Jane Austen Lied

Intro

Love stories. A woman's worst enemy. From the moment we're born, we're lied to about how some man is going to scoop us up in his arms and carry you away into the sunset. Things from children's books, to Disney movies, to rom coms in tv shows and movies. Even books lie. Once upon a time in the early 1800s, Jane Austen wrote about the comically conflicting life of Elizabeth Bennet. How she absolutely hated the man she was destined to be with and found out that he was perfect in every way. Literally. I mean the man was stupid rich, loved her from the moment he saw her, and did everything to help her and her family regardless of his stature. It's these lies that tell us, women, that all we're good for is to find someone like Mr. Darcy who doesn't exist. Bred to be housewives and raise children or die trying. It wasn't just her either, everything around us sells the same product. It's like mascara, too faced better than sex is the same as Loreál lash paradise, the only difference is the packaging. Same story. Guy meets girl or vice versa, one is out of the other's league, they team up someone gets hurt whether it be them, their friends and family or both. They make up, realize they love each other and they live happily ever after. Literally just summarized every teen movie and novel in existence. This on the other hand is not one of those stories. No reader, this is a story about the many heartbreaks of a particularly below the average woman in her early twenties. Seems like a cliché intro to the above mentioned, hate to disappoint. If you're still interested, I'll tell you about where she is now.

It's a quiet Sunday morning in Church Point Louisiana. The family had set out to visit for a distant cousin's wedding the day before. It was a small venue with a short reception decked in shades of red velvet and pink. A bouquet of fake crimson peonies. It was the ceremonial bouquet for the toss she caught by accident. How hypocritical. She thought. Years of trying and failing at relationships. It felt like she was destined to be alone forever. Perhaps because she's always too clumsy. The bouquet wasn't even caught in technical terms. It hit the large chandelier after being aggressively catapulted into the air by the nervous bride and landed on her right mosquito bitten foot. The group of single women stared at it for a moment in their drunken bewilderment. She was expecting it to hit her in the face as many flying objects tended to do. Not purposefully, it was like they were naturally drawn to her and the point of gravity was always her face, particularly her nose which was no surprise. This was her first bouquet toss and of course, after her first breakup she ends up with the bouquet. It was like God was mocking her with it. Here's a bouquet as a luck charm, or in common superstition meant she'd be married next. Luck. That word. She never believed in luck, as it's never been kind to her. This was a constant reminder of how single she was and how she would probably die alone as an old woman. This wasn't the time to be thinking about such things, it's vacation time. Next, it's a milk bath in a grey and pink bathroom and finish On Mystic Lake. If there was one thing she craved it was to know the outcome of Annalise before returning to Amarillo and the stress-filled life of college, a mall job, and sleeping off exams and shitty customers. She's settled in a complex neighboring the hospitals and clinics just on the other side of the freeway. Not the quietest spot with the constant traffic and ambulances rushing by, but what do you expect from a 23-year-old currently living with her brother's ex-girlfriend? Now wasn't the time to think of that, the tub beckoned her for a soak before the house filled with noise. It was 7:45 am, and amid the gloomy dawn, she made herself leave the caress of the blue and white quilt. Instantly, the chilled morning bit at her calves as her feet touched the creaky wooden floor. It was going to rain soon. She could smell the dampened wind through the air ducts above her head.

In the kitchen, she pulled a stemless wineglass from the cupboard two single servings of day expired milk and peach Stella Rosa from the fridge. After a half poured glass of booze, carefully and clumsily knocking things in the fridge to return it, she made her way to the bathroom. There was a spot behind the tub meant for items such as books, refreshments, and candles where she lay the novel and wine. She filled the tub, being careful not to make noise as it might wake her 8-month nephew, and parents across the hall. In went, the milk and some lavender oil before her foot was hugged by the warm pool. This is what this tub was meant for. It reached to her knee on the outside, and with the thin rim and deep bottom, it was just the tub for a milk bath. Now was the time to enjoy the tranquility of the morning and try to read at least half the book. To chapter fourteen before everyone woke and ruined her peace. Perhaps it would be like this in the apartment after she's settled in? Apartment. Rent and schoolwork and her mall job. Not yet. She began. Please not yet. I want to know what happens till the end of the book. Just give her one more day to complete it and then she'd be on her merry way back home. Satisfied. The timer was set on her phone for a half-hour. It was quiet enough that she could stay longer if permitted but didn't want to hold her breath. A sip of chilly peach sent a satisfying chill to her throat and in she went. There she lay in the pool of hot milk and lavender kissing each part of her submerged figure with a gentle sweetness. The warmth and comfort she longed for from a man. It was terribly lonely at her age with her idea of love. You see reader, the love Esse craved was the kind that melted away with the changing decades. The kind that only existed in Jane Austen novels and 80's movies. The kind where you loved and hated each other at the same time and it made growing old less intimidating. The kind where you could share your hurt because you knew that the other half of your existence hurt too, and together eased the pains of life. Finally, you're complete and nothing else matters. She longed for someone like-minded as she was. The kind of relationship Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy had, but of course, it's but a fantasy. Such things don't belong in the corrupt world of today. For now, she would collapse into her book and the aroma of lavender.

