When he got home that evening, Will Darcy decided to take a tip from the heroes of classic literature and wrote a letter to Eliza Bennett. Since he had failed to explain himself with his mouth, he decided to try using his pen-or rather his laptop. He wrote one draft of the letter by hand, but then realized that his penmanship was so terrible that it would never win him any points with Eliza but only make her dislike him more.
So sitting on his couch, he began to write.
Eliza,
I’m not really sure where to start this, but I suppose that I ought to start by apologizing to you for offending you both three years ago and last summer. I’m not always the most tactful person on earth (although that is no excuse) and you are not the first person to be offended by something I have said or done. I am very sorry for offending you and for any role that I may have had in the end our relationship with my cousin.
My cousin is a difficult subject for me. We’ve never been close, and I rarely understand what he does. However, during a difficult time in what was already a complicated relationship, I was jealous of people who were single. Natalie and I had an increasingly difficult relationship over the last year or year and a half of our relationship. In retrospect, that time impacted me in far more ways that I realized. It led to me saying and doing things that weren’t normal for me.
The night of your engagement party was a particularly bad night for me. I was angry with my girlfriend, and I really wasn’t sure why I was with her anymore. Then I saw you with my cousin. I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this, but you have a certain number of physical characteristics (including size) in common with Natalie. You are both petite brunettes. I was bitter when I saw you that night. I carelessly said something that I shouldn’t have. I didn’t think that Jack would think anything of what I said because if I had been in his place, I wouldn’t have taken his words seriously.
I had no clue that he would take my words seriously or use them against you in the later months. I apologize for all of the pain that I have caused you.
I hope that you can forgive me. I also hope that in time we will be able to meet amicably when necessary. I assure you that I will leave you alone from here on out. I will no longer try to pursue you. I wish you nothing but the best in the future, and I hope that someday soon you will meet someone who can give you the love and respect you deserve.
Sincerely yours,
Will Darcy
Will gave the letter to Eric to give to Eliza, and Eric did as he was asked. He also did his best to, per Will’s wishes, keep Will and Eliza away from one another over the next several months. In the meantime, Eliza started seeing a therapist to help her move forward with her life.
Eliza found the therapist far more helpful than she had ever imagined. Here was a person who was willing to and able to help her sort out her confusion about her family. Her therapist, Marjory, helped her to realize that between her mother and her relationship with Jack, she had internalized many negative beliefs about herself. She had come to see herself the way that her mother saw her. It wasn’t that there really was anything wrong with Will; she just didn’t think that she was worthy of him.
“It’s like I’ve spent my whole life refusing to let myself have things that are really good because I don’t deserve them. I let myself believe that Gen or you or Emma could have good things, but I can’t,” Eliza told Anne one afternoon.
“Eliza, that’s ridiculous. Why wouldn’t you be as good as the rest of us?”
“Because that’s what Mom said,” Eliza replied flatly.
Anne shook her head. “My parents were disinterested most of the time, but they were never cruel to me. I still can’t believe that your mother said those sorts of things to you.”
Eliza shrugged. “Marjory says that it stems from something in Mom’s past. She says that Mom could probably use some therapy herself.”
“I could have told you that years ago,” Anne replied. “And my only psychological training is four college psych classes almost ten years ago.”
“But I can’t make my mom do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“No, but you can learn how to protect yourself from her.”
Eliza nodded. “I don’t think that ever really occurred to me until recently. I always thought that I just had to take it. In fact, I think that I thought that I deserved it. I mean, I screwed up her plans so many times. But now, I don’t know. Now I can actually realize that I don’t deserve it. I’m better than she says I am. I can try to stand up for myself.”
“You’re going stand up to your mom?” Anne asked. “You, Elizabeth Marie Bennett, are going to stand up to Susan Bennett. Ha, I’d love to see that.”
Eliza sighed. “Fine, I might not actually stand up to her verbally, but I won’t take her personally anymore. Or at least, I’m going to try not to.”
Will Darcy found himself with a very busy summer. He was never in Detroit for more than ten days at a time. He didn’t have time for any dating despite Emma Woodhouse-Knightley’s best efforts. Every time the team was in Detroit, Emma tried to find women who she thought would be Will’s perfect match. Will, on the other hand, would have preferred if she kept her nose out of his business and let him find a girlfriend on his own time.
“You need someone,” she told him one night in early June at a small party at Eric and Anne’s house.
