Aria woke up to the sunlight gently hitting her eyelids. She smiled and turned over to where Will should have been, but he was gone. She sat up, squinted her eyes, looked around at the room, which was mainly composed of birch furniture from Ikea and white blankets and curtains, then looked at the clock.

7:45 A.M, the bright red numbers read.

"Shit," she exclaimed. She was supposed to wake up an hour ago, and Will was already at school. She quickly jumped out of bed, letting her feet hit the cold hard floor, then ran to bathroom. Frantically, she sprayed some dry shampoo in her hair before throwing it up into an ponytail that would make her hair look presentable, but classy enough not to get her fired. She took off her pajamas and slung them into the corner of the bathroom, then threw on the school-emblazoned white polo, tucked her pair of khakis into some cognac boots, tucked her shirt into her pants, then looped a brown belt into her pants and threw on a navy blue blazer. She put on some deodorant and brushed her teeth faster than she ever had before sprinting out of the bathroom.

Aria then grabbed her purse and ran out of the messy bedroom and into the kitchen, opened the fridge to get one of her refrigerated Starbucks drinks, then slammed it shut, causing all of the glass bottles to rattle, but she ran out of the apartment, slamming the door, then started speed walking to the elevator.

Once she got in and it started moving, she took her phone out and looked at the time. She took a sigh of relief when she saw she had twenty minutes to get there before the meeting started since it only took her 10 minutes to walk there. The elevator stopped at the lobby of the building and Aria walked out with a nervous smile on her face. She had a feeling that today was going to be an interesting day.

Ezra walked down the hallway of the upper school's English department, head held high, confident that today was going to be a good day. After he went to the faculty meeting, he planned to put up posters that inspired him to write, then write lesson plans for the first week of school.

He took the key to his classroom and opened it for the first time. After walking in and setting his briefcase on the desk, he stood at the front of the classroom to get a good view of it. It was set up much like his classroom in Rosewood, except the furnishings were nicer. Instead of a chalk board, there was a white board. Instead of the clunky, 20 year old desks, there were wooden desks that appeared to be in pretty good condition. The walls were painted a shade of sky blue and there were bookcases lining the back wall.

He glanced at the clock and realized that he only had five minutes to travel down 4 floors and across an entire building in order to be on time to the meeting. Shit, he thought as he raced across the empty hallway to the elevator that would get him to the conference room as quickly as possible.

Aria walked into the conference room early with a few minutes to spare. She took a seat in between Amelia and the dance teacher, Erica Roseanne. People took their seats as the head of the school came in with the principal of the upper school. People lowered their voices but continued their conversations since the head of the school was still carrying on a conversation of his own.

"So, how do you like the school?" Amelia asked her. Aria looked up from her lap and quickly responded to the 32 year old French woman's question.

"I really like it. There seems to be a very positive atmosphere here. I don't find that quite often." she replied. People quieted even more as they looked up and saw Mr. Allman shake the principal's hand and sit down.

Aria tensed up, not sure what to expect from her first ever meeting. She put her thumbs inside the pockets of her pants when she felt something cool and made out of metal in her right pocket. She removed her left hand from it's pocket and shoved her right hand further into the pocket with the unknown object in it. Looking down, she could feel her face starting to turn a darker shade of red every second. She fumbled around in her pocket under the long, oval shaped table until she got a grasp of the object.

She slowly pulled it out and held in her hand under the table and paid attention to Mr. Allman while he thanked everyone for being here on time, or mostly everybody. Apparently one of the teachers from the upper school's English department was going to be a little bit late. She tuned out his voice while he rambled on about how he planned for this school year to have some major changes. She quietly listened and looked at him while she scooted her chair out a slight bit so she could look at what appeared to be a brass locket on a necklace. She looked down quickly and opened the locket.

Her face turned white when she saw the pictures on the inside.

On one side, it was the first ever picture that she and Ezra had taken together, the one where they had the paper bags with artistically drawn faces over their heads. On the opposite side, there was one that Hanna had taken for them the summer of high school graduation when they all went to the beach. Aria was wearing a black and gold bikini with sunglasses sitting atop her head and Ezra was sitting next to her, his shirtless, perfectly sculpted chest offering a resting place for her head.

Amelia looked next to her and saw the new, young teacher with a face that belonged to a ghost. She poked Aria, getting her attention and causing her to put the necklace away as fast as lightning. Amelia silently mouthed, "What?", but she got nothing in response but a young woman shaking her head, using body language to say, "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

Just as the head finished his quick introduction, everyone's attention shifted to the door when the English teacher who was about to get famous for daring to come into one of Mr. Allman's meetings late walked in. Aria looked at the door, at the person walking in.

