Chapter 4: You Can't Say No if there's No Question.
Its weird how quickly Rory and I fell into a comfortable friendship, after dinner we went to grab some ice cream and walk along the promenade in Hartford. We talked about almost everything imaginable with out a single awkward lull in the conversation. It was weird for me I had never been out with a girl, even as just a friend, who he could talk to. The girls I hung out with, dating or otherwise always ended up talking about gossip, or what shoes they had bought that day, boring me to the point were making out with them seemed like the only option that didn't involve me stabbing myself in the face. Rory had something that drew me to her, her smile, her laugh, her ability to know just about everything about any topic mentioned, current events, popular culture, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics in king Tut's tomb. She was like a breath of fresh air in a room full of Channel No. 5 perfume. We ended the night with a hug and the promise of seeing each other before she left for her two month voyage across Europe.
I pulled up to my house and parked the car in the garage and walked around the house to the front door just then I saw something that made me just a little queasy and the word karma quickly popped into my mind as I watch my little sister partaking in an interesting game of tonsil hockey on my front steps. How many times, on how many front porches did I find myself in that young mans shoes…although my escapades usually found my climbing in through the girl's window moments later. One thing I was sure of was that my little sister would not have any visitors coming in through her window that night, not while I was in the house. Making as much noise as I could, and having a small coughing fit behind the bushes to make myself known I walked towards them on the porch, this didn't seem to have much effect on the young couple.
"TEGAN ELIZABETH DUGREY!" Huh wow, I did not know I could get my voice to sound so much like dads. I thought as I watched the couple spring apart to separate ends of the porch and look around like rabbits during hunting season. I guess I'm not the only who though I sounded like dad.
"TRISTAN, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!" She declared as she ran at me beating her fist against my chest. "You practically gave me a heart attack."
"Well when I started coughing to my death, and rattling bushes, and stomping around and that didn't get your attention I figured this was the last resort." I grinned down at her as she kept attempting to punch me, I managed to wrap one hand around both her wrists and hold her arms above her head.
"I hate you." She muttered looking at me with fake contempt.
"How about you and I watch a movie Tee and your little boyfriend can go on home I'm sure its way past his bed time." I gave him a charming smile and nodded my head in the direction of our drive way.
"I'll call you later, Tegan." He muttered quickly as he almost ran down the said driveway.
"You didn't need to do that Tristan." She exclaimed glaring at me again.
"I think you're too young to be partaking in such activities Tegan."
"What are you talking about; you started dating at like 11!"
"Yes, but I'm not a girl, you are."
"That's not fair Tristan. You can't use those double standards against me in the 21st century; for Christ sakes its 2003!"
"I can use whatever double standards I deem necessary when it comes to my baby sister and boys. I went to military school darling sister, I can crush him with my left hand while standing on one foot and doing advanced calculus."
"I hate that you're home."
"NAH! You love it!" I exclaimed wrapping my arm around her shoulders and leading her inside.
"How was your date?" She leered as we made our way towards the mini-theater in the left wing of the house.
"How was yours?" I asked smirking down at her.
"You ruin my date and I can't even inquire about yours? What kind of injustice is that Tristan Alexander?"
"Just the rules of the jungle little sis" I slumped into one of the recliner leather chairs in front of the wall sized screen as I heard Tegan rustling somewhere in the background with the DVD's. I don't think I remember what movie she put on, I fell asleep before the title of the movie rolled on screen.
--
I woke up with a crick in my neck and the smell of leather over taking my senses. I blinked a few times before registering where exactly I had passed out. Shaking my head and running my hands through my hair I unsteadily walked towards my room and fell on the bed again. I was all for the idea of passing out again until a much more reasonable hour, like one in the afternoon for example, however I was not given that option.
"Tristan, take me to the mall." A voice whined before I felt a weight at the end of the bed. I muttered into my pillow and feigned a much deeper sleep than I was actually in at that moment. "Tristaaaaan!"
"Make mom." I groaned turning over and covering my head with my comforter.
"You know very well I won't have mom drive me, and dad took the car with him, why he would do that when he is very capable of driving himself to where ever he desires, is beyond me. I mean why does he need to take the car with the driver is beyond me.
"Walk."
"Tristan please" She begged as she climbed further onto my bed.
