipped when he thought about it. Aria was coming home today.

For as long as he, or anyone else for that matter, could remember it had been Ezra and Aria. Best friends since childhood. He remembered being teased by the guys at school because his best friend was a girl, a girl who was 2 years younger than him. He remembered the first time that he realized his feelings weren't just friendly. It was right after her fifteenth birthday. It seemed as if overnight she had turned into this magnificent young woman. She had gotten rid of the pink streaks which she claimed were "so fourteen."

He'd spent the next year secretly harboring feelings for his best friend, afraid of the repercussions of him confessing his feelings. There were a couple of times where he got the feeling that she might share his feelings. Their fingers would brush and he would get a lump in his throat and she would get the lightest pink tint on her cheeks. It was 4 days before her sixteenth birthday when he decided to come clean and tell her how he felt. He didn't care what happened, it had to be better than keeping it to himself. He still remembered that day perfectly...

"Ezra! What are you doing here?" She asked from the doorway of her house. She was unusually fidgety and Ezra wondered what was making her so nervous.

"What do you mean, what am I doing here? I basically live at your house," he joked, making his way into the Montgomery home. It was then that he noticed his younger brother Wesley sitting on the couch. It gave him a twinge in his stomach.

"Wes?"

"Hey, bro. How goes it?" Wesley asked, nodding his head at his older brother.

"Good," he responded unsurely, "I actually needed to talk to Aria."

"We can go outside," Aria offered. She was still nervous, he noted.

Ezra nodded and followed her to the front porch. She sat at the edge of the old chair swing and he sat next to her. He was still going through what he wanted to say and how he was going to say it. It was the first time that their silence had felt awkward instead of comfortable.

"I actually had something to tell you, too."

"So, what I wanted to talk to you about..."

They both laughed. It was so like them to speak up at the same time. It seemed to break the ice and they both relaxed, returning to being Aria and Ezra. Best friends.

"You first," Ezra said with a small nudge, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Wes and I, we're together."

Nothing could have prepared him for that. In hindsight, he figured that he should have realized what was going on the second that she opened the door that spring afternoon. Almost 6 years ago, to the day. He should have noticed that her lip gloss was smeared and he should've paid closer attention to that stupid triumphant smile on Wesley's stupid face.

He considered still going through with telling her. She would pick him over Wesley, right? But the second that he saw how happy she was, all he could do was smile and tell her how great it was. She asked him what he wanted to talk about and he told her some lame thing about the book he was reading. He could tell that she knew that wasn't what he wanted to talk about but she didn't call him out on it. She was too wrapped up in her new relationship to pay much notice.

Slowly, it went from being Ezra and Aria to Wesley and Aria. They were still extremely close but they were no longer seen as a pair. He understood why she liked Wesley. He was charming and her age. Ezra was just her older guy friend, her big brother. He was the one that would come and pick up the pieces whenever they got into a fight. He was the one that would hold Aria after Wesley said something insensitive. He was the one that fixed their relationship.

"Thanks, man. If it wasn't for you, Aria and I would probably be over for good."

It sickened him, really. How ironic was it that he was the one keeping them together when it was the thing that was tearing him apart? He loved his little brother, but he was a jackass. Aria could do much better, even if it wasn't him.

As much as he would miss Aria, he was glad to go to college and get away from it all. He went to an English oriented school in California, about as far as he could get without leaving the country. They still talked on the phone daily and he still did the relationship mending, but at least it was from a safe distance.

Aria had visited him alone once after one of her and Wesley's many breakups. Tension was high and they had almost kissed on one drunken night. Well, she was drunk, he wasn't. But nothing happened and they didn't talk about it the next morning. He had cherished that trip. It was the last time that he had gotten real one-on-one time with her and undoubtedly the most fun that he had had during his college years. She had gotten a belly ring, he liked it.

By the time Ezra returned home to Rosewood with a teaching license, Aria and Wesley were already off to college themselves. They went together to a small college in Michigan. She studied English, just like Ezra, and he took a business course. She'd become a vegan and a bit of an animal rights activist while away. It was funny to him, he couldn't count how many times he had sat and eaten a burger with her during their teenage years. Things change, he guessed.

But today was the day that she, and Wes, came home. He had seen them just a few weeks earlier at their graduation, but it was brief and chaotic. He hadn't really spent time with her since Christmas and he was anxious. She had always had the ability to make him feel nervous and calm at the same time, however that worked. He still loved her. He couldn't stop, even if he tried. He'd been in a few relationships throughout the years, none of them serious. He was too busy pining over his best friend and brother's long term girlfriend to think about other girls. It was when he thought of it that way that he felt completely and utterly pathetic.

His drive to the airport was quiet and lonely. He smiled, glad that Aria's presence would soon be in his car. He pulled up to the passenger pick-up area and smiled when he saw her. She was standing alone with all of their baggage. She was radiant and even more mature than the last time he had seen her. She was wearing an emerald green dress with combat boots, completely coated in eclectic jewelry. She just screamed Aria. She saw him and a huge grin came across her face and she started waving at him excitedly. He smiled and gave her a small wave in return.

He pulled up to the curb and welcomed the small brunette who held a chunk (a really big chunk) of his heart into his arms for a much needed hug. He soaked in the moment for as long as he could, breathing in her scent that he'd missed so much. They pulled back and Aria ruffled his curly hair.

"When did you get so grown up?" She asked with a warm smile, her hand running over the stubble on his cheek.

He shrugged his shoulders, "I was about to ask you the same thing."

They laughed and she dropped her hand as they saw Wesley approaching.

"Ezra!" He called out and the brothers gave each other one of those awkward guy hugs.

"Good to see you, Wes."

"It's good to be home. The three amigos are finally back together!" He exclaimed as he put one arm around his brother and the other around his girlfriend.

Ezra did his best to seem just as excited and tried to be genuinely happy to have his best friend and brother back in town. Maybe now that she was home he could move on. But to be perfectly honest, after seeing her now with that fresh out of college glow, all he wanted to do was buy a little house and spend the rest of his life with her. And it had only just begun...

And it begins! Opinions? Constructive criticism? Should I continue? Let me know!

Love you bunches,

-RissyWrites