“I actually don’t need someone, Emma” Will quickly replied. “I’m fine on my own.”
“But you’re sad and lonely,” she insisted. “You think you’re fine, but you’re not.”
He just sighed and glared at her. “Emma, I’m completely fine.”
“That’s what everyone says,” Emma said. “All single people think they’re fine, but they aren’t. Humans aren’t made to be alone. We need companionship. It’s like Eliza. She thinks she’s fine alone, but she’s not. She needs a man to take care of her.”
Will snorted. “If there is one woman on this earth who does not need a man to take care of her, it’s Eliza Bennett.”
Emma sighed dramatically. “You just do not understand. I need George. You need a woman. You were so much easier to deal with when you had a girlfriend. Natalie made you so much more bearable.”
“Are you saying that I’m unbearable now?” Will asked. His face was firm, and his jaw was firmly clenched.
Emma trembled slightly. She hadn’t meant to upset Will; she hadn’t really thought about what she was saying at all. She just wanted Will to be happy, and she thought that he’d be happier if he had a girlfriend. But Will was angry. He was very angry. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she just started to backtrack. “Okay, maybe that’s not what I meant to say. Maybe that didn’t come out right. I mean, you need to get married. You really should get married.”
“Are you calling me unbearable?” he said. “Just be honest, Emma. Do you have a problem with me?”
Before Emma could respond, Anne joined them. “Is everything all right over here?”
Will looked at her and smiled faintly. “Yeah, fine, I think.”
“Fine,” Emma said without attempting to make eye contact with either Will or Anne.
“Will, Eric was looking for you earlier,” Anne replied.
Will made his way over to Eric who was with Ed Benoit and Ed Ferrars in the living room. “Emma is trying to convince me that I need to get married to be happy. She says that I was easier to get along with when I had a girlfriend.”
Eric snorted. “You were a human nightmare when you were dating Amanda. She turned you into the dumbest possible version of yourself.”
“And the last year or maybe even more of your relationship with Natalie, you two were both bringing out the worst in each other,” Benoit added.
“Quite frankly, you’ve been a better person than I’d ever known you to be just in the past year,” Eric said. “I mean, you’ve always been a nice guy, but you’re just being a better person. I’m pretty sure that you don’t need a girlfriend or a wife to be happy. You’re doing great on your own.”
Will laughed. “Could you go and tell Emma that?”
“Please,” the catcher said. “I never try to tell her anything. She has her Principles and her Convictions. And those things are Very Important to her. She’s like a dog that doesn’t let go of a bone once it tastes it.”
“That’s such a bizarre analogy,” Ferrars said. “And anyway, she can’t be that bad if George married her.”
Eric looked at Ed Ferrars, the newest member of the Tigers’ starting pitching staff. He was long and lanky, even longer and lankier than Eric himself. He ran marathons for fun. “You don’t really know Emma yet. And you’re safe from her at some level because you have a girlfriend. But if you were single, oh good lord, she’d be on your back constantly. She’s like a little busybody matchmaker. She’s sweet, and she means well. But she’s a busybody.”
Ferrars looked at Eric Wentworth. “So she wants Will to get a girlfriend so he’ll be happy?”
“That’s her current scheme,” Eric said. “She also wants Annie’s best friend, Eliza, to find a boyfriend too. She really needs something to distract her.”
“Well,” Ed Benoit said slowly. “Marisa and I might have something to help distract her.”
“Yeah, in like October when the season is almost over,” Will quipped. “We need something to distract her sooner than that.”
“She needs a project,” Eric said.
“Doesn’t she have a job already?” Ferrars asked.
Benoit nodded. “She does, but there’s a big problem with it from our perspective.”
“What’s that?”
“She works remotely,” Eric began. “So she can work from wherever she is as long as she has her laptop and wifi. So she’s always around the team. She never HAS to leave us.”
“Anne, on the other hand, has a job that keeps her occupied most of the time. She can only travel with the team during the summer. And she doesn’t always do that even if she can,” Will explained.
“Plus, even if Anne is around, she always has something to keep her busy. She’s knitting or reading a book or getting ready for school the following year,” Benoit added.
“And then there’s Marisa,” Will continued. “She doesn’t have a full-time job, but she’s super involved with the Tigers Community Foundation. She has projects there, and she doesn’t always come on the road with us. She’s found ways to keep herself out of the trouble.”
