Title: The Non-Allure of Love
Author: storydivagirl [at] hotmail [dot] com
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just a fan of the show and all the characters. This is all in good fun.
A/N: Thanks to RachelWilder for the great beta work and helping me make sure I got Grace's voice down. Archive if you want, but let me know. Feedback always appreciated.
It isn't how she planned it. The first kiss was so much better, so pure, so exhilarating, so in the momentand this isn't. The current scene isn't playing out the same way. It's a mixture of all those things she thought she hated, all those sloppy feelings that had a tendency to run amuck and cause craziness to abound in others.
Grace stares up at the sky, pretending to be interested as Luke spouts out technical jargon. She isn't sure if she's impressed that his head can retain all that information without exploding, pleased that he thinks of her as an equal-as someone who comprehends the science of a supernova-or annoyed by the situation unfolding around her. Does she look like someone that gives a crap about black holes? She has her own life for that sort of thing. Every Hebrew class is the equivalent of being sucked into a black hole with no escape in sight and a twisted perspective forced upon her.
Black holes, she fears, are her destiny.
And, despite declarations by jerks like Freidman, she is a girl. Shocking as it might be from time to time to everyone around her (friends included), she occasionally indulges in her feminine side. She owns a dress, enjoys chocolate too much, and even finds herself moved by the sporadic romantic gesture. Though if that last one ever got out, well, she has a reputation to protect. One that is already stunted by her friendship with Joan Girardi and further exacerbated by Joan's brother. Luke continues to attempt to pursue a relationship in the same manner she predicts that he tackles a physics problem that he can't quite figure out.
To think that she's so easy to read after years of culling out a personality that is inexplicable and full of rage.
She's a girl full of rage, who's all "damn the man" (and not because a movie said to), a girl who doesn't participate or date Luke Girardi. Not that she's dating himor even considering it. Because that would ruin everything.
But he has this weird affect on her. Not in the crazy sense, not like Joan and Adam act around each other, all soap opera-like and angsty and something out of a historical romance where the woman gets the vapors. Nothing that cheesy, but Luke makes her want to kiss him. He does strange things to show his affection for her-asking her to be his partner in the science fair, giving her a rock-and it's all she can think about half the time. It overpowers her. She'll be having a nice thought about the downward mobilization of society and suddenly have the urge to ask Luke, "Why a rock, Girardi?" or harp on how things could never happen for them.
Neverhappen. She repeats it over and over until she almost believes it.
Luke is one of those guys that's going to grow up and be a part of the system. He's going to have the 2.5 kids and bumper stickers on his car with little faux witty sayings like "smile, god's watching" or "my kid's an honor student." He'll have barbecues on the weekends with his equally crazy sister, who will probably have her own advice column someday where she gives out wrong information that drives people to jump off cliffs en masse, but people will love her because she's Joan. And because it's all about the delivery of misinformation. And Joan? She has good delivery.
Dear Joan? It's hard to imagine, but then again, she could never imagine Girardi and Rove swapping spit until she stumbled upon them in an embrace. It nearly blinded her.
"Grace? Are you even listening?" Luke asks.
"I was for the first" she pauses and holds up her watch before going on, "thirty minutes, Girardi. You babble. You might want to work on that."
"I wasn't babbling. I was explaining."
"Well, you explain for too long," she replies. She keeps her eyes fixed on the sky and remarks, "I don't recall you even stopping to breathe. Is that possible?"
"If you didn't want to come-"
"And miss the excitement? How could I resist?"
Luke plops down on the grass next to her. He keeps his distance. He always does. It's like he's afraid she's going to bite his head off. He stares at her in that way he has and she rolls her eyes before he can say anything cheesy. She refuses to do cheesy. Not now. Not under a star-filled sky with the sounds of violins in the background.
Violins? Where the hell did the violins come from?
Great, she decides, I'm broken. I'm hearing music in my head. Look what these Girardi's have done to me.
Luke, catching her freaked out expression, explains, "One of those symphonies in the park is happening tonight."
"Fun."
Luke shrugs.
"Almost as fun as this."
"I didn't force you to come."
"I know."
"Because you always make it seem like I force you and I don't. I don't force. I'm like the anti-force guy."
"What do you want from me?"
"A clear signal would be nice-"
"I'm sorry that I'm not Glynnis, Girardi. I don't read like a text book or even know why I'm here myself. And you're my best friend's brother. I keep thinking this is wrong."
