Okay guys, another excerpt from another story of mine...

Remember that Pride and Prejudice post where I wrote that ever since I saw that movie, I couldn't get it out of my head and every fictional idea of a story that appeared in my head since then had been centered upon and inspired by the chronicles of Darcy and Elizabeth's love story? Um, yeah I think I said something like that.

Well, this one down here is one of them. I know I said last time I was working on one of my stories entitled A Vintage Dressed Up Fiction, but the truth is I'm working on many stories at once because my inability to focus on just one. Only this one is like, one of the promising ones, lol *hopefully*.

So this is an excerpt of it called Pride Meets Prejudice When Lily Meets Cam by me -yeah, I know the title itself expresses my huge devotion to that story written by Jane Austen and I did it on purpose. Hey Bridget Jones' Diary was written as some kind of modern and twisted version of Pride and Prejudice, so I figured, it's alright for me to write my own version. Hehe. I'm posting it because I NEED SOMEONE TO READ IT. Other than my brother, who read it only because I forced him to which afterwards he surprisingly said he was actually curious about their future, lol.

I hope y'all like it.

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*An excerpt from Pride Meets Prejudice When Lily Meets Cam

December
Lily Brown was reading the script of the next play by the lake, practicing the lines at her usual spot. There was a part where she had to sing the soprano playing the piano again, this time ala nineteenth-century damsel in distress, and she practiced that too, trying not to sing too loudly, even though there was nobody around. All of a sudden, when she looked up from her bench, she was surprised to see the most unexpected face standing there in front of her a few feet away: the distant Cameron Sarazen. She didn’t know how long he’d been there.

“Hi,” he spoke first.

“Hi,” she replied, bewildered and embarrassed, not sure whether Cameron often went to see her plays or not.

“I liked your singing,” he said surprisingly.

Lily flushed at this abrupt all the same pleasant compliment. “Thanks. Um, what brings you here?”

He shrugged. “I usually walk by the lake weekends.”

Lily didn’t believe it. “Really? I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Are you here often?” he asked.

“Most afternoons, yeah.”

“The afternoon is the loveliest part of the day here, isn’t it?” he pointed out.

“Yes, it is. As you can see…” She gestured at the horizon and attempted a smile.

Amazingly, he smiled back, although timidly. She scrutinized his face to make out what he was really intending to say, but he soon revealed it himself.

“Lily… I want us to be friends. You’re the first real-life character I could ever admire in my life. I’ve been watching you and you’re different from everyone else I know. You’re the only one in the world right now who lives up to my expectations of a friend, and who is therefore worth being friends with. Despite your gossipy friends, even in the case of the boys, and your lack of good connections, I’d like to be friends with you from now on.”

Lily didn’t know what to say, she hadn’t been expecting anything like this at all. It now felt like being inside an inflating balloon, as the surrounding pressure rose and crushed against your head, forcing into your ear tubes, trying to block every sound from vicinity, your head threatening to explode – but before being inside that inflating balloon, she could swear to God, she had imagined a candle being lit and melting to the fire… If that made sense.

“Wha-?”

“You, it’s been only you for the past few weeks. It’s always been just me, but now, it’s you,” he emphasized.

Lily was silent… Was this supposed to be a compliment? But the vision of the candle had gone and the pressure inside the balloon was driving her mad – the balloon popped. She stood up abruptly, and burst saying, not entirely rudely, “Despite my gossipy friends? And my lack of good connections? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cameron remained calm. “I have to say you got a knack of falling into the wrong group of people. At the beginning of the semester it was that Berry kid’s gang, and now it’s that Knockerbutters whatsisname, the drama king.”

“It’s Knickerbucks. And do you realize it’s my good friends you’re insulting here?” she asked, remaining rather courteous.

“Lily, those people don’t deserve to be your friends.”

She let out a sarcastic laugh, absentmindedly dropping civility. “And you do? You shun everyone from your life and you call yourself – deserving?”

“I am. We have so many things in common, can’t you see? Listen, I see people for who they really are. Some of those guys are really sick. Knockerbutters, he auditioned for that lead role only because of that kissing scene in the end, knowing you’d positively land the lead female role.”

“It’s Jared Knickerbucks! And he didn’t get the lead role, Luke did.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, they’re both after that lead role because of you. Do you know how they talk about you after your rehearsals? It’s sick, but you can’t see any of that. I, though, can, and I’m gonna help you out of the wrong hole.”

Although this made her curious to hear what they did say behind her back, she didn’t want to give him the pleasure of believing his words. “The wrong hole? What makes us any less wrong than any of them?”

“I am, and you are. I see you, and I can’t find a single fault in you. And it bothers me.” Cameron looked down at this, sort of drowned in on the effect his own words had on his thoughts.

Lily was silent as the shock blew, being secretly flattered at this, and then she looked away, choosing to forget it. “I read your blog, you know.”