“Whereas Emma is just good at finding ways to get herself into trouble,” Eric quipped.
Ferrars shrugged. “I guess I’ve never seen that side of her. She’s always been really sweet to me and to Elinor.”
“Lucky dog,” Will sighed.
“Someday, you’ll find Ms. Right, and Emma will finally get off your back,” Eric told Will, patting him on the back.
“I’d really prefer it if she’d just get off my back and leave me to sort out my own life.”
Gina Darcy, Will’s younger sister, arrived in Detroit on June 13 for a four-day visit to her brother. Gina was about to start her senior year at Mary Washington College in Virginia where she was studying international business. “Sometimes, I’m not sure that we’re actually related,” Will had once told Eric when discussing Gina’s academic pursuits. “My sister wants to work in banks or major corporations in other countries. She’s had a summer internship in Berlin and one in London. She’s brilliant. And I’m just a professional baseball player.”
But professional goals weren’t the only differences between the Darcy siblings. Where Will was outgoing and gregarious, Gina was quiet and mild. She could be a true force of nature when she needed to be, but by nature she was far milder than her older brother.
Gina adored her older brother; in the eighth grade, she had written an essay about why her brother, then a minor league baseball player, was her hero. He never entirely understood why, but he knew that his little sister loved him. He understood that she loved him, but he didn’t understand why she looked up to him and admired him so much. He supposed that the nine years between them might have had something to do with it. She had grown up under his protective wing.
Gina was spending four days with her brother before leaving for a six-week internship in Brussels. “My little genius,” Will said as he greeted the lanky brunette in at domestic arrivals at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “How’s my Gina-Bean?”
“I’m well,” she replied, hugging him. “How’s my hero?”
“I’m fine.”
“How’s the arm?” Will had lost his two most recent starts.
“It’s been better,” he replied. “But don’t worry about me. Let’s get your stuff and get going. I’ve got a game tonight.”
“Do I get to hang out with Anne Wentworth during the game?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll come.”
Will grinned. “I love it when you come to my games.”
“And you know that I’m going to bring a book with me.”
“How are you my sister? How do I, Will Darcy, have a sister who doesn’t like baseball? Mom and Dad like baseball. I play baseball professionally. You hate it.”
Gina sighed. “I don’t HATE baseball. I just think it’s boring.”
“You sound like a girl I got to know last summer.”
“Eliza Bennett?”
Will sighed. “Hey now! How do you know about her?”
“Mom, she met her last fall, remember? She told me about her. She said that Eliza was really pretty and nice. She really likes her. I think she wants Eliza to be her daughter-in-law.”
“Good lord, I can’t believe that you and Mom talk about that kind of stuff.”
The pair had reached the car. Gina shrugged as she climbed into the car. “Will, Mom wants you to get married. She wants grandchildren. She wants to see you happy.”
“And she thinks that Eliza is the answer to that?”
Gina nodded and grinned. “Bingo.”
Will sighed. “And you, what interest do you have in this? Why do you want me to get married?”
“Well, I want to see you happy, like Mom. And I can’t wait to be Auntie Gina. I can’t wait for you to have little kids that I can spoil rotten.”
“Gina, you’re twenty-two years old; you’re going to graduate from college next spring. If you want to get married and have a family of your own, that’s allowed.”
Gina sighed and curled up in her seat. “I’m not ready for that, Will. I’m not really ready to settle down and have a family. “
“Is this about last summer?” he asked.
“Sort of,” she replied.
“Care to elaborate?”
Gina shrugged again. “It’s complicated, Will. After what happened last summer, I’m not sure that I want to get married.”
Will sighed. “Gina, I just don’t want to see you isolate yourself from the world just because of one stupid jerk. I want to see you live a happy and healthy life, a whole life. I want to see you move forward from what Reid did.”
“I will someday, but Will, you don’t understand.”
“Gina, this past year, I’ve gotten to see firsthand what someone like Reid did to someone who isn’t that different from you. I saw what this guy did to her. I saw how badly he hurt her.”
“Will, I’ll be fine. I just need time to process what happened and refocus my love life. But I’m busy right now. School has taken over my life. I need to focus on school. After I graduate and get a job, I’ll deal with my love life. But right now, I have to focus on school.”
Will shook his head. “Gina, this girl-my friend, she fell in love with a guy, and they got engaged, and then he left her for another girl. It’s the same story.”
