Monopoly

Chapter 3

A/N:  See the prologue for the disclaimer.  In this chapter, John lies to Rory, again.  Darn her for being so gullible =) as always, please r/r!  Thanks to everyone that has done that so far. 

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A very tired Rory Gilmore woke up the next morning at 5:00 AM.  Cursing herself for waking up so early on a school day, she forced herself to get out of bed and into the shower.  She knew it was going to be a bad day from the minute she woke up.  The shampoo that stung her eyes seemed to confirm her guess. 

After she managed to put on her school uniform, she ran downstairs to get her last minute coffee.  Unfortunately, she hadn't seen her backpack on the floor and almost knocked herself out on the kitchen table after tripping over it. 

"Yep," she said to an amused Lorelai, who was watching her daughter with interest, "the day just gets better and better."

"Do you want to take the car to school?"  Lorelai seemed to think that her daughter would be better off with the car, but Rory disagreed. 

Rory shook her head no.  "Thanks, but no.  I don't want to take the chance of ruining the car.  Well, I gotta catch the bus.  Meet you at Luke's later?"  Already knowing what her mother's answer would be, Rory ran to the bus stop only to be yelled at by the pathetic bus driver who told her that she was late.  Muttering a sorry excuse for an apology, Rory sat down, wondering how much worse things would get at Chilton.

 *         *          *

If she only knew.  As soon as she reached her locker and attempted to open it, it swung open and hit her on the forehead. 

"Why me?!" She shrieked, unaware that she had an audience.  She attempted to punch the locker with her fists, but missed completely and instead slammed it into her English book.  "Forget Romeo and Juliet," she muttered. 

"Having a bad day, Mary?  Don't worry, I'll make it all better."  She hadn't noticed Tristan standing next to her, getting his books for his morning classes.

Rory glared at him.  "Shut up.  I'm not in the mood for you today."

"Touchy, touchy.  I see that you're a morning person."

She glared at him once more before walking away.  He caught up with her, much to her dismay. 

"What do you want?  Shouldn't you be at the lockers, making out with your flavor of the week?  You'd better hurry, because we still have 5 minutes before class starts."

Rolling his eyes at her sarcastic but truthful comment, he smirked.  She stopped walking and glared at him.

"Why do you always have to smirk at me?  It's so… so… UGH!"  She gave up, and tried to walk away.  His hand instantly grabbed her wrist and she stopped.

"What?" she snapped, annoyed, but pleasantly amused at the same time. 

He moved towards her until he was only a few inches away from her face.  "You're so hard to please, Mary.  But don't worry, I'll figure something out." 

"Oh, shut up.  You'd never be able to make me happy.  If you didn't already know, a relationship is not only physical.  You have to be able to talk."

Tristan sneered at her comment.  "What, like you'd want to talk with some asshole like Parker?  You don't know him, Rory.  And if you think you do, you're wrong."

Outraged by his comment toward her friend, she had to try to keep her voice down.  "Maybe you're right.  I might not know him very well right now, but I'd like to have the chance.  And from what he told me, I know a lot about you."

Tristan smirked again.  "What did he tell you this time?  That I did his girlfriend?  No, that's not it.  Did I force him into buying drugs?  Or maybe it was a combination of the two.  Whatever he said, Rory, he's lying.  If you don't want to believe me, I don't give a crap.  But you might want to think before jumping to conclusions."

Tristan took one last look at her before walking away.  Rory stood there for a minute, biting her lip.  This was just great.  What a way to make her day better.  Taking a deep breath, she walked into Mr. Medina's classroom, ready for another day of boring English.

As she took her seat, Rory pulled her book out of her backpack and placed it on her desk.  Reaching back in for a pen, her hand sought something that was obviously not there.  Muttering to herself about the absence of her pen, she hardly noticed that another pen found its way onto her desk.  Startled, she looked up at Paris.

"It seems like you're having a bad day.  Usually I'd jump at the chance to see you miserable, but I found that I'm in a good mood today.  So, here you go- a free pen.  I wouldn't want you to go through the pain of having to buy one yourself- you might be able to use the money to buy your mother a new black skirt."  Recalling the black skirt that she had in her possession, Paris smirked.  "It's actually a very nice skirt.  And I didn't have to pay for it.  Here's your money back.  I'm sure that you can put a down payment on it."  She walked away, smiling to Madeline and Louise, who were across the room smirking at Rory. 

Rory gritted her teeth, desperately trying to keep her clenched fists under her desk where they wouldn't punch Paris in the face.  It was lucky for her that class started, because she probably would have done something very – evil - to Paris. 

Mr. Medina cleared his throat, trying to get the attention of the class.  Almost everyone turned around, except for Madeline and Louise, who were discussing their opinions on Rory's skirt.

"I wonder if she knows that the button is open.  Maybe it'll fall off."

"But if she gets up, wouldn't it fall off?"  A confused Madeline asked, unaware of the situation at hand.

Louise rolled her eyes.  "That's the point, Madeline."

Mr. Medina cleared his throat again.  "Ms. Grant, please.  I encourage you to stop conversing with your friend and listen to what I have to say."

Louise turned to face him.  "Oh.  Whatever.  Go ahead."

Rory looked down at her skirt, and turned red at the fact that her button had come undone and her skirt had nothing else to hold it up.  Trembling as she buttoned it, she prayed that the tears that were threatening to roll down her face wouldn't come. 

Mr. Medina glared at her before continuing.  "As I was saying, I have your tests graded.  I'm very pleased with them.  There was only one bad grade out of all of the papers, and the highest score of all was a 99.  Ms. Gellar, I think I'm going to make your tests harder."

