Wow guys. The reviews I have been getting both on here and on tumblr have been just lovely. Thank you so much for reading, and please keep reviewing because it honestly inspires me to write more! Sorry this one took a while.
.xox.
There are times life will rattle your bones and will bend your limbs.
"Dear Avery" – The Decemberists
She had stormed back into and then back out of his life in the matter of an hour or two.
Darcy had spent the nice practically sleepless, tossing and turning to thoughts of Lizzie. With one turn, he would think that Lizzie had behaved horrendously. With another, he would remember all of the awful things he had said to her a year ago and realize that she had every right to doubt him. And then he would remember that George Wickham was part of the picture now. No doubt Wickham had filled Lizzie's head with all sorts of slander.
It was at seven in the morning, as Will sipped his coffee (no cream, one sugar) and stared blankly at his Macbook screen, that he remembered the videos.
He'd found out about them innocently enough during the beginning of their brief affair. He'd stumbled into her office while she was recording, and he'd ended up making the cut to be in one of her vlogs. After that he'd watched her old videos, and she'd apologized for the things she'd said about him. Her words had hurt, but at that moment Will had everything he wanted, and so he'd brushed it off without a second thought.
And after their fight, Will had watched a video or two… or ten. Their fight had made the cut as well, actually.
And then George Wickham reappeared in Lizzie's videos. At the point that they shared a kiss and announced their relationship, Darcy had stopped watching and decided to attempt, however, futilely, to move on. Luckily for him, given his circumstances, moving on included the option of moving to another city time zones away from Lizzie Bennet and George Wickham.
But apparently at least Lizzie, if not her boyfriend too, had followed him to New York, and not just in his thoughts and dreams.
Well, there was only one way to find out if Wickham was still a part of Lizzie's life, poisoning her with his lies. Will logged onto Twitter first, hoping that a tweet or two of Lizzie's might give some insight, sparing him from watching videos. But her tweets were all either links to her latest updates or vague hints about her life. Though Will could tell if things were going well or horribly for Lizzie, 140 characters did not do the justice to tell him why. At some point in early November she had tweeted: "Can't wait to move to New York next week!" and then a week later "Loving the city" with an Instagrammed pic of Time Square. That was the most detail she gave in her tweets.
Her newest video had been posted Thursday. With a sigh, he clicked on the link. "Here goes."
"New York was exactly the fresh change that I needed," Lizzie started. She was wearing a gray cardigan with what looked like a black tank top underneath. "Things have been hard so far, and I know I haven't said it, but…" Her voice grew tender. "I miss Jane and Charlotte and dad." She gave a strange little nod. "And Lydia." Now she leaned conspiratorially towards the camera. "And dare I say it? I miss my mother!"
The cut changed and Lizzie was leaning back in her chair now, more relaxed. "But last night I finally went out and had some fun. My name is Lizzie Bennet, and I'm starting to like life New York City."
The rest of the video was an amusing retelling of Lizzie's night out on the town. She'd gone out with some work friends and had apparently had a good time. She even talked about flirting with a few men, though she didn't give any of them her number. Flirting with men? Darcy wondered. Is Wickham not in the picture, then? Though he was certain George Wickham would have flirtations outside of his relationship, Will's image of Lizzie was that she would never do such a thing. Or at least if she did, she certainly was smart enough not to brag about it online.
Curious as to what had happened to Wickham, Darcy clicked on Lizzie's profile and scanned through her other videos. Somewhere in late September, Wickham stopped appearing in the thumbnails, though he was in at least three a month from last December on.
Will glanced at the paperwork he had brought into the living room with him. It sat untouched on the sofa. "This can wait," he assured himself as he closed his laptop and pulled the papers onto his lap instead. "Work is more important than figuring out who's sleeping with George Wickham."
But half an hour later, Will's brain was still abuzz with thoughts of Lizzie. Lizzie angry and storming out of his apartment. Lizzie with her slightly sad eyes in her last video. Lizzie kissing George on camera. Lizzie kissing Will in the offices at Collins & Collins.
This isn't about finding out who's sleeping with George Wickham. It's about finding out where the hell I lost my chance and how I can get it back.
The paperwork was tossed aside. Work could wait. Gigi was always telling him he was too obsessed with it anyway. "Lighten up," she'd told him in her last phone call. She'd been on her way to a frat party. In truth, Will definitely had his qualms with her attending such an event, but Gigi had been so shy and withdrawn the past few years that he likely would have let her skip off to a biker bar if she'd said all her friends would be there, simply elated at the idea that she had friends. "Go out. Have a few drinks. Meet a girl. Or just waste time on the Internet for an hour and a half. Work's not as important as enjoying life, you know."