“You did?” he asked, a little hopefully.

“Yeah.” She looked at him square in the eyes. “I read what you wrote about Cassie-Loui.”

Cameron shrugged, the look of hopefulness gone. “So now you know.”

“How could you write something like that about her?”

“It’s not like she didn’t deserve it-”

“But that doesn’t make you less of a jerk! That was a hurtful thing to write about anyone,” she said this almost sounding like a kindergarten teacher scolding one of her students, which almost annoyed Cameron at once; he shook off the desire to make any comments about it.

“Look, I didn’t mean to hurt her. I never mentioned her name in that post, did I? She read my blog, realized that the series of events were extremely similar to her own and freaked out. Not my fault she kept stalking me.”

“You obviously knew she was one of your readers? You really have no regard for others, do you?” Her tone went up a notch.

Cameron extremely preferred this stern and brisk tone of hers rather than the earlier kindergarten-teacher one.

“Cassie-Loui doesn’t have any regard for herself. She tails some guy around –which, in this case, is me- sends him frequent love notes, and craves his attention every minute they’re around each other; dogs do that, but not girls. Girls should never lower their self-worth just because some guy-”

Lily cut, “Okay, I agree, but that’s what happens when you feel hopeless, you can’t help it. Haven’t you ever felt that way?”

“No,” Cameron answered confidently.

“When the person whose attention you crave the most is not giving it to you – you seriously have never felt it?”

Cameron lingered for a moment on some pop-up thoughts but pushed them away. “Listen, Cassie-Loui’s problem is not my problem. If it’s so bad then she should hire a shrink whose expertise is settling down infatuation issues. She didn’t deserve my attention and I don’t regret it. You know what she did, how she’s like, and so does everyone else. Don’t go running around defending her, she’s not exactly a saint.” He paused at this for a while, enjoying the effect of his words on her. His eyes penetrated into hers and she frankly felt this eerie sensation that he was trying to rape her mind.

Lily was livid she no longer cared. “You’re a stuck-up asshole who thinks he’s better than everyone else!”

Cameron appeared to look neither upset nor taken-aback. “I am better than everyone else,” he said indifferently.

Lily’s jaw dropped in shock of hearing this. “I have nothing more to say to you.” She started walking away.

Cameron kept up with her. “What is wrong with you?”

Lily laughed shrilly and spun around. “What’s wrong with me? Seriously?”

“Well, obviously there’s nothing wrong with someone wanting to be friends with you.”

“Nobody asks other people if they want to be friends –they’re just friends! We’re not in kindergarten anymore, Cameron! For God’s sake, I’m eighteen in June-” Lily’s hands were flailing in the air, but she was cut.

“I’m seventeen in February.”

“You’re sixteen?” A decipherable air of annoyed understanding dawned on Lily’s face, which then mixed with a taint of sarcasm that was now evident.

“Seventeen in February,” Cameron repeated.

“That explains.” She started walking away.

“What?”

“Why you’re acting like a kid!” she shot at him. “If you wanted to be friends with me at all at least you didn’t have to tell me that it was against your own will and you only resentfully did it, despite this, despite that, blah blah –grow up, Cameron!”

He stopped dead in his tracks. “If growing up means I have to lie to your face for pleasure’s sake and everyone else’s then sorry, that’ll never happen.”

She turned around again. “Growing up means you should go to the mirror and start counting off the faults you have in you and fix you! Nobody is appreciated for always finding faults in others! ‘Hey, look at her, what a bitch! Hey, you got fat lips! Hey, you need a nose job!’”

“I don’t care about anyone’s appearance,” Cameron said carelessly.

“That’s not the point! The point is everyone’s only the greatest judge they can be for themselves.” Lily thrashed her arms in the air out of frustration. She fired away, “I mean, what do you know about people? You hide in this little hole you call life, you don’t know anybody’s stories! But I, at least, I mingle with them! I can make up my own judgment in my head but it doesn’t mean I have the right to be all negative, because I’m not perfect myself! You have no right to judge anyone unless you’re a God – or half-God, in any case.”

“Don’t talk about Gods with me, I know the case. Even those Greek Gods are flawed, why’d you think all those catastrophes kept happening? Hercules became a mortal, Hades attacked Zeus, Zeus slept with a mortal and the lady gave birth to Perseus…”

Whether Cameron was deliberately deviating farther away from the point, Lily couldn’t tell, but she decided not to combat him further on this. “Then I guess that would prove my point even more. Even Gods are flawed, why would you not be?”

Cameron had a straight answer. “Because a human such as myself should only be in comparison with other humans. Not with Gods.”

Both of them only stood there in silence. Cameron, apparently, was persistent that he was, as he stated before himself, “better than everyone else”. Lily was beginning to get the idea that Cameron wasn’t teasing, that he dangerously believed he was, and she suddenly found him the most haughty, disdainful, skeptic, boastful, full-of-himself, everything-prone-to-badness individual on the face of the planet.

