Dedications: Who else? This one's for Marissa, emrie, Kate, Hadar and Chris. You ladies rock.
Author's Note: This is a short, one part piece on Rory's first night at college. It's short and it's a stand-alone. I realize that this wasn't the actual course of events, but I wrote it before "Lorelais' First Day at Yale," so this is how it was in my world. Feedback, as always, greatly appreciated.
Interlude
By columbiachica (kat)
It wasn't exactly a dream. Rory was fully conscious while she lay in this unfamiliar bed, gazing into the uncharted darkness before her. It wasn't a full hallucination, either, because Rory was aware that it wasn't happening. It was just an interlude, really.
The day had been long, stressful. Lorelai, attempting to disguise her heartache in Rory's leaving for college, had been especially exuberant. Everything warranted a joke, regardless of whether it deserved one. To mask her fear of leaving home and her distress at leaving Lorelai, Rory tried to keep up, to make it seem like it was just a normal day.
Of course, it wasn't. If it were, Rory would be safely in Stars Hollow, asleep in her friendly bed that held her like a dewdrop in the protective shell of a leaf. This bed was stiff and creaky under Rory's weight as she turned over and over, waiting for morning. As they set the bed up together, Lorelai joked about its creakiness, but that didn't seem like such a joke anymore. The smallest shift in weight initiated five seconds' worth of groaning. Biting her lip, Rory tried to move less, fearing that she would wake her suitemates.
After her thoughts of Lorelai cleared and she successfully bit back her acidic tears, Rory looked out the window. The lamp lights at Yale were an unhealthy looking yellow that reminded Rory of old photographs where everyone looked nauseous. Their light intruded through the curtain-less window and pooled on the scratched wood floor. Other than that, it was totally dark out. There weren't many dorm lights on anymore; it was late, and it was the first night. Rory imagined that most people were feeling kind of homesick. Kind of like her.
It was then that the interlude started. Somehow, inexplicably, Rory was pretty sure the window and the sickly light made her lonelier and since she couldn't think about Lorelai without crying, she thought about Jess.
That fact made her a little angry. Jess had been little more than a jerk to her for the last few months – really, most – of their relationship. Yet her mind unaccountably blocked that out and focused on the friendship they'd cultivated before dating and jealousy got in the way. Upset though she was that her mind kept drifting back to the boy who'd hurt her, left without a word, Rory couldn't help but feel better when she thought about Jess out in California, probably reading a book and feeling about as homesick as a fish in the sea.
The loneliness drove her to it. It pulled at her stomach, tugging her downward until she felt as though she might not be able to get up. Rolling again, Rory faced the door. She imagined it opening and Jess walking in, tossing his coat on the haphazardly abandoned furniture, toeing his shoes off, and sitting on the edge of her bed. It was stupid, but it felt for a moment like Jess was really there with her, smelling of soap, after-shave, hair gel, and faintly of smoke.
What, Rory wondered, would she say to him if he showed up here? She knew, in reality, that he never would. Jess wasn't the kind of guy to come back and try to right or re-live the past. But if it did happen, Rory didn't know what she'd say. In their brief conversation, if one could call it that, after graduation, Rory told him about moving on, about Yale and Europe, and most importantly that she may have loved him. If she were given to delusion, Rory would say that she didn't love him, after all he'd done to her, but the truth was, there was a strange gravity between them. Despite his jackass tendencies, Jess had glimmers of brilliance and caring that kept drawing Rory in no matter how much she wanted to stray.
Letting her imagination get the better of her, Rory formed Jess' outline with her eyes. "Hey," he would say, as if nothing had changed, because that was Jess. That which was painful was better left unacknowledged. And, unable to tear into him, she would say the same, sitting. They might just look at each other for a while, because while it made others uncomfortable, it was sometimes the only way to say what they were feeling.
"How was California?" Rory said, in her head, to Jess' outline.
A sarcastic, although somewhat heartfelt answer would probably spout out of Jess, something about the dumb hippies and the great bootleg.
Then she'd ask about his dad. Rory was so curious to know about Jimmy. What about Jimmy drove Jess away from Luke and the security he'd offered? In her interlude, Rory imagined that Jess would have very little to say on the subject, probably about the same as he contributed about his mother.
Even in this fake rendition of her reunion with Jess, Rory couldn't bring herself to ask about what prompted him to leave her without so much as goodbye. He'd obviously known on the bus that he was leaving, but he didn't say a word to her. Did he not care? Did he think she couldn't handle it, or that she would try to stop him?