She thought she was having a nightmare. Her face turned whiter than it ever had before. The person who walked in was Ezra Fitz. It took her all of her will power not to gasp, choke, scream, cry, or make any kind of attention that would negatively draw attention to her. She couldn't believe what was happening. It couldn't be happening. It just couldn't be.

When Aria left for college five years ago and lied to Ezra, it wasn't because she was too much of a wimp to call it off. It wasn't because she never got the chance to tell him she was moving to New York. It wasn't even really her choice.

Five years ago:

"Aria, why don't you apply to Columbia University?" her father questioned her. It was about Christmas time and she was trying to get some of her applications done early. However, she didn't want to apply to Columbia. She felt it was too preppy for her and she would be paying off student debt for the rest of her life, if they even accepted her.

Aria replied back with a response that seemed to have a cross tone, not pleasing her father. "Dad. I don't want to go there for the millionth time. It just doesn't suit me. I'm fine going to Hollis."

"Why are you fine going to Hollis? So you can hook up with your English professor there too?" he asked. His voice was rising, but there was no one there to help Aria. She and her father were the only ones in the house. Aria was about to turn around before she started crying and go up to her room, but her dad grabbed her by the arm, grasping it so tight that she had a bruise there for a month.

"Where do you think you're going there, little girl?" her dad questioned her in a quiet, but very harsh and terrifying tone with his mouth right next to her ear.

"Dad," she said, trying her best not to cry or scream out of fear and resentment. She decided to give in to him, just so he would release his hold on her,"I'm sorry. If it makes you happy, I"ll apply to Columbia."

Slowly, he let go of his strong grip on Aria, but she didn't dare even step a foot. He looked her in the eye and began to talk to her in the same tone as before. "Now, you know that if you get accepted to Columbia, you're going there, right?"

Blinking back tears, Aria responded. "What? What do you mean?" she asked in a very soft tone in an effort not to displease her father any further.

Grabbing her by the arm in a way that was harsher than before, he began to speak to her in a way that made her fear her well being. "If you get accepted there, you are going to accept admission. You will tell everyone that you are attending Hollis, especially Ezra. By the way, I will find out if you tell anyone about this conversation. Let's just say that you would rather go to Columbia than face my punishment."

Tears cascaded down Aria's face. She spoke before she thought. "So I'm being forced to go to Columbia because you can't accept Ezra as a human being?" As soon as those words came out of her mouth, she regretted it.

The petite girl heard the loudest slap she had ever heard and suddenly her cheek was on fire and she was sprawled out on the cold, hard wooden floor. She slowly sat up with her mouth wide open, wanting to cry, sob, and scream, but all she could let out was a whimper.

Her dad stood close to her, towering over her, all the while continuing to scold her. "What I'm saying is that either you are applying to Columbia and you better get accepted and you better accept admission. Or else, somebody is getting the cops called on them for having a student teacher relationship. You wouldn't want your old English teacher to have to go through that, now would you?" He threatened in a loud, terrifying voice that echoed through the house.

"No, sir," she replied. She kept her mouth shut, not daring to say more than she had to.

"Now go. Just go. And if you know what's good for you, you won't say a fucking word."

Aria collected herself from the floor and stood up, her ankle in extreme pain from her fall due to her 3 and a half inch heels, but she didn't dare hobble on it. "Yes, sir," the broken girl replied. She slowly walked up the stairs. Once she had mastered the stairs, she started walking as fast as she could to her room. After she got there, she locked her door, carefully took off her shoes, then threw herself on the bed and sobbed for hours before quietly dozing off.

She ended up telling her friends what her dad had done and was forcing her to do eventually. They suggested that she turn him in for child abuse, but she couldn't because he would tell the police that her and Ezra were in a relationship and Ezra would get arrested either way. No matter what she thought of doing, Ezra was going to get hurt anyway. There was nothing that she could do to protect him or herself.

Her dad conveniently purchased her a new phone right before move-in, one of which he would have access to all of her text messages, voicemails, calls, etc. He was cutting her off from Ezra.

For the first week of college, she spent most of her time moping in her room. The second week, she started getting out more and made a few friends. She still thought about Ezra for almost a six months before she accepted the fact that they were never going to see each other or talk to each other ever again. That was when she met Will. Will helped her realize that she could still live life and have fun even though Ezra wasn't there. They started out as friends who went to the gym together to train for the NYC marathon, but then their relationship blossomed into something more.

Aria snapped back to reality when she felt Ezra's glare on her. She looked up and made quick eye contact with him, then went back to fiddling with the heart shaped locket. She couldn't tell whether her face was snow white or fire engine red. Ezra took the last available chair, which just so happened to be the one right in front of her.

