Archive of Our Own

Penelope hates that she’s crying right now. 

She barely registers the slam of the door behind her as she enters the safe haven that is her room and lets herself go, each tear that rolls down her cheek feels like it’s mocking her, and she resents herself more and more with each one that falls. 

Why is she even crying? Because Colin said that he would never date her (in a million years - his words)? It’s not like she didn’t know that already. Hearing Colin say it is hardly worth crying over. 

Except… It’s not just about what he said, is it? It’s about how he said it. The way he laughed at the idea of them being together, like it was some big joke- like she was a big joke. Even after he’d danced with her and called her special, it was almost astounding how Colin was able to make her feel like everything and nothing in one night. 

“Come on, Col, you have to admit, there was something there on the dance floor between you and Pen tonight,” Benedict teased with a smile.

“Oh, shut up, Ben.” 

“I’m being serious. I know love when I see it and-”

“Oh, right, you really know when love is right in front of your face. Remind me, how many months was it of seeing Sophie every day before you recognised her?”

“Oi!” 

“Benedict has a point, though,” Anthony agrees. “The way you guys were dancing- you seemed… Close.”

“We are close. We’re friends.” 

“You know what we mean. If anything’s going on, you can tell us. We won’t say anything.”

“Guys, we’re not-” 

“Mum will be thrilled when she finds out though, I’m pretty sure she’s already planning your wedding.”

“Penelope Bridgerton has a nice ring to it.”

“Oh my god, guys, stop. I’m not dating Pen, and I’m certainly not making her Penelope Bridgerton, not in a million years.”

“Well, she could still become Penelope Bridgerton if she marries little Greggy one day.”

“Fuck off.”

He’d laughed as he said it. 

He’d laughed.

It was that same laugh that she fell in love with years ago when they first met. She never once thought that that laugh, once her favourite sound in the world, would break her heart one day as well. 

Penelope supposes she was always going to have to find out that Colin wasn’t perfect one way or the other- she just never expected it to hurt so much. And she hates how, even though Colin’s the one that’s taken the fall off of the pedestal, she’s the one that’s been shattered. It’s not fair. 

Ping!

She looks to her phone to see a text come in from none other than Colin. 

Colin: hey! where did you go????

Colin: been looking for you everywhere

Pain blossoms in her heart, the thorns stabbing at her near incessantly. She doesn’t want to be angry with Colin, but she is. She knows that his laugh wasn’t one of malice, that he was just joking around with his brothers- but still, she was the joke, and that’s the thing she can’t quite get past. Penelope had never once expected Colin to love her the way that she loved him, she’s not an idiot, but she’d hoped that- after over a decade of friendship- he’d have a little more respect for her. 

Why is she crying over him anyways? Why is she crying over a man who clearly doesn’t care about her as much as he said he did? A man who’s taken her and her friendship for granted? It’s not like Colin’s so great, certainly not a guy worth spilling tears over. Colin’s… He… 

Fuck. Why can’t she think of any of his flaws?

Well, that’s going to change. 

Penelope wipes her tears and grabs an empty notebook from her room, she sits at her desk and immediately begins writing. 

Reasons Why Colin Bridgerton Isn’t That Great

Penelope stares at it, it’s a good title, but if this is going to work, she needs to stick with it. She can’t just give up after a few days because she sees his smile and gets butterflies or something. And, unfortunately for her, that really does seem exactly like something she would do. She just needs to remember why she’s doing it. 

I can’t be in love with him anymore. It’s been years, he doesn’t feel the same way, he never will, and loving him hurts too much. I can’t do it. Maybe if I write down enough of his flaws this feeling will go away. Or, at the very least, constantly wanting him when I can’t have him won’t be as painful anymore. I need to at least try. 

It’s time to get over Colin Bridgerton. Once and for all. 

Satisfied with that little note, Penelope goes onto the next page and writes:

Reason #1

He’s an insensitive prick

Penelope stares at the words for God knows how long, she’s not even sure if that’s entirely true, but it still feels like a start.

xxx

Reason #3

He was never punished as a child. It shows. 

xxx

Reason #5

He makes travel his whole personality which is so stupid because he has an amazing personality and he doesn’t need to

xxx

On the seventh day, Penelope hits a block. 

She’s been writing down one of Colin’s flaws every day, and even though she’s still as annoyingly in love with him as she’s always been, it does help her to remember that he’s not perfect. Far from it, actually.

Now, she stares at the ‘Reason #7’ in front of her and wracks her brain, trying to find something- anything- to fill the space below it. It’s not as if Colin only has six flaws, but a seventh one still eludes her. Penelope bites her lip as the storm in her brain rages on. She’s not even sure how long she sits there, silently staring at a mostly empty page, before her phone buzzes. 

Colin: wtf is going on i haven’t seen you in forever

Colin: (yes ik it’s been a week but humour me pls)

Colin: i think this is the longest i've gone without seeing you since i moved back to london

Colin: i’m having pen withdrawals 

Colin: clearly this needs to be fixed

Colin: i’ll be over soon 

Penelope stares at her phone. 

Well, shit.

She can just tell him that she’s busy. With what? None of his concern, honestly. Something came up, a friend asked her out for drinks, it’s a work emergency… On a Saturday. 

Okay, so maybe not that last one. 

Just as she starts typing, before she can even finalise her lie, there’s a knock on her door. Penelope simply gapes at it before she remembers that she’s supposed to actually answer it. 

She rushes over and, sure enough, Colin stands on the other side, grinning as if she didn’t blow her heart into smithereens a week ago. “Pen!”

“Colin,” she replies faintly as he pulls her into a hug. It takes everything she has not to get lost in the warmth of his embrace. “How are you here so quickly? I literally just got your text.” 

“I may or may not have texted while I was already on my way,” Colin admits, at least having the decency to look a little bashful. “I’m sorry, I just feel like we’ve barely spoken this week! I haven’t seen you at all, and you haven’t really been responding to my messages much.”

“I have,” she defends, even though she knows perfectly well that she hasn’t. “Life’s just been- y’know, busy.” 

Every line on his face tells Penelope that he doesn’t believe her but, luckily, he doesn’t push her. “Right. I get that. I just… I don’t like not knowing what’s going on in your life.” 

“Really?” the question slips out without much thought. 

Colin blinks at her, clearly taken aback. “Well, yeah, duh. Even when I was travelling I was fairly up to date on what was going on with you. I literally have no idea what’s happened with you this week and I want to fix that. Besides, if you’re really going to make me say it out loud… I’ve missed you.” 

If Penelope had heard those words a week ago, she would have been over the moon. So high up on cloud nine, it would have been impossible to bring her back to earth now. Now- well, she doesn’t really know what she feels. 

‘You miss me?’ she finds herself thinking. ‘Right, right. You miss me, you would just never date me or marry me in a million years.’ 

“So, can I come in or what?” Colin asks with that stupid (charming) grin. 

Penelope hesitates, for all the things she’s ever been good at, resisting Colin has never been one of them. “Yeah, come in.”

He steps into her flat excitedly. “I was thinking we could do a movie night! We haven’t had one of those in forever!”

“We had one two weeks ago.”

“I say again, forever.”

For fuck’s sake, it shouldn’t be so hard to not find him endearing. 

Although, if they’re really going to hang out, a movie night isn’t the worst idea. If they're watching a movie, they’re not talking, and if they’re not talking, they can pretend that nothing is fractured between them. 

They settle on the sofa, but Colin takes the remote before she can grab it and put on some rom com. Instead he looks at her with a gentle intensity that leaves her feeling as if she’s rapidly coming undone. “So, tell me about what’s been going on with you.”

Penelope blinks, her heartbeat quickening. “I thought we were going to watch a movie.”

“We are,” he replies, “but I want to catch up first. I already told you, I don’t like not knowing what’s happening in your life.”

She wants to think that he’s arrogant and presumptuous, those would be good flaws to write down, and in a certain light, she could probably see him that way. What right does he have to know what’s going on in her life? Who is he to demand to know? 

Arrogant. Arrogant. Arrogant.

Presumptuous too. 

… But the problem is that he’s not. He’s not arrogant for expecting to know what’s going on in her life, he’s always known what’s going on with her, and he wants to know because he cares about her. And it’s not presumptuous of him to think that she’ll tell him, she always has, Penelope and Colin have always talked to each other. 

The only problem is that, now, she really doesn’t know what to say.