"Tristan is sleeping right now; please leave a message after the beep."
"You are not funny."
"Insulting me isn't helping your case." I covered my face with a pillow.
"Come on Tristan, pretty pretty please!"
"This is about a boy isn't it?"
"That isn't you're business."
"Then my business isn't driving you to the mall."
"UGH! You are impossible."
"What does insulting me get you again?"
"Yes, it's about a boy, now will you take me to the mall?"
"What normal, teenage boy, in his right mind would want to meet an annoying bratty girl at the mall at…" I raised my head from under the pillow "ten in the morning?"
"One who's going to be getting—"
"No, end that right there; I don't want to know why my BABY sister is going to be doing. Better yet, never even suggest that it's a boy, say its bible study. I was fourteen not to long ago, I know what he's thinking. Hmm, do they sell chastity belts at the mall?"
"TRISTAN!"
"What? They have to sell them somewhere."
"Are you taking me?"
"You are meeting him now?"
"No, at two"
"Then damn it child why in God's name are you harassing me now?"
"'Cause I want the guarantee that you'll be taking me there when I need you to."
"Yes, yes, good, now go away and let me sleep." I felt her get off the bed and heard her feet shuffling as she walked out of the room followed by an excited squeal as she closed the door behind her. "Damn freakin' karma, I'm trying you know." I said to no one in particular. I fell back to sleep with thoughts of Rory and chastity belts.
--
The rest of the day went past in a blur of color light and sound and all I've come to realize that women should be considered a completely different species. I'm not entirely sure what occurred that day, what made her as upset as she ended up being. Why the world that was so good to me just yesterday now had turned it back on me yet again. Most of all I wanted to know why I was standing outside her house in the pouring rain unable to walk back to my car and unable to tap on her window to get her to talk to me. I really think I'll develop pneumonia before I figure out what had just occurred in the past ten hours.
I woke up at about twelve thirty and got into the shower, changed and had breakfast. That part of the day I'm sure went that way that by far was the best part of my entire day. Who knew that a bowl of Lucky Charms could be the highlight in a person's day, not even a highlight, the high point of a person's day? After eating I knocked on Tegan's door after a muffled 'just a minute' a loud thump, and a couple of "ouches" later she stepped out of her room.
"No"
"What do you mean no, you can't say no if there's no question being brought to the table."
"No you can't wear that out of the house. No I'm not driving you anywhere in that outfit. No you can't own those types of outfits until you are thirty and way to old to wear them. No boys will be aloud to see that much skin on your body at one time. Would you like me to continue?" I couldn't believe me little sister was wearing that outfit. Her skirt seemed like if she bent down it would leave nothing to the imagination and her shirt could actually be worn as the skirt if she wanted. Did I date these girls at her age? Weren't these the kinds of girls I chased after for so many years, weren't these the same girls who I brought to my house to do with as I pleased in the privacy of my own room. "Go change."
"Tristan"
"No"
"I HATE YOU!" Slamming door. Loud unnecessary sigh. Thump. Crash. Slam. Loud yell. "Better?" She asked glaring at me, her eyes looked glassy as if she was fighting her very hardest to hold back the tears that were just about to spill over and ruin her overly made up face. I wasn't even going to start on the make up, one battle at a time. Right?
She looked more like my sister, a grown up adult version of my sister, but my little sister none the less. She wore some ripped jeans from Abercrombie and a tank top, but at least it was an entire tank top this time that covered her entire torso. My little sister was entirely to pretty to be related to me, I couldn't keep going through this with her.
At some point that morning I had texted Rory and asked her to meet me in the Barnes & Noble at the mall around 2:30. She said she'd be there and I hadn't really thought of that conversation much for the rest of the morning. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was meeting her but that was thrown on the back burner as the problem of one very upset younger sister sat in my car at the exact moment.
"Look Tee…" I tried to get her to talk to me, I had to figure out a way to explain to her that she didn't need to look like a pussy cat doll or Paris Hilton to be excepted by boys but how do I do that with out sounding hypocritical. She was 14 the age where everything can be turned into an insult and what boys think can mean more than ones own self worth. I know that to be true, I'm sure I lowered a girls self worth on more than one occasion not something I would particularly proud of but it happened I was young and stupid.