“Was her fiancé named Reid Crawford too?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not the same story. Will, I’m not this girl. I’ll be fine.”
Will sighed. “Gina, do it your way if you like. But please know that I’m just trying to help you.”
So sitting on his couch, he began to write.
Eliza,
I’m not really sure where to start this, but I suppose that I ought to start by apologizing to you for offending you both three years ago and last summer. I’m not always the most tactful person on earth (although that is no excuse) and you are not the first person to be offended by something I have said or done. I am very sorry for offending you and for any role that I may have had in the end our relationship with my cousin.
My cousin is a difficult subject for me. We’ve never been close, and I rarely understand what he does. However, during a difficult time in what was already a complicated relationship, I was jealous of people who were single. Natalie and I had an increasingly difficult relationship over the last year or year and a half of our relationship. In retrospect, that time impacted me in far more ways that I realized. It led to me saying and doing things that weren’t normal for me.
The night of your engagement party was a particularly bad night for me. I was angry with my girlfriend, and I really wasn’t sure why I was with her anymore. Then I saw you with my cousin. I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this, but you have a certain number of physical characteristics (including size) in common with Natalie. You are both petite brunettes. I was bitter when I saw you that night. I carelessly said something that I shouldn’t have. I didn’t think that Jack would think anything of what I said because if I had been in his place, I wouldn’t have taken his words seriously.
I had no clue that he would take my words seriously or use them against you in the later months. I apologize for all of the pain that I have caused you.
I hope that you can forgive me. I also hope that in time we will be able to meet amicably when necessary. I assure you that I will leave you alone from here on out. I will no longer try to pursue you. I wish you nothing but the best in the future, and I hope that someday soon you will meet someone who can give you the love and respect you deserve.
Sincerely yours,
Will Darcy
Will gave the letter to Eric to give to Eliza, and Eric did as he was asked. He also did his best to, per Will’s wishes, keep Will and Eliza away from one another over the next several months. In the meantime, Eliza started seeing a therapist to help her move forward with her life.
Eliza found the therapist far more helpful than she had ever imagined. Here was a person who was willing to and able to help her sort out her confusion about her family. Her therapist, Marjory, helped her to realize that between her mother and her relationship with Jack, she had internalized many negative beliefs about herself. She had come to see herself the way that her mother saw her. It wasn’t that there really was anything wrong with Will; she just didn’t think that she was worthy of him.
“It’s like I’ve spent my whole life refusing to let myself have things that are really good because I don’t deserve them. I let myself believe that Gen or you or Emma could have good things, but I can’t,” Eliza told Anne one afternoon.
“Eliza, that’s ridiculous. Why wouldn’t you be as good as the rest of us?”
“Because that’s what Mom said,” Eliza replied flatly.
Anne shook her head. “My parents were disinterested most of the time, but they were never cruel to me. I still can’t believe that your mother said those sorts of things to you.”
Eliza shrugged. “Marjory says that it stems from something in Mom’s past. She says that Mom could probably use some therapy herself.”
“I could have told you that years ago,” Anne replied. “And my only psychological training is four college psych classes almost ten years ago.”
“But I can’t make my mom do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“No, but you can learn how to protect yourself from her.”
Eliza nodded. “I don’t think that ever really occurred to me until recently. I always thought that I just had to take it. In fact, I think that I thought that I deserved it. I mean, I screwed up her plans so many times. But now, I don’t know. Now I can actually realize that I don’t deserve it. I’m better than she says I am. I can try to stand up for myself.”
“You’re going stand up to your mom?” Anne asked. “You, Elizabeth Marie Bennett, are going to stand up to Susan Bennett. Ha, I’d love to see that.”
Eliza sighed. “Fine, I might not actually stand up to her verbally, but I won’t take her personally anymore. Or at least, I’m going to try not to.”
Will Darcy found himself with a very busy summer. He was never in Detroit for more than ten days at a time. He didn’t have time for any dating despite Emma Woodhouse-Knightley’s best efforts. Every time the team was in Detroit, Emma tried to find women who she thought would be Will’s perfect match. Will, on the other hand, would have preferred if she kept her nose out of his business and let him find a girlfriend on his own time.
“You need someone,” she told him one night in early June at a small party at Eric and Anne’s house.
“I actually don’t need someone, Emma” Will quickly replied. “I’m fine on my own.”
“But you’re sad and lonely,” she insisted. “You think you’re fine, but you’re not.”