“Well, uh- work has been pretty intense. Lots of deadlines, and not enough time to meet them, y’know?” she says. “I’m reading through this manuscript at the moment-”

“The romance and fantasy one, right? Has the author developed the world a bit more yet or is it still a pretty one dimensional world?”

Penelope blinks. She said that to Colin weeks ago. “I can’t believe you remember me saying that.”

“I remember basically all of what you say, Pen,” Colin tells her with an earnestness that makes her want to cry. He means it. She knows that he does, and she almost wishes that she didn’t. 

“That’s sweet, Col,” she murmurs, glancing away from him, eyes flickering to the tv as she wonders how quickly she can shift the conversation to a close so they can watch a film in silence like she wants. `”And, yeah, to answer your question, the world building has gotten a little better, the author could still be doing more but we’ll probably cover that in our next meeting.”

“Hopefully they’ll be more receptive to feedback than they were at your last meeting,” Colin says, practically reading her mind. At their last meeting, the author had been so stubborn and defensive, Penelope felt like she was talking to a brick wall, she’d immediately vented to Colin about the whole thing afterwards. That was months ago now. 

“You really weren’t kidding when you said you remember everything, were you?” She smiles despite herself. 

“Obviously not, not when it comes to you,” Colin grins. Butterflies flap up a storm in her stomach, and each flutter feels like a betrayal. “What else has been going on in your life?” 

‘I’ve been nursing the worst heartbreak of my life and it’s actually your fault.’

“Not a whole lot outside of work, honestly. Portia’s still being… Portia.”

“Oh no,” he grimaces. “What has she said this week?”

“Well, we got lunch on Wednesday and…”

And just like that, Penelope and Colin fall back into their normal. Except, Penelope isn’t sure if it’s a normal that she wants. One where she gives and gives and Colin simply takes. She doesn’t blame him for it, why wouldn’t he take what she gives?, She just wishes she wouldn’t give so easily. Talking to Colin is almost second nature at this point, no matter how much she wants that to not be the case. In the past, she’s given, he’s taken, but her love for him has only grown and filled the spaces left behind, she’s been okay with it. But not anymore. Penelope can’t let her love grow, and she can’t give herself until she’s empty, their normal doesn’t work anymore. It can’t. 

That’s why, the moment there’s a slight lull in the conversation, she clears her throat before they can find a new topic and asks, “so, what movie are we watching?” 

They pick an old romantic comedy, and Penelope barely pays attention to it. She’s too focused on maintaining some semblance of distance between them. In the past, the two of them have had a tendency to gravitate towards each other during movies. Whether it be to whisper about something happening on screen or needing a hand to hold during a scarier scene, they’ve always ended movies sitting closer together than they started. Tonight, she doesn’t lean in when he wants to say something, doesn’t scoot over when she has a comment. She’s fairly certain that Colin notices, given the way he keeps glancing at her, but he seems to hold back from saying anything. Thank God. 

Penelope’s so busy building her walls up, by the time she’s finished, so is the movie. Colin turns to her, an excited glint in his eyes. “Thoughts?” 

She wishes she could give a more in depth review, but all she finds herself saying is, “yeah, it was good.”

His brows crinkle in a way that has no right to be as adorable as it is. “Just good? I thought that love confession would have you properly squealing.”

It probably would have had she’d been giving the film a shred of her attention. Maybe she’d have to rewatch it at some point this week. Preferably with some wine. And ice cream. “I just didn’t really connect with it this time.”

“Penelope Featherington didn’t connect with a romantic comedy?” Colin questions and she can’t tell if the shock in his voice is teasing or genuine. 

“First time for everything.”

“Well, we’ll have to make sure that that doesn’t happen with the next film,” Colin grins.

Penelope’s stomach twists. This is the time to set the boundary. Her heart protests it, but setting boundaries has to start somewhere. 

“Actually I was thinking we could call it a night.”

His face drops, and it takes everything Penelope has to ignore the ugly guilt festering inside of her. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, sorry, I just have a ton of writing to do.”

“R-right,” Colin says. “If you want, I could stay and make you some dinner while you work.”

The image sounds perfect, so cozy and domestic, and that’s exactly why it can’t happen. “It’s really sweet of you to offer, but you don’t need to-”

“I want to,” he insists resolutely. “It’s really no trouble.”

She smiles, hoping it’s not as strained as it feels. “I’m really okay, but I appreciate it.” 

Colin seems to sense that she won’t be changing her mind, shoulders slumping slightly as he gets up. When he gets to the door he looks at her sceptically. “Pen, are we… Are we okay?” 

Penelope blinks and then, almost on instinct, replies, “yeah, of course we are.”

It would be easier to say that they’re not, to tell Colin about what she heard and cut off their friendship entirely. It would certainly make getting over him a hell of a lot easier. And yet, that doesn’t feel right. Yes, she doesn’t like the way Colin said what he said, and she’s not massively keen on how he treated the idea of them being together as something that was laughable, but it doesn’t really feel like it’s worth ending a friendship over, especially not one that’s lasted well over a decade. Besides, she knows what it would be like if she cut Colin out of her life. It would feel a punishment for herself as much as it would be for him. 

“I just- I wanted to make sure,” he says, clearly still a bit uneasy. “We haven’t seen each other all week, and I feel like you haven’t really been responding to my texts, things feel- I don’t know- off, I guess?” 

Penelope bites her lip as guilt seeps into her system. “Life’s just been particularly busy this week, don’t worry about it.”

After a moment of hesitation, Colin nods. “Okay, so I’ll see you soon?” 

She nods, “of course, we’ve got Bridgerton brunch tomorrow.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” 

And now it’s Penelope's turn to hesitate, still after a beat, she says, “yes, Colin, you’ll me soon too. Outside of brunch.”

She can practically hear her heart  calling her an idiot.

Colin pulls her into a hug, she wishes he wasn’t such a good hugger. She’s pretty sure he’s holding her tighter than usual. “I’ve missed you this week, Pen.”

She closes her eyes, takes a breath, and then admits, “I’ve missed you too.” 

He pulls away, keeping a hand on her shoulder. “Okay, I’ll let you get on with things, goodnight, Pen.”

Penelope can’t help but watch him as he walks away, her heart is racing from his hug, the warmth of his embrace washing over her and-

No. No, she can’t keep doing this. This is the whole fucking problem.

With a new sense of resolve, she goes to her desk, pulls out her notebook and writes. 

Reason #7

He invited himself over today without even checking if I was doing anything, clearly he needs to work on considering other people’s time.

xxx

Reason #10

He can’t wink smoothly to save his life. 

xxx

Reason #15

He doesn’t value our friendship. 

If he did, he wouldn’t have laughed about me the way that he did. 

xxx

Reason #20

He’s full of it.

He says that HE wouldn’t date ME, as if I ever said I would date him. He would never make me Penelope Bridgerton, acting as if I would want him to. 

I do want him to, it’s not like he knows that. Unlike him, I know how to be subtle about things. 

xxx

Reason #21

He keeps checking in on me, it’s very clingy. 

xxx

Reason #26

He takes the last piece of food without checking if anyone else wants it. 

xxx

Reason #30

I overheard him saying to Gregory that you can never really know how a girl feels about you until you tell them your own feelings. He very easily could have known how I feel felt about him if he’d just opened his eyes. 

Clearly he gives shit dating advice. 

xxx

Reason #37

He puts too much conditioner in his hair. 

(That one isn’t even true, and she knows it, but she doesn’t rip out the page.)

xxx

Day 50 check in:

I’m still in love with him.

xxx

Penelope knows that she’ll never get over Colin if she doesn’t meet other people. 

The idea of it is a bit horrifying to Penelope, creating apps on dating profiles, talking to and meeting up with strangers, actually putting herself out there- when she thinks about it too much it makes her want to bury herself in her bed and never leave. But moving on from Colin has to start somewhere, so (with a bit of liquid courage and the help of her friends) she goes on hinge and tinder. It’s a bit of a minefield to Penelope, but one that she’s navigating nonetheless. 

Some conversations last a few days, others longer, some don’t go anywhere, and some lead to first dates. Ultimately, nothing really sticks, and Penelope isn’t massively surprised. It’s not as if she expected to meet the real love of her life immediately, she was just hoping she could find someone that might help her remember that her romantic feelings don’t have to only exist for Colin. So far, she’s had no luck, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to stop trying. 

