Chapter 12
Going back to school was an unbelievable relief for Rory. She hadn't seen Jess for two days, but she still found herself holding her breath every time she turned a corner or heard a knock on the door, only to find Skip in his disturbingly short shorts, instead, or Miss Patty smiling wrying at her, with a raised brow.
Now her time away from Stars Hollow, her mother and Jess had turned from two days to a week as she busied herself with work. Jess had left her alone, making it annoying hard to concentrate on her school work, but was upset her was the fact that she hadn't spoken to her mother in quite some time and she needed someone to talk to.
Especially now.
Rory never expected to go into school feeling overwhelmed, only to come out even more overwhelmed. What the sweet Rory thought was a unimportant meeting involving a bad paper, turned out to be something far worse. Dropping a class was failure's ugly rear end in Rory's baby blue eyes. As the night grew dark and the tears continued to fall, the cars driving by her were harder to see as they seemed to shape into a blur of colours – sort of like a modern piece Picasso might have done... if it had a naked mistress somewhere in the background...
Rory dialed her mother's number again and held it to her ear. "Mom, something bad has happened... And I just – just... call me back, okay?" She quivered. "As soon as you get this..." Rory got off the highway, and she pressed harder on the gas, trying to get to Stars Hollow faster.
More tears rolled down her cheeks and snuffles filled the silence. Then all she could think was how stupidly unrealistic it was when girls cried in movies! They always look so sad, yet beautiful... But never any snot. Whereas Rory was just a fountain of snot and salty black tears from her minuscule amount of mascara.
'Waterproof', my ass.
What am I going to do?... What will grandpa say?... And of all the terrible unanswerable questions running through her mind the one Rory couldn't push away was who could possibly understand what she was going through? Rory could assume what people would say: a lot of 'there, there's, and 'things will work out', and she knew what they would all be thinking: get over it. To everyone, Rory was labelled 'the overachiever'. She realised the only person who could possibly understand was Paris.
She burst into even more tears over that depressing fact.
Rory reached Stars Hollow, and even Taylor's insane stoplight couldn't stop her from her hysteria. She deliberately sped up when she drove underneath it, causing herself to smirk in triumph for a flash of a second before the wordFAILURE popped darkly into her mind in big black letters, Tarantino style.
Rory's car skidded to an alarming stop in her mother's driveway. She dashed out of the car.
"Mom!" She yelled, opening the unlocked door. "Mom, you here?!"
Silence.
"Oh, man..." She quivered before running in her uncomfortable heels down the porch stairs, back to her car that still had the engine running. She shifted her car in reverse, noticing the front door she left wide open, but in her panic, continued driving carelessly...
...She stopped the car. "Oh, geez," she grumbled to herself, stomping furiously towards the door because at that point she hated herself for being such a good person. Ha!
Such a problem that must be...
Rory closed the door, then pulled a Usain Bolt back to her car. "Aaah!" She squeaked when her shoes skidded in the mud, threatening to make her fall.
Rory got in her car and drove off to the other place she knew her mother would be. The Dragonfly.
Then she went over the same process.
"Mom! Mom, please tell me you're here!"
She needed someone. Rory needed someone to lean on – just this once she needed someone to hold her and tell her that she was not a failure. She needed to hear those words. She wanted her mother. She wanted someone who knew what it was like. What it was like to feel like a failure and to bounce back. She wanted someone. Someone who understood her more than anyone else. Someone like Jess.
"Rory. Hey." Bewildered and surprisingly scared, she turned around to find someone who was there to comfort her. But it wasn't Jess.
"Dean. Hi."
[WATCH THE FUCKING EPISODE, IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON... THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING LORELAI'S...P.S THIS IS THE ALTERNATIVE ENDING]
Lorelai had been through a lot. And it had made her stronger. But she hadn't felt like... like this since she was sixteen and pregnant. She hadn't felt like that until now. Like such a failure.
She needed someone. I wish I was married, right now, she thought. Very few times she thought this. There are very few times in my life when I find myself sitting around thinking this, but today, I mean - I'm happy... I like my life. I like my friends. I like my stuff. My time, my space, my TV... At that moment, the one thing Lorelai needed right now was for someone to tell her she wasn't a failure – to hold her close and assure her that everything would be okay. For the first time in a long time, she didn't want to be strong, and for the first time in a long time, she couldn't be strong.
Lorelai obliviously quickened her pace as she approached Luke's diner so she could cancel their dinner. But even she knew how that meeting would end up. Lorelai opened the door to the diner. With a pathetic attempt to hold back tears, one seeped down her cheek.
"Luke?" She quivered, wiping her sniffling nose with her sleeve. Lorelai stared at the stairs, waiting for her knight and shining armour to save her yet again.
"Luke's not here." When Lorelai heard the horribly familiar voice of one Tyler Durden impressionist, she felt as though one of the last few strings holding her together snapped.
"Well, where is he?"
Jess appeared from inside the kitchen, throwing a dirty rag over his shoulder and placing his muscular hands against the table – he reminded her of Luke. "Out," he said in his usual rude demeanor, but then when he looked up and saw her face he added "Uh, but I'm sure he'll be back soon..."
Lorelai sniffled, feeling another metaphorical string snap. "Okay," she whimpered pathetically.
The two of them stood there, awkwardly with him staring at her like she was a caged animal to be observed and with her staring everywhere else but at him because she knew if she would, that she would lose it.
"Uh..." This was not a situation he was often in... or ever, for that matter. "Is something wrong." Yeah, no shit Sherlock, he thought to himself.
She laughed weakly. "Wow, you should be a detective," she muttered, then made the mistake of looking at him.
Then the tears began to fall.
Her head dropped, covering her eyes with a shivering hand. Jess stared at her in bewilderment, like she was insane.
"Everything's falling apart..." She cried. Jess's hand dropped to her side. He stood there, stiffly and instinctively glanced at all possible exits. Lorelai glanced up at him, though he was completely burry with tears. "I just... I just don't know what to do..."
Jess rolled his eyes and sighed. He tossed the rag from his shoulder onto the bench, said "Take a seat," and grabbed a cup, beginning to pour the coffee. Lorelai had no strength to argue so she just sat at the counter, across from Jess.
"Look," he began sternly, "I'm not really into the whole comforting thing," he said, expressing his discomfort with a hand gesture. Lorelai scoffed and nodded in agreement. Jess's jaw clenched... So I'm just going to handle this the only way I know how, he thought to himself.
"Tell me what happened."