8:08 am and but seven minutes of quiet to go. Her father and brother are already knocking and trying to pry the door open. Why? All was fine till now. She cursed at herself muttering that she should've woke earlier. That's how it has always been. Shutting off the alarm because there's more sleep needed. Just five more minutes before chaos filled the air. Down the drain, and the hatch went the remaining wine. A quick-dry off, a slip-on of clothes, and back to the room to dress. From there it's time to read the remaining two chapters before the halfway mark. Interrupted of course, then leave the untouched pages behind with the comfort of her dreamy visions. Now it's a noisy car ride to Dallas and then sad, sad, Amarillo. At least it was Sunday and she didn't have to use her data to listen to her classes. No, she lay in the back seat of the SUV by herself. There wasn't leg room for enough for but a child, so across the back seats, it was. Gothic symphonies filled her ears as the last of the droopy willows and thin pines faded away. Raindrops raced each other down the windows in diagonal streaks. Just as predicted, as usual. The atmosphere of Louisiana was much like Missouri. That's where she and her family used to live before they moved to the devil's armpit as her mother called it. She always came up with odd names or phrases for everything. It was something super cheesy too like "lazy Larry" or "frumpy Freddy". Always questionable, but she was too afraid to ask. Her eyes trailed from the drumming windows to the smushed platform too small for her little feet. The bouquet again. All-day her eye was drawn to it as if it were a sign that perhaps her luck had finally changed. As if! She thought. The year had already been bad enough with a worldwide pandemic and two slaps in the face named Tom and John. Two bad ideas from Facebook dating and now this bundle of wire and fabric to congratulate her for a job well done. As always, what seems like the end of her solitude blows up in her face yet again. It was bound to make her fall hard and cry herself to sleep again for the Nth time. Honestly, she should've seen it coming. Her story always ends the same. For all, she knows she'll still be single till the age of 50 and probably die alone. A bit of a drastic scenario for a visual, but it made the most sense. Unlike her sister who had many, many relationships and is a new mother, Esse only had one. Of course, you could hardly call it a relationship since it lasted six days and she was back to being single. Instead of leaving a trail of broken hearts, she went on a trail to have her heart broken again, and again, and... again, but where did it all start? When did the disappointment first make its way into her being? A first crush? No. First love.

It took her years and years to finally accept the fact that he would never feel the same for her. Kind of funny to recollect the feelings of times long past, and the rose colored world that came with it. It felt like a lifetime since then, her first love that lasted six years that has now decayed into nothing but a fuzzy pink memory. Meeting in person, and being excited to see him again all felt real. Remembering the silly little ways a simple gesture meant the world to someone like her. A skinny, sunburned, rabbit-toothed, freckle-faced little girl that got easily lost in fairy tales and witches and the romance of death. Funny how such things tickled her fancy at such an age. Perhaps that was the reason he never liked her. She was weird. Since the age of seven that's what all her classmates called her. So she stayed inside and worked off a bit of the burn, the tan, the brown. She became afraid of the sun, and only upon meeting him would the fear be tossed aside for the touch of a hand. It was about fourteen years ago in mid June. when the sun is full of energy and in gleaming radiance stretches its golden rays across the sky. He's done with his long winter's nap and the groggy feeling of spring has finally gone. He's ready to watch the people  run and play beneath the happy glow and glittering rays that dance through the few clouds. Fourteen years ago that's how the sun used to feel. In a tired town in Texas, deep in the very heart of it as the anthem carried through the wind to nearby towns. A little tired town easy to miss on the map that calls itself Snyder Texas.