It is never good to be up, unable to sleep at 2:30am, but at least it gave me time to finish up this chapter. Covid seems to have finished running through my family but I am still dealing with a phlegmy cough. My daughter, who is 22 and was the inspiration for this G.G., has been engaging in a lot of worrying behavior lately, but as one of my ways of coping with that is to transform it into writing, I suspect chapter 8 will contain some shocking behavior on G.G.'s part and Darcy trying to sort things out by talking with Ms. Berry. I am really curious about what you all think about this chapter, Bingley's reaction, whether he will come around and how it all made you feel. Please let me know in a review.

7.

I should have been happy that Chuck Bingley had agreed to see me, but I immediately began to worry. I wondered how I could explain to him what his sister had done.

After the quick text exchange with Bingley, arranging for lunch, I found myself calling Rick. He answered on the second ring. "Darcy, what's wrong? Is it G.G.?"

I was flummoxed for a moment and then recalled that I usually texted him unless it was urgent. "Nothing's wrong with G.G., at least nothing new. It's me. I'm finally meeting with Bingley to tell him about what happened."

"Good, good. I'm glad."

"I'm not sure how it will go; you see I just found out last night that Caroline told him I had taken advantage of her."

"That b*tch! Oh boy, that's not good," Rick replied. "Do you want . . . would it help, if I was there, too?"

I had a momentary wish for that, but replied, feeling the truth of it as I said it, "I think I need to do this on my own."

"Okay, call me after."

"Okay. Thanks for everything."

I knew Bingley well enough to know that lunchtime for him was somewhere closer to 1 pm than noon, but while waiting for him I practically wore a circle in the rug from pacing around and around a sofa. Still, when the doorbell finally rang, I still did not feel either calm or prepared.

I answered the door and bid Bingley come in, and took the drink carrier which had two shakes, while he continued to carry the bag. I set the shakes down on the kitchen table, the small table at which I had helped G.G. with her homework, the same table at which I had done my own homework.

I prepared two ice waters for us (neither of us were particularly fond of soda) and grabbed big containers of ketchup and mustard out of the fridge, as Bingley arranged the greasy sandwiches on buns and shakes on the table at our respective places, with the family-sized baskets of jalapeno poppers and tater-tots between us. I knew he had gotten the jalapeno poppers for me, for they were one of my favorites when I occasionally indulged in fast food.

For something to say, I told him "That looks great," even as the thought of all that grease was unwelcome to my already rolling stomach. Still, the idea of eating was more welcome than the idea of talking, and I hadn't had more than a cup of coffee that morning.

"I got you a chicken sandwich and a mint Oreo shake," Bingley commented. "I hope those are still your favorites."

I nodded. It was comforting to have just what I would have picked out myself. Although my stomach felt uncertain, after a couple of bites I felt a little of my anxiety melt away. We were just a couple of guys eating and hanging out, as we had done so many times in college.

My mouth was chewing on a jalapeno popper when Chuck set down his half eaten double cheeseburger. "Even though I have been super busy with Jane, I've missed my best friend. What's been going on with you? You just haven't been acting like yourself. I've been worried. Is this related to the whole G.G. thing?"

Bingley looked at me with such compassion in his face that as soon as I finished eating I began telling him more than I had before about what had happened between G.G. and George, explaining how she couldn't seem to understand she was being abused, even though it was obvious to everyone else.

I got so into the subject that I spoke for several minutes with only a few encouraging words from Bingley sprinkled in here and there. When I finally fell silent, he nudged me with his closed first and declared, "Well, that explains it."

"Explains what?" I asked.

"Why you did what you did with my sister." Bingley's face was so open and friendly then, that it took me a moment to understand his words. It would have been the easiest thing to say "yes" and then it would all be at an end. I could see it, what I had been going through with my sister had absolved me of all guilt in his mind to how he believed I had behaved with his sister.

I had a decision to make then: let everything go, sweep it all under the rug and take back up my existing friendship with Chuck Bingley as if nothing had interrupted it or, alternatively, perhaps rip our friendship asunder by telling him something he was completely unprepared to hear. It would have been so easy to say yes, so easy to ignore it all, just keep up my guard around Caroline as I had been doing while staying in the same house with them all.

I could not bear to look into Bingley's trusting eyes then (trusting eyes like an elderly dog with cancer might have while it is on the vet's table with you petting it, not knowing that you are about to have it put to sleep) while I pondered my options. I knew what I had to do, but I knew it would hurt both me and him.

