A/N: Here you go. Go ahead and get mad because it took so long. Fine. Whatever be that way but I worked really hard to get this to you and so maybe you'll re consider and not hate me so much. If it makes you feel any better I already have the next chapter written. It's a flash back in Lorelai's POV so how fast you get it depends on how much you want it. Does that sound dirty? Anyway, yes I am bribing you for reviews so I hope you deliver. Enjoy.
The Story of a Girl
Chrissie's POV
Okay, so I have this weird kind of random reoccurring dream/memory thing. I mean, it's a dream but I think it might also be a memory. It would have to be a very early memory, like maybe my first one because I am so young when it takes place. Wanna hear it?
I dream in sepia, you know that weird old time light brown. Not all the time, just in this one particular dream. Anyway, it's fall. I can tell because all the leaves out side are changing. I know what you're thinking, How can you tell that the leaves are changing when your dreaming in sepia but just hear me out. So it's fall and I am strapped into a booster seat in the back of my father's car, riding down the road. Gigi is beside me, she is maybe 6 or 7, and she and my mom are singing to whatever odd song is playing on the radio. My dad is driving. We are a family and I am a happy baby. So, I turn my little head and look out the window at the world flashing past me. People I don't know, places I have never been, things I know nothing about. All of this is going on, but it's the leaves falling off the trees that attract my attention. So, we are riding and they're falling, and then there is this huge boom and I am awake. So what do you think? Am I crazy?
I wake up to a totally empty house. Granted it's seven in the morning and I am never home when no one else is, I think you can pin point why I am totally thrilled. There is no better way to be yourself than when you are all alone and that is, of course, what this English paper is all about. I get out of bed and take a shower with my music on as loud as I want it and then I dance into the kitchen for breakfast. Rice Crispy cereal and marshmallows – my favorite – this day has started out so well that I don't think anything could possibly bring me down.
When breakfast is over I run up stairs for my equipment: laptop, cell phone, iPod. Things that have to be within an arms reach when doing homework. I open my computer and press the 'on' button. The home screen comes up begging for my password and I type it in. *****. Accepted. My background comes up along with all my little icons. I click on the WORD shortcut and pull up a blank page. I really should have done this a week ago. I think about the assignment. "You're writing your autobiography," Mr. Hart's voice says in my mind. "No one knows you better than you know yourself." I however beg to differ. I spend the next half hour watching the blinking cursor, which waits patiently for me to write something….anything. Nothing comes to mind, so I close my computer. I stand up to fix myself something to drink but am all at once distracted by the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. I wonder who it could be. Maybe half a minute later the door opens.
"Chrissie," Mom calls. I wonder what she is doing home so early but I don't dwell on it too long. I just leave the kitchen for the foyer to greet her. Let's just say surprised isn't at all the way I would describe what I walk into. Jenna sets her book bag on the floor. Mom is carrying her duffle bag. My mind throws me back into last night when Mom said Jenna would be coming to live here. I remember every word, what I don't remember however is her saying that it would be today. The look on my face must be screaming what I am thinking from the way Mom looks at me. "Christina say hello," I take note of how she tells me to say hello to Jenna and not the other way around.
I sigh realizing that life as I know is officially over. "Hi," I offer my sister. Oh my, if looks could kill, I would be a dead woman walking.
"Hi," she practically spits. Mom definitely notices the hostility between the two of us and she has that look on her face that tells me she thinking of something to do about it, which could be dangerous.
"Well," Mom says after the longest ten seconds of my life. "Want the tour?" Jenna shrugs, which makes me a little sad because Mom is really trying. In fact in my opinion I think she is trying a little too hard. She sets Jenna's bag down and leads her into the other room. "This is the living room, which is pretty basic, um, TV, movies, couch," she rambles. "And through here is the kitchen, which I am usually not allowed to use, but they let me in on special occasions," Mom jokes. "Um, refrigerator, stove, if you can cook, microwave if you can't," she stops. "Can you cook?" she asks Jenna who is staring at the pictures on our refrigerator. Her attention is restored and she nods. I didn't know that. I guess you do learn something new every day. "Okay," Mom continues. We leave the kitchen and end up in the hall by the stairs. Mom hits the door. "Basement," and then she starts up the stairs. I am not completely sure why I am going on this tour but I am pretty certain that she expects me to follow. Mom points to the end of the hallway. "My room is down there, which you are welcome in at anytime. Over here is Christopher's office. Gigi's room, Chrissie's room, where you will be staying, for now. And over here," she says walking right across the hall, "will be your room when it's finished." I have to backtrack a little bit. Did she just say that Jenna will be staying in my room? I want to get mad, I really do, but I can't. So, I sigh. She opens the door to what used to be her sewing room, so that we can peek inside.
"My room?" Jenna asks sounding a little surprised.
Mom laughs, "Yes."
It's actually bigger than mine, about the same size as Gigi's. I also want to call no fair but that would seem a little spoiled so again I keep my mouth shut. Jenna nods. "Okay," she mumbles. I roll my eyes. Why doesn't she care? Mom doesn't seem to take any notice, she just smiles the way she always does and lets everything go. I envy her 'let come what may' attitude. A weird silence fills the room. I glance over at Jenna and notice something different about her for the first time. Her hair, it's much darker. Darker than Mom's. It makes them resemble one another more, which is weird to me. She catches me staring and rolls her eyes.
The silence in the room is filled by a jingle. Mom pulls out her phone.
"Lorelai Hayden," she says.
"Calm down Sam."
"No."
"Because I can't." I desperately wish I could hear the other side of her conversation, which is assume is with one of her employees.
"You are just going to have to handle it without me."
"Where is Tina?"
"No."
"No."
She sighs. "Alright. 20 minutes." She hangs up the phone.
