Jump to new as of November 30, 2000
Special thanks to Roman Dirge for being the author to Monster's In My Tummy.
"It hadn't been a month before I knew you were the last man I could ever see myself with!" Elizabeth yelled as she slammed the door of her apartment.
William stood stunned. He shut the small blue velvet box and placed it on the glass coffee table. He heard her screech out of the parking lot in the sparkling silver convertible and with that, William exited the apartment himself.
He was still stunned at her rejection. He could feel stubborn tears building in his eyes, but to blink them away now would only make it obvious that he was crying. He sat in the driver's seat of his glittering red sports car but couldn't manage to bring himself back to his aunt's home.
As he drove he thought of her. Her beautiful eyes that had flashed fire when he finally confessed that he loved her. The tone in her voice as she said every angry word.
"Is this a sick joke? You can't be serious. You can't think that I could ever accept a proposal who has gone out of his way to destroy the happiness of two of my best friends. Can you even deny that you've done it?""Why would I deny it? I couldn't see any difference between how Jane treated Charles and how she treated you! And as for George, you don't know him. You haven't heard him talking. If you knew the things he's done, the things he's said, you wouldn't even look at him."
"You don't know him. And how could you even think that Jane is leading your stupid friend on. Don't you even let him think for himself? She's the sweetest person in the world and you've probably ruined both her happiness and Charles' in one stupid presumption."
"I know Charles, and how he can be with women, and your sister never showed any more interest to him that she did to any one else. As for your friend Saint George, you don't know a thing about his past that he hasn't told you."
"And you know?"
"And I know that he's an alcoholic, gold digging a$$h*le who tried to rape my sister."
He would never forget the sick expression that crossed her face at that moment.
"GET OUT!"
"Elizabeth!!"
"Fine. Let me be nice and clear. If what you've just said is true, then I may never speak to George again. But you still have to excuse for destroying the happiness of my best friend and your own. You are a conceited, arrogant, presumptuous creep. Maybe it's better that way, you saved me from the guilt I would have felt in rejecting you if you had been half the gentleman you think you are. It hadn't been a month before I knew you were the last man I could ever see myself with!"
William ran the red light ahead of him. He continued driving until he got to the beach. The little bay waves lapped at the shore as he walked. It was where they'd met. He and Charles had come to visit his aunt, and this is where he'd hidden most of the time.
William walked along the tide now barefoot. He couldn't think of his surroundings, or what he might say when he got back to his Aunt Catherine's house. She would demand an explanation for his tardiness unless William bribed his cousin Rick to cover for him.
Now giving up walking, he laid on the beach looking up at the stars. He was completely lost with no hope of finding any consolation. He knew he'd been a jerk, but he never knew he was so offensive. Jane was gone, Charles was miserable, and William was heartbroken.
Elizabeth looked at the stars with angry tears in her eyes. Her head was pounding as she thought of every word he said. Jane was always calm around guys, she didn't flirt but her honest sweetness had always drawn plenty of attention. She was now disgusted with George. William's sister was seventeen years old, George was twenty-six. He'd always talked about the Darcys with hostility, particularly William and Georgiana.
The more she thought, the more she realized just how cold she had been in return to William. He really wasn't so horrible, though still in the wrong when it came to his friend's happiness. Elizabeth's gaze drifted to the water.
A shudder of misery and loneliness swept through her as she realized that she had been in love with him. Something about him, though arrogant and cold, was honest and insanely attractive.
The two lay on opposite sides of the same beach. Both of their hearts shattered in the knowledge that they had lost true love and would not see it again.
Elizabeth couldn't stop the tears that ran down her cheeks. She was completely overwhelmed by the idea of being in love with some one she so detested, as most would be when faced with such a situation.
She kept her tear-clouded gaze to the sky from her position on the beach, but she hardly noticed where she was. Her thoughts kept stumbling from William, to Jane, and reluctantly to George. Thinking of George turned her stomach. William would do a lot of things with out a worry, but whenever anyone brought up his sister a protective smile crept over him.
William had also remained where he was. No... You don't really love her, do you. He tried over and over to convince himself, but with ever accusation came a second guess. It was enough to make him want to scream.
Elizabeth sat up, resting her chin on her knees. She shivered softly as the cool evening breeze gave her the first realization of time.
11 o'clock... I wonder what he's doing... not that it matters...
William at last shook himself from the fog of his thoughts and returned to his car. As he drove away, he thought that he might have seen her car, but shook his head in disbelief and returned to his Aunt's home.
Her demands of explanation were quieted with five dollars to Rick, and William retreated to his room, for a sleepless night.
"Half the gentleman I see myself as? I've never been anything but a gentleman to her...
