First Impressions: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptation

Chapter 31.1

"I changed my mind. I'm coming home for spring break after all."

"Are you sure? I thought you wanted to go to Toronto." Darcy leaned back in his chair, cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder. He reached both his arms over his head, stretching them until his joints popped.

"Yeah. I mean, yes, I want to go, but we can go after the semester! Jade said we could do my birthday up there."

If the phone wasn't in the way, Darcy would have shrugged. "Okay." She was an adult, much as he tried to coddle her. It was admittedly still difficult to conjure up any significant feelings one way or another about trivial events. It had been for a while...

"And I'm inviting Chip. And Caroline and Lo," Georgie added in a decided, almost perfunctory tone. She was informing, not asking permission.

He paused. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely positive," she said, dismissing him with the lightness of her tone. "I'll give Chip a call too, force him to take a long weekend off at least. You've been alone too long. Your friends will do you more good than mine would!"

He looked down at his hand, lying atop his desk. The indent on his middle finger where the barrel of a pen had worn a groove over the years had deepened in the past few months. There was ink on the dent in the skin and on the bed of his nail. Were they even his friends? Not Bingley, but his sisters. (Of all the relationships in his life, he was only more certain of two of them.) Were they just... companions of convenience, simply because the two women were Bingley's sisters? Elizabeth's commentary on his company had made him rethink every person he considered close. He bit back a sigh before it escaped his lips and leaned back in his chair, swiveling it slightly so his hand fell from the tabletop and into his lap. "Okay."

"Great."

"How are you coming down?"

"I was probably going to take the train. Unless Caroline or Lo want to drive."

"Do you think you can handle the dog on the train? Or should I come up and get him?"

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment. "I-I mean, it's awfully far, and I have some midterms, so I wouldn't be able to come down with you right away, so you really don't—"

"Don't worry about it. I've been putting off a meeting with my publisher. I can see him and swing by to get Apple, if you don't mind being without him for a couple of days."

He could practically hear her beaming over the phone. "You're wonderful, Fitz!"

He did not feel wonderful, but he took the compliment in silence.

She knew him well enough not to ask how he was doing. Instead, she queried, "How's writing?"

He grimaced, taking advantage of the fact that she couldn't see his expression. "It's... going," he finally admitted, not quite able to keep his words from sounding strangled.

Georgie responded with a sort of sympathetic cooing sound, which was maybe worse than outright sympathy. "What are you working on? Something new or something old?"

"Old. Very old." The oldest story. It was always the oldest story, the one that nagged on his mind with any lull or moment of peace. "The ending is... not right."

"Still?"

"Well, it hasn't changed in about eight years," he admitted ruefully. "So, yes. Still. It's never been right."

He could imagine her shaking her head on the other side of the line. She had always had a particularly protective streak towards Wren. She knew the character nearly as well as Darcy did; she was, after all, the original inspiration. Born out of bedtimes stories and letters home as he struggled to remain in his sister's thoughts, Wren had aged with her. Her canon age in the first novel was just a few years older than Georgie at the time; her aging had not kept its pace, though, likely in response to his years-long neglect of the series, Darcy thought.