He just sighed and glared at her. “Emma, I’m completely fine.”
“That’s what everyone says,” Emma said. “All single people think they’re fine, but they aren’t. Humans aren’t made to be alone. We need companionship. It’s like Eliza. She thinks she’s fine alone, but she’s not. She needs a man to take care of her.”
Will snorted. “If there is one woman on this earth who does not need a man to take care of her, it’s Eliza Bennett.”
Emma sighed dramatically. “You just do not understand. I need George. You need a woman. You were so much easier to deal with when you had a girlfriend. Natalie made you so much more bearable.”
“Are you saying that I’m unbearable now?” Will asked. His face was firm, and his jaw was firmly clenched.
Emma trembled slightly. She hadn’t meant to upset Will; she hadn’t really thought about what she was saying at all. She just wanted Will to be happy, and she thought that he’d be happier if he had a girlfriend. But Will was angry. He was very angry. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she just started to backtrack. “Okay, maybe that’s not what I meant to say. Maybe that didn’t come out right. I mean, you need to get married. You really should get married.”
“Are you calling me unbearable?” he said. “Just be honest, Emma. Do you have a problem with me?”
Before Emma could respond, Anne joined them. “Is everything all right over here?”
Will looked at her and smiled faintly. “Yeah, fine, I think.”
“Fine,” Emma said without attempting to make eye contact with either Will or Anne.
“Will, Eric was looking for you earlier,” Anne replied.
Will made his way over to Eric who was with Ed Benoit and Ed Ferrars in the living room. “Emma is trying to convince me that I need to get married to be happy. She says that I was easier to get along with when I had a girlfriend.”
Eric snorted. “You were a human nightmare when you were dating Amanda. She turned you into the dumbest possible version of yourself.”
“And the last year or maybe even more of your relationship with Natalie, you two were both bringing out the worst in each other,” Benoit added.
“Quite frankly, you’ve been a better person than I’d ever known you to be just in the past year,” Eric said. “I mean, you’ve always been a nice guy, but you’re just being a better person. I’m pretty sure that you don’t need a girlfriend or a wife to be happy. You’re doing great on your own.”
Will laughed. “Could you go and tell Emma that?”
“Please,” the catcher said. “I never try to tell her anything. She has her Principles and her Convictions. And those things are Very Important to her. She’s like a dog that doesn’t let go of a bone once it tastes it.”
“That’s such a bizarre analogy,” Ferrars said. “And anyway, she can’t be that bad if George married her.”
Eric looked at Ed Ferrars, the newest member of the Tigers’ starting pitching staff. He was long and lanky, even longer and lankier than Eric himself. He ran marathons for fun. “You don’t really know Emma yet. And you’re safe from her at some level because you have a girlfriend. But if you were single, oh good lord, she’d be on your back constantly. She’s like a little busybody matchmaker. She’s sweet, and she means well. But she’s a busybody.”
Ferrars looked at Eric Wentworth. “So she wants Will to get a girlfriend so he’ll be happy?”
“That’s her current scheme,” Eric said. “She also wants Annie’s best friend, Eliza, to find a boyfriend too. She really needs something to distract her.”
“Well,” Ed Benoit said slowly. “Marisa and I might have something to help distract her.”
“Yeah, in like October when the season is almost over,” Will quipped. “We need something to distract her sooner than that.”
“She needs a project,” Eric said.
“Doesn’t she have a job already?” Ferrars asked.
Benoit nodded. “She does, but there’s a big problem with it from our perspective.”
“What’s that?”
“She works remotely,” Eric began. “So she can work from wherever she is as long as she has her laptop and wifi. So she’s always around the team. She never HAS to leave us.”
“Anne, on the other hand, has a job that keeps her occupied most of the time. She can only travel with the team during the summer. And she doesn’t always do that even if she can,” Will explained.
“Plus, even if Anne is around, she always has something to keep her busy. She’s knitting or reading a book or getting ready for school the following year,” Benoit added.
“And then there’s Marisa,” Will continued. “She doesn’t have a full-time job, but she’s super involved with the Tigers Community Foundation. She has projects there, and she doesn’t always come on the road with us. She’s found ways to keep herself out of the trouble.”
“Whereas Emma is just good at finding ways to get herself into trouble,” Eric quipped.
Ferrars shrugged. “I guess I’ve never seen that side of her. She’s always been really sweet to me and to Elinor.”
