Till Truth Do Us Part

Chapter 5: Love Me, Lie for Me

As Aria clomped up the stairs, she saw a shadow flash across her open bedroom door and paused on the step. In a second her mind rolled through all the diary entries she had written of Alison recently like a vintage movie projector spinning around each frame of film, and she shuddered inwardly. When had this friendship blown apart, unable to glue all the shrapnel back together? Every time Aria felt like she was putting the pieces of her relationship with Alison back in order, she would realize a piece was missing and have to go through all the agony of finding it. She wanted to just turn around, run out the door, jump in her car, and burn rubber until she reached Ezra's.

But her feet kept climbing.

Stepping into the room, Aria inhaled her shaking lungs with much-needed oxygen and held it for a few seconds before letting it out. In the time it took her to do that, Alison had spun around in her spot, her golden curls flying around her shoulder, and guiltily pursed her lips. "Hi," she greeted Aria weakly; it was the most innocent Aria had seen Alison appear in a long while.

And as Alison held her lean body up with pride and apologized, Aria had found the shrapnel piece named "Alison Destroys My Family" and attached it to the shattered bomb called "My Friendship with Alison." Poof. Done. With Alison's measly apology ("I'm sorry, Aria, I should have told you") an entire portion of their crumbling relationship was fixed.

Wrong.

Aria couldn't quite comprehend it because Alison herself, including her friendship with her, was a never-ending abstract painting, but there was something about that shrapnel that wouldn't stick. Maybe a tiny chip of it had broken off in the battle and no matter how hard Aria tried, it couldn't stay intact with the rest. Maybe this was the beginning of the downfall of everything they'd built up since the sixth grade. Maybe Aria was living in a Fitzgerald novel, and, like in Gatsby, everything would crash down in one single chapter starting right now.

Though Aria couldn't forgive Alison for destroying her family, she didn't want to fight with Alison anymore. She had no idea how Spencer was able to compete with her every day for years; Aria had been butting heads with Ali for a month and she was exhausted, ready to give up the race. But for whatever reason—possibly the destruction of her home life, the one place that had nurtured her when she had been the outsider—Aria kept up her front. She wouldn't let Alison win, but instead make it seem like she did.

"Do you forgive me?" Alison croaked, her eyes watering. At first Aria was certain this was all an act on Alison's part, but now she wasn't so sure.

With a drawn-out exhalation, Aria glanced down at the ground for a second in consideration before nodding her head. "Yes," she sighed. "I forgive you."

Squealing, Alison flung her pale arms around Aria's shoulders and squeezed the air out of her. "I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, then let her go and took her hand instead. "Come on. Let's go get frozen yogurt." However, Aria gave her a skeptical look, and Alison cocked her head to the side. "Fine, I'll pay for yours, too! Now, let's go!"

But Aria's feet didn't move. A part of her wanted to go out and relive the fun, older days with Ali, but there was something tugging at her brain telling her that if she went she would just be lying to herself the whole time. "No thanks," Aria responded instead. "I have reading to catch up on."

Alison put a smooth hand on her slim hip and raised her impeccably plucked, defined eyebrows. "Tell Fitz you were too busy doing other, less boring things," she said, and Aria hid her blush rather well. Then she winked. "Or tell him you'll make it up after class."

Bug-eyed, Aria scoffed. For as long as she knew Alison, every snide remark or comment she produced out of her rich, smooth throat still shocked her. "Um, again, no thanks. Just because you're hot for teacher doesn't mean the whole school is." Playing it off cool, Aria strode to her desk, pulled out This Side of Paradise, and prayed that she had come off as nonchalant and not hot and bothered.

"Whatever you say." At the doorway, Alison shrugged, and Aria could tell it bothered her that Aria had ditched her. "See you in school tomorrow?"

Still in the act, Aria smiled and propped open her book like she was actually going to read—even though she had already devoured every last page the other week while curled up on Ezra's couch as Ezra graded papers. But what Alison didn't know wouldn't hurt her. "Yeah," Aria replied. "See you tomorrow."

When Alison had rounded the corner and left, Aria waited a few extra seconds for safety purposes before placing the book, unopened, on her desk and picking up her phone. "Hey," she greeted, genuinely happy, as the person she was contacting answered. "Are you doing anything right now?"

…

"Did you hear Toby Cavanaugh is back in town?"

While her finger tapped "Reply" on her text messaging screen, Aria glanced up from her phone and returned her attention back to Spencer. "Hmm?"

It was Sunday afternoon, and Aria had invited Spencer to the Apple Rose Grille to just chill and order food, mixing the weirdest combinations together and daring each other to eat them. However, Aria was a bit distracted, to say the least, by a certain person she was texting who simply went by the letter E in her contacts.

