Chrysalis removed her homemade denim trench coat and looked sadly at the phone. The green light flashed on her answering machine and she trudged over to it, pressing a button.
"Hey, Chrys. It's David. Looks like you're going to get the property after all. I'll see you next week for the move. You're going to love Star's Hollow, it's gorgeous there. Anyway, get back to me soon. And, uhm… sorry about you giving up the gallery. Maybe you'll feel better once you can open the store. And don't worry about Dodger; he's fine in Boston. Love you, bye."
She just stared at the machine, too tired and upset to glare at her boyfriend's peppy tone. Little did he know that Dodger was already back in New York, ready to talk her out of going to Star's Hollow.
She slumped over and fell on the floor. "Bloody hell. I'm too fucking tired to do this. Twenty years old and already dead."
She'd had the gallery for the past two years, it was her life. Now she was giving it up to start a record store in some small good-for-nothing town in the worst state possible.
The phone rang.
"Bloody hell. Perfect." She forced herself off the floor and picked it up.
"Eh?"
"Hi, Chrys." She straightened. "So, they got the gallery?"
"Yeah."
"Okay then. Sorry."
"How was Boston?"
"Crappy. You would've loved it."
"Dodger… don't."
"So, are you going to say good-bye this time?"
"You're the one who left for Boston without saying good-bye."
"You're the one who went to Germany without saying good-bye, and that was for more than two weeks."
"Whatever."
"Tired?"
"Been a long day."
"I'm going to miss the gallery."
"Aren't we all?"
"David clearly won't."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Give you advice?"
"You're my apprentice, you don't get to give me advice."
"Right."
"I'm leaving now. Bye." She hung up the phone. She counted to five in her head and rolled her eyes when the phone ringed again. She didn't pick it up, but instead, picked up her jacket and closed the door behind her.
"C'mon, Chrys. Don't be a bitch about all this. Pick up the phone; I know you're there. Just, please talk to me. Chrysalis, come back here. Jennifer! Pick up the phone. Fine then, don't. Just, please, say good-bye before you leave. I'll talk to you later."
Amanda's voice sang clearly in the background as Chrysalis sipped on her dry whiskey. She had decided to sneak into the show just to see evaluate what was happening without interruptions from David, Dodger, or her father. The three best men in her life.
She laughed at that thought. Her father abandoned her and then made her move to New York when she was eighteen. Now, everywhere she went, he was trying to tear her down. His bank was the one that had closed the gallery. David hated her painting, her music, her everything. He was only in it for the sex. And Dodger… whatever his real name was. He'd never bothered to tell her or she'd never bothered to remember. He was right, she never had said good-bye when she moved to Germany for three months. But she was also right. He had just hopped on a train with every painting he owned and jumped off in Boston without telling her.
'He's twenty-one, he can take care of himself.' It still hurt, what he'd done. He was her closest friend, which was kind of sad, considering they knew nothing about each other. She'd taught him everything she'd known about painting, and he'd learned. Now he was bigger than her in the New York underground. He wanted to expand his horizons, then fine. When he'd left, she'd given up painting and just worked in the gallery every waking hour.
As the set finished, Chrysalis clapped drunkenly. It seemed as though it was some sort of vicious circle. She would get close to someone, and they'd just tear away. It was why she'd come with her father to New York, wasn't it? No matter where she went in all of Ireland, her mother was still there.
Her mother deserved to die.
She was moving to Star's Hollow in two days. Away from her father, away from David, away from… well, away. She was sitting on her cot of a bed listening to Tom Waits's "Rain Dogs" trying to not think about how she was going to pull off owning a record store.
Someone knocked on the door. She sighed heavily and pulled herself up.
"What do you want?"
"Just let me in, Chrys." She opened the door, and there he was, standing in all his glory.
"What do you want?"
"We haven't talked about this."
"Talked about what, Dodger? Talked about how you just split, leaving me here with nothing to do, leaving me here with nothing? You just went. I sure hope Boston was the shit because I wished you'd never come back. Now, here you are. Back. Lovely. I adore it."
"Just listen to me for a second, Chrys."
"No, Dodger, I'm leaving, and you get no say in it."
"I had no say in it when you split before either. You just left, so don't take all your hatred out on me for just leaving too. And I went to Boston: four hours away! You went halfway across the world, for Chrissakes!"
"Dodger, just stop."
"You're kidding right?"
"Kidding about what?"
"You get to jump on me for leaving and the moment I jump on you, you tell me to shut up."
"I never said shut up."
"Fine, you know what? Go. Open your stupid record store in that godforsaken town. I don't care."