I started the car and drove out of our driveway, she wouldn't look at me. Her eyes were focused on the road in front of her. I watched her bite in the inside of her lip most likely telling herself not to cry over and over again in her mind. We drove in silence for ten minutes as I fiddled with the radio trying to come up with a way to explain to her what I wanted to say with out coming off as an ass. I groaned inwardly wondering how people did this, express their emotions in a calm and collected manner, so frequently with out causing any serious injuries.
I finally just couldn't take the uneasy silence that was slowly filling the Porsche. "Tegan," she didn't look at me, she continued to stare out the window, but I knew she was listening, what choice did she really have? "Look, I know you're mad at me, and I know you're upset that I made you change but I did it for a reason." We were getting closer to the mall now and if I didn't explain myself now I feared she'd jump out of the car before I got the chance. "I get that right now is a really difficult time, you want to be excepted in school, you want boys to like you, you want the boys that you like to like you back. I know that you see girls dressing like that all the time, and most of your friends might dress like that but you don't have to Tegan. You're such a smart and beautiful girl that dressing like a slut doesn't add anything to you. I get that you want to get guys attention, but that's the wrong kind of attention that you'd be getting. You don't want guys to look at you and think, 'well she's easy I'm sure I could get with her and then just move on.' You want guys that will stick around, that would want to spend time with you. I know you want to impress your boyfriend, but Tee if he doesn't know how amazing you are when you're actually wearing clothing then he's just not worth it. I know you're sitting there thinking that I'm being hypocritical that you remember seeing the girls I dated and that they dressed like sluts but look who I fell for. Rory was always so innocent, so smart and witty and she always wore clothing! Unfortunately, I couldn't get her to look at me in high school because of my reputation. You shouldn't have to fight off a bad reputation for the next four years Tee."
I took a breath after my rant. I hadn't realized that during that time I had actually gotten to the mall and parked the car. My little sister turned to me half way through that and actually seemed to listen to what I had to say. She looked over at me and gave me a weak smile. "Wait with me until Shawn shows up?"
"Sure" I said smiling back at her. We walked towards the mall and I noticed the sky had gotten dark gray a sure sign of a huge rain storm. I was a little excited I had always loved thunderstorms, especially in the summer. I loved watching the lightening light up the sky while I read a book. Yeah I realize that most people would never believe that about me, but on occasion I did do other things than just chase skirts and get trashed. Tegan and I had walked towards the food court where she was supposed to me this Shawn character. Barnes & Nobel was just near by so if this kid was running late I didn't have to sprint half way across the mall to meet Rory on time. "And Tegan"
"Yeah?"
"Next time you do you're make up like a clown make sure to wear the red nose as well." I said sticking my tongue out at her. She hit my arm glaring at me.
"You're funny you know that. Real comedian we have here."
"I know I know. Seriously though, it's a little heavy, next time just some mascara and lip gloss 'kay?"
"How do you even know about make up?"
"I know about lots of girl stuff. Things you probably don't even think I know about." Looking around I thought I saw Rory, coffee brown hair, a tank top and a pair of jeans. It looked just simple enough to be her but I couldn't tell for sure. She was walking in this general direction but at the same time so was someone else.
"SHAWN" I heard her squeal beside me as she practically jumped up at the sight of him. As he reached us and noticed my presence he gave her a hug and quickly stepped away from her as he kept his attention on me. She was practically beaming at this kid and he couldn't seem to keep his eyes off of her either. Damn good genes I need to build her a tower and lock her up or something. "Shawn this is my older brother Tristan. Tristan this is my…" she glanced over at him quickly and smiled "boyfriend, Shawn."
"Nice to meet you, I didn't realize Tegan had an older brother." He said trying to keep his voice steady I took the hand he had held out as good breading taught both of us to do.
"Yeah, I just got back from military school." I smiled over at him as I watched his eyes grow a little wider. "You two kids have fun, are you going to need a ride home Tegan?" She glanced over at her boyfriend, oh I didn't like that word, and he shook his head slightly.
"No, I'm good. Thank you for driving me though." She reached over and gave me a hug and I held her a little tighter then usual bending down I told her "if his hands go anywhere you don't want them too just poke him in the eyes and the knee him in the groin." She giggled as she smacked my arm pulling away.