“People like you should be extinct. I don’t want you to talk to me ever again,” she said.

The impact was at once and obvious. Listening to this hurt Cameron more than his expectations had warned him in advance… Or perhaps, he hadn’t been prepared in getting hurt at all. “I’m afraid I was wrong about you,” Cameron broke the silence.

It broke Lily’s heart severely that Cameron was the one to say this; as if he were the victimized in the outcome of the event. “You are, Cameron, just like you are with everyone else! How dare you say I have lack of good connections?!” She was on the verge of tears and was sick of herself for it.

“I’m just saying that there are people out there who are more deserving of your connection than the people you are connected to now.”

A thought crossed Lily’s mind that made her face suddenly turn bright red. “What kind of connections are we talking about here?”

Cameron didn’t answer. Lily understood. “I get it. My dad’s not an architect and my mom’s not a dentist. In fact, my parents are divorced, how disgraceful is that, right? And now I have a slutty step mom.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said through gritted teeth. He was almost angry.

“…Is it my autistic step brother? Is it because I work at my aunt’s bistro on weekends and hang out with the infamous people of the suburbs who appear to be so undeserving to you? Is it because of my weird twin sister?”

“No, she doesn’t have anything to do with this-”

“Is it because my uncle was your Physics teacher in high school and you never liked his teaching because you were always disturbed by the untidy way he dressed to school among all you neat and powerful rich kids who ruled the realm while you were unmistakably his favorite student? Yeah, Cassie-Loui told me.”

He tried to speak despite the shock he was trying to defy. “I didn’t mean…” But he didn’t continue.

Lily couldn’t believe this. Cameron didn’t appear to be tenaciously refuting any of it. If she was hurt when Cameron began addressing these issues to her just minutes ago, it was nothing compared to the agony he’s aggravated upon her now. She looked away. “You were wrong about me, Cameron. I’m sorry if it turns out I’ll never be able to live up to your expectations of a friend. But hey, I just did you a favor, didn’t I? You just found a fault in me.”

Cameron tried to crop up a rebuttal for this, but it seemed that half of his brain seemed to consent with what she just said. He despised himself for it. “I guess this means I’ll never talk to you again?”

Despite all the hurt, Lily was surprised to find herself slightly dumbfounded by the thought. She sighed. “No, you won’t.”

It had started to rain for a while. Cameron just stood there looking at her for a moment, taking in the entirety of the current affair; her replies, her accusations, her name-calling, her rejection, her –and it was heartbreaking to see- luminous but dampen almond-shaped eyes… And then he walked away…only to turn back at her again.

“You know what?” he addressed her, “Before I go, I’d like to say this one thing to you: you’re just as stuck-up and high as I am.” He had that hard look on his face and Lily’s obstinacy wavered. “At least I got that right.”

“What?”

“You believe yourself to be above everyone else, even though you don’t say it aloud.”

Lily was taken aback. “I do not believe myself-”

“Singing in the church choirs every Sunday morning when everyone else is fast asleep in their dorms? Staying behind class and completing your model until sunset when everyone else knows it’s a Friday night? Never joining in pub gatherings your roommate invited you to and instead, choosing to spend the night enhancing your architecture-drawing skills alone in your room by the window? Waking up fresh in the morning when everyone else is stooped out of drinking the previous night? Reading Harry Potter fan fictions on the web while everyone else tunes in on the latest fashion and celebrity gossip? And you think I don’t know what goes through your mind when you compare yourself to these people, when you think of who landed at the better end? You, and that you’re better than them.”

Cameron let this fact sink a while, and when Lily was about to comeback with a retort, he continued, “I have countless evidence but I’m not staying here much longer, so get this: -” he stepped in much closer and it staggered Lily a little but she didn’t back away, “the reasons I fell for you are the same reasons you believe yourself to be better than everyone else.”

And he left Lily standing there by the lake alone with her own thoughts, her feet seemingly rooted to the ground, eyes distractedly gazing at the sun setting on the horizon, the direction where Cameron’s figure had been earlier. She couldn’t believe all this.

Lily was strangely upset by her own charges and rejection more than his last addresses to her. She couldn’t understand why she was feeling the way she was. Probably, she hadn’t expected Cameron to give in so easily and let her go in a flash with a harsh bite back. Possibly, she only wanted Cameron to admit she was right and he was wrong, and that he could give her a promise she could hold on to, or look up to, or whatsoever. Cameron was, after all, Lily couldn’t help denying, one of those scarce, uncommon, striking young men who impossibly existed in the twenty-first century where not a girl in the modern world could afford to reject. But that same striking young man had wounded her feelings more than she had imagined possible – the request and then the accusations – and that was it… they’d never speak to each other again.

*

*Praying to God that I will be able to continue and finish this story or at least ONE of my stories, amen*

2011. Copyrighted.

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