I absentmindedly picked up a jalapeno popper then, turned it over in my hands and began tearing off its breading, revealing the shiny green skin beneath it. I squished out most of the melted cream cheese and cheddar filling onto the wrapper of my sandwich and then began rolled the now plain cooked jalapeno around with my fingers, the smoothness somehow soothing.

"No." The word sounded loud in the stillness of the room. "No, that's not it at all. That's all backwards, inside out and upside down. The situation with G.G., well that made me vulnerable but that does not excuse what she did."

I knew Bingley had no idea what I was talking about, that if I had the courage to lift up my head from contemplating the oval green (fruit? vegetable?) I was rolling around with my fingers that there would be a single line of confusing etched between his brows. Yes, I was well familiar with that line, which had appeared when he got a poor grade on a test or was trying to do too hard of math in his head or was shot down by a pretty blonde girl.

It was not too late, I could still have corrected course then and accept the absolution he offered for the action I had never taken. But I did not, no I did not.

"Do you not remember how intoxicated I got at the bar? When Caroline took me home, she took advantage of me, not the other way around. I just wanted to go to bed, she decided to help and it was she that took off all my clothes, clothes I was too drunk to get off myself. It was she who blew me and then climbed on top, when I wanted nothing from her, could not think rationally, could not consent to anything."

"What?!" Bingley sounded both outraged and confused. But I did not let him say more than that one word out before I continued, trying to get it all out.

"The next morning I was disgusted with myself. But Caroline, Caroline wanted more, tried to ply me with drinks again, thought she could get me back into bed, somehow wrest a relationship out of it all. It took me time to figure out that as guilty as I may have felt over having a one night stand with her, as guilty as I still feel, that none of that would make sense to an outside observer.

"And you, Bingley, you let her take me home, allowed it to happen, knowing how she's always been obsessed with me. I suppose, though, that you could not have anticipated what she would do to me, how she would behave." As I said that last sentence, I realized it was true. Truly, truly, how could he have known, how could he have understood the evil that resided in Caroline's heart, when it was so alien to his own nature?

A small sound escaped him. It was half whine, half moan. I could not visualize what face he was making then, to accompany such a sound, but I was not brave enough to look up, even then. Instead I continued, for if this was to be the end of our friendship, he needed to know what I planned to say next.

"But please, please, whatever you do, never let Caroline take home any of your drunk friends, for I think she thinks that she is such a good lay that she can get a rich man by getting him into bed, consenting or not."

Because I was not looking up, I only caught a quick flash of movement before Chuck Bingley punched me in the face. Being unprepared, my face whipped to the side, my whole body rotated and somehow my chair wobbled and then tipped over onto the side. There was just a flash of pain in my jaw and then pain exploding through my head as it collided with the floor. That overshadowed the pain in my shoulder, arm, back and all the rest. In the old cartoons when they get hit and stars explode, I always thought that was overly dramatic, but I did see something akin to that.

When the pain receded a little I looked up and saw Bingley looming over me. My vision was a little blacked out, and my eyes swam with tears from the pain, so I could only vaguely make out his figure and I certainly could not make out his expression. But his voice, I heard that clearly enough.

"No one says things like that about my sister! The perp. blaming the victim . . . oh, that's rich! You're a hypocrite, taking advantage of a young woman and blaming it on alcohol, on her, even though you condemn your former friend for the same sort of thing."

Perhaps I should have been angry, should have wanted to hit him back, but instead I felt despair grip me. More than the pain, this feeling kept me still. I asked, "You think I'm the same as George Wickham?"

He did not immediately respond, so I mumbled through my throbbing jaw. "Chuck, he did stuff with her when G.G. was no more than twelve."

"Yeah, he is worse," Bingley admitted, before angrily adding, "but it is all a matter of degree. Caroline's too forgiving by far, has a soft spot for you. Well I don't. I won't. You'd better not tell this garbage to anyone else. To think I had planned to forgive you."

"Please, just think about it," I pleaded.

"There is nothing to think about," was his quick rejoinder in a cold tone, a colder tone than I had ever heard him use before. "There is just the truth and you're a liar. And to think that I thought we were friends. I never want to see you again."

I squeezed my eyes shut then, to try to keep the betraying tears in my eyes. His words hurt.

As I remained lying on the floor, I heard Bingley's footsteps as he walked away and then a little squeak from the door being opened and then the slamming of my front door right after. I was certain he was gone, still, I didn't move. I just tried to concentrate on the physical pain. It hurt less than my heart-ache.

Finally, reasoning that I would be more comfortable off my chair, even if getting up and just going about my day was too difficult to imagine, I half wiggled, half slithered off the tipped-over chair. The smooth, cold marble floor felt better against my face and body than the chair had.