That being said, the guy she’s on a date with right now, a guy, is not going to be the person that helps her get over Colin. 

“So, you’re a writer, right?” the guy asks after at least half an hour of talking about himself. “Is that like a hobby or something?” 

Penelope bristles slightly. “No, it’s my career. I’m a columnist for Talk of the Ton.”

“Oh, my sister reads that,” he says. “I always assumed it was just fluff pieces.”

“Maybe you should read it sometime,” she suggests, trying her best to keep the snark out of her voice. 

He gives a non-commital shrug. “You write anything else?” 

“I- uh,” she hesitates. “I’ve written a little bit of a novel but-”

“Let me guess, romance?” 

A frown stretches across her face. “Yes, why?” 

“I mean… Don’t all women write romance?”

It’s honestly impossible not to grimace at that. “Well that’s definitely not true. The murder mystery genre has been revolutionised and practically defined by Agatha Christie.”

“Who?” 

Penelope nearly throws up in her mouth. “You know what, I think maybe we should call it a night here.” 

“Oh, I like the way you think,” the guy smirks in a way that he clearly thinks is sexy, it’s actually much more nauseating in Penelope’s opinion. “So, your place or mine?” 

Penelope’s eyes widen slightly, he can’t seriously think…

Oh. Oh no. 

“I’m actually quite tired, I think I’d rather just head home by myself,” she tells him, doing her best to sound polite. 

Immediately, that stupid smirk drops off of his face and shrivels into a much more bitter expression. “Fine. I’m assuming that you’re gonna pay for this dinner then?”

“Yeah, of course, I can definitely pay for myself-”

“Just yourself? Seriously? You won’t even pay for my food after you wasted my night?” 

She blinks at that, she truly has no idea how to respond. “Um…” 

“Ugh, whatever,” he rolls his eyes, throwing some cash on the table. “Just so you know, you looked way prettier in your profile.” 

‘And you seemed like far less of an arsehole in yours.’

Penelope grimaces, comments like that always sting a little, but it also stings far less than it would if this dickhead’s opinion actually mattered to her. Besides, he’s just lashing out, she knows that, she can take his stupid comments with a pinch of salt. 

She pays for her share of the meal before trying to book an uber, only to find that none are available. Penelope groans internally as she calls El, who picks up on the second ring. “Hey, you okay? I thought you had that da- oh shit, do you need me to call you back in a few minutes as your ‘there’s been an emergency and you need to go to the hospital right now’ call?”

“No, no, nothing like that, I’ve already gotten out of the date,” Pen chuckles lightly. “Though, if I hadn’t, I would definitely take you up on that offer.”

“Ah, I see. It didn’t go well, then?” 

“That’s putting it lightly,” she admits. “Listen, I hate to be a bother, but do you think you could come pick me up? I tried to get an uber but there were none available. I promise I’ll tell you all the awful details in the car.”

“Shit, I wish I could, but I’m in Bath with Phil this weekend,” El tells her regretfully. 

“Oh my god, that was this weekend, I’m so sorry, I completely forgot,” Penelope says. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep trying for an uber-”

“No, no, don’t waste the money,” Eloise says. “I think Fran and Daphne are busy tonight, but give me a few minutes, I’ll see if one of my brothers can come get you.”

“Oh, that’s really not necessary,” Pen says instantly. “I can ring them and see if-”

“It’s okay, Pen, you’ve already had a crappy night, let me help you out. I’ll text you as soon as someone’s on the way.”

“Okay,” she sighs. “But please don’t call-”

“Love you!” Eloise exclaims as she hangs up. 

It doesn’t even take five minutes before Penelope gets a text. 

El: All sorted

Penelope waits outside the restaurant, shivering in the cold and praying to whoever’s up there listening that it’ll be Anthony or Benedict that picks her up. About ten minutes later, a car pulls up, and she would know it from anywhere. With a quiet sigh, she opens the door. “Hey, Colin.”

“Hey,” he says as she gets into the car. “Are you okay? You weren’t waiting long, were you? I’m sorry, I tried to get here as fast as I could but-”

“Colin,” she interrupts him. “I’m okay, you’re all good. I really wasn’t waiting that long.”

“Oh, good,” he says, almost deflating against his seat in relief. 

“Thank you for coming to get me, by the way.” 

“No need to thank me for that, Pen,” Colin tells her immediately. “I’ll always be here when you need me.”

Penelope really wishes he wouldn’t say stuff like that. It makes it so much harder for her to get over him. 

“Thanks, Colin,” she says a tad weakly. 

He simply nods and starts driving. “So… You went on a date?” 

Penelope squints at him. His jaw is clenched, his body seems stiff and, maybe she’s imagining it, but she swears his hands tighten around the steering wheel.

No. That’s just in her head, she’s probably just seeing what she wants to see. 

“Yup,” she nods. 

“El mentioned that it didn’t go very well.” 

“That’s putting it lightly,” she grimaces. 

“What was so bad about it? If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Penelope tells him, frowning as she thinks back on the night. “He was just… Rude, and condescending, and pretty arrogant, actually. Honestly the last kind of person anyone would want to go on a date with.”

“Yikes,” Colin comments, his expression a mirror of hers.  “How on earth did you end up going on a date with a guy like that?”

Her face burns as she mumbles, “He didn’t seem anywhere near as bad on his profile.”

“Oh, you met on a dating app?” Colin asks before his brows furrow. “Wait a second, since when are you on a dating app?” 

Penelope recoils at that, the beginnings of defensiveness already creeping up on her. “It’s just Hinge, and it’s pretty new. You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to, it’s just- I don’t know, I never thought dating apps would be your kind of thing.”

“Why not?”

“I guess I just thought stuff like that would be… out of your comfort zone, or something.”

“Out of my comfort zone?” Penelope repeats, the words dropping into her stomach like lead. “What does that mean? You think I’m too boring for dating apps?”

“What? No!” Colin instantly objects. “God, no, that’s not what I- sorry, maybe comfort zone wasn’t the best choice of words. I just meant that dating apps are mostly filled with people wanting hookups, is that- is that what you’re looking for now?”

At that, she hesitates. “I don’t really know what I’m looking for, but until I figure it out, there’s no harm in putting myself out there a bit.”

“Fair enough,” Colin nods, but Penelope can’t help but notice how stiff it is. “So, what was the worst thing about this guy?”

“God, there are so many things to choose from,” Penelope laughs. “Probably the fact that he didn’t know who Agatha Christie was, although him telling me that I was ugly when I made it clear I wouldn’t sleep with him is certainly a close second.”

“He said what?” Colin’s head whips in her direction immediately, a fire blazing in his eyes that catches her off guard. “What a fucking prick, absolute arsehole-”

“Colin, it’s okay,” she can’t help but smile at his protectiveness, even if it makes her heart twist slightly. 

“No, it absolutely is not-” he objects without missing a beat. 

“It’s not okay that he said it, and he’s definitely a prick and an arsehole,” she clarifies. “But what I meant is that it’s done now, and I’m really not that bothered, so you don’t have to get so angry, it’s okay.” 

“Sorry, Pen, but if someone insults you, I’m going to be angry about it, so agree to disagree,” there’s no room in his voice for arguments, so Penelope doesn’t even try. “You wouldn’t happen to know his address, would you?”

“What would you do if I told you? Beat him up?” Penelope asks in a joking tone. 

“I might.”

“Colin, come on,” she let out a sound that’s half scoff and half laugh.

“What?” His frown is instant, and almost offended. 

“You wouldn’t do that. You’re not your brothers. Barging into places and threatening to beat people up isn’t really your style.”

“It could be if the person deserved it,” he grumbles. “This guy would definitely deserve it.”

“Maybe so, but he’s not worth it. He’s not even worth thinking about honestly.”

Colin scowls begrudgingly. “Fine, but if we ever see him in public somewhere I’m not holding back from telling him exactly what I think about him.”

“Alright, fine, is that ever happens you can let him have it,” Penelope tells him, deciding to leave out the fact that, if they ever did see this guy, she wouldn’t actually mention it. 

“Good,” a grin spreads across his face. “Don’t worry, Pen, by the sounds of it, you dodged a bullet. You couldn’t be with someone who doesn’t know Agatha Christie. I mean, how do you not know who she is? The murder mystery genre wouldn’t be what it is without her.”

“That’s what I said!” 

