Shelter
Flossie
Summary- Two years after leaving Chilton, Tristan comes back to find Rory. She's gone. And the soul reason for Tristan's whole life crumbles away from him.
Spoilers-Nothing after Run Away Little Boy.
Rating- PG
Disclaimer- Hopefully once the papers come in, I will officially own Chad Michael Murray. But thanks to the slow postal service, I've been forced to wait.
Author's Note- I've re-posted the entire story again, because I thought it looked shabby and silly. This time everything will be set out nicer, and I want have the personal thank-you's to the reviewers. I'm sorry. But I have every bit the same amount of gratitude towards my reviewers as last time. The story had a little gap, but I'm hoping to finish it within the end of the year.
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Night of the play
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"I gotta go. So, I might kiss you goodbye but,
uh, your boyfriend's watching. Take care of yourself, Mary."
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That sentence had left her wondering. The sort of wonder you have when you've
never tried something before and it looks terrible from afar, but you can't
help to wonder what it tastes like in the inside. The look of it is alluring,
but you've been told it's not worth giving a go.
Tristan was always confusing her. The things she heard about him were mostly
less than flattering, but Rory couldn't help but think he must be different
sometimes. She got a tiny taste of who he was at Madeline's party, for one
brief second Tristan was Tristan, not someone else everyone thought he should
be. And for one second he was who he should be;
Himself.
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He
was just a little confused kid with no-one to seek solitude in, no-one to talk
to. And it was killing him. Eating through him like acid, poisoning him.
Because at such a carefree bright age of seventeen, Tristan realised he wasn't
loved by his parents.
And probably never would be.
But
in some small part of him, he was still hopeful. Even though he was so far
away, somehow he kept a tiny part of him free to love Rory. The kind of fresh
no-strings attached love, that kept him going, kept his heart beating, kept him sane.
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On the way to the airport
"You know you brought yourself into this mess."
Tristan fixated his eyes out to the window, pretending to be interesting in the
flashing white speed-lights.
"I wasn't like you when I was your age. I knew I had a name to live up
to."
He was finding it hard to grit his teeth so tight and breathe at the same time.
"You were just asking for this Tristan, you remember that."
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Two years after graduating Military School –Hartford
And
I did remember it. Every word. Like
it had been recorded into my brain. Stamped in there
for all eternity. Why did he keep pushing? Keep nagging, knowing it was going
to get to me some time? Did he want me to get angry? Did he want me to shout at
him? Or did he just want another reason, another excuse to tell his 'friends'
at the Country Club for not being the good father?
It went on the whole car trip there. I still don't understand how I didn't go
crazy and verbally assault him for all it was worth. But now, I'm glad I
didn't, because for once,
I
was the mature one. He was the teenage son that needed help. He was the
juvenile kid that hurt someone to make themselves feel superior. He didn't get his
outcome. And it felt so good.
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The day I graduated from military school I was sent a letter from my father. I was to move away to Los Angeles and set up a corporation of the Du 'Grey family there. I was sent the money, and the contacts. Everything was set out on a silver platter to me. And I took it. This was the worst mistake of my life. In a few months I found myself being the person I never wanted to be.
Alone again. And empty.
Those
two years of my life I felt myself asking too many questions. I found myself
suffering severe migraines and I didn't know why. I felt myself feeling like my
father.
And I knew I had to get out somewhere.
The
death of my father was where I could finally end the business I had made for
myself in the past two years. When I got the phone call from our family maid
telling me my father had died was the moment I packed it in.
That was yesterday.
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Sometimes I can think of those times and not feel guilty for hating him.
Sometimes I can think that he deserved my hatred. But no matter how much I'd
like to deny it, he was my father.
Scientifically anyway.
And it hurts to think that now, driving to his funeral in a shiny black car
sitting next to my mother, he never had the chance to be a father. And I can't
cry for him knowing so.
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I
remember why I felt good after leaving Harvard to North Carolina now. Living so far
away from it for so long now has almost made me forget why I felt so free in North Carolina, why I felt I could
breathe. People suffocate me. For seventeen years of my life, I was slowly
being strangled by people. And they were all fake. Meaningless. Because they all acted as they should act. Talk
as they should talk. Properly. Everything was done to
perfection. Everything was done for a reason to be perfect. My parent's friends
would talk to me, tell me how handsome I'd grown to be, coo over how they used
to know me as a child, then, once they could have won a few Grammies for their acting performance,
smile outwardly, as if they'd accomplished the task of talking to the Du 'Grey
boy, and walk faultlessly away, knowing they would have gotten either a raise, or more
recognition over being what most normal people would call polite chit chat. But
nothing about anything in my life was any of the least bit normal. Everything was done for
getting something good for themselves.
End of story.
Maybe that was the actual reason I enjoyed life in North Carolina at Military Camp. It
was safer knowing people weren't going to be false around you. That you weren't
going to do or say anything that would be used against you in another
conversation. The few years I spent away from Harvard were my best . Because I was able to be alone.
People accepted that I was probably just another snobby rich kid who didn't
deserve any talking to.
Although being safe wasn't what I wanted to feel.
I wanted to feel real people.
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After
graduation I was stuck in hell for two years. Now that I'm back in Hartford there's only one
person I want to see. I've been waiting five years to see her beautiful face
again. And I don't think I can hold on any longer.
Rory.
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Chapter 3
Act
