Modern Love

SUNDAY

5:29 AM: When I first wake, my head isn't throbbing. Rather, it feels as if my skull has been split straight down the middle: a stabbing pain, neurons firing into an abyss, the inability to form complete thoughts. I burrow into the heat source beside me. He slings an arm over my hips, and I am strangely content despite it all.

6:15 AM: A faint pressure on my side. My eyes flutter open, and I wince at the light. The responsible part of me, the one that looked up all the deleterious health impacts of alcohol before my first dorm party, is reminded that I am both increasing my risk of breast cancer and killing a large number of brain cells.

The rest of me is convinced that I can stand to lose a few brain cells. I overthink things anyway. Like the fact that I am in Fitzwilliam Darcy's bed. That's a thought that I wouldn't mind eradicating.

I think I am still drunk, so I just close my eyes and let sleep wash over me.

8:14 AM: I'm awake. Sober. With Darcy.

Fuck.

8:16 AM: "Hey." His voice is hoarse with sleep. Despite my hangover, that baritone rasp does something sinful to my insides. "How are you feeling?"

Like someone shat a pile of bricks onto my head, but I don't tell him that. Instead, I duck out of his arms and reach for my panties. They are conveniently clustered at the other end of the bed, along with my bra and jeans. My blouse is definitely still where it was removed, on the kitchen counter.

"As expected." I don't look at him as I answer. This isn't my first one-night-stand, though it is my first with him, and I know the usual drill. If it's genuinely not a big deal, we would make a bit of light conversation in bed, maybe have another round, depending on the mood, and then I would head out. Good feelings all around. No expectation that we would ever see each other again.

But this – I pull my clothes on with ruthless efficiency. "Sorry, I'm running a little late for an appointment. I'll see you around, okay?"

I'm out the door before he can respond, but not quickly enough to miss the flash of hurt in his eyes.

I am a shitty excuse for a human being.

8:59 AM: It's not even nine on a Sunday morning, and I'm already in the office, trying to distract myself with work. The attempt is futile. He's attached to my consciousness like a tumor, and I can't seem to excise him without also losing a large part of me.

It wasn't always like this with Darcy. In fact, it used to be pretty simple. We first met at Charlotte's wedding reception. The room was cast in dim light, soft jazz playing – Charlotte's favorite – and champagne flowing, so everyone else had already loosened up.

Darcy hadn't stuck out, exactly. True, he looked a little stiff, a little ill at ease. Looking back, it was probably because he didn't really know anyone at the wedding; he was a stand-in for his aunt, the groom's boss. When Darcy is uncomfortable, though, he hides behind his aloofness. It's an air that can be easily mistaken for arrogance.

The way he stood, it wasn't not imperious. Not as if he could conquer the world. Instead, the world was already his, and all objects and people had meaning only in relation to him.

I both disdained and envied him for that. But he was white, male, conventionally handsome, the grandson of an English earl – I had forgotten those even still existed, until Collins informed me – the recipient of a trust fund worth at least a thousand times as much as my own parents' lifelong savings. In short, he had won every privilege that the lottery of birth could possibly confer. Of course he floated through life like one who walked on water.

(It is my own arrogance astounds me now.)

In any case, I was hoping to escape Collins, who'd been praising Darcy's pedigree for the last twenty minutes. It was doubly awkward because Collins – my cousin, and Charlotte's groom – had proposed to me not too long before, and I had thrown up on the spot. Unfortunately, by excusing myself to the champagne table, I put myself near Darcy and Bingley.

"Dance a little? Or have another drink, and then dance. Meet people. Look, Lizzy seems free. I think you'd like her."

"Which one is she?" Darcy's voice had a way of carrying, deep and distinctive. The Brits I met in college generally spoke with a crisp, clipped accent: the mark of professional-class boys sent to Eton, more for a social education than an academic one. Darcy, however, spoke in a disinterested drawl, as if consonants themselves were beneath him.

"In the black dress. Really, I think you two will get along splendidly."

I was twenty-two, then, fresh out of college. I wasn't worldly, and I was definitely not wise. (I'm still not.) But I was already intimately familiar with the way in which Darcy's gaze raked up and down my body. To him, in that instant, I wasn't someone to make conversation with, a potential acquaintance who you expected nothing of, a person with feelings and a mind. I was just tits and ass and legs that could maybe be hiked over the shoulder.

"She's not for me. I prefer women a little more slender."

Three months later, he convinced Bingley to break up with Jane. Shortly after, I met Wickham. But these later moments did not create my opinion of Darcy so much as confirm it. My take on him had crystallized right then, in that room.

Asshole.

2:45 PM: My phone buzzes. I flinch, thinking that it's him, but then realize that I never gave him my number.