For a minute, Jess' silhouette disappeared as Rory wondered what might have happened had Jess told her about leaving. In reality, of course, she would have tried to stop him. She would have exhorted him to stay with Luke – and her – and finish school. In the end, of course, she would have lost, but she would have tried. Maybe the knowledge that someone cared about him, that someone wanted him to stay, would have influenced him.
But she and Jess had been on shaky terms before that. The party, his upset outburst, had been the last time they'd spoken for a while, and Rory knew, in her heart, that they were on the precipice of splitting up. If he'd said something, though, at least she would have gotten to say goodbye. No matter how ugly the shredded remains of their romantic relationship were, it would have been nice to at least have said goodbye to the boy who was the first literary friend she'd had.
His shadowy form returned when Rory stopped postulating about goodbyes. The yellow light barely touched him and Rory could envision the illumination glowing just a bit on his cheekbones, accentuating the shadow and sharpness. A tiny bit glittered in his eye and Rory remembered her favorite facial feature of his.
Her dream-self was too timid to ask about the phone call or about what his response would have been if he'd been inclined to say something or she'd been able to give him the chance. "I think I may have loved you," echoed uncomfortably through her head and Rory blushed to think of Jess on the other end of that phone. He probably didn't even care, Rory told herself.
Finally, dream-Jess leaned down and kissed her. This was what Rory missed the most. Up until Jess came along, she'd only had Dean's sweet but lackluster kisses to compare against the abundance of passion she'd read about in literature. But once Jess kissed her, kissed her like he wanted her, Rory knew that there was no going back. She wondered if anyone else would kiss quite like Jess.
His hands wandered all over, much as they had at the fateful party, but this time, there weren't a hundred people congregated downstairs, no one waiting outside the door, no Dean, no Lindsay, no rush, no inhibitions. It was like it should be. Unfortunately, it was also imaginary, and Rory started to feel pathetic, imaging her ex-boyfriend seducing her in her dorm room.
Dream-Jess vanished and Rory rolled onto her back. Her day played back to her in the darkness. Lorelai waking he r up was the first thing she remembered. It was early, and Lorelai said, rather sadly, that they should spend as much time together as they could. As she'd done when Rory was small, Lorelai crawled into bed with her, cradling her daughter. "I'm going to miss you, babe," Lorelai whispered, sounding teary.
"It's only an hour away," Rory whispered back.
"It's more than distance," Lorelai said, her voice heavier than Rory could ever remember it sounding. "You're just not my little girl anymore. My baby's going off to college."
"I'll come home, Mom."
"Hon, I know. But it won't be the same." Lorelai kissed the top of her head. "You'll see."
Rory was already beginning to see. College, though she'd been there a very short time, seemed radically different from life in high school, or Stars Hollow. There were freedoms, there were interesting clubs – and there were so many people. Lorelai would become a more peripheral part of her life now, no matter how Rory tried to stop it. There was no avoiding it. In order to grow up, Rory had to be able to survive on her own and that was hard to grasp, lying in an unyielding bed miles from her mom.
She and Lorelai had helped Luke pack the final belongings into his truck and they all drove to New Haven, Rory in her Echo. Teasingly, Lorelai sent Rory down the road on her own, saying that Rory should get used to driving "all by her lonesome." Lorelai, according to Luke, chattered away about nonsense, her seriousness from that morning gone. Rory imagined that Luke didn't even pretend to listen as they clattered down the road, bogged down by the weight of Rory's life in the truck bed.
When they got there, people were everywhere. Girls were running up to one another and hugging, some guys had already organized a rather ragtag game of soccer, fathers were hauling furniture, mothers were socializing. Even Lorelai looked taken off-guard by the hubbub.
With Luke's help, the dorm room was finally loaded up. Some of the stuff, things that didn't fit, had to be returned to Stars Hollow. During a lull, when Lorelai had trooped down to the vending machines to procure a snack, Luke had dug in his pocket and handed Rory a business card. "You might want this," he said, looking directly into Rory's eyes as he said it, his gaze heavy. Very carefully, Rory had tucked it away in her nightstand and hadn't given it much, if any thought since.
Now she was curious. Awake as though it were nine A.M., Rory opened her drawer and took the card out. Since she'd had no time to gather junk in there, it was easy to find the slender slip of paper peeking out. On one side, there was the phone number and address of some supplier, and Rory wondered why Luke wanted her to have it. On the other side, there was a hastily scrawled phone number. It wasn't labeled, but Rory know whose it was.
Her heart pounded so loud, Rory could have sworn that the entire dorm could hear it. She could do this; she could give Jess a call. That might put her to sleep, if only because she cried herself to sleep. It would give her a truly fresh start at college; it would break ties; it would be a sense of closure. Yes. This was a good idea.
