The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet

Chapter Four

Texts with Lizzie

Lizzie: Didn't your session end at 1? It's almost 2.

Lydia: I got kidnapped and trafficked into Canada. Oops. 

Lizzie: Figures.

Lizzie: I have to leave earlier than I thought. Meet me at Crash in 20?

Lydia: Omw 

Lizzie: OCSYS

Lydia: That sounds like a disease. Leave the acronyming to the pros, nerd.

Lizzie

Crash is this ancient twenty-four-hour diner across the street from our bestest local bar, Carter's. It's not actually called Crash, but that's the only name people remember. Ask anyone in town how it got its name and you'll hear a different story. The one they tell at the diner is that a couple was arguing about where to eat lunch and the wife was so insistent on getting a specialty burger from Crash that she yanked the steering wheel to turn into the parking lot and blasted right through the sign out front.

I'm old enough now to realize they probably just tell it that way to sell more burgers, but when I was a kid it seemed like the coolest story in the world. I always wanted to get a Crash burger because I thought if someone wanted one so badly that she'd risk her life to make it happen, it must be pretty epic.

They're okay. Once, Lizzie found a grasshopper leg in hers. Either way, the sign really was plowed halfway down and never replaced, and everyone started giving out directions by pointing to "that diner where someone crashed into the sign" until eventually it just became easier to call it "the crash diner." Which was still too much effort, hence, Crash.

Lizzie was messing around on her phone in a booth by the window when I got there.

"Sexting DarceFace?" I threw my bag onto the seat and slid in after it.

"What? No." Lizzie blushed through her obvious lie.

I rolled my eyes. It is almost cute how she still acts like a preteen with a crush. Almost.

"You're allowed to text your boyfriend, dummy."

"Okay, fine," she said, pushing her phone away from her. "But I'm not anymore."

Bzzzt. Her phone disagreed.

Her eyes flicked to the lit screen and I raised my eyebrow, waiting. When she didn't reach for it (I totally saw her fingers twitch), I sighed. "You can answer him, it's no big deal."

"Nope!" She snatched the phone up and shoved it into her purse. "I'll see Darcy when I get to San Francisco later tonight. Right now, I'm getting lunch with my sister."

Lizzie's been treating me differently since everything happened with George. I mean, everyone has, but Lizzie's the most noticeable. She's been more attentive, more patient, more interested in my life. Which is great! Don't get me wrong. But she's also the one who wants to make sure I'm the most okay. Sometimes it's a little much.

We fought before George and I crossed paths. We argued more often than not to begin with, but that fight was worse than the usual "siblings who are super different bickering over dumb stuff" kind of fighting. That was the longest I think we've ever gone without talking. I know she feels partly responsible for everything that happened. And yeah, maybe if we hadn't fought, I wouldn't have gone to Vegas and I wouldn't have run into George and I wouldn't have made out with him and . . . et cetera. But that doesn't make it her fault. The choices made were George's, and mine.