Chapter Four
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Rory watched with a sense of numbness as he turned around and walked away. Her heart and mind dark with emptiness. Emptiness was good. Emptiness kept her from hopelessly calling after him and making a bigger fool out of herself than she already had. Emptiness kept her from openly crying again.
She had heard about the term soulmates, two people in the world, destined to be each other's perfect love. She had found it a quaint and romantic in its own right at the time, but had never really dwelled much upon that subject till the day that Jess had entered her life.
She remembered how drawn to him she had been, even long before she had wanted to admit to herself that she was falling in love with him. She remembered their conversations and the moments spent in each other's company… and there had never been a more noticeable time in her life where she had felt like she was torn in two. Where her mind had been telling her one thing, and her heart had been telling her another.
She knew the difference between what she was feeling for Jess, and what she had felt with Dean. Dean had been her first love, and some people said that you never loved again the way that you did that first time. Maybe that was true, for it was definitely a far more innocent love. One full of the promise of unexpected events and emotions. It was an amazing, adrenaline rush that was pretty typical when first meeting someone new and clicking on an elemental level with them. It was what everyone felt when they met someone that they believed they could fall in love with, and it became such a powerful force, that they could often mistake that rush with actually already being in love.
It wasn't until you had experienced a few of those moments, and then possibly a long term relationship with someone that you knew the difference. That you knew what was simply a rush of giddiness and butterflies… and when it was something else entirely.
That's not to say that the giddiness couldn't develop into more, like it had with her and Dean; It just meant that when she had met Jess, it hadn't been a rush… it had been a full on assault. And it hadn't just been her hormones or her body reacting to his on a physical level.
Something inside of her had responded to something that he had called out from within her. They had been like two bells perfectly in tune with one another, so that when they rang, it created the most beautiful of music.
The first time she had kissed him, she had felt something give from within her. Something shift and slide into place, like a puzzle piece that had been manipulated one way after another, before finally sinking home seamlessly into its rightful place.
She had discovered what her heart had been trying to tell her all along… he was her soulmate. Her perfect match. She'd fought it for a long time, but nothing could ever change that. He had pursued her… and finally she had given in.
And for a little while, it had been the most amazing experience of her life.
But there was another little part to the whole destined soulmate thing, and that was even if you were fortunate enough to find your other half, more times than not circumstances would make it so you would never be able to keep them. The actual percentage of true soulmates sticking together for the rest of their days was virtually non-existent. Proving once again how capable human nature was of totally screwing something so incredibly precious up.
Only humans could make something so simple into something so painful and complex. The sight of him sliding back into his car and shutting the door behind him was proof of that little fact.
She didn't want to stand there and watch him. She didn't want to be here to see him leave all over again, but she couldn't seem to get that message through to her legs. She couldn't seem to be capable of walking away.
So she stood there. She stood there, and watched him drive past her. Her only call to pride being that she didn't turn around and watch him disappear into the night… But she still couldn't seem to move either. So it was a weak call.
But she couldn't exactly blame what she was feeling right now on him. She could have avoided all of this by not having initiated that kiss.
She stood there with the taste of him still in her mouth and on her lips, and knew that she would carry that taste with her for the rest of the night. Knew that sleep wasn't going to come easy, and that when it finally did, the dreams would be torment. But what else should she expect? She'd brought this one herself, after all.
She should have just let him leave. She had made the mistake in believing that she could never hurt more than she had when he had disappeared a year ago, but she had been wrong. Oh, how she had been wrong.
She would be paying for this night for a long time to come, she knew it. This wasn't going to be as easy to get over, now that she had just had thrown back in her face how she had never been quite as over him as she had apparently pretended to be.
And now she knew she never would be. This wasn't the kind of thing that you just… got over. It didn't work that way. It was pretty to think otherwise, but it just didn't.
Strangely though, these were not the subjects that she was dwelling upon at that moment, as the sounds of his engine faded away into the cold air. Neither was whether or not she would ever forgive him, even though she didn't think she could. She didn't think she'd ever be able to forgive or forget. Much less ever even be able to take him back…
She would always love him. That would never change. You didn't just stop loving a person. It didn't work like that. But the focus of that love could always shift, and that was what a part of her was afraid of now.
So she could only pray that when the day finally came that he stepped back into her life, her love for him wouldn't have turned to hate. Because it was that fear that consumed her thoughts in that numb span of time for which she could only be thankful for.
Because pretty soon that numbness would wear off. Her brain would finally decide which emotion it wanted to turn on first in light of the life altering events of this night…
And then the pain would begin. And she would have to deal with it. Again.
Alone.
And she had no one to blame for it but herself.
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Night, lift up the shades… let in the brilliant light of morning…
But steady me now, for I am weak and starving for mercy.
Sleep has left me alone to carry the weight of unraveling where we went wrong…
It's all I can do to hang on, to keep me from falling into old familiar shoes…
How stupid could I be?
A simpleton could see,
That you're no good for me…
But you're the only one I see.
Love has made me a fool… Set me on fire and watched as I floundered.
Unable to speak except to cry out and wait for your answer…
And you come around in your time… speaking of fabulous places, create an oasis, that dries up as soon as you're gone…
You leave me here burning in this desert without you…
How stupid could I be?
A simpleton could see,
That you're no good for me…
But you're the only one I see.
Everything changes… everything falls apart…
I can't stand to feel myself losing control.
In the deep of my senses I know…
How stupid could I be?
A simpleton could see,
That you're no good for me…
But you're the only one I see.
How stupid could I be?
A simpleton could see,
That you're no good for me…
But you're the only one I see.
~*~ Lyrics from "Stupid" by Sarah Mclachlan and from the album "Afterglow" ~*~
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Standing at the edge of solace
I'm all alone…
Echoes of your voice possess me
But you are gone…
A winter sun crawls down toward evening,
Light breezes come
Caress my face with vows of sleeping…
But I am alone
If just for a moment
You'd find me in these snows
I'd fly away with you…
I'd fly with you…
I don't want to bloom without you…
I don't want to breathe without you…
I don't want to be without you…
I don't want to sleep without you…
And I don't want to laugh without you…
I don't want to die without you…
And I don't want to love without you…
I don't want to bloom without you…
~*~ Lyrics from "Bloom" by Casey Stratton from the album "Standing at the Edge" ~*~
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I would like to thank everyone who reviewed this story. I'm very surprised at the fan base it seemed to have developed, and I'm touched to know that this story has been enjoyed so much by all of you.
I know some of you may be disappointed in how it didn't have a happy ending, but that is just the way I had always seen this story playing out. There was never the possibility in my mind of it ending happily. All I wanted to do was write out the scene that we SHOULD have seen play out in that episode. And I think that I have done that.
Will I ever write another Gilmore Girls fic? Well, I think after having such an amazing response with this one, I think it is a possibility, but if it does happen, I don't know when it'll be, or what it'll be about. So in the meantime, I will be bowing out gracefully from the genre until such time that my muse wishes to revisit it.
So until then, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support! I hope you'll take the time now and review this last chapter, and I look forward to reading any of your comments.