They spend the rest of the car ride talking about the renowned author, marvelling over her most iconic books as well as the crazy cool life she lived outside of her writing. It’s nice, it feels safe, and it’s a pretty great way to stop herself from thinking about how angry Colin got on her behalf earlier. She knows that he just got that way because he’s a good guy and a good friend, but if that thought lay idle in her mind for too long, Penelope would inevitably take it and twist it into something it isn’t. She can’t afford to do that, not anymore. 

“I have to admit, I had no idea that you knew so much about Agatha Christie,” Penelope says as they pull up in front of her building. 

“I’ve been listening to audio books recently,” Colin confesses. “You’ve just always loved her writing so much, I wanted to know why so we could talk about it.”

Penelope’s rather glad that she’s sitting, because she’s fairly sure that if she were standing she would melt to the floor. “You read Agatha Christie… for me?” 

Colin nods, and she swears that her heart skips a beat. “I like knowing why you like things.”

It’s such a beautiful thing for him to say, it's a shame that it has to break her heart. “That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me, Colin, thank you.”

“No need to thank me, if anything, I should be thanking you for introducing me to Agatha Christie,” he says, throwing a little crooked grin in her direction. For a moment, he hesitates, his expression dropping into something a little more pensive, before he leans over to her and presses a soft kiss to her cheek. Penelope swears she can hear her own flatline as everything inside of her crashes and stops functioning. “Goodnight, Pen.”

For a moment, all they do is stare at each other. Colin’s gaze is intense, a little too much for Penelope, but she can’t bring herself to look away from him, not when she’s not sure if he’ll ever look at her like this again. His gaze flickers to her lips, and she lets hers go down to his lips too. It would be so easy to bridge the gap between them, to press her lips to his and get something she’s wanted for such a long time, but she can’t. She knows what would happen, things would get awkward, he would be forced to reject her, or they wouldn’t talk about it at all and things would splinter between them until they were practically a thing of dust. To kiss him would be to go to a point of no return. 

Penelope’s pretty sure Colin could survive it, but she knows that she couldn’t. 

“Good… Goodnight,” she just about manages to get out before she remembers that she needs to actually get out of his car. She does just that, wishing things would be a bit more normal between them so she could invite him up to her flat like she would at literally any other time. “Thank you for picking me up.”

“Anytime,” he says, something dangerously close to disappointment shining in his eyes. He gives her one final wave before driving off, and all Penelope can do is stare off after him. 

When she gets up to her flat, tears are already forming in her eyes. Her heart is racing and it’s taking everything inside of her to stay rooted in reality when all she wants to do is float off into the clouds. There’s a part of her that wonders if she’ll ever be able to spend time with Colin without falling a little more in love with him, there’s another part of her that doesn’t want to know. 

What she does know is what she has to do now. 

Penelope goes over to her desk, gets her journal out and starts writing. 

Reason #55

He says he would never date me or marry me but he got into Agatha Christie for me AND nearly kissed me. 

The mixed signals are bloody infuriating.

She feels guilty, but as she stares at the words on the page, she doesn’t regret it either.

xxx

Reason 60

Colin’s spent his whole life being given whatever he wants, I’m not sure he actually knows how to value anything. 

(Once again, that’s not true. Colin’s been rejected and fought to get things that he wants in life, he’s not been given everything, but it’s what Penelope needs to believe, so she writes it anyways.)

xxx

Reason 62

He really knows how to lead a girl on. 

(‘Does he? Does he really?’ A voice in Penelope’s head asks as she writes it down, she doesn’t have an answer, she doesn’t want to give an answer.) 

xxx

They haven’t talked about their almost kiss. 

It’s not as if they haven’t talked at all, they’ve talked a lot actually- about their jobs, their families, even about the dinners they’ve been eating. So yes, they’ve been talking, but not about any of the stuff that really matters. 

Sometimes Penelope wishes that they weren’t as good at that as they are, but then she remembers some of things they’re not talking about, and she thinks that it might be for the best. 

That doesn’t make right now any less awkward though. 

They’re in Aubrey Hall with the rest of the Bridgertons, a yearly tradition that Penelope has never not looked forward to until this year. Usually she loves spending time with Eloise and the whole family, and she would always try to see if there would be any time that she could get some one on one time with Colin (her heart always used to flutter when she would find that he was doing the same- he always liked to use Aubrey Hall to steal her away from Eloise). Now, she wants to avoid that very same Bridgerton like the plague. Between the shit he said that they haven’t talked about, and their almost kiss that they also haven’t talked about… they can talk random stuff over text and it’s fine, she’s not so sure that they could get away with that in real life, and she doesn’t particularly want to find out. 

So she’s been dodging him, not completely, it is his family and his house afterall, but she’s made sure to avoid situations where they’re alone together, and so far, it’s working. It helps that they practically have twenty people in the house, a buffer at every corner. 

Now, they all sit in a circle, tipsily playing ‘shag, marry, kill’. She’s sitting across from Colin, and if she can feel his eyes burning into her, she sure as hell doesn’t show it. 

“Alright, Colin, your turn!” Benedict declares. “Penelope, Cressida, Marina.”

“Kill Cressida, obviously,” Colin responds immediately. “Kill Marina too-”

“Didn’t you used to have a huge crush on Marina?” Daphne asks. Penelope’s stomach tightens as she downs the rest of her drink. 

Damn. She loves drinking, it’s already making her feel a bit lighter. 

“Used to,” Colin repeats with a bit more force than she expects. “Trust me, I am long over it and not interested in shagging her. So yeah, kill Cressida and Marina and marry Pen. Easy.”

Penelope scoffs before she can stop herself. The downside of drinking. It makes her body feel lighter, but it makes her lips definitively looser. “Be real, Colin.”

For the first time since she got here, their gazes lock as he frowns. “What?”

“You don’t have to say you’d marry me just because I’m in the room.”

“I’m not,” he says and Penelope can’t help but feel a bit sceptical, there’s a feeling inside of her that she can’t shake- one that reminds her that his answer would probably be very different were she not here. She already knows how he talks about their friendship when she’s not around, she doubts that that’s changed.

Something tells her that, if she keeps going, this argument (if it can even be called that) will just go round and round in circles. “Yeah, okay.”

He narrows his eyes at her. “Penelope-”

“It’s my turn isn’t it?” She cuts him off immediately. 

“Uh- yeah, I think so,” Hyacinth replies, and if she’s eyeing her and Colin suspiciously, Penelope ignores it. “Right, Pen, shag, marry, kill- Ant, Ben and Colin. Go.”

“Okay, well I guess… I’d shag Anthony, marry Benedict and  kill Colin.”

“I beg your pardon?!” Colin’s jaw drops, indignation written all over him. “You’d kill me?! You’d marry Benedict?!”

“Oi! What’s so wrong with marrying me?” Benedict questions, but there’s just a little too much amusement in his eyes for his offence to be serious. 

“Benedict just has a sort of… chaos about him, I feel like he would make for a fun husband,” Penelope replies.  

“Damn right!” Benedict cheers, giving her a high five. “I’m a fun husband, right Soph?”

“Absolutely, darling,” Sophie grins as he kisses her cheek. 

“Alright, whatever, but still- you wouldn’t even shag me? Why am I the kill?” 

“There aren’t any other options, Col, it’s just the game.”

“I know but you’re not supposed to kill me! I’m your best friend!” 

“No you’re not!” Eloise objects without missing a beat.

Colin briefly glares at his sister. “Fine, I’m one of your best friends, I can’t believe you’d kill me!”

“I’m not actually killing you!” Penelope defends, not even sure why this is bugging him so much. “Did you really want me to choose you to shag that much?”

“I wanted you to choose me to marry!” he exclaims. “I chose you!”

She scoffs again, some part of her brain is telling her to stop here, to not say the words sizzling on the tip of her tongue, unfortunately the alcohol in her system is dulling that voice. “Well, yeah, today, but you’ve also said you wouldn’t make me Penelope Bridgerton in a million years so I’m not exactly gonna choose you to marry, am I?” 

“Wait, what?” 

Has the room always been this silent? It didn’t feel this silent before. Fuck, why is it so silent? The Bridgertons are hardly known for their peace and quiet, why is nobody saying anything? And why is Colin staring at her so… Intently?

It’s in that moment that her own words catch up with her. Regret and embarrassment threaten to shut down her whole body as Penelope shuts her eyes. 