"So why did you come? Why did you kiss me?"
"Because you annoy me."
"That makes no sense at all."
"Tell me about it."
"It should make sense. Everything in this universe makes sense to meexcept you," Luke admits. He taps his foot nervously and adds, "I like rational."
"I don't."
"And I like school-"
"Oh c'mon, no one likes school. Not even the teachers."
"I do."
"Freak."
Luke gets quiet for a second and then asks, in an almost inaudible voice, "Why can't you admit you like me?"
She gasps. It's true, of course. She does like him. She thinks she does anyway. But to hear it said out loud, especially considering Luke Girardi is not the overly-confident hotshot jockgod type of guy. He's saying it because he knows. Dear God. He knows. How humiliating. She'll never live this sort of thing down. It'll be right up there on her list of things she plans to eradicate from people's memories if ever provided with some sort of memory-inhibiting serum. This and that Backstreet Boys concert she went too (against her will)and the time her mother sent her to school in a frilly yellow dress with bows in her hair (bows!!!) and pigtails.
Rove called her "his little sunflower" for weeks after. That was when she took her mother's pinking sheers and chopped her hair down to her neck. It was the first time she got that reaction from her family. It was great and she aspired to that shock mentality for every occasion.
Except now she's shocking herself and that's never been part of her plan. High school romance is soGrease. It makes her sick. And there is something in the way that Luke speaks to her, the way he watches her every move, that makes it quite clear that he wants to be the Sandy to her Danny Zuko. To totally remove her cool factor and turn her into some sort of high school joiner who dons a letterman's jacketand she isn't having that.
So why is she there? And why does she like him?
"God is cruel, Girardi. He's out to get me."
"Now you sound like Joan."
Joan. Safe topic. Easy topic. Grace shrugs and asks, "How's she doing? She's been avoiding everyone, which means that I spend most of my time fielding pathetic phone calls from Rove."
Luke doesn't say anything at first. He stares up at the sky and then at her. He does this over and over again and Grace wonders if this is some sort of plan he read about in a book about breaking someone's will. Because she's about to snap. As though he knows she's about to crack, he sighs and says, "She's taken to donning black and going around quoting 'god is dead' every hour or so."
"And to thinkI always assumed she was the normal one," Grace quips. She stands herself up. This is getting toofor her liking. She doesn't want close. She truly, truly doesn't.
But then he leans in awkwardly. His hands fumbling on her shoulder until she finds herself grumbling under breath and pulling him to her. It's slow and cautious, everything she abhors about life, and she wants it to be more, or, at least, different. She pulls back when she can't stand it any longer. Nothing like the first kiss. The first real kiss after they left the hospital. This feels like there's an audience they're trying to appeal to and a director to yell cut.
It's not them in this kiss. It's about everything else. There is no clumsy inexperience or going with the flow. It's weird to admit, but she misses it. She loves Luke's awkwardness. It suits him. He's cute as the bumbling nerd who attempts to woo women, particularly her, with astronomy and physics. She loves how he fidgets and plays with his glasses, pushing them up and down his nose, whenever he's nervous. She loves that she knows these things about him.
She hates him for it too. He broke her. She was once the queen of rebellion, the antisocial adolescent. That was her shtick. Then the Girardi family moves to town and her whole life changes. She changes into this friend and insipid love struck ninny who finds herself scrawling out poems on the back of napkins and getting jealous of Glynnis.
That's what is so upsetting as Luke pulls back and stares at her. She wants to hate him, but it's a confusing mess. Because if she hates him, then she hates him because she loves things about him, and then is that really hate?
She punches him in the arm. He glares at her and she says, "I need to get home."
"Okay."
"And by the way, Girardi," she says, allowing her voice to trail off as her head tilts back up to the sky.
His line of vision follows, "Yeah?"
"Ursa Major," she pauses and lifts his hand up to the sky, before continuing, "is over here."
"Huh," he replies. His eyes trailing the down the straight line of the Big Dipper until he reached the North Star before he adds, "I knew that."
"Sure," Grace says. She picks up her bag and starts walking off. She feels better now. The energy around them has changed for the better. She can breathe and think and remember who she is.
Then he calls after her, a chill running up her arms, and she stops to wait for him. He's going to walk her home and they'll kiss again and there will be no going back. She's forced to admit one thing. She's now one of those people with the sloppy feelings that she once hated. And the thing that sucks the most? It's a pretty great feeling.
{Fin}