Darcy didn't think her year could get much worse.

Her premier private school had been shut down, taking with it her debate club and volleyball team. The only person she truly hated now haunted the halls of her new school. She was in consideration for the position of salutatorian, something she had never dreamed possible at Netherfield Prep but her competitor seemed to simultaneously disdain her and everything she stood for as well as enjoy goading her into heated conversations.

But alas, Darcy had spoken too soon. Her year could get worse. Falling in line with her current track record of bad luck, Kit Bennett refused to forget the fact that both Charlie and Carson Bingley had promised to throw a party at their house.

It was now all anyone talked about at school. The little time Darcy spent with Charlie at school, (at their lockers before class and after) was now accompanied by not only Jamie but both Kit and Eli. As if Darcy hadn't seen enough of Eli as it was.

Eli had even taken to talking about it in English, affirming Darcy's suspicion that she would never be able to escape this nightmare, let alone avoid it.

She spoke on the matter once, putting her foot down on a very serious subject and in doing so, seemed to silence the entire crowded hallway around them as the five of them loitered by Darcy's locker, waiting for the first bell of the day to ring.

"... and we've got some of the football team coming, they're a tough set to get a hold of but Gina-"

Darcy cut Kit's party-planning ramblings short.

"Wickham's not coming."

Her word hung heavy over the five of them. If the world continued on around them, none of them noticed. Darcy couldn't look anywhere other than Eli's dark glare, seemingly trying to pierce her to her very soul. As if he could somehow change her mind on an immovable decision.

"But she-"

Darcy cut Kit off once again.

"Wickham is not invited."

As if to punctuate the seriousness of her statement and the solidity of it, the bell rang. Kit looked to Jamie, then to Eli, then to Carson, and finally to Charlie. Darcy knew both Carson and Charlie would stand strong with her on this fact. While keeping eye contact with Eli, she could see Charlie shake her head. The matter was over, end of discussion. Darcy's word was final.

With Kit's voice prattling on about the party, ringing out from every corner of Meriton Charter, dogging Darcy's steps, gone was the small amount of security and serenity Darcy had discovered for herself among its hallowed halls. And it seemed to be the same for her home life as well.

Lois wasn't thrilled with Charlie's plan to throw a party on the last day of school, just before spring break began. When Charlie argued that she needed to keep her word, Lois threw the same argument right back at her, reminding Charlie that her scholastic decathlon championships were that same weekend and that they would be leaving for the city early the next day.

Charlie's already thinning patience with Darcy was stretched even further when Darcy sided with Lois. It didn't help that Darcy also sided with Lois on her opinion of Jamie and his current role in Charlie's life.

No one could ignore the dark circles that had appeared under Charlie's bright eyes in the previous weeks. If she wasn't up late talking to Jamie, she was up late studying to make up for all the time she had lost hanging out with Jamie. Her grades were reflecting her distracted state.

Lois agreed to the party, but just barely, and on one condition: Charlie had to take a break from her relationship with Jamie for spring break so she could focus on her championships and focus on spending time with her family and resting up from all the sleep she had lost.

And so went Darcy's peaceful home life.

It didn't help that Lois, when not arguing with Charlie, was constantly bringing up Darcy's college decisions and the acceptance deadlines. Darcy took to spending her weekends working long hours at her family's gallery to get out of the house.

It had been too long since she had stepped foot into the tall cavernous warehouse, with its white walls and endless hallways of beautiful art. But it wasn't long before her Great Aunt Katherine heard she was working there and started popping in to talk about Darcy's future.

Spring break was a pinprick at the end of a long and dark tunnel but it was the only source of hope Darcy had at the moment, her life pummeling her from all sides. She only had to make it through the party and she would be in the clear. At least for a little while.

But that meant she would have to make it through Kit's party.

The house was filled with strangers. Darcy hadn't been so acutely aware of how many of her classmates she didn't know until every single one of them was filling the first floor of her house.

