Hello All, sorry for the delay, I had this chapter written a week early but didn't have it typed yet and I hate my laptop at home so I had to wait until I got back to work this week to type and make corrections. This chapter is short, but I really like it. I don't know if you will be getting another chapter Friday, it depends on how much time I get to write this week. Enjoy.
Chapter 21-Comfortingly Familiar
Arriving back in Stars Hollow the next afternoon felt weird, her grandmother had sent a car to the airport for her. While this trip home had been planned for months; the fact that it happened to fall the day after she lost her job just felt ominous. She told herself that she just had to fake it through two days and then she could stop keeping all these secrets and have a really good talk with her mom, which she needed.
She had the car drop her off at the Crap Shack, where she quickly threw her bag into her room and made her way to the Dragonfly. She could have driven, her car was right there in the driveway, she was sure it probably had a full tank of gas since Luke had been taking care of it while she was away; but she decided it was nice enough to walk, and besides her mom would have the Jeep, so having both cars would have been silly.
The lobby of the inn was all but empty when Rory arrived. Usually the night before a wedding was frenzied and busy, with out of town guests arriving at all hours. The only people coming to this wedding form farther away than Hartford though were: Jess, April and Rory herself. She wandered back farther into the building, and was hit by the sound of her grandmother's voice, "Honestly Lorelai," she heard Emily's signature phrase as she made her way into the kitchen, "you may as well just set up troughs and ring a bell for as organized as this is." Rory made herself a cup of coffee and moved to stand next to her mother before her presence was noticed. "Oh, Rory, I was starting to get worried your car hadn't arrived."
Lorelai looked at her daughter, "Yeah, sorry about not picking you up, she Shang-Hai'd me with "pressing wedding concerns," she made air quotes around the words, "and insisted I stay here." The mother claimed as she lamely attempted to apologize to her daughter for not meeting her as planned.
"That was very nice of you, Grandma, it's bad enough I haven't been here to help, the least I can do is not cause trouble with my arrival."
"Oh, please, Babe, don't ever act like being a successful journalist makes you a bother."
That hit Rory hard, but she tried not to let it show, she obviously didn't do a very good job as her grandmother noticed, "Rory, Dear, you look pale. Are you feeling all right?"
"Long flight," she answered into her coffee.
"Maybe you should go home and get some rest. I've got this under control," said her mother.
"Yes, if all else fails, we'll just throw all the food in the middle of the dance floor and let everyone fight over it like dogs," Emily replied, icily, which sent Sookie into a stuttering frenzy and caused Michel to laugh. "I'm getting a migraine, I think I'll leave as well," she announced to no one in particular as Lorelai tried to calm her chef/best friend.
Rory didn't really feel like going home just yet, no one would be there, except Paul Anka. She was surprisingly not hungry, and her cup of coffee from the inn would hold her over for an hour or so. She hadn't reached her mother's level of constant caffeine necessity, yet. She began to wander around the town that had been her home for so long. She realized it probably would be again, at least temporarily, until she found a new job. There were so many memories on these streets and in the shops that lined them; her and Lane clandestinely painting their nails and applying make-up only to have Lane quickly remove it before Mrs. Kim found out, Taylor and Luke's screaming matches; All the different festivals that took place in the town square; the Fire-Light Festival, the End of Summer Madness Festival, the Bid-A-Basket Festival.
The Bid-A-Basket Festival, she thought nostalgically, as she felt the ground beneath her feet change to a damp, old wood. Her body had known where she was going before he brain did. This bridge and that day had changed the course of her life forever. It was the first real conversation her and Jess had ever had. Her relationship with Dean had changed that day too. Dean had originally been upset because she agreed to go with Jess, she was such a rule follower after all, but he quickly got over that. It was she who had changed, and she spent the rest of their relationship harboring the immense guilt that she felt at her immense desire to kiss Jess that day on the bridge; to kiss him over and over, until the glow of the moon lit the water; then to fall asleep right there with the sound of his heartbeat as her lullaby. Staying with Dean had been an uphill battle after that day, especially as she grew closer to and spent more time with Jess. It was a battle she was determined to win. And that's when she realized that not only had those two relationships changed that day, but that she had set into motion a cycle in her life. A cycle in which she would do anything, no matter how miserable it made her, to be the girl everyone expected her to be. She would stay in relationships that made her unhappy, because her boyfriend was the "right kind of man for someone like her," and she didn't want people to think that just because her father wasn't around she was going to date "losers just like him." She would go to Yale to make her grandparents happy. She would work the job she hated, that kept her away from the people and places she loved, because that's what you do when you graduate from an Ivy League school, that's how you get ahead in the world. With a deep breath that it felt like she had been holding her entire life she smiled and thought, that maybe now that she recognized what she was doing, she would stop making the mistakes that had made her so unhappy the last few years. She didn't have to be perfect, she could just be Rory. There was only one person who had ever let her just be Rory, and she pulled out her phone and dialed. "Hey," she said to the comfortingly familiar voice on the other end, "guess where I am?"