CHARISMA - the sweet unknown {PLL}

No Cheating Allowed

Alisha rushed past him and Ezra walked up to Arias front door. She was still standing in the door frame staring at him meaninglessly. He cleared his throat, "Hello Aria, may I come in?" 

Aria's heart started racing, "My mom's home, I don't know if-" 

"I just wanna talk," he interrupted her and she stepped away to clear the path for him. "Principal Garner and I have discussed the incident with the picture." 

"So?" Aria shut the door unsure about her feelings. Did he really just come here to talk to her about the picture? It actually wouldn't surprise her if that was his only concern at the moment, though. 

"We decided not to inform the police," he stopped in the middle of the living room and looked Aria in the eyes, "it's no news to us that Alisha has some sort of feud going on with Mona. We think it's just one of her provocations." 

"You think this was Mona?" Aria asked in disbelief and her voice sounded a little too harsh. Her mom, Ella, stuck her head into the room and looked surprised to see Ezra instead of Aria's friends. 

"Hey Ezra," she approached him and they shook hands, "What are you doing here?" 

"Hi Ella. I came to tell Aria about Principal Garner's and my thoughts about the incident this morning." He explained quickly. 

Ella sighed, "Sometimes I'm really glad I'm not in high school anymore. Kind of." 

"Mom, you never left high school, technically," Aria let herself fall on the couch and burried her face in her hands. Thinking it was Mona was just the easiest way out, probably. She is gonna be called into the Principal's office, maybe get expelled and then that's it. Nobody would care about it anymore. Which actually didn't sound too bad. 

"High school's different as a teacher," Ella pouted and left the room again with a quick nod in Ezra's direction to tell him goodbye. 

"Well," he still awkwardly stood in the living room and looked at Aria curled up on the sofa. "What do you think?" 

"What do I think?" she raised her head, "I think that I can't think straight right now, Ezra. I can't even catch a single logic thought and I'm not gonna lie, it's not because of what happened this morning." 

"Aria, I-"

"No," she interruped him, "there's no Aria, I, this time. It's not about you, Ezra. I get you're scared of losing your job. But the fact you don't trust me or my friends is pretty disappointing. I have no idea how you dealt with it without telling anyone but I just couldn't. And my friends are like sisters, they would never do anything to hurt me. Other than you." 

After that none of them knew what to say for a little while and only the sound of Ella rumbling in the kitchen broke the silence. Aria could hear Ezra breathing heavily and she immediately felt sorry for what she'd said. But then she remembered Alisha's words from earlier this week, Ezra shouldn't be controlling the way she felt. She got up and walked towards the front door, "I think it's better if you leave now." 

Ezra nodded after a short hesitation. He straightened his back and walked past Aria. Their eyes met and Aria quickly blinked away a tear and waited for him to walk outside. She slowly shut the door and took a deep breath, her eyes closed. She was going to get over this. She had the most amazing friends who were always by her side. There was no way this was gonna steal her happiness. Absolutely no way.

~

Alisha spent almost an entire day with her phone in her hands, about to text Wilden but then deleting everything she had typed and overthinking it again and again. There was a good chance he had absolutely nothing to do with it and if she told him what happened he'd probably just laugh at her. She didn't want to annoy him with her high school drama, yet she kept telling herself she didn't care what he thought. By friday morning she'd convinced herself she'd just ask him whenever she randomly bumped into him next time around. Nobody was supposed to think Alisha Lichtenstein is a jumpy, scared, little high school girl.