(A/N:) This is a new multi chapter and I've been working on it for a long time! I hope you like it because this story means a lot to me :)

Enjoy!

1.

Aria

It was a Sunday night and Aria stuck to her normal routine. Wash the dishes, do the laundry, clean the living room, rest. She hated Sundays; it was always the same cycle. Setting down a plate, Aria glanced at the clock. It was a quarter past ten. Aria sighed and stepped out of the kitchen, leaving the dirty dishes in the sink. God, she wished she had a maid.

Aria stepped up the stairs of her house and knocked on the first door on the right. The light was still on and Aria sighed. Her kids knew the rule- lights off by ten on school nights. Why did they always disobey? There was no answer on the door, so Aria knocked again. "Hey, Chloe, you need to go to bed, sweetie."

"Mom, I'm thirteen! Why do I have a bed time?" her daughter yelled, yanking the door open.

Aria swallowed hard. She was not in the mood for this right now; Aria was at her wit's end. "It's not a bed time, it's a rule of the house. So follow it, okay?"

"Matt isn't in bed, either!" Chloe protested.

"And I'll deal with him next," Aria explained. "Go to bed, okay? You've got school in the morning."

Chloe rolled her eyes and slammed the door. Aria was a second away from reprimanding her, but didn't have the energy. She stepped further down the hall and knocked on her son's door. There was no response, so Aria crept inside. She saw her son, clearly fake sleeping, in his bed. She figured he had heard his sister's shouts and knew he was going to get in trouble next for being up.

"Matt, baby, are you really asleep?" Aria whispered.

Her eight year old's eyes shot open and he shook his head. "I can't sleep."

Aria smiled and gave him a kiss on his forehead. "Try harder." She turned to leave the room, but heard him say mom quietly. "Yes, love?"

"I need you to sign a permission slip. We've got a field trip coming up. We need chaperones, too. Could you do it?" he asked.

Aria was annoyed that he hadn't brought this up before bed time, but nodded. "Yeah, I'll see if I can. I'll sign it in the morning. Just go to sleep, sweetie."

"Night, mom."

After Aria left the upstairs, she stepped down stairs and resided in the kitchen. Aria poured herself an overdue glass of wine and gulped the majority of it down. It had been a long day. Her life was honestly a long day after long day. She liked her life alright, but as of lately, things had just been bugging her. She needed to get out more.

She grabbed her laptop and rested it on the counter. As she opened a new window, she heard the door click open. After a minute, her husband, John, walked into the kitchen. He gave her chaste kiss on the forehead.

Aria pulled her head away and raised her eyebrow. "Where were you? You missed dinner, you didn't call. It's almost eleven o'clock!"

Her husband groaned, "I'm sorry, our meeting ran late."

"Are you sure?" Aria accused bitterly. A few months ago, it had come out that John had cheated on her multiple times in the last three years. He vowed that he had stopped seeing the woman since Aria found out, but Aria always felt as if he was lying. Maybe it was her because of her weak trust issues, but whenever John worked late nights, she couldn't help but think he was repeating old mistakes.

"Aria, baby, what do I have to do to prove to you that I'm not seeing her anymore? I love you."

Then, why'd you do it in the first place? Aria thought. Instead of saying that though, she rolled her eyes like her daughter had and checked her email. She hadn't checked it since noon and was eager for a new message about a job. Currently, she was working as a substitute to the local school district. She did have a job at the city's newspaper, but her section got ripped out of the monthly issues, causing Aria to lose her job. But about a week ago, Aria had seen a job offer at a publishing firm. It was her dream, honestly. To represent aspiring authors and critique stories? It sounded perfect to her ears. And if it got her out of this house, even better.

Aria scrolled through junk emails before a sender caught her eye. Charlotte Hunter, that was the name of her hopefully new boss. Aria eagerly opened the email and squealed with excitement. John, who had been snacking on cookies she had baked a few days ago, silently questioned her.

"Well, you know how I've been looking for a job?" Aria started. John nodded, so Aria continued. "There was a publishing job and they want to meet me! I'm so excited!"

"It's just a job, Aria," John told her. Aria's face fell and he backed away from the counter. "I'm gonna head to bed."

Aria nodded and watched as he walked away. A part of her always wished that she had filed for divorce after his infidelities came about, but she couldn't. She remembered how hard it had been on her and Mike when they were teens when her parents separated. She wouldn't do that to Chloe and Matt. She was proud of the fact that her children didn't even know.

And she loved John. They had met right after Aria turned nineteen at a frat party. He was one of the only guys who wasn't wasted or just plain stupid. He was a few years older than her, but Aria was no stranger to age difference. Aria got pregnant with Chloe only eight months later and the two had a slight shot gun wedding. Despite the bad timing, Aria never regretted marrying him. John, until a few years ago, treated her right and got along great with her family and friends. Every Christmas, Byron and Ella would welcome him with open arms. Aria partially thought they were just happy it wasn't Ezra she was married to, but Aria tried to never let herself think about him.

