Answering The Phone

Discalimer: Yea. I own all these characters.

Summary: Lane thinks about how Rory's grown apart from her. Please R/R.

Author's Note: Let's say Lane didn't go to Sookie's wedding, okay? Doesn't change much, does it?

Rated: G

By: Lizabeth

My chin is in my hands and I'm staring out my window.
In my mind I'm a tragic princess prisoner in a fairytale. High in my tower I sit by the hour.... Of course my fairytale has a twist. My "prince" has been basically anyone who's spoken to me in the last hour. Instead of singing I'm tapping out rythms on my windowsill with my fingernails. That aren't that long.
So far I haven't gotten any princes'.
Why am I here? The usual. Oh no. Called someone on the phone without asking permission. I am *such* a rebel. So now my punishment in the rest of the day in my room. With meals. And that time I'd much rather spend in my room.
The phone and I are having a staring contest. It hasn't rung yet. My eyes are watering. RING! RING!
My mind proves to be no powerful enough yet. I must perfect my thinking methods. My hand is resting on the phone. When it gives it's tiny pre-ring shake, I grab it before my mom can hear it ring.
Maybe I'm jinxing it. Slowly, I move my hand away, never taking my eyes off the little devil. It won't be victorious in this round. The glory of winning is mine already. It will regret the day it ever tried to beat me.
All it has to do is ring and I can execute my magnificent plan and go down in history as... the girl who answered a phone.
Now my hand is resting in my lap. Or so I'm trying make the phone believe. My eyes even leave it every few seconds. It thinks that it's beat me. But my hand knows how to dart to that phone from this exact position.
It trembles. My keen ears pick up the slight sound it emits, my fine-tuned senses feel that slight vibration. Not that my room is a place of chaos and movement right now.
My hand, dear trained soilder, moves so fast even I can't follow it. The phone slips off the hook, the ringing is cut short, and I slam that piece of plastic against my ear... where it makes an unpleasant clash with my earring.
"Hello?" I whisper, my eyes finding a new focal point in the door. Should the doorknob give the slightest rattle, I can hang up. Explanations and courtesy are not things to be concerned about in times like this.
"Uh Lane?" Oh. Yippee. Three guesses to who it is. His voice is booming throughout my room. I bet they can hear him in Taylor's... oh, wait, that's where he is.
"Shhh! Not so loud!"
"Sorry," his whisper is so static-y and my poor ears don't like it. Doesn't he have any friends that he can whisper to? If not over a grounded phone, in class? Maybe it's a girl thing.
"What do you want?" Hmm. I wonder. 'Cause, you know, this is really the kind of concerned guy who will make time for his girlfriend's friends, try to get into her life a little instead of sucking her into his little place of basketball and sports and....
"Well, it's about Rory, really," really? I would've never guessed.
"What's wrong?" did she breathe in the presense of another boy? God forbid.
"I think that she likes Jess," do you? Dean, you are just so *observant*.
"Dean, you know she loves you!" In a way, I almost liked Jess for stealing Rory. Dean I was sick of. But Jess wasn't on my top ten.
"I'm not so sure anymore. I can't believe she'd this to me," yes, Dean. It's amazing how inconsiderate Rory can be. She put up with all your stupid jealousies, she stuck with you when the town was against you, she apologizes to you when you decide she can't have her own life, wow, Dean, sometimes she just makes me want to wring her little neck.
"Where are you now?"
"Sookie's wedding. I can't find Rory...." Oh no! She's probably off making out with Jess behind your big back, Dean. Tut tut, that Rory's always endangering your precious relationship!
"Dean, I think you should relax," now it was time to make my escape, "oh no! My mom's coming! Bye Dean!"
"But-"
*Click*
I love answering the phone. But hanging up can be *soooooo* much better.

Settling back into my chair, I find I can't concentrate on that stupid (lifesaving) phone anymore. Dean turned my thoughts to Rory.
Rory. My best friend from kindergarten. We stuck together through school, we knew that boys had cooties, and we were almost as close as Rory and her Mom.
When Dean rolled around, I did the whole "scream, shriek, oh my gawd, tell me all the details" thing and I really meant it. I did care about Rory. I did want to know EVERYTHING in her life. And I loved that she could share it with me.
But then Dean started to pull her away from me. I didn't hold on tight... I thought that this was just a little "boyfriend girlfriend" part of two best friends lives. You know, 'can we survive the first boy'? I was sure we could.
Stupid me.
Oh, we did. But Dean got boring. He was so possesive, they fought SO much. Their relationship was a soap opera, and I was the viewer who didn't have any other channels.
And then when Jess moved in.
At first I thought of Jess as an idiot. He was annoying, followed Rory like a puppy, was stupid in school and was driving all of Stars Hollow insane.
But then he started to pull Dean and Rory apart. And I realized that they might break up.
Call me selfish. Call me a terrible friend. But it didn't work.
Oh sure, they began that heart-wrenching process of break-up. But now all Rory's time was divided inbetween the boys feuding for her heart. And she hardly turned to me for advice.
Maybe she thought no one else noticed what was going on with her. And she didn't want to trouble me. But I was her best friend. She was SUPPOSED to trouble me!
And now the Battle of Troy... Rory.... was over. Menelaus (Dean) had reclaimed Helen (Rory) and Paris (Jess) had fled back to his homeland (New York City). But Rory would still be spending all her time with Dean, trying to make him forgive her for what she quote unquote "did to him" with Jess. She was his friend, after all! I don't see how he can ever forgive her!
Of course she still would help me out when I asked. And I guess she'd think that she was still being the same old great friend the old Rory had been. But she would soon come to realize (once she remembered me) that her best friend (besides Lorelai) wasn't a big part of her life anymore.
What would she do then? Try to make it up to me by buying me CD's and candy? Cause that wouldn't be awkward.
I sighed. Not something I do often. It didn't feel very normal. I sighed again. Life wasn't so normal lately.
There was a knock at my window. I got up and closed my eyes, hoping it would be Rory.
Surprise, surprise. It wasn't.
The dark headed boy had climbed up my wall or something, "Jess, what-"
"Didn't have anywhere else to go." He climbed through my window. If my mom came in right now....
"Did you move back?" let's just subtract another year from my friendship with Rory, shall we?
He didn't answer. I guess that meant yes.
"Why aren't you at Luke's?"
"Didn't want to go their now."
"What happened?"
"Nothing." LONG pause, "I need to ask you something."
"What?"
"Do you think Rory loves Dean?"
Wast that *all* I was these days? An Encyclopedia of Rory facts?
"Well, did she ever tell you she did?"
He shrugged and I grabbed his arm, actually surprising him, "Jess, what happened?"
"Nice to know you care about me, Lane."
I gave him the withering stare that Rory and I had mastered in second grade.
"Jess, are you ever any different around Rory? Do you actually speak to her? Say more then 'whatever'?" he blinked, "just wondering."
He climbed out my window. A few seconds after his head dissapeared, his eyes jumped back out.
"Whatever," he added, and left.
I sighed again. Something had happened inbetween Jess and Rory. And you can imagine how thrilled I was to hear it from Jess first.
And then the phone rang.


***** Well? Please honestly tell me how it was!!!!! I know I might not have captured Lane.. but we don't know SOOO much about her! So have a pathetic excuse!