"I asked you to come with me. You know what I wanted."
"And you know what I didn't want."
"Dodger, I don't want you to think you should've come with me. You shouldn't have. We are simply friends, and barely even that. I never should've thought you'd come anywhere with me. I shouldn't have! I was stupid and careless and I really wish you'd just leave me alone. I ask you to come with me and the next day, you're gone. In Boston, which might as well have been Germany. Why? Because you're a runner. You ran away from Luke and Rory and when you went crawling back, you had nothing left. Then you found me and I gave you everything I could, Dodger. I gave up my life in Ireland for you."
"You didn't have a life in Ireland. You had a mother who tried to murder you."
"Don't… you… dare… I don't want you to come with me anymore, so why don't you just leave me alone the way you intended it. I mean, come on, it's not like you are Mr. Reliable." He turned away from her. "Dodger, just listen to me."
"Why don't you call me by my real name for once?"
"How about I don't? We have a strictly work-oriented relationship here and, what am I to do but try and not screw it up. So you'll call me Chrysalis and I'll call you Dodger." She walked away, into the little room set off to the side that was supposed to be a kitchen.
"Jennifer… wait."
"Don't call me that."
"What, your name?"
"I told you, strictly work-oriented."
"Fine, Chrysalis. You know how I feel about you. However, you know that, even in two years, I have not moved on. I have tried my damnedest, but I have not moved on. So what, you aren't leaving David anytime soon."
"I need David. He's paying for my place. Who cares if its prostitute like? I get my store, he gets his sex. Why am I telling you this?"
"Because, you love me."
"I do not love you, Dodger."
"Do you even know my real name?"
"No. I don't. So, quite clearly, I don't love you."
"Says the person who has read Romeo and Juliet over three hundred times."
"I left you and David and New York when I went to Germany. I made something of myself when I didn't think about us."
"You came back, didn't you?"
"Yes. But that was because of the gallery, not because of you."
"You love me."
"Do you love me?"
"Jenn…"
"Dodge…"
"Chrys…"
"C'mon. Do you love me? You're so persistent in saying that I love you, how about your feelings towards me?"
"I don't. You know that."
"Do I? You're the one ragging on me about moving to Star's Hollow. You're the one who got scared when I asked you to come with me. I was crazy, I guess. You got scared and ran away, because you knew you wanted to, Dodger."
"I didn't want to."
"You did. Don't lie."
"I don't love you."
"You still love her?"
"You know that."
"Yeah. Sure. You'd better leave before David finds you here."
"Just tell me. Say it."
"NO! Dodger, just leave. I can't wait to get away from you."
"Fine." He caught her lips with his and turned, running out the door. She brought her fingertips up to where he had kissed her, shaking.
He didn't love her; it was painfully obvious in the way that he had kissed her. He wanted to love her, but he couldn't.
But she did love him.
The phone rang. She picked it up. "Top o th' mornin'?"
"Hey. It's me."
"Hi, David."
"Want help with boxes?"
"Very much."
"Keep a bottle of whiskey for me, will you?"
"Sure." She hung up and leaned against the wall. It was the last time she'd be able to do so after a call from David in the apartment. Star's Hollow was calling. It's be the first time she'd be able the new place hers.
The town was quaint. In the car, she could see the infamous Luke's Diner, and Miss Patty's dance studio. She wondered how the strangers of Star's Hollow would react to a young, green-haired, overly-pierced, blunt Irishwoman owning a record store in their perfect town.
"Here we are," David announced as they pulled up in front of a ratty-looking building that would soon be Chrysalis's very own. She stepped out of the car, donning her trench coat and a Dresden Dolls hoodie, where the bright, small-town sun beat down on her.
"It's perfect…" she whispered, looking at the building with longing. "It's mine…"
She stepped over the threshold of the house that would soon be turned into her store and home. A lock of hair fell from its strategically placed bobby pin and shone like an emerald in her eyes. She pushed it behind her ears as she ran her hand on the walls of the house.
"Yay." She smiled and fell on the floor, laughing.
I re-uploaded the story without the thing that got both me and some readers hotheaded. I'm really sorry. Anyway... yeah. The comments got deleted along with it. So, sorry. If you read the rant at the end of chapter two before I deleted it, I was having a crappy day and this girl yelling me about something I said in my story kinda topped it off. That comment never should've been in there in the first place, and I'm sorry about it if it pissed you off. Just please remember, it was a joke in a character's expense. Anyhoo, I'm re-uploading the entire story so far, so... again, I'm sorry.