"Who am I kidding?"
It was a week later and he still only had one thing on his mind. Her. His world stopped whenever he heard a female voice, and it shattered whenever he saw a tear or heard an angry tone.
Elizabeth could only feel numb at the whole experience. She was in love and could no longer do anything to save herself from it. She had taken the ring box that had been left on the coffee table and hidden it in a corner of her jewelry box. Her thoughts had been occupied by the idea of him proposing again, but she had decided that there was no possible way to accept him after how violently she'd rejected him.
She sat on her bed, still in her khakis, blouse and sweater, looking out the window at the sunset. As the sky became darker and darker, her heart seemed to sink lower and lower.
With a tear in her eye she began to study a bottle of prescription drugs, and just as she had downed a glass of water to finish them, her door flew open.
"I--love you." she said as she fell to the floor.
William heard her whispry words echoing through his head. She was gone now, they took her to the hospital and he wasn't even sure if she was alive.
He sat in her apartment waiting for any sort of sign that he should leave. His stomach turned as he saw the empty prescription bottle.
What the hell could she have been thinking? This has got to be my fault, it must have killed her to hear such awful things about her best friends.
But his thoughts returned to her just as she had fallen unconscious. She said she loved me. It was the drugs, that had to be it.
Deep down he knew that it wasn't, and every other skeptical thought had been hoping beyond all hopes that it might not be.
As the phone rang, William hesitated over and over about picking it up, but on the forth ring.
"Hello?" he answered.
"Hi, who is this?" asked a female voice.
"I'm a friend of Elizabeth's... who's calling please?"
"Her sister, Jane. Is Lizzy there?"
All of his hesitation became clear at that second. He could feel his stomach twist violently as he tried to think of a reply.
"Jane, Elizabeth is pretty sick, and she was just taken to the emergency room. Why don't you come over to her apartment and we can go down to the hospital together."
This was the best reply that he could come up with, the most honest with out betraying what had actually happened.
It was ten minutes later that a panic stricken Jane knocked softly on the door. To see William Darcy, a man who had been best described as "horrible creep" by her sister, was a complete shock.
"I'm sure she'll be fine," he said quietly.
"Mr. Darcy, what really happened to Lizzy?"
"I'm not sure," he lied. "I got here and she fell unconscious about ten seconds later."
It wasn't an entirely accurate description of the scene. Elizabeth had told him what she'd done, taken the pills and panicked, but it was too late and he didn't know what to do to stop it. William had called 911 for help and then watched as she began to wilt. It wasn't a minute later that she said, "I-- love you", and then fallen to the ground.
"I love you."
"No you don't."
"What?"
Elizabeth looked at him carefully. She felt terrible, though she had been sent home from the hospital, after her stomach was pumped and she had under-gone a very serious psychiatric evaluation.
"You don't love me. You can't love me. I was terrible to you... I'm still terrible to you," she replied.
She wanted him. His eyes looked into hers with a dark but comforting warmth. Her own green eyes had once again captured him with they're mysterious but inviting gaze.
She looked away. He looked away.
"Elizabeth... marry me." he said giving only half a glance towards him.
"I hate you." she replied, glancing towards him.
"I'm serious," he said.
She wanted to reply with, So am I, but the words couldn't escape. It felt like her free will had been captured by something for that moment.
"I can't."
He was silent. He wanted to read her thoughts. He wanted to know everything that she was thinking. He thought for a moment, as their eyes met once again, that he could see what she saw and hear what she heard. It was then that her lips met his.
He looked at her again. "I hate you. Marry me."
"You don't love me."
"You're wrong." he replied.
"I know," she said softly, and then even more quietly she said, "I love you too."
This was the kind of kiss that shouldn't be written about. There aren't words to describe it, because the emotions triggered are the ones with out names that just make you feel that way.
"I... you.. you need to go." said Elizabeth, sounding not at all like she wanted him to do so.
William looked at her with a hint of disappointment.
"Elizabeth, marry me."
He could see every emotion he was experiencing, uncertain if it was through his eyes, or because the same ones were clearly visible in her own.
"I.. I will marry you."
Both of them broke into smiles. It might have been the prettiest thing William had seen in months.
The wedding was lovely. Elizabeth looked beautiful in a long, beautiful cream-coloured gown and as everyone knows, a man in a tux can do no wrong, William looked fabulous as well.
Everyone smiled and looked happy to be there with the possible exception of William's Aunt Catherine, who looked she might have eaten something that had been rancid.
They had two children who, like their parents, were beautiful opposites.
Their lives were lovely with no further suicide attempts, or mentions of those made former.
And they lived happily ever after.