Posted on Wednesday, 3 July 2002

A train crashed
And everything slows down
I was wishing I could get out of this town
These dreams we've had
Have never made you cry
And I am not a twinkle in your eye

The train careened down the very tracks he stood on; its steam, coiling and hissing, found escape in the inky night, its headlights, both brilliant and blinding, spoke of an oblivion that would end all suffering. He took a quick step to his left. The train clattered by him, the wind it created on each of its sides whipping through his already tousled hair and wrinkled polo shirt.

There was something comforting about the coolness of the night and the warmth that emanated from this powerful machine. No, he would not end his life. He couldn't. He rather live all his days in suffering, in remembrance of what was, than put an abrupt conclusion to it. Her memory, he would always carry with him. He would allow her to haunt him the rest of his days but he would never, ever, relinquish Elizabeth Bennet.

His thoughts were broken by the squeal of the train as it slowed down and came to a jolty halt. The corner of his mouth twitched in a half-smile. He hadn't used any means of transportation this primitive since he left his small seaside town in Maine at seventeen for college. It was beyond him why he never returned to the home he had always known, but it wasn't so much a befuddlement as a refusal to acknowledge the truth. The wounds that he incurred from his father's deterioration and eventual death three weeks prior to his departure had been sealed tightly by ambition and long left unattended to, at their haphazard stitching, throughout time.

He had always been afraid of returning, of allowing the pain to break free and wash over him. But he wasn't afraid anymore. How could he be after what happened with Elizabeth? It was an odd sort of comfort: to avoid, even replace, pain with another. But perhaps that was not what William Partington Darcy was doing. Perhaps he was releasing himself. He was going to find out who he was.

"All aboard!"

Running a hand through his dark hair, he stepped onto the closest car available. His hand followed the railing. He explored its coldness and relished the feeling of actually being alive and discerning the world through his senses. William Darcy was never one to give up easily. As he was packing, throwing an eclectic selection of clothes into a duffel bag, grabbing only basic necessities and his wallet, he cursed himself for being such a coward. For leaving Boston. For leaving everything that he had built for himself for the past nine years. For leaving Elizabeth. But no, he was not a coward. He was merely human and it was time for him to recognize that and stop the path of destruction he had stumbled across and persisted to follow. He had to stop. And go somewhere else.

But I've got to get out of here
'Cause you drive me up the wall
I've got to get out of here
'Cause I can't stand to fall

He had to go home.

Elizabeth groaned as the persistent ringing of her bedside phone pulled her from the comforts of a dreamless sleep. She reached for it with her eyes still heavy from slumber and knocked it to the ground. A hysterical voice on the other line caused Elizabeth to reach for the phone quicker than she would have otherwise done.

"Hello?"

Her greeting was met with an unexpected silence that spoke volumes in itself. Then, "Elizabeth..."

There was a pause as Elizabeth's mind slowly processed the ghost of a voice she heard on the other line. "Jane?" she questioned worriedly.

A small whimpering sniffle indicated that her sister was the bearer of news only carried with three-in-the-morning phone calls.

"Jane! What happened? Is it Dad? Did he have a heart attack? Did something happen to Charles? Are the kids alright?" Elizabeth's mind jumped from one subject to another. Her father's high blood pressure. Her brother-in-law's inattentiveness. Her nephews' rough housing.

"Well, you're on the right track," Jane laughed. It was a strange laugh. It strangled in her throat before it could even be completed.

And if I die
See you won't be so close to me
And I won't be the one
Who sticks around
If I'm awake
See you won't go to sleep, I promise
And I won't be the one
Who lets you down

"What is it?" she demanded, her eyes wide with possibilities.

"It's Will."

Will. Elizabeth never thought of that.

It was incomprehensible. It was beyond her understanding. She could hardly give any credence to this twisted, sick joke. But it was no joke. It was true. She was seating next the only reaming relative of his line, of his pedigree. She was in-between the imperial Catherine de Bourg and her own sister.

Jane's beautiful eyes were distorted by watery tears but this could not be said of Elizabeth Bennet, who once believed William Darcy was everything she wanted and all she could ever hope for, who once believed that they would grow old together and would never want anything more than each other's company for the rest of their lives. Her eyes were dry. She had yet to accept that the man she once loved, the man she knew she still loved, was being lowered six feet into a cold, meaningless plot of land, of dirt.

She saw so much but her ability to process everything, anything, had ended with that phone call from Jane. And she had been in bed with George that night! It sickened her to know that. It sickened her to know that she didn't even care about her current boyfriend, that he had been an easy fix when things had ended with Will.

Tailgates, long talks
And your superficial friends
Shiny, silver Fords
That lead us to dead ends

Elizabeth hadn't been listening to the eulogy. She had spent most of the ceremony staring into oblivion, trying to grasp onto a wisp of reality and at the same time, float away from the truth. Her eyes finally flickered from the mahogany casket detailed in gold to the man at the podium, to Charles Bingley, Jane's fiancé and Will's best friend.

