Page 53 of Ardently Yours

I’m usually not someone who struggles to find the right words. Especially when I’ve already made up my mind. But that’s just it. I haven’t. I can’t force myself to form a single sentence.

I’ve been living inside this bubble for so long, keeping pieces of myself hidden, trying to become this new version of Will that I thought was finally free. But I left an entire life behind and pretended it didn’t exist anymore.

I’ve been so afraid of letting people see who I really am. Where I come from. Who my family is. So I hid those parts of myself.

I came here to build a business and a new life. But I forgot that my past came with me. You can’t outrun who you are. Or where you come from.

Maybe if I’d come here and been honest from the beginning, things would’ve been different. I don’t even think I realized I was hiding parts of myself at first. But now I see it as clearly as the firelight dancing across Lizzie’s backyard.

My eyes find hers again. I see her mouth moving. She’s talking to me, but I can’t hear her.

Everything sounds muffled as I blink her back into focus. At first she looks confused. Now her expression softens.

She’s the fixer. Always the one trying to make things right or pretending everything’s okay, even when it isn’t.

Not in a fake way. In a way that makes me feel safe. Instinctively, I move toward her.

She reaches out, and we hold hands. To everyone else, we probably look like a real couple.

I look down at her. She rearranges her face into an easy smile. She’s saying something to her sister and brother-in-law, but I don’t hear any of it.

I’m just looking at her. Trying to breathe. Trying to process. Trying to figure out how the version of me I thought was dead, gone, and buried somehow showed up here.

And somehow I’m still me. But I’m not the same me anymore.

Because as I look down at her with my hand in hers, I realize this may be a fake relationship and a business deal designed to help us both get what we want. But my feelings are real. And I don’t even know how I got here.

I don’t know when Lizzie Bennet started feeling like my safe place. But she is. It’s as simple as that.

I hold her hand without even thinking about it. It feels so easy. So natural. Like it’s always been this way. Like we fit perfectly together.

The way she smiles up at me makes me feel like all of this could be real. And another secret I don’t know if I’ll ever tell anyone is that someday...I hope it really could be.

“Will?” Lizzie says my name, pulling me out of my silent spiral.

I clear my throat and smile at her, trying to figure out what she just asked me.

She nudges me gently. “I was going to go inside to get some extra drinks and snacks for everyone. Do you want to come with me?”

“Yes,” I say, desperately happy to leave this tense greeting with Charlie to be alone with her for a moment.

But Janet stops us, saying, “Sure, go and get drinks and snacks, Liz. But that doesn’t change the fact that all of this is crazy. Will needs to start talking. Why isn’t he owning up to his mistakes? Why isn’t he talking about his connection to the Bingleys?”

Lizzie chimes in, coming to my rescue. “Connection? Well, Will told me that their families work together in the real estate business in Chicago, right Will?”

“Yeah, they do,” I admit.

“And we grew up together,” Charlie adds.

It’s true. Charlie and I grew up together. But not as friends, which I think is important to point out, though I don’t. He never paid me much attention back then, so I don’t know why he’s acting so upset now.

Maybe he cares because of his sister. But she never really paid much attention to me either. We were around each other because of our parents, and even that changed as we got older. Especially when our families started doing more business together and decided, without my permission or Caroline’s, that we were going to get married someday.

It became an expectation. Something everyone else accepted before either of us had a choice. Whatever friendliness we may have had growing up disappeared after that. I don’t blame either of us for that.

We were kids. But now, holding on to the expectations of our parents when the relationships I had with both him and his sister barely existed seems like insanity to me. And I don’t have any ill will toward the Bingleys. That’s the sad part. I just don’t want to pretend to be happy in a fake marriage. Yet here I am in a fake relationship.

What is wrong with me? That is up for debate. But, standing here, what’s wrong with me could be answered by at least one of the people here. One of them being Charlie, who glares at me.