And while Will had always rolled his eyes at that statement – work was the only reason either of them were able to afford the lifestyles they lived, since their ancestors had certainly worked, rather than Internet-surfed, their way to the top – he took it as his reasoning for watching all of Lizzie's videos that he had yet to see on this particular Saturday morning that faded into afternoon.
.xox.
At three in the afternoon, Darcy sat in his favorite coffee shop, his eyes red from staring at a computer screen for so long. He started at the stark white wall with nothing but tiny framed black and white images on it. I've come to this shop so many times since moving to New York, he thought to himself, and yet for the life of me I could not tell you what any of those photographs represent.
The barista approved Will's table with his usual order and placed it before him before smiling at him oddly and walking off. She probably doesn't like my stupid newsie hat, he thought to himself with a wry smile. He didn't take it off.
Lizzie's videos had progressed from painful to more painful to painful in a way Darcy had never expected. At first her videos were all about her life post-Collins & Collins, about her jokes with George. In February something awful happened. "My name is Lizzie Bennet," she had chimed, "and I think I've found my happily ever after." She'd exchanged a kiss with George and then, after he left, announced that they'd said "I love you."
George knows nothing of love, Darcy thought to himself now. He'd been in love with Lizzie for over a year now, only to have her stomp on his heart repeteadly.
In July, things started to get strange. Multiple times that month, George appeared and randomly attempted to poke fun at Darcy, digging out Lizzie's "newsie hat" and even bringing a bow tie of his own as a prompt. To Will's dismay, Lizzie laughed the first time, but after that, she started to push away the idea of George's pantomime. "We haven't even seen Darcy in months," she said in a soft voice. "What's the point in making fun of him? The guy hasn't done anything to hurt either of us in quite some time."
And finally she asked, "What is your obsession with Darcy?"
George snorted. "My obsession? You spent months making fun of the guy. And it's not an obsession. I just don't like people who have wronged me."
Darcy's blood boiled even thinking about this part again. It was nothing compared to his reaction when he'd originally watched the video. He'd nearly thrown his Macbook across the room at one point.
And then in September, George not-so-mysteriously disappeared.
"My name is Lizzie Bennet, and…people aren't always who you think they are."
From then on, Lizzie appeared thinner and thinner in every video. In mid-October, she finally came clean with what the issue was. "So if you haven't figured it out already," she said as she sat in the bedroom of her parents' house in her too-large blue sweater, "George and I broke up. Or, I broke up with him."
A few frames later: "George cheated on me."
She paused and the shot changed. Her room was slightly darker, as if it had taken her a few hours to come to her decision to tell the world exactly what had happened.
"And it's not as if he just cheated on me once, or twice, or many times with the same person." She paused. "He's been cheating on me since we got together. With multiple women." She paused and took a deep breath. "I found out when I was playing a game on his cell phone one day and a text came through. He wasn't around so… I read it since it looked suspicious, and a few others in his inbox too."
She was on the verge of tears here, the anger in her voice evident. "And you know? I'm still miserable. I feel disgusted with him, yeah, but I loved him. I loved him and sometimes I think I still love him, though I'd never take him back."
A few videos later, she was still on the subject. "It just makes me feel so useless, so awful. Like I wasn't good enough, you know? I know he's the bad guy here, but it made me feel as if I was unable to please him. I thought things were good, you know…in bed…but he was doing that with other girls and that just makes me feel so dirty. It's not even the cheating that was a breach of trust, it was being intimate with me and then going around doing that with other people." She realized that she had said she felt dirty and waved her hands dramatically. "I went to the doctor, though. It's all good. I'm safe. I wouldn't be surprised if the douchebag has something though and I was just lucky enough to not catch it."
She paused now, then smirked. "You know, I used to refer to someone else as a douchebag. But he didn't even come close to the douchebaggery that George Wickham is capable of."
It had been awful to watch the woman he loved reduced to such a sad image. Had she been that thin when he'd seen her last night? Eventually Lizzie had decided to move to New York – "to pack up and move on" as she had put it. And that had brought her here, to him.
So with George Wickham out of the picture, could Darcy finally right his wrongs? Could he finally tell Lizzie how he felt?
And can I maybe fix things for her? Show her how worth it she is? Make things better.
There was only one way to find out. And unfortunately, that probably meant getting his heart stomped on once again.
But maybe this time it would be worth it.
.xox.
Sorry this is such a video-heavy chapter. I knew what I wanted to write, but that's why it took my forever to write it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Please review!
