Their friendship had started going sour a long time ago, but George could pinpoint the exact moment when it officially ended. It was when Darcy called him selfish.

Selfish. Seriously? How could he possibly think that? George had grown up alongside people who had everything while he had next to nothing. And he never complained, not during all the afternoons he spent playing with Darcy in his family's gigantic mansion, not when Darcy asked what was the name of the Wickhams' maid and George had to stutter that they didn't have one, not when Darcy casually forked over some three-figure number for a pair of pants and George was stuck with the knock-off label. Not a word of complaint. He just quietly absorbed the fact that the world was unfair, and some people were born into it with a fortune in their pockets and some people weren't.

Darcy talked about stuff like honor and discipline and doing his duty, but those ideas only made sense in a world that was fair, a world that rewarded hard work and people who followed the rules. That wasn't the world they were living in. This was a world where you had to take what you could get whenever you had the chance.

One time, when they were nine or ten, Darcy caught George shoplifting. You'd think it was murder from the way he reacted. "What are you doing?" he hissed, snatching the candy bar and putting it back on the shelf. "You haven't paid for that!"

"It's half a buck," George said, rolling his eyes. "Lighten up, will you?"

"It doesn't matter how much or how little it costs," Darcy said, puffing out his chest pompously. "It's the principle of the thing."

Nice, if you could afford principles.

George was a little more careful about what he did around Darcy after that self-righteous overreaction. He knew, or at least he was pretty sure, that Darcy wouldn't stoop to telling on him, but his disappointing glare was a real buzzkill.

They were still friends. Of course they were. They had a history, lots of inside jokes and shared memories. He was practically a second brother to Darcy's kid sister Gigi. He knew how to make Darcy loosen up – or what passed for loosening up for him, anyway. He didn't laugh at Darcy in middle school when he tried to ask out the girl he liked but lost his nerve, muttering something unintelligible before slinking away. George just grinned and said, "Aw, she wasn't worth it. You can do better than her, old Moneybags."

By the time high school was wrapping up, though, George had had about all he could take of Darcy's prissy honor and duty. The guy had actually mapped out his college schedule for the entire four years. No room for having fun or anything. When George showed no interest in doing the same obsessive planning, Darcy did it for him, including three different scenarios in case he changed his mind about being a lawyer and decided to go for an MBA or med school. George accepted the course schedules with a smirk, then chucked them as soon as Darcy left.

If Darcy wanted, he could easily take off a year, maybe two or three, before diving into college. He could travel the globe, backpack across Europe, go kayaking in Alaska. With his wads of cash he could do whatever he wanted, probably get whatever girls he wanted too, have the whole world at his fingertips. But all he wanted to do was perform his boring old duty and start running his dad's company as soon as he possibly could. What a waste.

George wasn't about to waste his own life like that. He was going to make the most of this, his first taste of real freedom. All those years of flaunting their wealth at the Wickhams must have made the Darcys feel just guilty enough to set up a little fund for George, enough for a bare bones college education. It took some doing for Darcy to hand the money over to George – he wanted to pay all of George's expenses himself, like he was a dumb little kid – but finally, after George swearing up and down that he would use it responsibly, the fund was all his.

That first year was amazing. George could actually buy whatever he wanted without worrying whether he could afford it; he could order as many drinks as he wanted and go out drinking every night if he felt like it. Fake IDs were easy to get when you could shell out the money for them. He could buy all his friends drinks too.

And he had a lot of friends. He had always made friends easily, but it was even better when he wasn't dragging around a dead weight like Darcy. He had a crowd of buddies wherever he went, and plenty of girls who came for his smile and swimmer's physique and stayed for his tragic tale of being poor and misunderstood by the rich family that should have taken care of him. Girls loved tragedies almost as much as they loved rich guys. He was also the only freshman to make the swim team, and he had a lot of cheering fans at every swim meet. He didn't attend his classes half the time, but that year at college was very educational.

Then came the day toward the end of the school year when he got a notice in the mail. His bank account had been overdrawn. Well, that sucked. Apparently everything was just a little more expensive than he thought it was. He suspected he might run out of money before four years were up, but this was…sooner than he hoped. He hadn't talked to Darcy in months. This wasn't going to be an easy conversation.

He called him the next day, keeping his voice nice and casual. "Hey, Darce, how's it going?"

"Well enough." Man, he'd gotten even stiffer and stuffier, if that were possible. "How are your studies?"

"Great, great." He had finals coming up, but a few weeks ago he'd bought all the cheat codes from someone with the right connections. "How about yours?"

"Fine. So far I've managed to keep to my schedule."

