Recap from last chapter:
"You know me and Jess lived together. In New York."
"Yeah, I remember – vividly." Lorelai made a face at the memory.
"Well…we – eh – we…kind of…" She dreaded her next words, but she knew she had to say them, she had to let her mother know what had actually happened. "…got married."
"You got married?" Lorelai stared at her with her mouth wide open.
"It-it wasn't planned or anything. It just happened."
"Hey, you know?" Chris asked as he set their drinks down on the table. "Seeing as we're in Las Vegas I think it's mandatory that at least one of us gets married before the weekend is over"
"Yeah right" Matt threw a peanut at him. "I don't think that's what your parents had in mind when they invited us all along for the weekend"
"I'm just saying" Chris shrugged his shoulders and looked around the table at his friends.
"Don't look at me" Jess said and held his hands up in defense.
"Why not?" Chris asked. "The two of you…" He gestured to the space between Jess and Rory. "…are the most likely to tie the knot among the four of us"
"Not happening" Rory stated with a smile, knowing that Chris was only joking around. Although…the thought of being married to Jess…She looked up at him only to find that he was looking at her with a curious look on his face. She blushed and looked down at the table. No, they were too young and everything was way too messed up with school, with her mother, with them. "Not happening" She repeated, more to herself than to anyone else.
Rory shook the image away and looked at her mother. She had dreaded this ever since she came back. She had managed pretty well though with pretending it hadn't really happened.
"It just happened?" Lorelai echoed while regaining her features. "Weddings don't just happen."
"Well, this one did" Rory cringed "And it wasn't really a wedding, more like a ceremony."
"Wow." Lorelai got up from the box she was sitting on. "Wow. May I ask why your mother, that would be me, wasn't invited to, or at least informed about, this ceremony?"
"We…we weren't speaking at the time, and we didn't really tell anyone except Matt and Chris, our co-workers at the coffee shop, they – eh – they were our witnesses."
"You know, I felt so bad when I married your father in Paris. All I could think of was that you weren't there and it felt wrong. It was eating at my conscience. And when we told you – you had the guts to be mad at me?"
"I'm sorry mom. For everything, I really am."
She took a deep breath. "That's okay. It's all behind us now."
"That's the thing…it kind of isn't." Lorelai gave her a confused look. "Jess and I…we…I just left. We never got divorced."
"Wow, wait. Hold on here. You're still married?" Her voice pitched at the last word. "To Jess? Does Logan know?"
"Of course he doesn't! He would never have proposed if he knew!"
"Well, what-what are you gonna do?"
"Obviously I need to come clean with Logan and I need to find Jess and get divorced."
"Wow. This is so 'Days of our lives'."
Rory cringed. "It's not that bad."
"Maybe not." Lorelai hesitated and looked at her daughter. "Are you sure you should tell Logan about this?"
Rory scoffed. "If I don't, this situation could very well escalate into an episode from 'Days of our lives'."
"Yeah, you're probably right."
"Yeah, so I'm telling him at dinner tonight"
"Okay, good. That's good"
Without saying anything further they both went back to packing up Rory's things. But the rest of the packing was done in utter silence.
.
"Hold on, hold on" Rory muttered to herself as she dug through her purse, looking for her phone. "Hello" She answered when she found it, buried at the bottom of her purse. Why did the phone always manage to end up at the bottom of the purse, beneath all that crap that you never found the energy to clear out?
"Hey Ace" She smiled when she heard Logan's voice on the other end of the line.
"Hey. Are you on your way?"
"Nah…" He hesitated for a few seconds. "…not exactly"
"What's going on?" She asked, hoping that the fear in her voice didn't come through over the phone. Did he know? How could he know? Of course he didn't know. Or did he?
"Something's come up" He sighed. "I need to be in California tonight"
She couldn't help but feel relieved. It had nothing to do with Jess; it was business that was keeping Logan away. "Oh, okay" She sat down at one of the boxes in the otherwise empty apartment. "When are you leaving?"
"In one hour – I'm at the airport now."
"Oh" One hour. She sighed. That was not enough time to sit down over dinner and tell him that she was kind of still married to her ex-boyfriend – and that was not the kind of information you gave someone over the phone one hour before they were boarding a plane going across the country.
"I'm sorry Ace, but I promise you this is not something that will be an issue when we're married. It's just…I'm new and I need to show them who I am, that I care about the company" Logan started explaining in a hurried voice, probably thinking that the disappointed tone in her voice was about him cancelling dinner. Which, come to think of it, it kind of was – but not for the reasons he thought.
"It's okay. We'll catch up when you get back" A few more days was nothing, she could wait. It wasn't like Jess would show up on their doorstep with his wedding ring on and blow the surprise.
"Yeah, I'll be back Sunday. Tell Emily I'm really sorry I'm missing your Friday night dinner"
She laughed. "You suck-up!" She could hear Logan laughing too on the other end of the line. "Besides, didn't I tell you she postponed Friday night dinner till Sunday?" She continued with a grin on her face, the Jess-issue conveniently moved to the back of her head.
"Why?"
"Apparently, your proposal needed to be adequately celebrated at dinner and for that she needed more time to prepare."
He scoffed. "I really got to go Ace. Try not to miss me too much"
"Impossible" She stated before they said their goodbyes and hung up.
Rory got up from the box and walked around the apartment aimlessly. Maybe she should go to New York and find Jess, talk to him and get started on getting divorced. The news on her already being married might be easier for Logan to accept if the divorce was already in the making.