Slithering out from under her thin covers, Rory found her cell phone on the tiny desk in the corner of her room. She took it and huddled in the corner, where her voice would carry the least. By the guide her of blue back light, Rory deliberately punched in the eleven digits and waited.
"Hello?"
It was a woman. Not a girl, to be sure, but a woman. "Hi. Is… Jess there?"
"Yeah. Who is this?"
"It's…" Rory considered lying, making up some ditzy name like Trixie or Bambi, but said, "Rory."
"Hold on." Rory heard the vague sound of a shouted exchange, and then Jess' voice came over the line.
"Rory?" he said. His voice sounded cautious and that threw Rory.
"Hi."
"Hi."
The "hi" ring could continue for a while, Rory knew, so she stopped it. "How are you?"
"Fine. You?"
"I'm good."
"Rory, it's midnight here."
"Yeah, I know."
"So it's three there."
"Yeah."
"Three in the morning."
"Yeah."
"So, you thought it'd be a good time for a chat?"
"I couldn't sleep," Rory confessed.
"Right."
"How's… California?" Rory asked, eerily echoing her interlude.
"Sunny."
"There's a lot of songs that say that. I guess they weren't lying." It was the best she could come up with.
"You doubted them?"
Now Rory was beginning to feel a little silly. She hadn't called Jess to talk about the veracity of '60s music. "I'm at Yale," she said.
"Yeah?"
If she wasn't mistaken, Rory could have sworn she heard a little pride in Jess' voice. Just a smidgen. "Yeah. It's… lonely," Rory said after a mournful pause. Jess said nothing. "And I didn't want to call my mom because—" She stopped. She didn't want to admit to Jess that calling her mother made her teary.
"Why?"
"She – I miss her too much."
"Oh." Jess cleared his throat. Rory couldn't think of anything to say now. But her small comfort was that she'd found Jess; if she wanted, she could call him whenever she wanted to, now. It wasn't just up to him when they talked. "How's Luke?"
"He's good. He got married," Rory told Jess casually, knowing that an eyebrow shot up on the other end of the line.
"What?"
"Yeah. Nicole."
"You're joking."
"Nope. On a cruise ship."
"Are you sure you're not drunk?"
"And now he's getting divorced."
Jess almost laughed, Rory could hear it in the way he drew his breath in sharply. "I should have called."
"Yes." They both heard the new solemnity slip into Rory's tone and it silenced them for a moment. "How's your dad?"
"Good."
"You like him?"
"Sure."
"That's good." On the opposite end, Rory could sense Jess getting restless. "Look, Jess, I really called because… I'm sorry. About how things turned out between us."
"I think I should be the one apologizing."
"Probably. But it's partly my fault too. Maybe if you thought you could come to me, with your school stuff…"
"I'd have left anyway, Rory. You're gone. I'm not going back to Stars Hollow High and I'm sure as hell not going to spend the rest of my life in the diner."
"But," Rory protested tearfully, "you looked it up."
He sighed. "I told you. Two seconds."
"I thought you might stay," Rory told him, spilling her heart, letting things slide between her lips that had hardly dared to take shape in her mind. "I thought you'd stay," she repeated.
"Forever?" His voice was vitriolic and then she could hear him inhale and hold it for a second. "Rory, I never planned to stay in Stars Hollow. You knew that the second you met me."
"I thought I could convince you," Rory divulged morosely.
"Rory…"
"I thought that you'd stay for me. You came back for me."
"I'm sorry. Okay?"
"Yeah." Next to hear, Rory could hear Paris grumbling in her sleep. "Couldn't you have said goodbye?"
"No. I couldn't."
"Oh."
"You should get to sleep," Jess said. His voice was as close to tender as Rory had ever heard it and her heart leapt close to her throat.
"Yeah, probably. Um, goodnight."
"Goodbye," Jess replied and before Rory could ask him about that, he hung up. She softly shut her cell phone and replaced it on top of the desk.
The creaking that had seemed such a cacophony ten minutes earlier now seemed just a background to her thoughts. Rory's mind was working harder than it was before the call; she'd never sleep. She contemplated calling Lorelai but knew that it was too late and that it would just make her more homesick. So she tossed and turned in her unfamiliar bed, with the more familiar but no less irritating sounds of Paris next to her, thinking.
Yale was supposed to be the next part of her life. It was supposed to be the thing that pulled her forward, prepared her for the real world and the rest of her life. College was supposed to be what defined Rory as an individual. But right now, lying in bed, homesick as hell and missing Jess for no reason, Rory felt small, pitiful, and childish. She felt as instead of moving forward as college was meant to do, she was caged between the past and the future.
Stuck, forever, in this interlude that wasn't a dream but wasn't quite reality.