Charlie played the perfect hostess, floating from group to group, smiling, chatting, laughing, almost imperceptibly not interacting with Jamie. She hadn't told him about spring break yet and Darcy knew her well enough to know she was pushing it off as late as possible and dreading it every waking moment.

Darcy also became aware that night of how well Charlie had adjusted to Meriton Charter. Much more successfully than Darcy, to be sure, as she actually knew people in attendance and had no trouble meeting more. She had friends to chat with, laugh with, while Darcy felt herself exiled to the borders of every room she entered.

She wandered around the edges of the living room, watching people she didn't know get comfortable on her family's couch. The kitchen was just as busy. People had even found the library. Carson had a round of video games going on in the den. The only safe place Darcy could spot was the dining room, where the table had been laid to max capacity with every kind of party food. It was there Darcy sought refuge.

It was a transitory room. No one stayed in the dining room longer than it took to grab a plate of food and a cup of punch. Darcy circled the table, checking food quantities, gathering up left behind plastic cups, cleaning up what she could as she went. That took her all of five minutes. She still had the rest of the night to suffer through.

Darcy grabbed a napkin and then a cookie, pleased to see people had been eating them. She had helped her aunt prepare everything else on the table but those she had made herself. Darcy's glow of pride faltered when she turned around and found Eli hunched over the table, piling food upon a paper plate. The bite of cookie she had just swallowed sat heavy at the bottom of her stomach, the rest of the cookie now seeming to have developed mold and a malodorous scent.

Darcy steeled herself, placing the cookie on the table, squaring her shoulders, and forcing her feet to move forward. Her great aunt's lectures over the last two weeks rang in her ears. Great Aunt Katherine had become increasingly concerned over Darcy's lack of social skills and had spent the past two Saturdays encouraging her to practice before the big annual scholarship dinner at her aunt's house Darcy was to attend in just a few days.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Her words were stiff and awkward but at least she said them. She hoped her Great Aunt Katherine would at least appreciate her efforts. Eli looked at her from over his shoulder, glanced down at her outfit, back up to her face, and then returned his attention to his gathering of food.

"Well enough," he replied.

Darcy looked down at her outfit. She was wearing a dress. She had made an effort to look nice. She still had nightmares about showing up at the Valentine's Day dance underdressed in all black and so had made an effort for the party. She had interpreted the dress code wrong. Again. Everyone around her was in jeans and tee shirts.

"I'm glad you could make it," Darcy tried again.

"I'm surprised you're here."

Apparently the food table had been scraped clean for anything that could possibly hold Eli's attention any longer and so he stood up straight to face Darcy.

"I live here. Of course, I would attend."

Darcy could hear her own voice rising. Eli shrugged.

"I'm surprised, is all."

He was moving to leave. Darcy panicked, her mind racing for anything else to say, to keep him there even a little bit longer.

"Any fun plans for spring break?"

He paused, contemplating leaving her behind or not, her question tethering him to the dining room.

"Working. All week."

"At your family's shop?" Darcy tried to sound interested.

"Yeah."

"Sounds fun."

"Not really."

Darcy's hands had started to tear themselves apart. Her mind was in full panic mood. She looked in every direction possible for anything else to remark on, a question to ask, anything! This was harder than it looked. She missed the debates in English class, despite their heavy antagonistic overtones.

Eli's laugh brought Darcy's attention back to center.

"What? What are you laughing at?"

The panic had seeped into her voice but this time it was mixed with anger.

"Are you always like this?"

"Like what?"

The panic was dispersing. Panic she had never really learned how to handle. But anger? Contempt? Disdain? They were old friends.

"This stiff. This uncomfortable."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Eli let out a laugh and rolled his eyes, the universal language for 'Yeah, sure'.

"This is your house and you're as awkward as you were the first day of school. You really don't know how to relax, do you?"

"I do, too."

"Really?"