Glaring, Spencer repeated her question after Aria mumbled an apology (though she was 95 percent sure she didn't mean it), and Aria's already large eyes widened in surprise. "Really?" she said while dipping a tortilla chip in the melting ice cream sundae they had ordered. "Where was he again? Boarding school?"

"Yeah. According to Alison, he'd always do weird chemistry experiments and play with cars and gadgets, and one day something went wrong and a fire scalded his stepsister's arm and face."

"Oh, I remember that. We were freshmen. Jenna was lucky she wasn't blinded," Aria said thoughtfully. She remembered Ali telling them the horrific story, that Toby had been playing with fireworks when one had gone off and Jenna had been burned in the accident. His parents—technically his dad and stepmom—were so furious after having warned Toby multiple times of how dangerous fireworks were that they'd sent him away. Back then, Aria had gone along with the story, swallowing every word of it and gossiping about it the next day in school. But now Aria couldn't shake off that something about that story wasn't right.

"Anyway, he's going to be a senior, but he's going to have to make up a couple of junior classes to graduate. Should we talk to him if we see him?" Spencer asked uncertainly. Before Jenna's accident, Alison had been, well, kind of cruel to Toby. For some reason she didn't like him, and therefore the girls didn't like him either. Aria doubted that that would have changed after almost two years away.

"No," Aria murmured under her breath. "Probably not." As their conversation died down and Spencer mixed the vanilla ice cream with the whipped cream and chocolate syrup, Aria's phone vibrated and lit up. Quicker than a whip Aria lunged for it and opened the text. It was a flirty message from "E," and Aria pulled her lips into her mouth to hold back an overpowering grin.

"Who are you texting?" a slightly frustrated Spencer demanded from Aria as she tried to grab Aria's phone, but Aria had dropped it back into her purse after sneaking in a suggestive reply. "No one!" Aria protested, and the debate would have continued if Hanna hadn't stormed through the door and plopped next to Spencer.

"Thank God you're here!" she panted while slapping her purse on the table next to the abandoned sundae and chips. "I have something important to tell you guys."

By the way Hanna had her hand pressed to her heart and her facial features were stricken, Aria and Spencer shared similar alarmed glances before pressing Hanna to spill it. "This new kid…asked me out," she confessed, swooning in her seat and erupting into giggles because, as expected, Aria and Spencer berated her for being too dramatic. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! But I just had to!" After calming down a bit, Hanna dropped her voice to a loud whisper and told them, as though it was the biggest secret in the world, "His name is Caleb Rivers." Her mood swung again and she jumped up and down in her seat, squealing from joy compared to two seconds ago when she had been calm and grave. "And he is the sweetest boy, way better than Sean!"

Spencer and Aria gave the same expression again, one that simply said "Wow." "That's great, Hanna," Spencer congratulated her. "I can't wait to meet him. But don't you still have that date with Sean?"

"Yeah, about that…," Hanna trailed, still a tiny five-foot-four woman of energy. "Oh, look, Caleb's here now!"

Aria opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by her phone ringing. Surprisingly it was Alison. "I have to take this," Aria said apologetically while getting up and walking to the windows to give herself some privacy. "Hello?"

"Catching up on some reading, huh?"

Aria's eyes darted up and saw Alison standing on the other side of the street, emotionally wounded, with Emily guiltily standing next to her; Emily knew about Aria and Spencer spending the afternoon, and Aria had made Emily swear that she wouldn't say anything. Alison's usually mysterious blue eyes glowed a bright fire of obvious fury, and Aria found it difficult to keep looking. "Ali—," she began, but was disrupted.

"No, don't say anything, Aria," Alison spat. "In fact, lie to me again, and I'll make sure I never included you in this group." Harshly hanging up, Alison strutted away while Emily obediently followed and Aria watched, her face drained of all color. Never had Ali been so irritated before; typically it took more than a little lie to set her off. Maybe it was the sight of her other friends hanging out without her, or that Alison was just slowly deteriorating by her own self destruction. Whatever it was, Alison's words stabbed at Aria's scars of being shoved around like she was invisible, of kids nonchalantly sliding their backpacks into chairs at lunch so she wouldn't sit with them.

Shoving her phone in her purse, Aria rapidly bid goodbye to Hanna and Spencer, somehow managing to squeeze in a hello to Caleb, a nice-looking brunet with warm eyes, and ran out the doorway to her car.

Why did everything have to fall apart instead of continuing to repair itself?