Fuuuuuuck. 

“What the hell?” Eloise gives her most menacing glare to Colin. “You fucking wanker, you actually said that?”

“I- I don’t…” Colin trails off, looking at her with pure confusion in his eyes. Somehow, that makes her feel worse. “Pen, what are you… when did I…”

“Um, you know, it really doesn’t matter. You can just forget that I said that. It’s fine,” she rushes out. 

“Penelope-”

“I think it’s getting late,” Penelope practically blurts out, slamming her cup down onto the table with so much force that some of its contents spill over the rim and onto the table. She lets out a laugh, and promptly cringes at how forced it sounds. “I’m pretty knackered, I’m gonna head to bed, night guys.”

She barely registers the chorus of goodnights that the other Bridgertons say as she flees from the room. Penelope goes as fast as her feet will take her, desperate to get to her room, throw herself onto her bed, and forget that the last few minutes ever happened. Unfortunately, no matter how fast she is, Colin Bridgerton is faster. 

Eloise is right. He is a wanker. 

(A wanker that she’s head over heels in love with- but that’s not an issue she particularly wants to get into right now.)

“Pen! Pen, hang on!” Colin’s suddenly in front of her. “What were you talking about just now? When did I say that?” 

“I already told you it really doesn’t matter, Colin-”

“Except that it does,” he interrupts with a frown. “It hurt your feelings-”

“It didn’t hurt my feelings,” Penelope protests, though she’s not sure why, she wouldn’t believe her. 

Clearly, Colin doesn’t either. “Pen.”

She bites her lip. “Alright, fine, it hurt my feelings for like a second, but it was months ago, and you only said it because Ant and Ben were teasing you so it’s not like you were trying to be mean, you just said it and I happened to hear it. That's all.”

All Colin seems to be doing is staring at her, the confusion apparently softening as she watches the cogs turn in his head. “Wait a second, are you talking about my mum’s party? Is that why you’ve been so off with me?” 

Penelope opens her mouth and closes it a few times, trying to find an answer but feeling a little too caught out to do so. “I…”

“It is!” he exclaims in realisation. “You kept saying that we were fine but I knew something was wrong! I knew that we were off!”

Her lips press into a line. “Colin, I’m really tired, and I’m really not in the right headspace to have this conversation. Can we please drop it?”

“Pen, we need to talk about this.”

“And we can, just… not right now. Not tonight. Please,” she says, not even bothering to hide the exhaustion from her voice. 

She watches the conflict play out on Colin’s face before he lets out a reluctant sigh. “Fine, but this conversation isn’t over.”

Penelope almost winces at the sheer determination in his voice. She knows that she’s going to have to come up with a whole bunch of strategies to avoid Colin and this conversation, but right now, she just wants to go to sleep. So she goes to her room and that’s exactly what she does. 

She’s going to have to avoid Colin for as long as she possibly can, that’s going to take some energy, she needs all the rest she can get. 

xxx

Penelope knows that she shouldn’t be, but she’s actually quite proud of herself for managing to avoid Colin for three days. 

She knows that he wants to have a conversation, and she knows that she’s being a bit unfair to him by doing everything in her power to block said conversation, but she can’t help it. Penelope doesn’t want to talk about it, simple as that. Why the hell would she willingly want to talk about one of the most humiliating nights of her entire life? 

Colin probably wants to give her some sort of explanation, and even though she understands why he wants to do that, she doesn’t need it, but if she tells him that he’ll just insist they have the conversation anyways and Penelope will end up unearthing feelings that she’d really rather remain buried. 

Avoiding Colin is actually easier than she expects, she just stays out of the house practically all day, except for when she’s in the gardens. The gardens of Aubrey Hall are massive, Penelope quite enjoys finding little corners and pockets amongst the trees to get lost in, they make for pretty great journaling spots. When she leaves the house, she goes into the town centre with Eloise, they shop, they go to the cinema, they just hang out, it’s exactly what she needs. Plus, Eloise is bloody furious with Colin for the things he said, which means she’s not pushing her into talking to him. She will talk to Colin eventually, she just wants a little bit of time to pass so that things can settle, that’s all. 

Overall, Penelope thinks she’s handling things quite well… right up to the point where she loses her journal. 

She’s in the garden when she realises, she goes to take her journal out of her bag only to be met with air. Panic sweeps and slices through her chest with an alarming amount of precision as she frantically starts searching for it. Maybe she dropped it somewhere? But where? The last place she remembers having it is here, then when she had to leave to hang out with Eloise, she put it in her bag, where the hell could it have gone?

Oh god, if someone else finds it- if someone reads it- how on earth would she be able to explain why there’s a whole list of Colin insults in there?

Frantically, she rushes to find Eloise with Frannie in the living room with Frannie. El raises an eyebrow at her, “you okay, babes?”

“Have either of you seen my journal?” 

“No, sorry,” Francesca frowns. “I’ll keep an eye out for it though, what does it look like?”

“It’s blue, and it has patterns of moons and stars on the front,” Penelope describes, before her eyes anxiously flit to her best friend. “El?”

“Sorry, Pen, I haven’t seen it,” Eloise apologises. “But I’ll have a look for it when I get the chance. Where was the last place you had it?”

“In the garden,” she replies, a little miserably. “I already checked and I couldn’t find it  anywhere. I can’t lose my journal, it means way too much to me. It’s- I- I really can’t-”

“Pen, hey, it’s alright,” Eloise reassures her, “I know you’ve already looked in the garden, but  there’s no harm in having a second go, next time I’m in the gardens I’ll have a little hunt for it, and if anyone else finds it I’ll make sure they text you as soon as possible, sound good? ” 

“Yeah,” she nods. “Sorry guys, I know I’m probably being a little overly intense about my journal, it’s just-”

“Don’t worry, Pen, I get it,” Francesca says. “If I lost my journal, I’d quietly be losing my mind a little bit.”

Penelope practically deflates with relief, it’s nice to know that there are people who get it. “Thanks. And thank you for looking out for my journal, both of you.”

“No need to thank us,” Eloise dismisses immediately. “You know what, we’re both free right now. Come on, let’s go have another look.”

And so, they search. And search and search and search and ultimately come out empty handed. They all look absolutely everywhere, quite literally leaving no stone unturned. Between the three of them, it takes time, but they cover the whole garden and there’s still no sign of her journal anywhere, a fact that makes Penelope sigh with defeat. 

“Sorry, Pen,” Eloise grimaces.

“Maybe someone picked it up and put it down in the house somewhere,” Frannie offers. 

“Yeah maybe,” Penelope says. “I could’ve sworn the last place I had my journal was here, but who knows, maybe I brought it up to my room and forgot or something, I’ll go check now.”

Her friends nod as El says, “that sounds like a good idea, let us know if you find it, yeah?”

“Will do.” 

Penelope prays to any higher power that will listen to make it so that her journal really is just in her room, at least that way she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone accidentally reading it and thinking she has some huge vendetta against the third Bridgerton son. 

When she gets to her room, she finds said Bridgerton son standing right in front of her, her journal in his hand, his eyes a beautifully tragic storm of hurt, betrayal, and anger. “Looking for this?” 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

“Why do you,” Penelope begins, her voice suddenly giving out, nerves getting the best of her. She clears her throat and tries again. “Why do you have my journal?”

“I noticed it in the garden and recognised your handwriting, I was going to just bring it up here and leave it… and then I noticed what you were writing.” 

“Oh,” she gulps, her heart lodged firmly in her throat. “How much of it did you read?” 

“I had a little flip through it,” he says, and Penelope’s not sure if she’s more terrified of him seeing the insults or of him seeing one of the pages where she admits to being in love with him. “Nice to know what you really think of me, Penelope.” 

She bites her lip. “Colin-”

“That last one was especially interesting,” he scowls, handing her the book. She gulps, already knowing exactly what he’s talking about. 

Reason 70

He claims to want purpose but he’s not willing to stay anywhere long enough to find it. Purpose in life isn’t some treasure chest you find on the spot marked X. It takes time and effort, effort that he doesn’t really put in. Sometimes I think he wants purpose to find him, and until he’s willing to commit to anything, it never will. And if he doesn’t change that, he might be unhappy forever. 

Penelope winces, she didn’t remember it sounding that harsh. “I know that his looks bad-”

“I don’t think it looks bad, I’m pretty sure it just is bad,” Colin tells her coldly, and Penelope really doesn’t have any defence against that. “I do have a question for you, though.”

