My eyes began to sting with tears. I could never forget my friends, but I had almost forgotten what it was like to have a supportive group of people cheering me on. I closed my eyes and tried to hold on to the memory tightly so it wouldn't slip away.

It was amazing how two weeks away from campus could give you a false sense of security. As the train pulled into the station, I envisioned a force field, like an emotional shield, enveloping my body.

I was smarter, wiser. And I knew better than to let any childish taunts get the best of me. My barrier was up and there was no way I was going to let anybody in.

There was only one person I couldn't wait to see when I got on campus.

"Lizzie!" Jane greeted me as I walked into our room. I'd visited Jane a few times in Manhattan over the break, since I lived right across the Hudson River, in Hoboken, New Jersey. Jane even came to a party one of my friends had back home, and impressed even my most critical friends with her kindheartedness. I knew that someone, somewhere had to be looking out for me to have Jane as my roommate.

After we caught up, Jane wanted to get down to business. "So, we have a very important decision to make." She went over to her closet and pulled out three cocktail dresses. "Which one should I wear tonight?"

My stomach dropped. Longbourn was hosting an upperclassman reception with Pemberley Academy. The official reason was to welcome the returning students who spent last semester abroad. But I had a feeling it was the start of hunting season (the catch being a prom date).

"You promised me you would go!" Jane reminded me.

"I know, I know." I tried to sound optimistic. But unfortunately, Jane could always see through me.

"Here, try this on." Jane handed me a beautiful black dress. I always had to borrow clothes from her anytime we had a formal event. And we had a lot of formal events.

I was standing in our room, half naked, when Jane's younger sister, Lydia, burst through the door. She didn't believe in knocking ... or doing anything considerate.

After I zipped up the dress, Lydia flounced on my bed and declared, "Is that what you're going to wear?"

"Lydia," Jane scolded, "I think Lizzie looks fabulous."

I smiled. "You have to think that, Jane -- it's your dress."

"Oh, right." Lydia's face fell. "Sorry, Lizzie. It's just that Jane can lend you all her clothes, but you can't necessarily make them fit."

"Lydia!" Jane threw a notebook at her sister. "You need to be more polite, especially ..."

Jane let her thought trail off. But both Lydia and I knew what she meant.

Jane and Lydias father had been laid off over Christmas when his company had merged with another investment bank. Not that it mattered much -- he got a huge payout and money didn't seem like an issue. Although as word spread throughout campus, you would've thought Jane and Lydia came back from the holidays with leprosy.

As Jane and I finished getting ready, Lydia began whining. "No fair. Why can't I come? You better at least let me go promdress shopping with you."

Jane blushed. "Slow down -- nobody's been asked to anything."

"Yet," Lydia countered.

"The reception tonight is just an opportunity for us to catch up after the holidays."

"Yeah, especially with a certain someone returning from London!" Lydia jumped up on my bed, acting years younger than the freshman student she was, and put her hand up to her heart. "Oh, Charles Bingley, how I missed you so!" She dropped onto the bed with an exaggerated sigh.

"That's it!" Jane started shooing Lydia out the door. "Out! We need to finish getting ready." She started nervously adjusting her bracelet.

Charles Bingley had spent the previous semester studying abroad in London. Before he left, Jane and Charles had started to get close. From what Jane told me, nothing really happened, since they knew there was about to be an ocean between them. Jane generally kept her feelings close to the vest, but with Charles's imminent arrival, she had become openly giddy. Especially once her sister was out of the room.

"Oh, Charles Bingley, how I missed you so!" Jane called out, laughing. But then she clearly felt that was too much. She examined herself in the mirror and added, "I guess there is no reason for me to get my hopes up. He probably e-mailed with a lot of girls last semester."

One of the most wonderful things about Jane, besides her kindness, was that she had absolutely no idea how beautiful she was. She was completely void of vanity.

"I'm just excited to see him again," she went on. "I'm sure he'll have tons of girls fighting over him for prom."

"You're being ridiculous, Jane! Seriously! If Charles Bingley is even half the guy you say he is, he'd be a raving lunatic to not ask you to prom."

Jane had promised me that Charles was different from the other Pemberley boys I'd met. Talking to them was like being placed into conversational purgatory, with no hope of being released without significant damage to one's self-esteem. The first time I met a Pemberley guy, the first words out of his mouth were "Which mutual funds do you invest in?" When I told another Pemberley boy that I played the piano, he responded, "Is there money in that?" Another had mentioned that his father was in the Forbes 400 ("and not in the bottom two hundred, either") within a minute of meeting me. A fourth had kept his eyes on my chest the whole time we spoke. And then he moved on to the next girl's chest. For Jane's sake, I prayed she was right about Charles being unlike those guys.