In the Pretend World
a Gilmore Girls fanfiction by skazumbi the loveli
Dear Rory - I wish I could be a part of your life. But I don't fit. I can't keep my shit straight. I can't do anything right. And I wanted to do it all for you. No matter what, no matter how hard I wished, I couldn't change myself to be good enough for you. I have nothing left, except you, and I feel like I'm just letting you slip through my fingers. I am. But I was already gone when you met me. And I can't change that.
That's what I should've said, anyway. I didn't know how I was going to tell her that I was leaving. I just didn't know. Out of every person I've ever met, I'm a mystery. Out of every person I've ever met, nobody has really understood me. This includes myself.
Sure, I like books, I like good old-fashioned punk, I like being cynical, pulling all this James Dean crap, but that's not who I am. I don't really understand it, and I feel like I never will. I'm just kind of hiding alone and ashamed in this little niche of hell. I'm like a sleepwalker, watching but never being.
That's what I should've told her.
But I couldn't tell her anything. I was sitting on a bus, right next to her, on my way to California. I didn't really understand why. I couldn't be in Star's Hollow anymore. I had nowhere to go. And since my dad pops up out of the blue, I guess all I can think about is seventeen years. Seventeen years, and I've never met my own father. Then we sit in Luke's in our first official meeting listening to a Bowie song awkwardly. Maybe that's what pushed me to leave. But why the hell couldn't I say anything.
Dear Rory - I cannot feel this. No matter how hard I've tried. I can't be with you. It hurts so much that I'm numb, and I just feel nothing. So I'm leaving. Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve you, but in truth, you don't deserve me. Everything is beyond my comprehension and its best to just let it glide off my skin like water droplets.
I wish I could say that. I never could. I could never even bring the words to my throat, let along to my mouth, beyond my lips, and to her ears. I could never let the words flow to my fingers, through to a pen scratching ink onto a paper. I couldn't do it. Even if I tried.
Maybe I am numb and undeserving. Maybe I can feel everything and I am deserving. Maybe everything right now is not how it should be. Maybe I should've just opened my goddamn mouth on that bus that day, and then we wouldn't be here. Maybe I should've let something slip at that godforsaken party. Maybe I just should've said one word to you. Maybe I just should've learned that one word.
I wish I could've told her.
The one word that was never in my elaborate vocabulary. The one word that is the basis of so much poetry, so many songs, so much hatred. I never understood it until now - when the pain sets in and everything feels like a knife wound.
Dear Rory - I'm bleeding to death. I'm letting all of the blood pour out of my veins onto the pavement and it is worth it. Because I understand now. I know what that missing word is, and I know why I have only just learned it.
You taught me love.
Dear Jess - I can sit here and wonder why the hell you left. But I have a high school to actually graduate from. I have people actually counting on me. I actually feel things. You are just addicted to pain is all. And now you're trying to pour it on me? So I could fill this with bitter words. I could. But I won't because my life is the important thing right now and I could care less about what you are thinking. You see, I cannot say this, please don't ask me why.
I wish I could speak to him. I wish I could slap him. I wish I could do everything I've ever wanted to do to him and right all his wrongs. I wish I could bathe him in sin and at the same time bathe him in forgiveness. He was never there, and he was always there. I just wanted him to say something. And he just sat there, saying that we'd talk soon. We wouldn't.
My mother'd told me he'd left days after the fact. I would've burst, but never in front of her. My mother is my best friend. But I couldn't give into the loathing or any of it. Not then. I had my life to think about, my graduation, my everything. He was my everything. Suddenly, everything else was brighter, because I had to make it brighter and push him away. How had I not noticed any of it? The signs, the look on his face on the bus, the fact that he had been gone for days and I didn't even see? Maybe I was the bad girlfriend. Maybe he was good to me.
I wish had told him.
Dear Jess - I'm sitting in my bedroom right now. So many things remind me of you. At the same time, so many things remind me of Dean. And I find myself wishing that I hadn't broken his heart and, vicariously, mine. I think that he was the perfect boyfriend, and you... you were a farce. You were trash. You were convenient. I would've felt something for you if you'd've let me.
I should've just said it. I could never bring the words to my mouth. It would never happen. I missed him, it tore at my heart. So maybe that's why I had a temporary lapse in sanity. Everything is blurring - whether it is because of the rain, the pain, or the memories, I don't really know.
I can still feel you here.
Dear Rory - I'm not who you think I am. These past few days have seemed like an eternity and I can't bring myself to call you, I can't bring myself to hear your voice. It would tear me up inside. Today, you would've graduated from high school. Today, I should've been there, smiling, beaming, right there with you. So much might've depended on this day, and yet - maybe so little did. Everything might've shattered anyway.
Dear Jess - What the hell am I doing? Everything flashes by like lightning against the blackness. The surrounding world is a void. Or is it my mind that's the void? I can't tell anymore. Sure, I'm smiling to everyone who passes me by, I'm giggling with my mom, with my friends, with my family. But what am I really thinking about? What is it that I am really dreaming of right now? Maybe, if I try really hard, you'll just appear beside me. If I close my eyes as tight as possible and wish, you'll come running out from the crowd. If I wish really hard, you'll arrive.
So my cell phone is ringing again, and I'm wondering, is it you? Is it you, sending me my wish, slaughtered and bloody? Or maybe it's you sending me back my wish, full and shining. I can hear slight breaths on the other end. So I say everything I needed to say. You left, you left, you left. This is your fault. You could've changed everything, but no... you left. Everything might've gotten better. Might've.
Silence. I've finished. I seem to pause for one hundred years, but of course, you can't say anything. So I say good-bye, I hang up. I want to cry. I want you to hear me cry.
I want you here.
Dear Rory - I'm sorry. I never understood what went wrong, just that something did. I know I should've said something on any one of the thousand calls. But you defeated me.
You defeated me.
A/N: So, basically, I was watching "Here Comes the Son" today, and I thought to myself "oooo, poor Jess." And then it was "Oh, poor Rory." Sadness ensued, followed by massive amounts of vegan chicken. But, to the point - I know I haven't written in months, when I promised that I would, but by now you should've learned that all of my promises are fairly hollow. There are reasons, but I'd like you all to know that I'm not dead and that I'll get to the reasons when I update more popular stories. However... this is a mini songifc (at least a one-shot, at most... three chapters?) brought on by "Here Comes the Son"/"Those Are the Strings, Pinocchio" and scarling's "In the Pretend World."
P.S. Go read The Claddagh. It got nominated here:http/awards. Author's note officially over.
P.P.S. I missed my one year fan-fic anniversary. You all should bake me a cake or something.