“Colin-”

“If you really think of me as this flighty, indecisive, selfish, clingy arsehole who apparently uses way too much conditioner, why are you even friends with me?” he questions sharply. “Why do you even want to be friends with me?” 

“I…”

“Is this meant to be revenge or something? For what I said at that party?” Colin questions. “I mean, seriously, Penelope. What were you even going to do with this? Type it out and send it to  my family?” 

“No!” She exclaims, horrified that he thinks she would ever do that. “God, Colin, of course not! Nobody else knows about it, and I wasn’t planning for anyone to know about it. It was- it was just for me.”

“Oh, well that’s a real comfort. You weren’t planning on exposing your list of my flaws to my family, you just wanted to keep it for yourself to read whenever you felt like it so you could remind yourself of what a shitty person I am.”

“That’s not why I did it,” Penelope defends, but it sounds weak, even to her own ears. 

“Why did you do it then?” Colin looks at her, his gaze so sharp it slices right through her. But then it softens, and somehow that’s worse, because now all she can see is his vulnerability, and she’s reminded of the fact that she hasn’t just pissed him off, she’s hurt him. “Why did you write this? Please, Penelope, help me understand why you wrote this because I’ve been trying to figure it out and I keep coming up empty.”

The raw pain in his voice is almost too much for her to bear. Penelope wishes she could be different, a bit braver, a bit less like her mother, because now- when she knows she could even the playing field by revealing her own vulnerability- all she can focus on is how to keep her deepest secret close to her heart and far away from the real world because it’s self-preservation- and sometimes Penelope thinks that self-preservation is all she knows. “I, um…”

His eyes flash with disappointment. “You know what the worst part is? I’ve been trying so hard these last months to make things right with us- being punished for something I didn’t even know I’d done wrong- and the whole time you didn’t care, you just wanted to focus on everything that’s wrong with me because I said one stupid thing at a party.”

“Don’t do that,” Penelope snaps, even though she knows she has no reason to be angry in this conversation. “I wasn’t punishing you for what you said. I was trying to take some space to process my feelings because you hurt me that night when you said… what you said. Everything I’ve written doesn’t just erase that. My journal is worse, I’ll give you that, but that doesn’t mean that you haven’t done anything wrong either.”

Colin stares at her for a moment, before relenting, “you’re right, I fucked up too, and I’m so sorry about what I said- but, Penelope, why didn’t you talk to me about it? If I’d known- I could’ve apologised so much sooner- but you chose to keep it to yourself and write that bloody journal. Why?”

“I didn’t want your apologies, Colin,” she tells him, tears springing to her eyes that she quickly wipes away. “It’s not like you said anything wrong, I mean, maybe you could have said it in a nicer way but you weren’t trying to be malicious, I knew that. I just- I needed to process my feelings on my own.”

“And writing that journal was the way to do that?”

“No! I mean, I don’t- I don’t know.”

“Was it a way to stay mad at me?” 

“No! It was never about being angry with you-”

At that, Colin barks out an incredulous laugh. “What the hell was it about then? If it wasn’t about being angry with me then- then- what, Penelope?” 

She can hear the desperation in his voice, the way he so badly wants her to explain it to him so he can understand, they’re Colin and Pen, they’ve always understood each other. But now, she understands him too well and he doesn’t- he can’t- understand her at all, it’s a pretty shit combination and what’s worse, Penelope is too afraid to change it because self preservation and cowardice go annoyingly well together. “I… I had my reasons.”

“I had my reasons?” Colin repeats, staring at her like she’s grown two heads. “Are you kidding me? That’s all you’re gonna give me? You don’t think I deserve a little bit more than that?” 

He does, Penelope knows that he does, but when she tries to give that to him, her words fail her. “My reasons are- they’re personal, Colin-”

“Personal? You want to talk about personal?” He glares at her in a way she’s not sure she’s ever seen before. “This is one of the personal things I’ve ever read about myself- and I didn’t even write the damn thing!”

“I know- I know it’s bad-”

“I always thought that you saw me,” Colin confesses, all of the anger suddenly drained from his voice and giving way to something much sadder. She wishes he would just be angry, it’s easier for her to digest. “There have been times where I’ve felt like you’re the only person who sees me, that you understood the real me, the me my family don’t even really know about. But no, turns out you see me in the same way my family do, as some shallow dick who can’t stay in one place for five seconds.”

“That’s not true!” 

“I read the journal, Penelope!” Colin counters immediately, voice just under a shout. “I may not have read it all, but I read more than enough, I have a pretty good idea of how you actually see me!”

Penelope winces. “Colin-”

“I mean, my God, you must think I’m pretty pathetic if you’re writing-”

“I don’t think you’re pathetic!” Penelope defends immediately, though even she can admit it’s not much of a defence. “I don’t, Colin, I swear.”

Colin stares at her, hope briefly lighting and then being snuffed out by resignation in his eyes. “I really wish I could believe you.” 

Helplessly, all she finds herself offering is, “I’m sorry.”

Colin sighs. “Can’t you just give me one reason why you wrote it? Just one, that’s all I’m asking for, Penelope. Can you even give me that?” 

Once again, her self-preservation instincts flare up. Penelope doesn’t want to think about what it says about her that she’s willing to save herself at the detriment of one of the most important friendships in her life. “I can’t.”

For a moment, there’s nothing but silence, and it just makes it all the easier for Penelope to focus on the way hurt flashes and burns across Colin’s face. Abruptly, he stands up. “Right. Right, okay. I’m going to go. If I stay I know I’m going to say shit that I’ll end up regretting- I don’t want to give you any more material for your little journal.”

And with that, Colin leaves, and all Penelope can do is burst into tears. 

xxx

It takes Penelope a few hours to accept what she has to do. 

Really, she’d known what she had to do the moment Colin found out about the journal, but her heart hadn’t been ready to accept it. Now, it may not fix everything, it probably won’t change anything, but it still feels like the only thing to do, the right thing to do.

She has to tell Colin how she feels. 

It’s an odd thing to think about, her love for Colin has always been her most cherished secret, the one kept closest to her heart, and now she’s about to let it out into the open where anything can happen to it. It can be crushed or mangled or defeated, and Penelope will have no choice but to just let it happen. Once she lets Colin know that he has her heart, she can’t protect it anymore, he can do whatever he wants with it, even if that means destroying it. It terrifies her more than she can put into words, but she also knows that she can’t keep her love a secret any longer. 

Her biggest fear about telling Colin that she loves him has always been that it would ruin things between them, but Penelope’s fairly certain that she’s already ruined everything between them, so really, what does she have to lose?

It’s that thought that stops her from backing out as she forces herself to walk to Colin’s door and knock. When he opens it and sees her, there’s a frown on his face, “Penelope…”

“Look, I know that you’re super mad at me, maybe you even hate me, I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” she rushes out, ignoring how her heart tightens at the idea of Colin hating her. “But, please, just let me talk for five minutes- not even that- and I swear afterwards I’ll give you your space.”

His reservations are clear as day on his face, but still he says, “I don’t hate you, Pen. I could never hate you. But I don’t know if I can talk to you right now.”

“Then don’t talk, just- just listen.” 

 “I don’t know…”

“Please, Colin.”

Penelope watches the conflict play out in his expressions before he sighs, “okay, come in.”

She does just that, turning to him as he shuts the door, she can’t stop fiddling with her fingers. “I’m ready to give you a reason for the journal.” 

“Really?” 

She nods, “I’m sorry I couldn’t earlier, it’s just- I know it’s massively hypocritical of me to say it considering what I wrote in my journal- but my reason is very personal, and it’s something that I’ve kept private for a really long time now, like, way before this journal ever existed, and it’s- it’s hard to let go of that.”

His brows furrow. “I’m uh- I’m not entirely sure that I’m following.”

Penelope bites her lip. There are so many things she could say right now. So many ways to stall, deflect, to talk around what she wants to say. She could ramble until she feels mentally prepared to say it, could build up to it and hype it up in a thousand different ways, but ultimately, no matter what she said, it would all lead up to the same thing, and that was the whole reason she’d come to Colin’s room in the first place. So, holding onto her resolve, she finally tells him the truth that’s been in her heart for years. “I love you, Colin.”

The way his eyes widen would be funny under almost any other circumstance, “you… what?”