"...not many of us understood the man though we respected and admired him. All of us, including myself, saw him for his strength, for his control, for his ambition. But I don't think that..." Charles closed his eyes and gripped the sides of the podium till his knuckles turned white. He breathed in deeply, trying to maintain his broken composure. "He was my friend, but I hardly knew him... His destination that night was Maine. He called me before he departed, telling me of his need to escape, to break the cycle. I couldn't understand what he was doing. But then he made another call to me, when he was on that ill-fated train."

And I said do you lick these salty wounds
That you, yourself condone
I sit, wait, and I'm all alone
But I can't go home
'Cause you're my home

Elizabeth leaned forward. She wanted to hear every word of what Charles was about to say.

"I didn't recognize the person on the other line. I could hardly comprehend that this man was the same William Partington Darcy that I've known...I mean, that I knew, since my days at Harvard. But he was. He had to be. He was surely more the man I knew than the one who called earlier. He said something that I will never forget and on this day, on the day that we pay our reverence to him, I shall pass on those words to you. He said to me, 'Charles, I'm not sure of anything. But I'm moving, I'm living. I'm not going to stand still unless that's what I want to do. I'm going to...'" Here Charles choked again. "'I'm going to absorb every second life has to offer and you know what, if it hurts, if it f***ing hurts, it was probably worth it."

Elizabeth stood up from her seat in the first row. Her heels sunk into the grass but she kept stumbling forward, or perhaps, backward, away from the casket, away from the funeral. It didn't matter to her that she attracted everyone's attention as she left. She just had to leave.

If I die
See you won't be so close to me
And I won't be the one
Who sticks around
If I'm awake
See you won't go to sleep, I promise
And I won't be the one
Who lets you down
No, I won't let you down
No, I won't let you down

A shadow loomed in the distance. A shadow of a man, a tall man of slender build. Will? She started running toward the shadow, her arms wild, her knees knocking into one another, ready to fall to the ground for him, her eyes wide with false hope.

"I'm so glad you finally left that charade," the shadow remarked. "Where did they scrounge up all those people to attend the funeral anyway?" Here, the shadow smirked. "It's not like anyone cared about him anyway."

Elizabeth did sink to her knees. She felt sick. "Leave."

"What?" George replied in surprise.

"Leave," she repeated, her eyes icy. "Leave and don't ever come back."

"What's wrong with you?" he snapped.

She ran her fingers through her hair, tearing through the thick strands, disassembling the French twist. Will loved to run his fingers through her hair. He always said, in a wistful voice, with the corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile, that she resembled a fairy when her hair was down, flowing freely down her back.

"You're messing up your hair," George muttered. He reached for her hands.

"If you won't leave, then I will!" she cried, standing up and forcefully thrusting her hand into his trouser pocket. She pulled out a set of keys and took off.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Tell me where you are tonight
And is everything alright?

Her hands shook as she stood in front of the door. Her left palm made contact with the knob, the metal cold against her skin. She wrapped her fingers around it and tried to stick the key into the lock. But she couldn't.

Ten minutes later, she opened the door. She could still smell him. She could still feel him. But he was no longer there. She walked over to the sliding glass doors of the apartment and walked out into the balcony. Boston sprawled beneath her. But she could see no beauty in the city she loved. It didn't feel right to stand there and see the bustling town without Will's arms wrapped tightly around her.

She went into his bedroom, slowly shaking her head. As though going there would bring her any...any? Any what? What was she looking for anyway? He was forever lost to her, wasn't he? What good would it do for her to remember him?

Will's usually immaculate bedroom look like chaos and Elizabeth froze. This wasn't him! This wasn't him! She walked over to the bed, slowly, cautiously, unsure of what to expect, her eyes seeing but not taking in everything again. The sheets were unmade, clothes laid in haphazard piles all over the room and in the middle of the mattress: a shrine of her possessions.

No, they weren't her possessions. They were the things that she had given him. They were his possessions, her gifts. And he had left them all behind. She couldn't comprehend it. He had left all of it behind. He had left all his mementos of her behind. Why would he do that? Did he really want to forget her? Was he willing to allow her to fade from his memory?

She felt the anger choking her heart. Closing it up to everyone and everything, to him.

But wasn't that what she did when she began her relationship with George, so soon after the ugly break-up with Will? Didn't she want to forget? Didn't she want to push all those memories away? She gave herself up physically in hopes of forgetting everything that once was. She was the one who betrayed him. And then, the tears came. In a trickle, then an incessant river. She laid down on his bed, she inhaled his scent, she felt his warmth, and she cried for what she gave up on and what could never have again.

