Page 72 of Third Time is the Charm
The email address was from: [email protected].
Beth stared at it for a minute in shock. She hadn’t talked to Anne since she’d left New York months ago and she felt so guilty about it. They’d become friends and then Beth had just left with no word or no explanation to her, even after her emotions had calmed down. She’d tried to shut out everyone and every possible complication from her life, and then by the time she’d starting letting those closest to her back in – like Jane and her father – she felt like it was too late to contact Anne.
Which was dumb, it was never too late.
She just felt so guilty for leaving her in the dark and then came the thoughts about the position that she would be putting Anne in since Anne was friends with Darcy. To have to explain to her why she left… she felt like she would be taking away from Darcy someone who he actually cared about and who cared about him, and in spite of what she thought he’d done, he didn’t have many of those people in his life and Beth couldn’t think to take one of them away
But now, Anne was emailing her.
Her email address was another thing that set Beth’s wheels turning. She thought Anne worked with her mom at DeBourgh Diamonds, except this address was clearly under Fitz Corp. Unless Darcy had another Anne that worked there.
Beth bit her lip as she clicked on the message.Time to find out.
Hi Beth,
I know we haven’t talked in a long time, so I hope you aren’t upset that I’m emailing you now. I wanted to respect your privacy, but there’s something that you might want to know. I don’t have your number otherwise I would have called. If you could give me a call when you have a free minute, I think that would be best.
Hope all is well,
Anne
She read the message three times, letting the words sink in. Well, it was definitely Anne and she definitely needed to call her. Beth’s hands shook slightly as she dug in her bag for her cell phone, pulling up Anne’s contact in her computer and dialing her number. Her breathing became shallow as the phone rang, waiting for Anne to answer.
“Hello?” Came Anne’s familiar, sedate voice on the other end of the line.
“Hey, Anne. It’s Beth. I, um, just got your email.”
“Oh my gosh, Beth! Thank you for calling me,” Anne replied, the relief in her voice flowed over the line. “How have you been? I’m so sorry to have to email you like that and intrude. I know you left for a reason and I didn’t mean to invade your space.” Beth’s stomach clenched with regret for making her friend feel this way.
“No, Anne. I’m so sorry. I’ve been meaning to call you,” she began, the words sounding lame even to her ears. “No, that’s not quite true. I didn’t know if I should call you after what had happened.” Beth sighed as her worries tumbled out. “At first, I did just need to be alone; I was hurt and in shock. But, I should have reached out to you to at least let you know that I was ok. I wasn’t thinking clearly then, but once I began to contact some of my family, I didn’t know if I should call you. I felt like you were Darcy’s friend first – I mean, almost like family to him for how long you’ve known each other; in spite of everything he did, or I thought he did at the time, I didn’t want to call you only to tear him down.” She stopped here to catch her breath, only slightly embarrassed by her rambling.
“Oh, no, please. Don’t worry about it. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I knew that it was something bad, especially if it caused you to leave. I mean, even though I’m Darcy’s friend, I wouldn’t have held it against you or him if you had reached out; I just want you to know. You are both my friends; I would have been there for both of you, especially since I’ve seen how much you both love… or loved… each other and I don’t see how you couldn’t make it through anything.”
Beth smiled teary against the phone.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m such a jerk though for keeping you out of the loop. I just… so many things were wrong. I was afraid that anything I did would make them worse.”
“I understand, trust me, I do,” Anne replied with a weight to her voice that Beth could only appreciate as sincere solidarity with her sentiment. “For the record, Darcy told me what he said to you. When I found out that you left, I made him tell me I was so upset with him. I laid into him for what he did, even though by the time he told me I think he’d punished himself far worse than my words ever could.”
Beth chuckled softly, grateful for forgiveness and good friends.
“I don’t know what else he told you,” Beth continued, the distraction of talking with such a caring and close friend causing her to completely forget the whole reason that she’d called Anne in the first place. “But, I went to his apartment the following morning, I guess before he got there, but not before Caroline did.”
“Oh no!” Anne gasped in shock.
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “So, that’s why – partially – I left in such a hurry. I was just in complete shock to see her there after everything that Darcy had said to me the night before, that it didn’t even dawn on me that I didn’t actually seehimthere with her; I was so upset and I just assumed.”
“Oh Beth, how could you have known or had enough capacity to really think about that after seeing Caroline there? You can’t beat yourself up over it; I just can’t believe that all this time, you thought he was back with her…”
“I know,” she agreed. “So, when I was home for Jane’s wedding she encouraged me to talk to him and then after hearing what he did for my younger sister, I had to confront him about it; let’s face it – after five months of it weighing on me, there was no way I couldn’t say anything to him. And that’s when he told me the truth about what had happened.”
“He told me that she’d been in his apartment and how he and Charles walked in on her in the nude,” Anne laughed. “She deserves as much. Anyway, he said he got a restraining order after that.”
“Only for him to agree to sort of waive it so that they both could attend Charles’ wedding and support him.”
“I didn’t even think about that! Honestly, after I yelled at him and he told me the whole story, I haven’t really talked to him much more about it.”
“Yeah, he hoped that she would be respectful of her brother and the importance of the day, but – surprise, surprise – she couldn’t keep her hands to herself; she kissed him on the dance floor in front of me and the other guests. His parents had to have her removed from the reception,” Beth continued the tale.