It was then that my phone rang from across the room. I just let it ring as I remained lying on the floor, trying not to think about anything.

Then I heard the door open. The self-same squeak that had proceeded Bingley's exit told me that. I had purposefully not had the hinges oiled when I was trying to make sure G.G. did not sneak out or try to run away.

I dully wondered, Has Bingley come back? An odd fantasy flashed before my mind then. Bingley would come back in, kick me, and then pour my half-finished mint Oreo shake on top of me, and then sprinkle the remaining tater tots in the light green goop from the shake, before squirting the ketchup and mustard on me, too.

But instead of Bingley, I heard Rick call, "Darcy? Darcy?"

"Here," I croaked, making no move to rise. I rolled onto my back, opened my eyes and looked up in time to see my cousin looking down on me with his kind, concerned eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"I . . . well I was waiting off the street, a block away from your drive. I saw Bingley drive in here and then leave. When he left, he sped out of there in a hurry like there was someone chasing him. I thought you might need me after, tried calling after that, but you didn't answer. I was worried, so I came on over, but I never thought I would find you like this on the floor. Did he hit you? Do you need some help up?"

"Yes, and not quite yet."

Rick crouched down next to me. "Are you okay? Do I need to take you to urgent care, or call in whatever doctor your family probably still has on retainer?"

I began to feel a little silly to still be lying on the floor. "Nah. I think it is probably nothing." I rolled myself onto my back and then lifted myself into a sitting position. This made my head throb worse and my vision darkened for moment. I kept sitting and it cleared. "Maybe help me to the couch?"

He did, placing me on the right end of it, and I collapsed into the squishy, yet supportive, leather tan couch and closed my eyes again. My head throbbed along with my heartbeats.

Rick then fetched me a bag of towel wrapped ice, which I placed on the side of my face rather than my jaw, holding it there by turning my head to the left, pressing it between my head and the high back of the couch. I closed my eyes again. It helped with the throbbing a little.

"Oh, you hit your head?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I felt the couch shift as he sat down beside me on my left.

I knew he meant the whole interaction with Chuck Bingley and not how I had hit my head. I didn't, really, at the moment, but it was evident to me that Rick was anxious to know what had happened. I forced my eyes open again. Rick was looking at me so gently, so compassionately, like I was a veteran with some horrible deformity left from war, perhaps a burned face or a missing limb. It made me feel like crying.

I looked down and studied my hands, which were lying in my lap. I had a sudden desire to have something in them, maybe the peeled jalapeno popper (was it even now on the table, or had it rolled off to some mysterious spot on the floor?), maybe a pen like I had played with in Ms. Berry's office, when I told her about what Caroline did to me.

"Okay." But instead of talking, I started to think about how lunch was just sitting on the table, unfinished. I had no desire for any of it, save perhaps the melted remains of my shake but I don't like a mess. "But first, would you mind getting me my Oreo mint shake and throwing out whatever else is left of our lunch?"

"Sure."

He got up and then after a couple of minutes came back with my shake and the stacked baskets of the tater tots and jalapeno poppers. "You don't mind, do you? I missed my lunch."

I took the shake for him and sipped the now mostly melted liquid while Rick munched. It was nice to have something to do with my hands, my lips and mouth. I drank slowly and paused a lot as I collected my thoughts, tried to rationally interpret what had happened. Finally, when the Styrofoam cup was empty and I could use it to delay no further, I began to talk.

"I told Bingley that Caroline took advantage of me and he did not take it well. I think, deep down he might know that it is true, but the very idea of it made him angry. He said I was blaming the victim, told me I was like George. Then he punched me."

"Oh, man! I'm so sorry, Darcy." Rick laid a hand on my shoulder while I turned the Styrofoam cup around in my hands and started to pick the top of it apart.

"It is okay, really. I set out what I meant to do, warn him to protect his friends from her. He wasn't ready to hear any of it, but I've done what I can do. It is up to him now. At least I don't think I have to go to his wedding anymore, see Caroline in a bridesmaid's dress." I forced out a chuckle which seemed bitter to my ears. "Bingley had wanted me to be his best man, but now . . . well he said we aren't friends anymore and I think he meant it."

"Maybe he will come around," Rick offered.

"Maybe," I rejoined.

Rick finished the tots and poppers and then retrieved my half destroyed cup from me, picking up the white bits of it I had picked off of it and dropped wherever as best as he could. Then we binged-watched Cobra Kai, the show about what happened to the Karate Kid many years later. It was pretty dumb and the acting was overly dramatic, like on the soap operas my mom used to watch, but it kept my attention well enough to distract me from my thoughts.