“Lucky dog,” Will sighed.
“Someday, you’ll find Ms. Right, and Emma will finally get off your back,” Eric told Will, patting him on the back.
“I’d really prefer it if she’d just get off my back and leave me to sort out my own life.”
Gina Darcy, Will’s younger sister, arrived in Detroit on June 13 for a four-day visit to her brother. Gina was about to start her senior year at Mary Washington College in Virginia where she was studying international business. “Sometimes, I’m not sure that we’re actually related,” Will had once told Eric when discussing Gina’s academic pursuits. “My sister wants to work in banks or major corporations in other countries. She’s had a summer internship in Berlin and one in London. She’s brilliant. And I’m just a professional baseball player.”
But professional goals weren’t the only differences between the Darcy siblings. Where Will was outgoing and gregarious, Gina was quiet and mild. She could be a true force of nature when she needed to be, but by nature she was far milder than her older brother.
Gina adored her older brother; in the eighth grade, she had written an essay about why her brother, then a minor league baseball player, was her hero. He never entirely understood why, but he knew that his little sister loved him. He understood that she loved him, but he didn’t understand why she looked up to him and admired him so much. He supposed that the nine years between them might have had something to do with it. She had grown up under his protective wing.
Gina was spending four days with her brother before leaving for a six-week internship in Brussels. “My little genius,” Will said as he greeted the lanky brunette in at domestic arrivals at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “How’s my Gina-Bean?”
“I’m well,” she replied, hugging him. “How’s my hero?”
“I’m fine.”
“How’s the arm?” Will had lost his two most recent starts.
“It’s been better,” he replied. “But don’t worry about me. Let’s get your stuff and get going. I’ve got a game tonight.”
“Do I get to hang out with Anne Wentworth during the game?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll come.”
Will grinned. “I love it when you come to my games.”
“And you know that I’m going to bring a book with me.”
“How are you my sister? How do I, Will Darcy, have a sister who doesn’t like baseball? Mom and Dad like baseball. I play baseball professionally. You hate it.”
Gina sighed. “I don’t HATE baseball. I just think it’s boring.”
“You sound like a girl I got to know last summer.”
“Eliza Bennett?”
Will sighed. “Hey now! How do you know about her?”
“Mom, she met her last fall, remember? She told me about her. She said that Eliza was really pretty and nice. She really likes her. I think she wants Eliza to be her daughter-in-law.”
“Good lord, I can’t believe that you and Mom talk about that kind of stuff.”
The pair had reached the car. Gina shrugged as she climbed into the car. “Will, Mom wants you to get married. She wants grandchildren. She wants to see you happy.”
“And she thinks that Eliza is the answer to that?”
Gina nodded and grinned. “Bingo.”
Will sighed. “And you, what interest do you have in this? Why do you want me to get married?”
“Well, I want to see you happy, like Mom. And I can’t wait to be Auntie Gina. I can’t wait for you to have little kids that I can spoil rotten.”
“Gina, you’re twenty-two years old; you’re going to graduate from college next spring. If you want to get married and have a family of your own, that’s allowed.”
Gina sighed and curled up in her seat. “I’m not ready for that, Will. I’m not really ready to settle down and have a family. “
“Is this about last summer?” he asked.
“Sort of,” she replied.
“Care to elaborate?”
Gina shrugged again. “It’s complicated, Will. After what happened last summer, I’m not sure that I want to get married.”
Will sighed. “Gina, I just don’t want to see you isolate yourself from the world just because of one stupid jerk. I want to see you live a happy and healthy life, a whole life. I want to see you move forward from what Reid did.”
“I will someday, but Will, you don’t understand.”
“Gina, this past year, I’ve gotten to see firsthand what someone like Reid did to someone who isn’t that different from you. I saw what this guy did to her. I saw how badly he hurt her.”
“Will, I’ll be fine. I just need time to process what happened and refocus my love life. But I’m busy right now. School has taken over my life. I need to focus on school. After I graduate and get a job, I’ll deal with my love life. But right now, I have to focus on school.”
Will shook his head. “Gina, this girl-my friend, she fell in love with a guy, and they got engaged, and then he left her for another girl. It’s the same story.”
“Was her fiancé named Reid Crawford too?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not the same story. Will, I’m not this girl. I’ll be fine.”
Will sighed. “Gina, do it your way if you like. But please know that I’m just trying to help you.”