“I love you,” she repeats with a sad smile. “I’m in love with you, and I have been since the moment we met.”

Penelope can practically see the cogs turning in his head. “You… with me… since… but that- that doesn’t make any sense. How could you possibly be in love with me and then also manage to write that journal?”

She bites her lip. “I know that this will probably sound a bit ridiculous, but the journal exists because of the fact that I’m in love with you. 

For a moment, Colin simply stares at her like she’s sprouted a second head. Honestly, she can’t blame him for that. “Well, you’re right, that does sound ridiculous.”

“Just… just hear me out,” she pleads. His lips purse together but he says nothing, which she takes as a sign to keep going. “Colin, I’ve been in love with you since before I even knew what love was. You laughed, and that was it, my heart was yours, but even when I was younger, I think there was always some part of me that knew you’d never feel the same way, and I fooled myself into thinking that I was okay with that, that I could live with it, but then you said what you said that party and I…” 

His face softens at that. “Pen, I’m so sor-”

“I knew that I had to get over you,” she rushes out, ignoring the tears pricking at her eyes. The stinging sensation in her eyes is nothing compared to the stabbing sensation in her chest. “It’s just- it’s too much for me, Colin. It’s too painful. And it’s not your fault, I never expected you to love me back, but I can’t spend the rest of my life being in love with you. I just can’t. So I wrote a journal of all your flaws to remind myself that you’re not this perfect man I’ve always thought of you as. I’ve been writing in it for months, and you want to know the worst part? It didn’t even work.”

“Pen-”

“You think that you’re the pathetic one, but you’re not. I am,” Penelope confesses, tears streaming down her face. “I wrote down a whole journal filled with your flaws- I wrote in flaws that you don’t even have- and I’m still in love with you.  Because even if you had every single one of these flaws and more- I would still love you. How pathetic is that?”

“Pen- no. That’s not- that’s not pathetic at all.”

“It is,” she insists because, as she really thinks about it, she realises just how pathetic the whole journal has been. “Look I- I didn’t come in here to make you feel bad for me. I messed up, I know that and I don’t expect you to forgive me, I just- I wanted to be honest with you, and I wanted to give you this.”

She holds the journal out to Colin, who simply looks at it with knitted brows. “Why are you giving me this?” 

“Ideally because you’ll read it, but you’d be well within your rights to burn it if you wanted to,” Penelope jokes before cringing, a wave of regret washing over her. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that- I mean, you can burn it if you want, I wouldn’t stop you, but- uh, you know what I’m rambling, let me try this again,” she takes a breath, trying to calm her nerves and not quite managing it. Still, she manages to temper them enough to get her words out. “You can do whatever you want with the journal, it’s yours now, but I’m hoping you’ll read it because if you do you’ll see that the journal really isn’t about your flaws at all. Every time I see you, I fall in love with you a little more, and I give you a little bit more of my heart, and I knew that eventually I would have nothing and I couldn’t let that happen- so I wrote that stupid journal. But it was never about you, Colin, it was about me protecting myself. Yes, fine, maybe every now and then there’s a page where I write about a real flaw that you have- but they don’t matter, Colin. You’re a person, you have flaws just like anyone else and I don’t care about any of them because the thing is- no matter how imperfect you are, you’re always going to be perfect for me. But I know that I’ll never be perfect for you and that’s- okay, it is, I just… I…”

Penelope’s not sure when her gaze became so fixated on the floor but she keeps it there. She hears Colin’s gentle voice, his touch featherlight on her arm. “Pen-”

She flinches back immediately, her skin burning where he touched her. “You um- you don’t have to worry too much about seeing me around the house, I’m gonna give you your space, but if you want to talk to me you can. If you don’t, that’s also fine just- do whatever you need to do,” she tells him, placing the journal in his hands. Silence briefly falls over them. “Anyways, that’s all I came here to do so I’ll- I’ll leave you alone now. I hope you know, I really am sorry for everything, Colin. The journal- shutting you out the last couple months- all of it.”

And then she flees from the room before he can say another word. She practically sprints to her room, leaning against the door as it shuts behind her. She’s done it. After all these years of secret yearning and pining from afar, she’s finally told him. Colin knows that she’s in love with him, for the first time in her life, she’s been honest about her feelings. 

It doesn’t feel that good, but it doesn’t feel bad either. 

Penelope shakes her head, moving away from the door. She can’t revel in this moment for too long because now there’s something else she needs to do. 

She grabs her suitcase and starts packing.

xxx

“Bloody trains,” Penelope mutters, staring at the board in front of her. She’d known that getting a train to London on a weekend was risky because of course they did stupid railworks on a weekend, but it’s also an evening weekend train, the writing was practically on the wall for something to go wrong. 

But then again, in the ash and rubble of the explosion that has been her life recently, a delayed train hardly feels like a big deal. 

Penelope sits down, fiddling with her fingers. She’d left Aubrey Hall pretty abruptly, citing a work emergency of needing to go back to London to convince an author with cold feet not to back out of a contract. She’s fairly sure that nobody believed her, but they also didn’t push her, which she appreciates. She’d said her goodbyes and when Violet went to call Colin down Penelope had very quickly said that she’d already said her goodbye to Colin, not exactly the truth but close enough that it didn’t feel like a lie. Still, Penelope’s fairly sure the Bridgerton matriarch saw right through her, given the knowing stare that was fixated on her as soon as she said it. Before she knew it, she was in an uber to the train station (much to the protest of the Bridgertons, all of whom with driving licenses offer to take her), and now she’s here waiting for a train that’s already been delayed by almost an hour. 

She wonders what Colin is doing right now, if he’s reading the journal or burning it. Maybe he’s thrown away and he’s not even thinking about it. Penelope’s not sure why that last option hurts the most. 

‘The seven twenty train to London Paddington is now at platform five. It will be stopping at Chatham, Rochester, Str…’

Penelope tunes out the announcement, getting her ticket ready on her phone as she heads to the platform. She’s only just gotten to the back of the line when a voice rings out, loud, clear, desperate and almost panicked. 

“Pen!” 

She whips around to see Colin running to her at full speed. Before she can even process the sight in front of her, she’s being pulled away from the line. Colin’s arms lock around her waist like he needs to keep her there, her hands instinctively go to rest on his arms as he holds her. “Colin, what- what are you doing?” 

“What am I doing? What are you doing?” He shoots back, a little breathlessly. “When you said you were going to give me some space I didn’t think you meant you were going to leave Aubrey Hall altogether.”

“I just thought it would be easier,” she explains with a small frown, glancing at all the people heading for her train. Penelope tries to disentangle herself from Colin. “And my train’s going to leave in a few minutes so I really need to go-”

His grip on her only tightens. “You’re not getting on that fucking train, Penelope.”

“But I thought that you would want me to-”

“I know you know me better than anybody, Pen, but how about, instead of you assuming what I want, I just tell you what I want?” 

Penelope gulps. “Okay, yeah, that- that sounds like a good idea.”

“I want you to stay,” says Colin immediately. “I want you to come back to Aubrey Hall with me and be with me and, honestly, more than anything else, I want you, Pen.” 

Penelope simply blinks at him. Her brain is pounding and working at a hundred miles a minute to process what he’s just said, but her heart is frozen. Finally, she manages to blurt out, “but don’t you hate me?”

“No, Pen, of course not. I already told you, I could never hate you,” Colin says softly. “Look, I read your journal, and it wasn’t easy, but I’m glad that I did, because it honestly made me realise a lot of things.” 

She gulps. “Like what?” 

“Mainly that I’m an idiot,” he admits. Penelope goes to protest that, but he stops her. “It also made me realise that I haven’t always treated you the way you deserved. You’ve always been my favourite person, Pen, and I don’t think I’ve done a very good job making sure you know that. I should have made it clearer how much you meant to me, but trust me, I intend to change that. I need you to know how I feel.”

“Colin-”

“The truth is if I’d just realised my feelings for you sooner, if I’d told you how I feel about you earlier you never would have had to start that journal in the first place.”

The words run through her brain, but she can’t quite make sense of them. “What do you mean?” 

He smiles nervously, and it’s almost funny to Penelope, because she rarely sees him nervous, and she never in a million years thought that she would ever see him this way over her. “I’m in love with you, Pen.”

