First Impressions: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptation

Chapter 30

"Mom... I don't think this is a good idea."

"Why not? It will be good for those boys to make some friends, even if they only live here one weekend a month."

"I really don't think this is a good idea," she repeated, putting the shockingly orange paper down. It was an invitation addressed directly to the men and woman of the National Guard who trained in the base right by Meryton, inviting them to an open evening party just two weekends away.

Mrs. Bennet narrowed her eyes. Liz returned the gaze with a set expression. "How unfortunate. I guess I'll just ask your sisters to deliver these for me instead."

Liz didn't even try to argue further. There was no stopping her, so what was the point? As soon as her mother left the kitchen, orange stack in her arms, she jumped up to look at the calendar on the wall above the counters.

If nothing else, she was almost—almost. Or at least a tiny bit—grateful for her mother's awful scheme for forcing her to acknowledge the date. January had passed in a haze of snowflakes and pages and February, already short, seemed to have lasted a week and a half rather than three. She stared at the calendar, trying to work out what exactly she had been doing that was so engrossing she missed the fact that it was nearly March. She had taken two months to read four books and two short stories. And in two months, nearly everything had changed.

Nearly. That little modifier seemed destined to trip her up. The problem was, she wasn't entirely certain what the "nearly" was referring to. Some mornings, she woke up entirely serene. No doubts plagued her; she felt no guilt over past actions. She comfortably believed that Darcy deserved what he got. Other days, she remembered what she said with distinct and painful clarity, cringing at each unfounded word.

But she couldn't spend her time wallowing. Perhaps it would help if she talked it out. Unfortunately, she could not talk to any of the people in her house about it. She did not think she would get much from her father; he was as likely to laugh at her discomfort as to listen. And he certainly would have no useful advice, just general fatherly confusion. Or he might just be happy she had turned someone down. Her mother would be... unhelpful, to say the least, though she couldn't be sure in what way she would be unhelpful. She would probably take the opposite stance of Mr. Bennet and berate her daughter for turning a date—any date—down, regardless of the context. Cat and Lydia might feel the same, but they could not be trusted. The novelty of the gossip would be too overpowering to keep her concerns to themselves.

Charlotte was absolutely out of the question. She might say she would be there for anything Liz needed—and she would, really—but Liz couldn't bear to think of the eternally gloating, "I told you so!" She would be kind about it initially, but she would hold it over her friend at least until someone else asked Liz out.

That left Jane as her only, and also her best, option. Jane knew how to listen and console, even if she did have a track record of being nicer to Darcy than Liz thought he merited. Maybe that's what he needed this time.

One call to Jane and then she would put her feelings aside, move on with her life. The library books were returned; the only thing left of Darcy hid under a penname. Save for the letter that hid in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. But she was happy to do her best to keep ignoring that.

The hardest part of that decision was pinning down a time Jane was available. It took a series of texts for them to find a time that worked with the time zone change when Jane wasn't trapped in an office and Liz was actually awake. Even when they finally settled on a time, even when Liz was prepared already in pajamas with cookies warmed after being rescued from the freezer, she was not surprised to receive a text five minutes before the meeting time that said: