Chapter One - An AssociAtion of the Ages

Darcy straightened her plane ticket nervously, as she stared out of the window of the taxi cab. NYC was the place to be. For what? She wasn't sure yet. But something, something was here that made her feel more . . .

Alive.

And Darcy did need to feel that.

She looked down at her phone and scrunched her eyebrows together. A call.

Ethan

is calling.

Answer?

Darcy tapped the Answer button, and held the phone to her ear.

"Hey?"

"Hey! Make it okay?"

"Of course."

"Great."

A silence lapsed, awkwardness clouding their conversation. Darcy stared at the passing cityscape outside the taxi. Lights and billboards, blurring together, old building and new skyscrapers seeming to meld, and so many people. New York was alive. It was something she couldn't capture, with a camera, with her speech. With her words, with her actions. With anything. The magic of a city older than her soul, with more complexities than her own. It was just what she needed.

"So . . . "

Ethan's voice made her snap out of her philosophical reverie. She remembered why she was here. So her parents wouldn't have to deal with their daughter who bled at every scathing remark and cried with every burden she had to bear.

"Yeah?"

Her brother sighed. "Just tell me if you new anything, okay?" He said resignedly.

"Yeah, sure."

"Alright..."

"Bye."

She hung up the phone, and focused on absorbing the new city. Her new city.

******

Darcy stared at the University. It was a ginormous campus. The main building was made so architecturally, a collaboration between the school's best architect alumni. It was gorgeous. It felt like a dream.

She propped up her bag and joined the throng of students waiting to be given their information and answers to their questions.
Darcy smiled, a strange watery thing, unused in so long that it looked more like a grimace of pain. She'd experienced lots of those... Darcy's smile faltered, but the line moved ahead, and she did with it.

Darcy thought back to everything before the plane, before she stepped foot in New York. After the hospital.

Ethan had been the only one to talk to her. She'd gone home but her parents had excused themselves, with busy business trips and shopping and tasks. Mundane tasks that they were lying about. Ethan had given her the plane ticket. He'd given her the card that gave her access to the small trust fund her parents had set up. He'd talked to her, and tried to understand why she'd done what she had.

But he hadn't understood.

It wasn't Ethan's fault. It wasn't Darcy's either. Not really. Ethan had never experienced what she had. The crippling pain, soul-crushing, heart-wrenching pain that she lived with, a smile on her face until she could let it out. And the only thing that stopped that pain . . . had been the knife.

"Hey, you busy?"

Darcy jumped, startled and brought out of her thoughts to stare at a man with a boyish grin and an amused expression on his face. He had curly brown hair and hazel eyes. "Did I interrupt you? Sorry." Darcy nodded, managing a small smile. "It's fine." He nodded, extending a hand, having to balance a box of stuff and a duffel bag in one arm. "Leo. Leo Gonzales." He said. Darcy took his hand and shook it. "Darcy Fields." He smiled. "Like from Pride & Prejudice?" Darcy laughed. "What? No, I think that's Mr. Darcy." She said. "He's a guy." She added. "Oh? And to think I'm taking English as a partial major." Darcy's eyebrows scrunched together. "Partial?" She questioned.

Leo nodded. "It's technically part of what I want to do, so I have to take English Lit." Darcy nodded, walking forwards, closer to the front. ""What is it you're majoring in then?"

"Writing."

Darcy grinned. "Be sure to let me know about your book, yeah?" He nodded resolutely. "You got it." He said solemnly. A clearing of a throat made Darcy turn around. "Hi. Fill in the form, thanks." A girl slid her a form on a clipboard with a pen attached. "See ya, Gonzales." She replied, going to sit in the grass to fill out the lengthy form.

*

She stared at the flyer the greeting student had given her.

T H E C I R C U S

Auditions at the New Arts And Life Stage.

A Musical. Come join and work with famous actors!

Darcy stared at it some more. She was sitting in the library. She was currently in a temporary dorm situation, with a roommate who she had yet to meet. Her things, she'd already put into the room, but now she had nothing to do. Darcy shrugged. She would try to do things differently here, become a different person. Live a different life. Leave a different legacy. And to start it off, new Darcy would have to do something old Darcy would never do. She smiled, and began feeling fluttery butterflies in her stomach. She would join the Circus.

Darcy looked up as a girl with a phone in her hand and her eyes glued on said phone pulled out a seat at her table, sitting down, her eyes not leaving the screen as her fingers danced wildly over it. Darcy stared for a moment, uncertain what to do. She cleared her throat. Nothing. Darcy cleared her throat again, louder.

"Do you have a cold or something?"

Her voice was cool and resonant, a singing voice. Her brown eyes stared back at Darcy questioningly. "If you do, you should probably get it checked out." Her eyes returned to the screen. Darcy frowned, but shrugged. She wasn't old Darcy.

The punk.

She thought back to her old high school title, and smiled. A punk, huh? She'd be new Darcy. She'd be a Punk. Not a punk. A Punk with a capital 'P'.
"Can't you sit somewhere else? There's a lot of seats empty at other tables, so, and I'm going to be polite, can you please get the hell away from me, stranger?" The girl looked up, her face offended. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and pulled the hair tie from her wrist and then shot Darcy a quiet glare. "Fine. Don't see what I ever did to you for you to hate me." She muttered. "I don't. I just don't like sitting in the company of strangers. Bye now." She left.

Darcy wasn't sure how she felt.

Her feelings were a muddle. She felt giddy at standing up for herself, but also bad for the girl. She hasn't meant to hurt her.

That's something old Darcy would think.

She frowned. She wasn't old Darcy. She set aside her feelings and crossed her legs on her chair, staring at the flyer with a renewed sense of triumph.

She was the Punk. A girl that people wouldn't think was easy to use. A girl that wouldn't break. A girl that couldn't crack.

Old Darcy had been a glass girl, fragile and easily cracked, but Old Darcy shattered when she raised that knife and slit her wrist. And from the remnants of glass, wrought in flames, a new, stronger Darcy stood up. And she stood up in NYC. Because that where Darcy knew - had known - she was meant to be.

---

Yeah I know, short chapter. Why did I publish the separator first? Because I've been really busy planning a wedding (not my own, bro) and things are super hectic. Don't even get me started. I think Im not going to stress too much over the word count though, because honestly this story tells itself however long it may be. Some chapters might be longer, some shorter. New Darcy, eh? I dunno. What do you think?