“He said … that Darcy said…”

Darcy. Of course. I feel my face heat. How could I be so stupid? How did I believe for even a second that she was a decent human being? Just because her lips made me forget my own name – was I one of those women who’d choose a crush over her friends? How horrifying was that!

“…and said that long-distance never works!”

I try to focus on Jane.

“So, Darcy told him to break up with you?”

“Not – sob – not exactly, more she reminded him that we’ll be three thousand miles apart next year, at really different schools…”

“That bitch.”

“Lizzie!” Jane is shocked enough to stop crying for a moment. I never swear.

“Well, she is. Anyone can see that Bing is head over heels for you. Getting in the way of you guys being together, that’s…” I don’t actually manage a second curse in thirty seconds but I am thinking it. “It’s not very nice.”

“Honestly, Lizzie, I don’t think that’s what she was trying to do. I think she was just being logical, and didn’t want Bing to get hurt later.”

“You always try to see the niceness in people, Jane, but she didn’t need to get involved at all. If she’s such a great friend of Bing’s and doesn’t want him to get hurt, she should have realized it was too late! He’s clearly head over heels for you, so hurt now, hurt later, what’s the difference?”

“But then why did he listen to her?” Jane dissolves into tears again. I try to push my anger aside and focus on consoling. But it’s still there, bubbling away, clouding my vision whenever I think of Darcy Pemberley.

And OK, maybe a tiny part of it is that I have never felt about anyone the way Darcy made me feel last night. And that might be the tiniest bit terrifying.

But all that is immaterial. The real issue is that Darcy hurt Jane, and I will never, ever forgive her.

*

On Monday, Jane is red-eyed and quiet, and doesn’t want to talk about Bing at all. I try to stay nearby, and I’m on my way to sit with her at lunch when Darcy steps in front of me.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi?” I repeat, stunned. “Hi?”

“Well … yes. That is usually what you say to greet another person.” She smiles. “I was looking for you.”

“Looking for me?” Apparently all I can do is echo her words, but I’m somewhere between baffled and apoplectic with rage.

“Yeah.” She moves a bit closer, so that only my lunch tray is separating us. Her eyelids flick down, dragging my gaze with them, and her lips distract me for just a single second. I jerk my eyes back up to hers.

“I wanted to talk to you, because … well… Do you wanna come see a movie with me Saturday?”

She looks more awkward than I’ve ever seen her before, and my angry, horny brain is struggling to keep up.