…

Without warning Aria stood in front of Ezra's apartment, lifting her white knuckles up to pound softly on the door since she had not yet been gifted with a spare key. When he answered, Aria's stiff shoulders finally slumped and she bit her bottom lip to contain her sobs. "I'm sorry to barge in like this, but…" Shaking her head, Aria took a step back. "No, I should probably go home, I—"

"Aria, breathe," Ezra intruded, not taken aback by the lack of formalities and instead just jumping right into a conversation. "You sounded fine before. What is it? Didn't you patch things up with Alison?" While waiting for Spencer at the Grille, Aria had sent Ezra a series of texts that went like: Alison apologized FINALLY. Want to meet up later? Squeeze in a movie before being tortured tomorrow? I'm all up for a romantic comedy, some flirting, cuddling, nose kisses…

Ezra had replied, Excuse me, Miss Montgomery, but that is not an appropriate pastime. However, if you feel up to it, we can shake hands as much as we like.

Shake hands? But Mr. Fitz, that's so boring. I thought we made a deal a couple weeks ago we would NEVER be boring.

Fine. You've convinced me.

That kind of cheesy, flirting texting went on all day, and one time Ezra had tried to woo Aria over by quoting Shakespeare and Fitzgerald. She thought that later she would come to his apartment and have him recite them for her in person, but she had no idea things would become so messed up again.

Sighing, Aria adjusted her bag on her shoulder and shook her head hopelessly. "No, she… Alison found out I lied to her and now she's just plain pissed," Aria explained bluntly. Then, "Can I come in?"

"Of course," Ezra said, scooting over to allow her entrance. As much as it kept him on edge that the police would appear, Ezra didn't really care about much at the moment other than getting Aria to feel better.

Plopping down on the couch, Aria placed her bag next to her and slumped into the cushions. "Listen, I don't want to bring it up again," she admitted as Ezra placed a mug of warmed coffee on the table in front of her. "Can we just talk about something light and happy? Is that too much to ask?"

After Ezra sat down next to her, he gazed into Aria's conflicted eyes, and he felt the horrible amount of confusion she was feeling. For a young woman he still barely knew, he had more of a connection with her than with his best friends he'd known forever. And despite how it was typically a turn-off to be dumping all of her emotional drama on him, Ezra wanted to keep learning more about her.

Instead of prying, Ezra smiled kindly and said, "No, it's not." So Aria leaned against his shoulder and shut her eyes, blocking out Alison and her cruelties for a few minutes of peace.

…

Back at her home, Alison was fuming in her room, storming back in forth after having sent Emily away an hour ago. Of course she was furious, but it was such a strong emotion she had never felt before, not even against Spencer. Picking up her phone, she decided she needed to hash things out with Aria; it's not like she could go downstairs and binge on TV since Jason was having a party, their parents out of town on a Sunday night.

Alison's foot tapped to the beat of the music in the living room as the phone rang, and she opened her mouth to say something when the ringing stopped, indicating Aria had picked up, but bottled up her rant of words by the silence. Why the heck was no one saying anything?

But then Aria spoke—and it wasn't to Alison.

"You know what you can do to make me feel better?" Aria said, confusing Alison even more. Was Aria really speaking to her? Because she was certain she wasn't.

"What?" replied a masculine voice that caused a tingle of recognition to shiver up Alison's spine.

Unbeknownst to Alison, Aria had stretched out on her back on Ezra's couch, her head in his lap, and in her movement she had knocked her purse onto the floor, and the clatter had bumped something in the purse to accept the call. And Aria and Ezra had no idea.

"Recite to me those quotes," said Aria's voice. Alison held her breath as though if she breathed, they would hear her and the fun would end. She had to bite her lip to prevent her laughter.

"Aria, I don't—"

"Come on, Ezra!" Aria shoved his shoulder playfully. "You promised!"

Ezra. Alison had heard that name before. Aria was with some guy named Ezra, and they were obviously more than just book club buddies.

"Okay, okay." Ezra put his hands up in defeat and unconsciously brushed aside a strand of hair covering part of Aria's left eye. "'I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be…'"

And then Alison remembered where she'd heard that name before: It was in the hallways of school. "Hello, Ezra," Alison had heard Mrs. Welsh say to a certain English teacher in school the other day.

"'…I love her and it is the beginning of everything.'"

Aria gazed up in wonder at Ezra, and the entire scene panned out exactly like the clichés written in books and movie scripts. There was a strange fluttering in her heart and stomach that caused her cheeks to flush, and she started to feel an odd high that made her want to do something bold and daring. No words were shared. Just like in one of those black and white movies, Aria reached up and rested her hand on his cheek, basking in the feeling of that moment. And then, after the perfect suspenseful pause, she sat up and stared for a little bit more; this was the part in the movie where the audience was practically begging for the young lovers to kiss, and that's what Aria exactly did, something sweet and lustful and passionate but not to a highly hormonal extent. It was the perfect black-and-white movie kiss, yet theirs was in color.

Once Alison realized that the conversation had ended, she hung up and put a hand to her mouth, trying to process what she already knew. But then it dawned on her, the juiciest of all illicit endeavors that had ever happened in the small town of Rosewood, and Alison's attractive features were once again overcome by a discomforting, devious smirk.