Do you remember what I said,
While he's sleeping in your bed?
Tell me now you smile hard
'Cause I don't smile much so far

The train rattled down the tracks. Elizabeth had to smile, even if that smile didn't fully reach her eyes. This had been the type of train that Will had made his departure from rural New York on, the type of train that he made his final departure on. She stared at the cars passing by, rocking heavily on their metal wheels, squealing against the lines. How would it feel to throw her body under those swaying cars? How would it feel to put an end to the torment?

"Elizabeth!"

Jane and Charles were running towards her. Their arms swung rhythmically, their locked hands and connected hearts allowing them to move fluidly together.

"Why didn't you tell us that you were leaving?" Jane asked softly once they reached her.

"It's only for a few days," she said automatically, knowing that her response wasn't truly an answer.

"You didn't even tell anyone that you were leaving. Your secretary called me when she couldn't reach you," her sister admonished. She momentarily released Charles' hand as she hugged her. "I know it's hard on you but I'm glad you've made the decision to mourn Will and get rid of George."

Elizabeth looked up in surprise. Did her sister just say that it was better for her to be alone, to think of the man she loved so dearly and ended things with so badly, for every day, hour, minute, second of her life?

"Will deserves this," Jane stated firmly. "He loved you so much but remember, he doesn't want you to dive into some black hole. He wants you to be happy, to find love, to live your life. All he ever wanted in the end was for you to remember him."

"I will," she replied shakily, the tears falling freely from her eyes.

It was at this time that Charles stepped forward. He pulled out a black notebook. "This was recovered from the crash. I think you should have this."

Elizabeth nodded, took the book, and embraced her sister and her soon-to-be brother-in-law. She wiped the tears from her eyes and boarded the train.

Pemberely was a quaint town by a cold and tumultuous sea, hardly the breeding ground for the likes of William Partington Darcy. The streets were still made of cobblestone and fishing boats cluttered a wooden dock. It was a place left untouched by the rest of the world. Only time's hand had rendered it any different from when it was first built decades ago.

A stretch of sandy beach appealed to Elizabeth and she scrambled down a slight, rocky slope. Leaving her bag behind, she walked along to shore, listening to the waves crash against one another. This was where his childhood took place. This was where so much of him was lost. This was where it was to be found.

But it wouldn't be found. He was no longer there to find anything.

Pulling off her shoes, Elizabeth sunk her toes into the wet sand. She sat down, watching the coldness of the sea. She felt something sticking into her side. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the notebook that Charles had given to her before she left. She had been too engrossed in her thoughts during the trip up to look at it. She had been too busy thinking about Will, thinking about the way his eyes would darken when bored, thinking about the way he twitched his lips when smiling, thinking about his breath against her skin. Thinking about how their lack in communication eventually drove them away from each other. And when they finally spoke, they had erupted in angry resentment, in frustration, and in personal need.

It would've been alright. Things would've mended. But both were too angry and too stubborn to be the first one to give in. And then, Elizabeth stumbled across George in an effort to hurt the person she thought she never needed.

She slid her fingers delicately over the notebook. What could it possibly contain? Why would Charles give this to her? She opened it and found a picture, Will's favorite picture of her. Her, sleeping in bed.

And is he everything you need?
Is he everything I couldn't be?
Does he make everything match better?
Bring you all the shiny weather that you want?
And is he everything
Everything I'm not?

She closed her eyes and inhaled the salty sea air. He didn't leave her behind, he had brought her with him. He had kept what was most precious to him and brought it to Maine, brought it home with him. Only, he never made it.

She turned the picture over and was surprised to see it filled with his neat, flowing hand. Each sentence was angled in a different direction and scrunched up as it ran into something else. It seemed as though that each message was written at a different time. She read every single one of them over and over again. I love you so much. I'm sorry about everything. Is it too late for me? Please, don't go. Why can't I just apologize? You are all I ever wanted. My heart will always belong to you...

Then, there was one message written over all the others. Is he everything I'm not? Unwittingly, Elizabeth let a cry fall from her lips. It stung her heart and it was a while before she could read the last note which was under the previous one and overlapped it partially.

It was written in pencil and therefore, difficult to read but Elizabeth's heart contracted when she deciphered it. I will never relinquish your memory. I will never give up on you.

She shut the notebook, not ready to read it quite yet. It was filled with his writing, filled with all his thoughts and fears, hidden torments and personal triumphs. She would read it however. Eventually. For now, she had to absorb the moment. What did Charles say at the funeral? That we all respected and admired him but we never really understood him. She would understand him, she would find him at this place. And she would respect his memory and carry it with her. She stood up and promised it to the sea, and to herself and to anyone who could hear her, that she would carry him with her. And she would love him for the rest of her life and treasure his memory as much as he had treasured hers.

And If I die
You won't be so close to me
And I won't be the one
Who sticks around
If I'm awake
See you won't go to sleep, I promise
And I won't be the one
Who lets you down
No, I won't let you down
No, I won't let you down
I won't let you down
I won't let you down

If I Die, written by Josh Partington

The End