Paris smiled contently and looked over at Rory.  "I guess we all know who got the highest grade.  I wonder what you got."

"Not like it's any of your business."

"Everything around here is my business.  Get used to it."

A paper was placed on Rory's desk by Mr. Medina.  "We all have our off days, Ms. Gilmore.  I'm sure it won't affect your grade too much."  Rory turned red and looked over at Paris who was listening intently and smirking.  Turning over the test paper, she was shocked at the grade that was marked on the test in red pen.  "65, D.  If you needed extra help, Ms. Gilmore, I would have been happy to help.  Please remember that for the next test."

Shaking with anger, tears appeared in Rory's eyes, slowly rolling down her cheek.  Tristan watched her from across the room, and for a minute she met his eyes.  Quickly looking down, he turned his attention to his own grade, a 92.  Rory was still staring at him, but focused her attention back on Mr. Medina, who was trying to explain the reason why everyone got number 2 wrong on the test.  Tuning him out, she glanced at the clock, and was relieved that she had to sit through only 4 more minutes of the class.

*          *          *

Going to the library during lunch, Rory hoped to see John there.  After all, they met there the day before, and maybe he would be there again.  Smiling to herself when she saw that her seat by the window wasn't taken, she sat there and opened up Metamorphosis again.  She couldn't completely concentrate on the book, because she had her thoughts on other things – namely, the fact that she was having a bad day.  She was too busy wondering thinking about it that she didn't notice that John was standing in front of her.

"Rory… Rory?  Earth to Rory…" He snapped his fingers in front of her and she jumped up, surprised. 

"What?  Oh, hi John.  I didn't see you there."

Laughing at her ignorance, he sat down in the chair across from her.  "So, how's the day been treating you?"

Rory frowned, annoyed that she would have to relive it for him.  "Let's just say it sucked and leave it at that."

"Bad day, huh?  Well, if it makes you feel any better, mine wasn't so great either.  I had a nice little conversation with my favorite person."

"And that would be…?"

"Tristan, of course.  He pushed me against a garbage can on purpose and then muttered something about me lying about something.  I don't know where he gets the nerve."

Rory's smile faltered.  This is too weird.  "Oh.  I had a conversation with him too.  He said that you were lying.  And I'm sorry, but I'm not sure who I can believe right now."

John glared at her.  "I thought that you would have believed me.  I thought that we were friends.  But maybe you'd rather be friends with him."

Rory returned the glare.  "Well, sometimes friends lie.  I'm not saying that you are, but I'm not about to believe you just yet.  I'm sorry."

John's smirk turned into a smile.  "Ok, I'm sorry.  I guess I was getting a little nervous.  I just want you to know that I wouldn't lie to you about anything.  I mean it, Rory."

Smiling warmly at him, Rory decided to change the subject.  "It's okay, really.  I guess I should be apologizing too, because the fact that I'm having a bad day isn't really helping me any."

"What happened?"

"For one thing, I got a D on my test.  The button on my skirt came undone, and it was talked about during class.  Paris was being ruder to me than usual, and my locker opened up in my face.  I'm sure I missed a few things, but if you don't mind, I don't want to talk about it.  That would probably make it suck even more." 

John smiled knowingly.  "Oh, it's ok.  I've had a few of those days myself.  Why don't I try to make your day better by bringing you for some coffee after school?"
Rory frowned.  "I'm not so sure about that… you might wind up hating me."

"C'mon, Rory.  It's coffee, the beverage you love so much… how could you possibly refuse?"

Waiting a moment to reply, Rory surveyed him carefully.  After a few minutes, she smiled slightly.  "Ok, sure.  If it's coffee- I guess that would be alright.  Let's just hope that it doesn't spill on my lap.  I'd really cry then."

"Why, because it would be too hot?"

Rolling her eyes, Rory shook her head.  "No!  Because it would be wasting a perfectly good cup of coffee." 

"Uh, right.  I have to go now, it seems as though lunch will be over in 10 minutes and I still haven't finished my homework for trig.  Pick you up at your locker?"

Rory nodded.  "Yeah.  Talk to you later."

Rory watched him leave and smiled to herself.  Maybe he's not so bad after all.

*          *          *

John walked through the Chilton hallways, smirking to himself.  This was just too easy.  In a matter of days, Rory would be his.  He would get what he wanted from her, and that's all he needed.  Part of him felt guilty about using her to get to Tristan, but it was just part of the plan, and he couldn't do anything about it.  The poor girl was clueless- she had no clue what she was about to get herself into.  John walked slower than usual as soon as Tristan was in sight, and he smiled sourly at him. 

"Hello there, DuGrey." 

"What do you want, Parker?  I told you never to talk to me again."  Tristan glared at him, trying to ignore him at the same time.  He turned his head back to his friend Chris, who had taken the moment to leave. 

"What do I want?  I want what you want, DuGrey.  And you're going to be very sorry once I get it."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Sure, I want a Mercedes for my birthday.  How are you going to get one?"

"Dumbass, that's not what I meant.  It's not really a what, it's more like a … who."

John watched as Rory walked down the hall.  Taking a moment to wave to her, he smiled and turned back to Tristan.

Tristan watched as Rory waved back and gritted his teeth.  "You wouldn't."

"Oh, but I would.  Trust me, DuGrey, you're going to be sorry for what you did.  And you're going to pay for it."

John smirked one last time before walking away, disappearing into a crowd of people in the hallway.

(A/N:  Ok, so I said John would lie to Rory in this chapter.  It didn't really go well in here, so I'm saving that for the next chapter.  Please R/R… it's what makes me want to post more chapters!)