She looks up at us. "I'm sorry girls, there is a crisis at the office. I have to run, but I promise I won't be long. Chrissie help Jenna get settled into your room," she says before kissing the top of my sister's head and then coming over and kissing mine. "I love you," she calls to us as she runs down the stairs leaving me alone with my twin.
We just look at each other for a long time because neither of us having the slightest idea as to what should be said to the other. I turn around and open the door to my bedroom so that she can see inside. I walk in and leave it open behind me so that she can follow. She does.
"This is it," I shrug referring to my simple green bedroom that we are going to be sharing.
"Nice," she responds looking around thinking of something nice to say. "Clean."
"I guess," I reply. It's isn't much but at least we are conversing.
She turns to face me and the look she gives me is almost soft. I get the feeling she wants to ask me something but she doesn't make a move to speak. "What?"
She turns away again and stumbles over to my desk and glances over my books. "Nothing," she sighs. There is a definite note of sadness in her voice. I can already see that getting her to talk is going to be hard.
"It isn't so bad," I try to offer.
"Excuse me?" she says snapping her head back around to me.
"Living here, it isn't so bad." I repeat. She looks at me like I just admitted to her that I single handedly caused global warming and then storms out of my room. What did I say? I follow her back down the stairs. "Where are you going?" I call.
She doesn't answer me she just keeps going straight out the door. She takes off running as soon as the front door is open but she doesn't make it any father than the driveway before she stops. She looks lost. I think this to be a really bad idea but I walk out behind her. She doesn't look okay.
"Leave me alone," she says when she realizes that I am coming towards her.
"Jenna," I sigh letting my arms fall to my sides.
"Don't," she tries. Her voice cracks as she says it. She turns her back to me and I realize that she doesn't want me to see her cry. I guess I didn't really think that this would be more of a big deal to her than it is to me.
"Okay," I turn around to go back inside but then I hear her speak.
"This isn't fair!" she exclaims.
There is no one else outside so either she inherited the "crazy" gene from our mother and is talking to herself or…she is talking to me. I turn back around.
"I know," I sympathize.
"No, you don't know," she accuses. "You don't have to live in a place with a bunch of people you don't know and who hate you." She turns around again and I can see her eyes brimming with tears. They fall and I feel really bad.
"I don't hate you," I offer.
She looks up at me, and our eyes lock. "That almost sounded sincere."
"I'm serious," I continue. "I don't even know you." I say honestly.
She shrugs and begins her journey back up the driveway. She takes her phone out of her pocket as she enters the house. I wonder who she is calling but I can only hear one side of her conversation.
"Doula, it's Jenna." She says. Okay I know who she's talking to now I wonder who Doula is.
She is quiet while the person says hello.
"I need a favor," she says as she picks her bags up from the floor where my mother left them and carries them up the stairs.
"I need to get back to Stars Hollow," I expect her to take them into my room but at the last minute she opens the door to her empty room across the hall. She closes the door behind her but curiosity gets the better of me so I listen at the door.
"I'm in Hartford," she confesses.
"No."
"No," she repeats.
"Stop guessing and let me talk," she snaps.
"Lorelai kidnapped me." I am surprised at this declaration of guilt because you can't be kidnapped by your own mother.
"No Luke knows. Actually I think this was his idea," she continues.
"Well no one ran the idea by me," she says with the same amount of hostility.
"Whose side are you on?" she asks defensively, and again I wish I could hear the other side of the conversation.
"Okay not Stars Hollow then but I have to get out of here." Where is she going to go?
"No!" Whatever that Doula person said, Jenna has objected to it strongly.
I can tell she is pacing on the other side of the door. "She'll tell Luke and he'll tell Lorelai."
"Jess would send me straight home." Who is Jess? Now I know I have heard that name before.
"April doesn't have the time." April, yes, um, her…sister? I think.
"I don't know." What doesn't she know, god, why so vague.
"I guess."
"A little…"
"Don't tell anyone, you have to swear." What did I miss?
"Okay, I'll call you when I get to the bus station." Bus station? This is going to end badly.
"M'bye."
I hear a zipper and a loud thud. I open the door. She is sitting on the hard wood floor dumping her books out of her book bag onto the floor. "What are you doing?" I ask as she takes things from her duffle and stuffs them in her backpack.
"Nothing."
"Where are you going?"
"None of you business." She is probably right but that isn't going to stop me from asking.
"Who is Doula?" She makes a noise that tells me she is aggravated with all my questions but I continue anyway.
"My cousin," she says through clenched teeth.
"Huh."
"What's it to you?"
"Nothing, I guess." I shrug and then head into my room. I dump out my book bag in the same manner she did and throw in a few items that I may need. If she is making a break for it, then so am I. I don't know what caused this sudden desire to be adventurous but here it is. I dart down stairs for my cell phone and iPod. I hear her emerge from her room and meet her by the door.
"What do you think you are doing?" she asks.
"I'm going with you," I tell her.
"No you aren't," she says.
"Yes I am!"
"What makes you think you are going anywhere with me?" she says crossing her arms over her chest.
"Um I don't know, maybe because I could pick up the phone and call Mom and she could be back here before you could make it to the end of the street." I say giving her the same attitude. She rolls her eyes and walks out the door. I follow her because she has stopped protesting which means I won.
"Which way is Chilton from here?" she asks as we get to the end of the driveway.
"Why are we going to Chilton?"
"Because that's the only way I know to get to the bus station," she replies sharply.
"Fine. This way," I say taking the lead.
I know that we aren't going to get far and that this will probably get us grounded for forever but I can't deny myself the opportunity. I never do anything this crazy or reckless and I must admit that it is really exciting. Plus, I think my sister and I are bonding, in a weird twisted way.
This could be fun.
You know what's fun for me? Reviews. Lets hit that button now.