About 2 hours later the painfully awkward meeting was over, and Aria was the first one to bolt out of the room. She rushed to her room, sat in the corner where her desk was, and curled up into a ball only to start sobbing. She had finally come to terms with everything in her life, and now this? The universe certainly did not have her fate in favor.

She sat in her fetal like position for about 15 minutes before she heard a knocking on the door. "Who is it?" she cried out, dreading the fact that Ezra could now confront her at work, the one place where she wanted to get away from it everything. The place where all she wanted to do was teach little kids the difference between a quarter note and a half note, the place where she wanted to teach children about different composers.

"It's Amelia. Can I come in?" she asked. Aria wiped the tears from her face and sniffled a few times before opening the door. She faintly smiled at her, then invited her in. She took a yellow chair for her to sit in and faced it to a red chair that was behind it. They both sat down.

"Hey, what was with you in there? When that dude walked in your face turned as white as a ghost," she said, taking a small sip of her coffee.

"I know."

"Well, not to be rude or anything, but why? Is he like your ex or something?"

All Aria did was look at her. She had her elbows resting on her knees, thinking. She raised her eyebrow, giving Amelia the feeling that her guess was correct.

"Really? What happened? You two would look so good together!" She said, clearly getting caught up in the imaginary world where Aria and Ezra could be perfectly happy together with nothing standing in the way of them being a couple.

"It's a really long story." Aria said, feeling her hands getting clammy.

"I have time." Amelia said, obviously really interested in what happened between them by the way she looked at Aria.

"Alright. I trust you though, so you can't be talking about this in the breakroom. Deal?" she said. She looked at Amelia. Amelia nodded quickly. Aria went on to discuss how she had met Ezra at a bar in her hometown when she was a junior in high school, although she left out the part of him being her teacher, then they continued seeing each other secretly. She went on to include how her brother punched him in the face and how eventually her dad threatened her about turning him into the police. When she was finished, she took a huge sigh of relief. It felt good to tell someone every once in a while.

They talked for a little bit longer before Amelia left so Aria could get started on her actual work. Aria put her best efforts forward to get her work done, but she just couldn't with the thoughts of Ezra looming over her head. She knew someone she could talk to for advice.

Quickly, Aria dialed Hanna's number. Hanna was a rookie fashion designer for Betsey Johnson. On the third ring, she picked up.

"Hello?" Hanna asked.

"Hey." Aria responded.

"Hey, Aria. What's up?"

"Can we meet for lunch? It's, like, really urgent. I have to tell you what happened." Aria said, hoping that she'd be able to meet her. She heard a gasp over the phone.

"Oh my gosh," Hanna screamed into the phone," Will proposed, didn't he?! Can I pretty, pretty please be your maid of honor? OMG. Can I design your wedding dress?" Aria winced as she jerked the phone from her ear. She was pretty sure that someone from the next room over could hear her. Hanna had been asking her those same questions since the beginning of the summer.

"Han, calm down! He didn't propose okay? It'll happen when it happens. I need to talk to you about something that happened at work."

"What happened?" she asked, clearly disappointed that there wasn't going to be a wedding in the near future.

"It's a long story. Which is why I want to have lunch. So are you free or not?" Aria asked.

"I'm free at 12. Is that good?" she asked.

"That's fine. I can order pizza and we can eat in my classroom." Aria replied, feeling sick to her stomach just thinking that now Ezra was in her life. She missed him occasionally, but she had a boyfriend now. She had a whole future planned out for her. How was she supposed to deal with someone who she had tried to forget about because she thought her dad was going to put him in prison?

"Alright. We have a deal." Hanna said.

"Okay. I've got to get to work. See you at noon." Aria said, trying to wrap up the conversation.

"'Kay. Bye." Hanna said. With that, Aria hung up.

Aria sat down at her desk and put her head in her hands. She had developed a major headache from just thinking that Ezra was back in town. At least she knew that her dad had held up his end of the ultimatum.

Aria tried to hold back the tears, but she just couldn't. She was mad at her dad. Mad couldn't even begin to describe the amount of rage and pain she wished upon him. She was mad at her dad for taking away her first true love. She was mad at her dad for forcing her to leave her clueless mother and brother behind with a monster like himself. She was mad at him for all the emotional and physical abuse he had put her through. She didn't know how someone could do something like that.

Aria rested her head on her desk. She had that horrible feeling like when your throat gets all tight when you're about to have an emotional breakdown.

She was mad at fate, because now, she finally had to come to terms with something that she had tried to pretend had never happened, and it was biting her in the ass.