A/N: I'm leaving for China for a month-long vacation, so I kind of hurried to get this stuff up. Remember, it's without a beta (which I am still in desperate need of...anyone? Email me), so it's pretty crappy, and also at 2:30 AM, an hour and a half before my flight. Thanks for reviewing everyone. And I'm an anti-Literati, I swear. Seriously.
Disclaimer (which I have forgotten since the first chapter): I own nothing. Though I wish I owned Lauren's hair. My preciousssss...
"Thanks." Rory told the cabbie, shouldering her backpack and counting out the right amount of change by the dim streetlamps.
He waved her off, his frayed cuff trailing tiny threads. "Don't bother. Just pay me what you've got there."
"Oh, no, I can..."
"Relax. Take care." Touching the brim of his hat, he smiled and accepted the handful of cash she handed him. "'Night."
"You too." Rory smiled back wanly. It felt like a stretch for her facial muscles as he sped off into the night. She wondered vaguely if she would ever smile–genuinely smile–for a long time. Probably not, she decided as she strode purposefully toward the Greyhound bus station schedule and checked the florescent digital readout of her watch. 10:23.
"New Haven...New Haven...New Haven..." She murmured softly, scanning the list. She'd decided to go back to her dorm at Yale and hide out for a while. Take out the phones, stroll around the empty campus and think. She was pretty sure there were some camps going on...
"New Haven. 10:50. Damn!" Rory swore. Now what?
A tiny idea began to form...but after how I...he would never...
Sighing, she walked over to the pay phone and dropped some coins in the slot, wishing she'd thought to bring her own cell phone. Pressing zero, she cradled the phone between her ear and her shoulder.
"Yes? Information? Hi, can I get the New York directory, please?..."
Three days.
A long, long time to go without coffee.
She'd used up her supply the first night, drinking the bad Starbucks blend tucked in the back of the cupboard. Her hand shook so badly from the stress of the evening's events that she'd dropped the Disney mug, Rory's favorite, with Piglet picking flowers. She remembered it smashing on the floor, dark liquid spattering on the bottom cabinets and pooling around the table legs, the cheery pink porcelain in a thousand shards that littered the ground.
She hadn't had the heart to clean it up yet. It was beginning to sink in and stain the cheap vinyl tile. Actually, the salesman had assured her, many years ago (as she persuaded toddler Rory not to eat the carpet samples) that it was stain-resistant, but she was betting that nothing on earth could withstand coffee that strong for 72 hours on end.
Luke can get rid of it, she thought automatically, but she immediately regretted it. Thinking of Luke inevitably led to thinking about her leaving him high and dry, which led to guilt, which led to pain. She should only focus on Rory, and that in itself was enough to make her head want to explode.
The phone trilled loudly. Lorelai turned on her heel, racing out of the kitchen and grabbing the phone on the hall table before it even finished its first ring. "Rory?!" She gasped out, her voice thick with emotion.
"What's wrong with you? Are you all right?" Emily demanded, somehow still intimidating with only her voice coming out of a tinny speaker. "Why do you need Rory?"
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and a camel. "Oh, mom. Um. I just, um, Rory just..she...I was, um...."
"Stop blathering. What's going on?" Emily said briskly.
"She's having a Sixteen Candles kinda day." She lied, thankful that her mother wasn't in the room to guess the truth. "The beginning. Maybe the middle. But definitely not the end."
"Oh. I see." Emily said in a voice that told Lorelai she clearly did not.
Lorelai closed her eyes painfully. "What do you want, Mom?"
"What a kind question. Well, I just wanted to let you know that I'll be moving out of the house and I thought you might like some things of mine. Jewelry, extra clothes, that sort of thing. I doubt it'll all fit into the apartment." She said the word apartment the way Lorelai might have said vegetables or Leonardo DiCaprio.
"Wait, wait. You're moving in an apartment?" Lorelai's voice was incredulous, her guarded tone dropping in shock.
"Yes."
"But you hate apartments."
"Well, I can't exactly afford to be choosy, now can I? If I could, I definitely would've chosen a better room at the Dragonfly test run. Prevented this whole sordid affair."
Silence.
I should've known. There is no such thing as an innocent call from Emily Gilmore. When she finally found her voice, it was harsh and sudden. "Listen to me, Mom. You can blame me for a lot of things. Hell, on Saturday night alone, you could've blamed me for the bad champagne, you could've blamed me for no air conditioning, you could've blamed me for being a concerned daughter and giving you two a great room in hopes that you could maybe work everything out. But you cannot and will not blame your problems with Dad on me. I had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with this. How dare you?!"
"Oh, Lorelai, don't be so melodramatic. It's–"
Slamming the phone down in its cradle, she swallowed, trying to alleviate the tightness in her throat. It started ringing again, but this time she pulled out the phone cord and collapsed onto the couch.
"Arrrgh!" Rory punched the END CALL button on the cell phone with considerably more force than necessary. "No signal or something. What's wrong with this thing?"
"Nothing. So you'll try another time." A shrug.
"Don't you see? She's probably calling the police, trying to find out where I am, insanely worried. I really shouldn'tve left." Her voice was wistful. "I just...I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't deal with it. I still can't."
The familiar cocked brow and smug grin. "So why'd you try and call?" "Because I'm safe. You let me stay here, I'm trying to sort everything out, and I'm not mugged or murdered or raped or anything. I don't want her to worry."
"Too late for that, don't you think?"
Rory glared at him, her soft blue eyes narrowed to icy slits. "Thanks a lot."
Jess shrugged again. "Hey, just trying to help."