First Impressions: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptation

Chapter 16

If there was anything to truly regret, it was that she didn't see Charlotte off. Neither one texted the other for a week complete before she left town and by the time Liz realized what day Charlotte would be moving out, it was too late.

She spent the rest of October moping around the house, struggling to finish books or watch a movie through to completion. Even George's appearance the day before his weekend on base failed to raise her spirits. They met in the lounge of The Longbourn. After sitting with him for several minutes in near silence, he playfully poked and prodded her cheeks, trying to force a smile out of her.

She shoved his fingers away. "George, don't."

He raised his hands in innocence. "Sorry. Didn't know you'd take it that way."

Liz sighed, letting her shoulders slump. "No, I didn't mean to snap at you. I've just had a very rough month."

"Apparently."

"Someone else asked me out. Except he did it like he expected me to be grateful to him."

"And you turned him down?"

"Duh?"

He graced her with a new smile. "Did you say no because of me?"

Liz rolled her eyes. "No, I said it because I don't owe him a relationship."

"Aww, don't be like that, you can play along." He reached out for her, trying to put one hand around her shoulder.

She held up her arm again, intercepting him and pushing his grasp away. "Please don't touch me right now."

"Right. Right, of course." He continued to smile and chat, but the mood began to cool significantly. After another half hour of talk, he stood up to leave. "I'll be on base all weekend and I think I have to head home right afterwards. Not sure if I can stay and, you know, spend time or anything."

Liz nodded. "Okay. Just let me know when you know anything!"

Although his goodbye was as warm as ever, it was particularly short, and she sighed as she watched him leave. Men.

~~~~

The silence of the house made everything she was feeling worse. Or, the diminished noise, at least. The quiet magnified her unhappiness. Neither Cat nor Lydia could ever be considered silent, but without two more bodies, there was a certain damper on the activity.

Although Lydia was free to do as she liked, Cat shut herself up in her room several nights a week to work on papers and editing her films. As optimistic as Liz tried her best to be, it was difficult with her support network scattered to the winds. The most visible example was the empty bed in her room; she hadn't slept alone in a room, with some minor exceptions, for almost 10 years.

She was spending more and more time video and voice calling her two absent sisters, but for once, Liz found more solace in speaking to Mary than to Jane. The problem with Jane was that she always wanted to talk about everyone else's problems. When Liz was glum or less sarcastic and animated than usual, she wanted to investigate and solve the issues. Mary was, on the other hand, an excellent distraction, always excited to tell Liz about the latest lecture she attended, experiment she was participating in, or mountain she had looked at.

Liz was also putting more time into helping her mother at The Longbourn. She folded sheets and extra towels, polished silver before it was stored for the winter, and spent one particularly long blur of a day fitting just about every throw pillow in each of the rooms with a new slipcover. She mowed through so many audiobooks while helping to redecorate the rooms, she thought she was in serious danger of running out of things to listen to.