"Thanks Tristan, you can leave now."
"I'll see you at home."
"Bye." She said clearly hinting at how badly she wanted me out of her sight. I watched her grab the guys hand as they both walked into the crowd of people heading in the opposite direction from me.
I looked around the mall expecting to see Rory there but she was no where to be found so I headed towards the Barnes & Nobel. I did a quick survey of the store and realized she wasn't here yet. I could have sworn that was her, maybe she stopped at another store along the way to pick something up for her trip. I shrugged to myself and started scanning the book titles around me, occasionally scanning the back cover of a book that had gotten my attention.
I must have been there for hours, days, weeks; time stopped and went by very quickly all at once. I'm not sure what happened I kept looking at the door from the overly stuffed chair that I had taken over half an hour after I walked through the doors. I stared at them intently willing her to walk through them and notice me. Sheer will however doesn't change the truth, doesn't change what actually is occurring and what I wanted to occur. She wasn't the next person to walk in, or the next one, or the one after that. She didn't show up. No phone call, telegram, carrier pigeon, smoke signal, nothing. I'm not sure what happened in between the time I sent her the text message and now but somewhere in between that time, she had disappeared. I'm not sure what I could have done, with out seeing her or speaking to her that would make her act this way. Yesterday was amazing, perfect even and now, nothing.
I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I sat in that chair until the store closed and I got shooed out by the employees who had other places to be. It was only 9 o'clock and I sure as hell wasn't about to go home. I knew she lived in Stars Hollow, so I got into my car and sped off in the direction of her home town. I was fuming; different scenarios kept coming up in my mind. What reasoning could she have that wouldn't have kept her from the store. Did she get into an accident? Was there a family emergency? Did she get kidnapped? Each scenario was worse than the one before, but none of them explained why didn't just take the five seconds to call or text me and explain why she couldn't make it. I would have understood.
By then the rain clouds that had threatened to spill over that afternoon opened up and all at once rain came crashing down around me. Hard pelting rain that barley let me see the road out ahead as my windshield wipers went crazy. I continued to drive though I knew I should have pulled over in that kind of weather. I was too frustrated, too confused to stop driving. I barley saw the sign to get off of the expressway and get of at Stars Hollow, I barley saw the Giant Rooster the signaled my right turn towards her house. I hadn't been in this town in over two years but it seemed as though timed stopped around here and nothing changed. I was fortunate for the heavy rain and the darkness that kept the townsfolk from seeing my expensive shiny car roll through their streets and park in a more hidden area. I walked through the pouring rain around their town, keeping my head down and avoiding any people. I found a bridge some where in the woods near her house and sat down as I watched the water droplets hit the water underneath the bridge. The water level was slowly raising, and I sat there for a long enough time that I actually noticed a difference in the water level. I was soaked to the bone, and I was cold and miserable but I couldn't get myself to leave this town until I saw her, until I knew she was okay. Once I found out that she was okay I had every intention of shaking her until she explained why she didn't show up with out a phone call. It was a quarter to eleven and I decided it was now or never.
So maybe I used now or never in a more general sense as it was now a quarter to midnight and I still hadn't made it to her door step. I stood near her drive way leaning against a tree willing my feet to move but they didn't seem to want to comply with my general wishes. Move. Walk. GO! Nothing. My body defied me refusing to move forward or backward. I was stuck in this unknowing limbo and it was driving me crazy. The rain let up but only just enough so that I could see with a five foot distance in front of me. I heard the rumble of thunder and realized that soon this down pour would turn into a thunder storm and standing under a tree was most likely the worst idea I had ever had. Taking a deep breath I headed towards her front porch. I rang the doorbell before I managed to talk myself out of it and I stood there hoping against all hope that no one would answer the door and at the same time wishing that she would hurry up and answer all at once.
I saw lights turning on as she neared the front door. I was shivering at this point, uncontrollable shaking. I don't know if it was my nerves or the fact that I had been in the rain for a very long time and was now soaked and feeling like crap. I heard her unlocking the locks and slowly opening the door. She looked angry, or upset I couldn't quite tell but it was getting harder to see.
"Tristan what—"
It looked like I was looking at her from another end of a tunnel and I felt my head go light.
"Tristan, oh my, are you okay…"
Then everything went black.