Charlotte: where were u last night? lost u around 12

L: feeling a little tired. went home early

C: better now?

L: yes, ty

C: saw u leaving with Darcy

C: don't u dare leave me on read

C: hello?!

C: lizzy?

4:52 PM: I'm going through some PG&E data, trying to estimate how much and when they'll pay out in damages. It's a bit of a mess, since who knows what'll happen after they file for bankruptcy. To be honest, going long on the bonds was a shitty investment decision to begin with. Distressed debt is not our area of expertise. But my boss tends to be overconfident, and this usually results in me sorting out his mess. On the bright side, I get exposed to a variety of strategies.

When I started college, I was convinced that I was going to do good in the world. I wanted to work on housing policy, on poverty reduction, on issues of social importance. Then, when the creditors came for the house, I realized the kind of bills my parents had racked up. The mortgage, college tuition for five daughters, their own expensive tastes. Now I work at a hedge fund.

Worse, I like my job. It excites me, in a way that my summer stints at non-profits and government agencies never did. I tell myself there is always later, time to do something meaningful after I do this. Sell my soul while it's still worth something, buy it back later when it's blackened and cheap, profit the spread. I've gotten quite good at lying to myself.

My phone buzzes again. A call, this time. I'm surprised. Charlotte and I have been friends since grade school, and even if she doesn't admit it, she knows when I need space to process.

"Hello?"

"Is this Elizabeth?" That's not Charlotte. My name doesn't fall from Charlotte's lips like a caress. Charlotte's voice doesn't make my breath catch, doesn't lead me to cross my legs tighter in my chair.

"How did you get this number?"

"Through Bingley," he admits. "I'm sorry for not asking you, but I think we need to talk. Just once. I swear I'll never call you again. Unless you want me to."

We don't. We don't need to talk, and I do not want you to call me again. Last night was my mistake. And what can I possibly say? Hey, I'm sorry, but I think I'm falling in love with you. And there is nothing I want less. So thanks for everything, but maybe we should never see each other again.

"Okay," my traitorous mouth replies. "Coffee tomorrow? I have fifteen minutes at three o'clock."

He laughs, but there is no humor in it. Still, the sound is beautifully sharp, and it cuts me to the quick. "I thought your coffee chats were exclusively for networking. I'll pick you up from your office at eight."

I'd mentioned it exactly once, three months ago, off-handedly. Every Monday, I have a meeting run until precisely eight, when our portfolio manager leaves to pick up his son from his piano lesson. I swallow. "Alright."

The line clicks off.

8:02 PM: I'm finally home, having accomplished more than nothing, but less than I would like. I can't focus. Caro, my roommate and Bingley's sister, is still at work for the Sunday evening program. I wish she was here.

I love my sisters and Charlotte dearly, but Caro and I see something of ourselves reflected back in our more jagged edges: a certain resentment, a sense of lostness, fierce loyalty, naked ambition. We hated each other when we first met. It took us years to realize that we're both terribly judgmental people, just with respect to different things. Clearly, I'm still learning.

With Caro, I don't have to say anything. She'd sip on something fruity but strong, while I'd pour myself some cheap wine as I catch up on non-market news. Today, I enjoy my wine alone and wonder when she will be back. Each Sunday night, Caro has a fresh rant about Martin From Work, her boss's boss who is guilty of borderline sexual harassment – but who she's willing to tolerate, thus far, to avoid upending her career.

Frankly, I worry for her. But Caro is both an astute navigator of social situations and a ridiculously talented news anchor. I trust that her judgment is better than mine.

8:03 PM: For instance: sleeping with Darcy, and then agreeing to see him tomorrow evening. I hate that I think of him so often. That he consumes so much of my mental life. That I owe this to him.

Where does gratitude end and obligation begin? When he forgave me for my past cruelty? When he confronted my one-time friend – his enemy, and the man I brought into Lydia's life – and rescued my sister? When he covered my parents' debts, so that Wickham could no longer threaten us? When I drunkenly kissed him last night, somewhere in between I'm so sorry and Thank you again and I can never repay you for this?

It doesn't matter. Wherever one draws such a line, there is no room left for love, freely given.

A/N: So I know I should finish Tempest, and I'm trying to work through the writer's block on that. It's fairly hard for me to write now - I'm a little older than I was when I started Tempest, and the story comes less easily. But definitely trying. And I should have plenty of time this summer.

I was reading olivieblake's Modern Romance (which is absolutely amazing, and I highly, highly recommend) and this popped into my brain. I've copied the diary format (sorry!) and the NYT reference in the title, but hopefully nothing else. There should be seven installments, one for each day of the week, as Lizzy sorts herself out a little. Thank you so much for reading, and constructive criticism is always appreciated!