Author: Scarlettmarch
Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls or the title of the story, which is the name of a Velvet Underground song. It just reminded me all too perfectly of Rory, Jess, and their relationship.
Setting: Supplement story to the February 10th episode of Gilmore Girls.
Pale Blue Eyes
I ran over the plan in my head as I took the train ticket from the clammy hands of the person behind the wall of glass at the station. Coming back to reclaim my car was the perfect disguise to check up on Stars Hollow and its inhabitants. It would be nice, I told myself, to clear the air between Luke and myself, and to see what my mother's new boyfriend was just as big of an asshole as his predecessors were.
And to see Rory.
But, as I kept on telling myself over and over again, she was not a reason why I was going back to the godforsaken town of Stars Hollow. I had no desire to see those eyes, hear that voice, kiss those lips. Oh, who was I fucking kidding? Not myself.
The conductor's voice rang loud and clear over the bustle of the train, "Stars Hollow, next stop!" breaking my silent soliloquy. I still hadn't figured out what to say when I saw her, but it would come eventually. I slipped the book I had been rustling through into my back pocket, and gathering up my bag and jacket, made my way towards the exits.
The bright light of the town, seemingly sharper, clearer, and more distinct than anywhere else I had ever been, hit me with full force as I stepped outside of the station. In New York, the air weighed heavily on one's soul, pushing down upon it and tainting it with its dark poison. And in sunny California, it fell lazily upon all, never demanding or pushing. But here, in unassuming Stars Hollow, each day was a holiday, where it would be just be another mundane twenty-four hours everywhere else. And the sun seemed to cut through the trees and illuminate all the members of its population. Maybe it wasn't the sun that made everything feel so much more real here, that made everything hurt so much more deeply. Maybe it was just her.
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The town seemed to be full of her ghosts; everywhere I turned I imagined her sitting, or reading, or chattering to Lorelai, or walking, or doing whatever else she did that captivated me so. But I'm not ready to see her yet, unworthy of her presence until I can give sufficient reason why I'm like this, why I can't be whomever she deserves. And so, I avoid the places she might be: Luke's, Doose's Market, the bridge.
So there I am, drinking the most terrible coffee ever in Weston's Bakery, when she waltzes in with her bobbed hair tossed from the wind and her cheeks red from the sharpness of the wind and the cold.
She looks at me with those eyes wide in shock. I'm not ready to face her, to deliver my confession.
"I'm leaving," I mutter in her direction as I rush out the door, running away once again from her.
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As I enter the bookstore, I hope that fate will smile upon me this one instant and keep her away from this place. Still, I'm not ready. But I need some place to go to, somewhere to escape from the ghosts that are haunting me continuously. And the one place I've ever known to escape to is inside a book, yet my trustworthy backdoor exit has failed me for the first time. In every book I pick up she's there, taunting me. In Gatsby and Daisy, Rhett and Scarlett, Ethan and Mattie, and even Romeo and Juliet, I see the two of us, doomed lovers deemed never to be.
And all of a sudden, she's there again, staring at me painfully hard, and I know it's not the time or the place.
So, again, I run.
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I get in the car and realize that this is my clean exit. There are two options here: I could uphold the false pretense under which I returned to this town. Yet, without even verbalizing it in my mind, I know that I have to choose the second option. So I open the car door, jump out, and walk onwards to complete this fucked up journey towards an end that can't possibly have anything good.
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Suddenly, I spot her standing on line waiting for food, and as if by magnetic force, her eyes are drawn to mine. This time, though, she runs, screaming like a lunatic, "It's my turn to run; it's my town!" or some such other nonsense, although she has the right to run, and I have none to follow.
But follow I do, dodging young kids, worried parents, the occasional street vendor, and the cruising cars. My gasping breath punctuates the hitting of my feet on the pavement, and I wonder where she learned to run like this. "From me," my subconscious retorts sharply as I catch up to her.
And now we're so close and yet so far away from each other, the light from the streetlamps hitting her face so sharply that my breath catches in my throat as the entire world melts away. She's still yelling at me, each word hurtling towards my body like a stone, and her perfect, blood-red lips that once touched mine curving over every syllable. She's right, just as I was at the Dance Marathon. I can't say anything in my defense, there is no way to explain to her how I couldn't stay, because I would have hurt her. How I couldn't talk to her, because I was ashamed of my actions. How I'm unworthy of her love, how she deserves someone who's going to take care of her and be there for her and hold her like I once did.
But I'm sick of lying, and tired of seeing that look on her face after I've hurt her. But I don't know how to do this; I'd never felt anything before she came into my life. I feel the tears that were never able to cry rush towards my eyes, as I see the confusion and love and pain and anger in her large blue eyes.
The words choke in my throat, the taste of them foreign to my tongue.
A single tear begins its solitary path down my cheek.
"I love you."
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How ironic, that this would be the song on the radio as I pull away from Stars Hollow, drive away from the figure of my love. Yes, she was my love, my true love, my only love. Too late, though, I realized it.
Thought of you as my mountain top
Thought of you as my peak
Thought of you as everything
I've had but couldn't keep
I've had but couldn't keep
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
If I could make the world as pure and strange as what I see
I'd put you in the mirror I put in front of me
I put in front of me
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Linger on, your pale blue eyes.
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*Please tell me what you think; REVIEW! I think this is just a one-parter, but maybe I'll turn it into more depending on what you all think of it. It's probably not very good, but I needed to write something after my heart completely broke after Jess's confession.
Yours truly,
Gabrielle