Eli's eyebrows jumped up to meet the lone curl that had fallen over his forehead. His plate of food was placed on the table and subsequently forgotten. He moved to stand right in front of Darcy, his arms over his chest, his head held high, the two of the mirror images of each other.

"Where?"

"What do you mean, where?"

"Where do you relax? Where do you stop being so uptight? Because everywhere I've seen you, you're just as awkward and stiff as anywhere else."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're here. In your own home. And uncomfortable. You were comfortable at dinner with your family. At the concert. A place where you're supposed to dance and have fun."

"I don't like crowds."

It was a lame excuse and they both knew it, it didn't matter how true it was.

"I noticed. But you were in a private box. Your family's private box. I watched you during the concert."

"You watched me?"

For a second Darcy had the upper hand, just for a second. Eli recognized his mistake, let his cheeks reddened, but only for a second before rallying.

"You don't know how to have fun."

"I do too!"

"Okay, Darcy. Sure, you do."

He was moving to leave again. Darcy didn't want him to go. Arguing with him was better than standing in a corner alone for the rest of the night.

"My aunt says I don't know how to socialize. I'm trying, okay?"

"And what is this? Your practice?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"Well, you're doing a terrible job."

Now he was laughing at her. And he was walking away again. He had grabbed his plate and his back was turned to her. She couldn't have that.

"At least I'm loyal. I might not make friends easily but when I do, I do for life. I don't change my mind the second I hear something bad about them."

That stopped him in his tracks. She hadn't even known where her words came from, just that she believed them. She knew them to be true.

The amusement in his eyes that she had inspired just a minute ago was gone when he turned back. There was the disdain again.

"You're a good friend?"

He spit the words out as if they made him sick.

"Yes. I am."

"You wanna try telling Gina Wickham that?"

Darcy had seen where they were headed, knew she had led them there herself but at least he was sticking around.

"I don't need to. Wickham knows better than anyone else what lengths I will go to to protect someone I love."

"Like, what? Getting them kicked out of school? Throwing them out into the cold? Never speaking to them again?"

It was Darcy's turn to laugh. It was a cold, bitter laugh.

"If that's what she says. It must be correct, right? I mean, if Gina Wickham said it. And she is, of course, the absolute prime example of honesty and loyalty and everything that's good in this world."

Darcy's words got sour with each one she shot from her mouth.

"What is the deal with the two of you, anyway?"

"I'm sure Wickham's already told you all about it. You seem to know an awful lot already."

Eli looked out to the crowd in hopes of escape, of retreat. The warmth of victory in Darcy's gut faded at the look of weariness on his face. Her words came out softer now. She didn't want him to leave like this.

"Gina makes friends easy. I envy her that skill. But Gina has a hard time keeping the friends she makes. We used to be friends."

Her words shocked Eli into meeting her eyes again.

"For a really long time, I called her my best friend."

"And now?"

"And now, I regret ever letting her take a single step in my family's direction, let alone become a friend."

They stood staring at each other for a long minute. Darcy noticed her raised heartbeat and her rapid breaths had slowed. She felt calm. Almost at peace. If she couldn't tell Eli what happened between them for fear of how Gina would retaliate, at least she could say that.

Now it was Darcy's turn to leave the dining room. Eli reached out and grabbed her hand just as she brushed past him. He held it lightly in his so it would be easy for her to slip out of his grasp.

She looked down at her hand in his then up at his face to meet his eyes. He wouldn't meet hers, he just looked at her hand, frozen, looking confused as to why he had reached for her in the first place.

Darcy slipped her hand out of his and plunged into the crowd. Her heart now ached to leave this place, to head for somewhere else for a while, to leave Meriton and all its people behind.

Spring break couldn't have come at a more perfect time.

A/N:

Hold on, everyone. It's gonna be a BUMPY weekend!

Also who here hates Kit?? A show of hands, if you please.

🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️🙋‍♀️

Your meme.