Title: Self Diagnosis
Summary: Everything is as it was. Logically she knew it would be, but the act of checking, of knowing, soothes her.
A/N: I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, please forgive my broad generalizations. Written in response to a challenge at Our Little Corner.
---
She loves spring cleaning. It doesn't matter that she doesn't really live here anymore, that it's actually summer and she's only in Stars Hollow for a weekend. It's still oddly cathartic to toss away remnants of the past year, to sort pens from pencils. She alphabetizes her CDs, ensures the spines of her books all face the right direction.
A survey of her 'boyfriend boxes' reveals little, she thinks. They sit in measured rows, lined up chronologically. She pulls down the most recent addition, 'Huntzburger, Logan', and gently lifts the lid.
---
Diagnosis - 301.81:
He brought out the narcissist in her. She sifts through the debris he left behind, pushing aside the rocket, the key to his apartment that she never gave back. She wants to think these things are his fault, his legacy, convinces herself that she was different with him. Jess said so, Jess who could read her through and through, who left margin notes just beneath her skin, Jess who branded her. Who was she to contradict him?
It is easy to pack his box, easier than it should be considering the circumstances of their break. It's soothing to fold the acid-free tissue around the treasures hidden there, to carefully file her notes from the paper.
She is tucking away her time with him, her actions with him. She thinks it's possible she should stop blaming him, but she's Rory, and Rory would never have done those things without his influence.
No, he's been packed away.
She's above that behaviour.
---
Diagnosis - 301.10:
The next box is the heaviest of the bunch. It's weighed down with every Hemmingway she's ever tried to muddle her way through. She loves him for forcing her to read them, if only so she could fare better in their debates.
She pulls each item out of his box and runs her fingers over them reverently. She's forgotten just how many of her favourite books, CDs are in here. One lonely copy of Almost Famous she had purchased on a whim and never had the chance to give him. For a second she's tempted to find spaces for them on her shelves, stow a few in her bag when she heads back out on the campaign trail. She quashes the thought when she realizes just how much it would hurt to read his words in the margins.
She hates him for taking these books from her.
She hates herself for knowingly destroying him. Well, mostly herself, it was really all Logan's influence. Rory alone would never do such a horrible thing. She hates all three of them until she realizes that it's supposed to all be over and maybe she shouldn't care anymore anyway.
That's really all Jess is to her now, a messy combination of love and hate and apathy and passion and it's all so indecipherable that she has the impulse to throw everything back in the box and forget about it. Try to forget about it. She feels bipolar.
---
Diagnosis - 301.6:
She snags an old leather bracelet between her fingers and pulls it up to examine it closer. There's an urge to tie it on quickly, to feel the strength of his convictions if not hers. Dean had been a touchstone - reliable, solid, dependable.
SafeSafeSafe.
She remembers the way they both desperately clung to each other, or at least to the relationship even as the end was inevitable. She remembers wanting to want him so much it hurt. She had grown dependant on him, on the knowledge that she had the best first (and third) boyfriend in the world.
Being with Dean was comfort and community. He was Stars Hollow in human form and hadn't she always loved Stars Hollow? Dean was easily filed, 'True, Too Good to be'.
He was solid, even when he was falling apart. She thinks he's a little like her in that way. She'd like to think that. Dean was desperation. She'd needed him to help her grow up.
First kiss, first time, first manipulation, first adultery.
She's always been good at needing.
---
The boxes fit securely in the same closet they came out of. The contents are identical to the last time she had them open. Everything is as it was. Logically she knew it would be, but the act of checking, of knowing, soothes her.
As she heads out of Stars Hollow she prides herself on her near clinical detachment. She had faced her past, she had prevailed.
Check. Done. Off the list.
---
Diagnosis - 301.4
---
Challenge: Write a one shot either all description, or all dialogue.