For a moment, Penelope is fairly sure she just stops functioning altogether. She’s imagined this moment thousands of times in thousands of different ways with thousands of different responses, but right now, none of them come to her because the truth is getting something you want after a lifetime of convincing yourself you can never have it- it’s pretty paralysing. It almost feels like she’s heard the words from a hologram of Colin. It all looks real enough, sounds real enough too, but if she goes too close, if she tries to touch it, the illusion will be shattered. 

“Pen? Aren’t you going to say anything?”

It’s at that moment that she realises she’s essentially been frozen for God knows how long. All she manages to get out is, “I don’t- I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s uh- that’s fair, I should probably explain,” he says with a chuckle still laced with nerves. She doesn’t think that this is the sort of conversation to be had in the middle of a crowded train station on a Saturday night, but frankly, Penelope’s far too immersed in her own medley of emotions to really care. “If I’m being honest, I think I’ve always been in love with you- and before you scoff and try to tell me otherwise- just listen. I know I’ve already said it, but you really have always been my favourite person, and for a really long time I never really questioned that. In my head, you were my Pen, the person I was closest to in the world, the friend I cherished more than anything. But then I let Ant and Ben get to me at mum’s party and I said the stupidest thing I’ve ever said.”

Her heart jolted at the memory, “Colin, it’s okay, you don’t have to-”

“I felt absolutely wretched afterwards, Pen,” he confesses. “The second I said it, it felt wrong.”

“But you- but you laughed-”

“Because I was being an idiot,” Colin says. “Benedict said something about you being Penelope Bridgerton and I really liked the sound of that, but at the time I couldn’t figure out why, and it freaked me out, so I laughed and I started talking out of my arse. But when I really thought about it, I realised how wrong it was, and I realised why it was wrong and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out before.”

“So the night that you said you would never marry me… was also the night you realised you were in love with me?” 

“Great timing, right?” he chuckles, a hint of self deprecation to it. “I devised this whole plan to romance you, I wanted to show you how good we could be together before I asked you out but then you- you started pulling away, and all I could focus on was trying to get you back, trying to get us back to normal.”

Penelope bites her lip with a grimace. “I’m sorry for pulling away, I should have talked to you.”

He shrugs. “Maybe, but I get why you didn’t, you don’t owe me an apology for that, I probably should have talked to you too, I knew that you weren’t being honest with me, I could have pushed for more of a conversation.”

“I don’t know that I would have been honest with you if you had,” she admits, hating how true her own words are. 

“I’m sure I would have gotten the truth out of you eventually, I can be very pushy when I want to be,” he tells her playfully.

Penelope laughs. “I would have used the word persistent, but yeah you’re not wrong.”

Colin grins, one of his hands coming up to cup her cheek. Penelope’s breath catches in her throat. “There are probably lots of things that we could have done, things that we should have done, but I don’t really care about any of them. What I care about is the fact that I’m here with you now. I love you Penelope Featherington, and if you’ll let me, I plan to show you just how much for the rest of our lives.”

The giggle that escapes is breathless and utterly giddy. “The rest of our lives?”

“Oh yeah,” he says with all the confidence in the world, it makes her heart flutter. “You seriously think that after everything we've been through, I’m ever going to let you go? Absolutely not, I’m in this for life, Featherington.”

Penelope smiles, “well, you’re in luck, Bridgerton, because I happen to want you for the rest of our lives too.” 

The way Colin’s face brightens (his face was already fairly bright), is one of the most adorable and most amusing sights Penelope’s ever seen. He smirks, “Oh yeah? Why’s that?” 

“I think you already know why.”

“I need to hear you say it, Pen.”

Penelope’s not sure her smile could be any wider as she looks up at him. “Because I love you too, Colin Bridgerton.” 

Colin beams and then, in the middle of a crowded train station on a rainy Saturday evening, he kisses her. Their first of many, Penelope thinks with pure elation as she pulls him impossibly closer. She’s imagined their first kiss more times than she can count, has had so many fantasies about what Colin’s lips would feel like pressed against hers, but none of them have even come close to the reality because this is fucking glorious, 

It hasn’t happened the way Penelope’s expected, but she doesn’t really care because she and Colin are here now and, honestly, she wouldn’t have it any other way. 

xxx

Penelope never thought that her life could change so much in one month. 

It’s almost funny, not even that long ago she couldn’t imagine Colin wanting to be her boyfriend, let alone actually being her boyfriend, and now he’s telling her that he loves her practically every day, and not just talking about how much he loves being her boyfriend, but about how much he can’t wait to be her husband. The first few times he said the word it made her head spin. 

They’re not engaged, though she’s fairly sure if Colin had it his way they would be. Penelope was the one who requested to take things slow, not because she doesn’t want to marry Colin (she really does), but because from the very beginning she knew that this would be an adjustment. She’s wanted Colin for so long, and to that end, she’s also thought that she could never have Colin for a long time too. Her brain was never going to rewire itself overnight and she knew that. Going slow simply felt like the best option, and so far, Penelope’s been happy with the pace they’re taking things out, she’s liked having the time to truly settle into her relationship with Colin. 

However, all of this being said, if Colin proposed to her tomorrow, she knows for a fact that she would say yes. 

“Pen?” Colin calls out, as he enters her flat. 

“In here!” She calls from the sofa in the living room. 

Penelope moves her laptop to the side as Colin comes into the room with a grin, he immediately comes to sit next to her and pulls her into a cuddle. She can’t help but smile to herself, she’s known for a while that one of Colin’s main love languages is physical touch, but with her it seems to have increased tenfold. She’s certainly not complaining though. With a quick kiss to her hair, he asks, “so, how was your day, darling?” 

“Pretty standard,” she shrugs. “Nothing particularly good happened… but also nothing particularly bad either. I’ll take that as a win. What about yours?” 

“About the same,” a grin slowly spreads across his face. “I think it’s about to get a lot better though.”

“Oh yeah?” Penelope raises an eyebrow, curiosity beginning to rise. “Why’s that?”

“Because we,” Colin pauses for dramatic effect. Penelope laughs a little, God, she loves this dork with all her heart, “are celebrating tonight!”

“Celebrating? What are we celebrating?”

His hand comes up to his heart in mock offence. Penelope rolls her eyes fondly, what a drama king. “Pen! Do you seriously not remember? Today marks one month since we confessed our eternal love for each-”

“Eternal love for each other?” Penelope giggles. 

“Our love is eternal, Pen.”

“No, I know that,” she says in between bouts of laughter. “But you’re making it sound a lot more romantic than it actually was.”

That actually does offend him. “Excuse you, it was very romantic!”

“It was in the middle of a super busy train station and I was convinced that you hated me like ten minutes before it happened,” Penelope can’t help but point out. She notices her boyfriend’s face begin to fall so she lays a palm on his cheek and leans in gently. “And it was perfect, I loved it, Colin.” 

And just like that, he brightens, stealing a brief kiss from her lips. “See? It was perfect! Very romantic!”

“Alright, yes, it was very romantic,” she concedes. It was, she supposes, the love interest swooping in at the last minute to stop the heroine from leaving and confessing his love for her- it’s a scene she would absolutely eat up if it were in a film. “And for the record, I know that today is the one month anniversary of us getting together. I would never forget that.”

She’s always going to remember that. How could she ever forget the date of one of favourite memories?

“Exactly, it’s been one month since we were finally honest about our feelings for each other- our one month anniversary!”

“Is that a thing that people really celebrate though? The one month anniversary?”

“If it’s not then it should be,” Colin says. “And besides, who cares about other people, we’re gonna celebrate it. I even have something for you!”

“Oh, Colin,” she sputters out as he pulls a wrapped gift out of his bag for her. “This is so sweet but you really shouldn’t have! I feel bad, I don’t have anything for you.”

“Don’t worry about that, love,” Colin smiles at her, though it doesn’t do much to assuage her guilt. “That’s the nice thing about this gift, when you’re done with it, you can give it back to me and that can be your gift to me.”

“What?” Penelope questions with knitted brows, trying to figure out any gift that would work that way. She unwraps the gift to find a beautiful journal, a deep emerald green with the loveliest vine patterns running all over it. “Baby, this is beautiful, thank you so, so much, but I don’t get-”

“Hang on,” he cuts her off with a little smirk. “Look inside.”

She does just that, and a laugh escapes her immediately. Penelope loves this man. She really, really loves him. 

Reasons Why Colin Bridgerton (Aka The Love Of My Life) Actually IS That Great