"Yeah…about that. I've kind of hit a snag in my own schedule."

"What is that?"

"I might have trouble paying tuition next semester."

"Why?" Darcy's tone was already growing harder. This was going to take a lot of charm.

"Darce, you would not believe how much everything costs here! I've been careful, but my funds just keep getting lower and lower."

"How much do you need?" He sure got right to the point.

"Well, sort of – all of it."

"You've already spent all of the money intended for next year's tuition?" Beneath Darcy's monotone, George could hear the usual judgmental self-righteousness.

He sighed. "Yeah."

"And how much do you have remaining in your savings?"

Savings? Oh boy. "Uh, none."

There was a long, horrible silence. When Darcy finally spoke it was clipped, controlled. A little dangerous. "Do you mean to say that you have spent four years worth of college tuition in a single year?"

"Come on, man! It's more than just tuition. Room and board, you know. Unless you want to live in a hole and eat nothing but cereal, it gets pretty pricey."

"Those funds were intended strictly for tuition. Did you ever consider getting a job?"

"A job? Are you kidding me? Classes are already a full-time job. And how is that fair? I bet you don't have to work to make ends meet."

"I've been long-distance interning at Pemberley."

Of course he was. The guy was practically inhuman. "Like that counts." He went on bitterly, "You think anyone else around here has a job? No, when they have money troubles, they just call their parents to come and bail them out."

"So in lieu of that, you're calling me."

"Yeah, I am," George snapped, "because you're the closest thing I've got to family now. You know that. You're not the only orphan here, man."

"Yes. I know that." Now Darcy was quiet. Maybe he'd give in after all. "You were like a second son to my parents. They wanted you to have a good education and a chance to improve your situation. And you –" Uh-oh. George didn't like the sound of that catch in his voice. "You have squandered the money you were entrusted with."

"Darce –"

"Did their generosity mean nothing to you? Instead of honoring their memory and behaving responsibly, you've trampled their gift beneath your feet."

"Hey, now wait a minute –"

"And now – now, you have the gall to ask for more? To demand it, as if it's your right, your entitlement, instead of a sacred privilege? I knew you were incapable of taking anything seriously, but I had no idea just how thoughtless you could be. How utterly selfish."

"Like hell." George could feel his face twisting up in fury. "You're so full of crap, Darcy. You're the one sitting on a mountain of money, and you call me selfish? Where do you get off? My family had to scratch out a living since before I was born, and you got everything handed to you. You have no idea what that feels like."

"This has nothing to do with your family's class or financial situation. This is about your complete lack of respect and appreciation regarding the gift that was given to you."

"So I made a few mistakes handling my money. Is that a mortal sin? Just like that, you decide I'm not worthy of a single penny more?"

"I know you, George," Darcy said icily. "I can easily imagine what you spent your money on."

"Seriously? You judge me before you even give me a chance to prove myself. But why should that surprise me?" he went on in rising resentment. "You've always thought I was less worthy than you. You know what, Darcy? You're a pompous ass, and you always have been. You were born with your nose stuck in the air."

"You had a chance to prove yourself," Darcy said, unsurprisingly ignoring the insults. He was gutless that way. "You had an entire year. You failed."

"You know what this means, right? I won't be able to finish college. No, forget that. I'm broke. I can't even pay next month's rent. You think your parents would want me living on the street?"

"Don't you dare bring them up again. You have no right." Darcy cleared this throat. "I take no pleasure in the thought of you being without a place to live or any sort of income. But there are plenty of people in the world who manage to get by without assistance from others."

"Sure. People who learn to scam the system."

"There are honest people too."

"Right. Keep living in your dream-world, Darcy. I'm sure you're very happy there."

"Get a job, George. It won't kill you."

"Oh, yeah. No problem, I'll start applying for stuff tomorrow. You got any openings for a college dropout at Pemberley?"

"I'm sorry it's come to this. I was hoping college might teach you to grow up a little."

"I was hoping college might teach you how to have feelings," George spat back. "Hey, how many friends have you made in the last year? And how many of them did you have to pay to hang out with you? Are there any girls interested in being with you if they don't know you're loaded? You'd better face up to it, Darcy. I'm the only real friend you ever had. And now you have none."

A long pause, then, "Out of respect for our former friendship, I think it's best we end this conversation."

"Yeah, you'd like that, you spineless, cowardly son of a –"

Darcy had hung up.

George threw his phone down on the bed, scowled at it, then punched his pillow while imagining it was Darcy's face.

Selfish. Coming from Darcy's mouth. Talk about ironic.