After she ordered him to, Ezra left Rosewood and started a new life in god knows where. Aria would be lying if she said she never missed him. She remembered going to Apartment 3B a few weeks after the true crime novel secret came out and was determined to ask him one last question. When she got there, though, he wasn't there. She had used her spare key and stepped inside and she remembered how her jaw dropped when she saw none of his belongings. The only thing that was there was a sealed envelope next to the sink labeled, For Aria.

Her eighteen year old self had sat on that bare apartment floor for hours, sobbing her heart out over the letter, the fact that he was really gone, even though he was respecting her wishes, and that they would never see each other again. Aria still had the letter. It was in a box in the very top of her closet, subsiding next to a whole lot of other memories. In that box, was everything she loved about Ezra. Winesburg, Ohio was there, as well as the B26 poem, the spoon from their coffee date, a coaster from Snookers, a pair of boxers she'd stolen from him, and pictures of the two of them. She never did have the heart, nor would she ever have the heart, to throw any of the items out. Ezra was only in a smidgen of her life, and that teeny tiny part was just the box in the closet, and Aria couldn't ever shake him completely.

Aria never thought she'd get over him, and it did still hurt, but it eventually got easier. It definitely got easier after meeting John. John had introduced Aria to love again, though Aria never loved John nearly as much as Ezra. Aria always wondered where he was and if Ezra had a "John"- someone he loved but not as much as her, a wife that never quite compared to his true soul mate.

Whenever Aria was super down in the dumps, which was a lot recently, she would think of how shocking it was that her husband wasn't Ezra Fitz. She would be surprised that her kids didn't look like spitting images of the man she loved so much in high school. She would be in awe that the house she was living in wasn't in her old teacher's name.

But the past was the past and she got what she got.

Ezra

Ezra Fitz, despite it being a little past ten, was already nestled in his bed. It had been a tiring day and all he wanted to do was crash. But, once he got comfortable, he just couldn't sleep. So instead, he laid there in his one bedroom apartment, staring up at the ceiling. The apartment honestly reminded him of the one he had in Rosewood. The kitchen and living room was practically the same, but his current one was more spacious and the bedroom was segregated by a door.

Ezra tossed and turned more, and wished like hell he had someone to cozy up to at night. He was about forty years old and he was still single. He had had partners since her, but none compared to Aria. There had been Rebecca, who was a few months after Aria, but she got to needy and turned Ezra off. After that he had ran into Jackie of all people and sort of reconciled. Predictably, that went nowhere fast and Ezra went back to being a bachelor. Then he had found Naomi. Naomi was absolutely the polar opposite of Aria – yes, he compared every girl to her – but Ezra still loved her. After a year and a half, they got married. Naomi and him were great, but then grew strained. After four years of marriage, it was sayonara. Then there had been so many noncommittal relationships that Ezra could barely remember half. Finally, a year ago, Ezra said screw it and stopped searching. He had then devoted his life to his writing.

His first book got published when he was twenty nine, a few years after he left Rosewood and Aria behind. That novel was all about her and their tragic love story. Sadly, it didn't sell very well. Ezra always wondered if Aria had read it, or even heard of it. But part of him felt like if she had seen it, she would've burned it or was repulsed by just seeing his name on a book cover, not caring about who the plot surrounded.

After that book bomb, he dabbled in horror stories – he paraphrased and exaggerated a lot of A torture – and they sold decently. His top selling book was about a mad house inspired by Radley. Besides the scary stories, he had done random short stories or poems.

Nowadays, he worked as a publisher at a company in Manhattan, which was where he lived. It seemed like the most suitable place for him. But he sort of did always think about how he and Aria had planned moving to New York City together. He wondered where on earth she was, but doubted that she felt the same way.

He always wondered if she got that long letter he wrote her. Ezra remembered it all; he had packed up all the boxes and was about to call his friend to come over and help, but first pulled out a notebook and wrote Aria a heartfelt message.

He wrote and wrote about how he really loved her and how he had been an idiot, along with other things. Looking back, it was probably too cheesy for her and she didn't care about what he had to say. That or she never got it. Ezra imagined the new owners of 3B finding it before Aria and laughing at how lovesick he was after reading it.

It was weird thinking that good, old 3B in Rosewood. That apartment had held so many memories, good and bad, and to think that someone was in there, completely unaware of the occurrences that happened.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he cursed internally for thinking about her. Ezra knew he wouldn't be able to sleep now. Whenever she invaded his thoughts, he couldn't think of anything else. He missed her that much. He had no clue how, after over a decade, she still had him in the palm of her hand. Why had he never been able to just move on?

He was just so pathetic it sickened him.

But, he knew why. He knew he couldn't let it go just because of how they ended it. He never imagined him and Aria breaking it off for good, forever, but if he would've had to imagine it, he would have expected that the pair would end amicably. Nothing, not one thing, could have prepared him for how they actually ended things. The cruel, yet deserved, words Aria had screamed at him stuck in his head like an overplayed, hit song.

Sighing, he flipped his pillow over and decided to get to sleep. It was a big week ahead of him since one of the publisher's at his firm retired. His secretary went through applicants earlier today and called in a few people to meet on Tuesday. Ezra hated interviewing people, but was trying to be positive about the whole thing.

That was the mindset he had been trying to maintain for a while. Just stay positive.

(A/N:) Well, there's chapter one! Don't forget to review :))