She sighed and picked up her phone again and dialed a familiar number. Her mother answered on the second signal.
Rory sighed and sat down on the box again. "Hey mom, you know of any good divorce lawyers?"
.
"Seeing as you've been living apart for the last…" The aged lawyer, sitting on the other side of a big desk, looked down at the papers in front of him.
"Three years" Rory filled in with a nervous smile.
"Yes, three years" The man put his finger down in the middle of the paper. "That amount of time spent living apart would most certainly qualify you to file for a 'no-fault' divorce"
"Meaning…?" Rory asked, confused by the situation. She'd never been in a lawyer's office before, she never needed to be. The situation was confusing and intimidating.
"Meaning you don't have to come up with causes such as irreconcilable differences or adultery" The man lectured and Rory listened eagerly.
"Okay, so…what do I do now? What's the next step?"
"Well, it depends on whether your spouse will contest the divorce or not"
Rory nodded. "I don't know. We – eh – we haven't spoken since I…" She cleared her throat. "It's been three years since I saw him"
"I see. If he consents, all you have to do is sign these papers…" He pulled out a stack of papers from a pile on his desk. "…and send them back to me and then the rest will take care of itself"
She nodded again. "And if…if he doesn't…consent?"
"Well, then the process will be trickier and it will take longer, but the time apart will speak in your favor"
Rory stood up from her chair. "Thanks" She leaned forward and shook the man's hand and took the paper's he held out to her. She looked at them before putting them in her purse.
"It's standard papers, you don't want anything from him and vice versa – you're already separated, signing the papers only makes it official and doesn't really change anything"
"Yeah. Uhm, thanks again" Due to an enormous amount of will-power Rory managed to give the man a smile before leaving his office.
Rory walked out onto the street as in a haze and sat down on the nearest park bench. Divorce. There it was in black ink on white paper – they had failed. It wasn't really any news to her; they had failed a long time ago, long before they even got married.
"We should do it" Rory said as she stepped out of the shower in their hotel room.
"Do what?" Jess ripped his eyes away from the mirror, where he was busy fixing his hair.
"Get married" She stated casually as she walked over to the bed and opened her suitcase to find something to wear.
Jess looked at her with one eye brow raised."Where's this coming from?" He asked as he stepped closer to her.
Rory shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know" She turned towards him and smiled. "I know Chris was joking earlier, but it got me thinking"
"Thinking, huh?" He wrapped his arms around her.
"Yeah" She gave him a light kiss on the lips. "We love each other; we gave up everything to be together…"
Jess scoffed and let go of her. "That's what this is about?"
"No" She could have kicked herself for choosing those words. "No" She repeated and took his arms in her hands and wrapped them around her again. "It's about us. You and me. Nothing else"
He looked at her suspiciously.
"Do I have to get down on one knee?" A nervous laughter slipped through Rory's mouth. "Because, traditionally, I think it's the guy that should–" Her words died out as Jess got down on one knee in front of her.
"Well, Rory..." He smirked and looked up at her. "…do you want to marry me?"
She smiled. "I don't know what to say…this is so totally unexpected!" She teased and he got up and pressed a kiss on her lips.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight as she whispered against his lips. "I would love to"
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again, carefully this time, almost losing contact with her lips when she started backing the few steps towards the bed behind them. She laid down on the bed and pulled him down with her. He pushed the suitcase of the bed and, leaning on one of his arms he started unwrapping her towel.
Rory wrapped her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth towards her, hard and desperately. They weren't failing. They loved each other and that was all they needed to fix everything else that was wrong.
.
Rory walked down the block where she and Jess used to live. It was painfully flooded with memories; memories of kisses and hugs, love and lust, but also memories of fights and angry words, of tears and cries. She stopped outside the building where they used to live together and looked up at it.
The curtains in the windows were still the same, hopefully that meant he still lived her. She had to admire that – she could never have stayed there alone surrounded by all the memories. The memories of when they were happy, 'cause those were the hardest – they reminded of everything they had lost. Well, the memories of when they were not-so-happy weren't that easy either – they reminded of how they had lost it.
She took a deep breath and walked up the stairs and turned the knob on the door to the building and smiled when the door opened. The lock was still broken. Three years and no one had gotten around to fix the broken lock on the front door of the building.
She tried to steady herself as she walked up the stairs. Hopefully he had moved on with his life and he would sign the papers and she would be on her way back to New Haven tonight.
She stopped outside the apartment door and took a deep breath. This was it. With a determined look on her face she knocked on the door.
It wasn't long before the door was opened by a man with messy, light brown hair and sparkly green eyes.
"Rory!" The man exclaimed, with a surprised look on his face.
He stared at her for several seconds before he laughed and wrapped her in a hug. She was too surprised by the welcome to protest when he lifted her up and swirled her around.
She couldn't help but laugh as well.
"I'd never thought I'd see you again." The man said with a wide smile on his lips as she set her down inside the apartment.
.
A/N: More flashbacks as to why and how they ended up getting married will be coming up, just wanted to let you know that so you won't think I'll leave it with the little information you got on the matter in this chapter!
And also: I have no idea how to actually get divorced, because luckily enough I haven't had to go through that. So I did some googling and went with what I found and what I scooped up from movies… If that's not actually how it's really done, can't we please pretend?
And last: I'm curious to know if anyone has figured from which movie I got the inspiration for this story?