Memories in the Attic
A/N: Again thankyou for all the reviews and constructive criticism, and with all due respect, if you don't like my story… Don't read it!
Disclaimer: Still thankin' Amy for the character's that bring me my inspiration!
I can't believe I'm finally getting married. In two days I'll be Mrs Ben Marris, Rory thought to herself as she sat in the attic putting all her stuff into boxes, ready to shift into Ben's after the wedding. It had all happened so fast. The wedding would be held at her grandparent's estate. The guests coming in from out of town would stay at her mom's Inn. Sookie was doing the catering. Everything was perfect.
She looked out the tiny smeared window into the sun. It was hard to imagine the rest of the world not being as happy as she was right at that moment. The sun was shining, her life finally made sense, her whole life's memories were boxed up in the attic around her, courtesy of her mother and she was ready to look through her past as she readied herself to move to her future.
Although there were hundreds of boxes surrounding her, the most intriguing ones were the "old boyfriend" boxes. She'd tried to throw them away dozens of times, but her mom, kept smuggling them back into the house, insisting that one day she'd wish she had them, and right now she was glad she did.
She opened the first one. Tristan. Boyfriend for three months in her second year at Yale. She'd known him for a while at Chilton, but they ran into each other at a party and then dated for a while. There wasn't really much in his box. A stuffed bear he won for her at a carnival. An old sweatshirt she'd borrowed after they got caught in the rain. A couple of pictures, nothing life-altering.
The next one however pulled on some pretty major heart strings. Dean. Her first boyfriend. The first guy she'd ever loved. There were millions of memories in his box. Pictures of the car he built for her. A bracelet he'd given her. CD's. Her Stars Hollow High year book. A couple of years after they had broken up, Rory was having problems in her life and Dean was having trouble in his marriage and she ended up losing her virginity to him. That's why it was important now that she still had all her good memories of when they first met. They were still friends now, but things never went back to normal. Dean sorted things out with his wife after learning she was pregnant, which is great. They now have a baby daughter. She really did take after her dad, big blue eyes and a huge smile.
And of course logically it seemed appropriate to move on from the Dean box to the Jess box as she had in reality. (except they weren't boxes) Ah, yes. After Jess had left, Rory didn't think her heart would ever heal. He'd left a bigger hole than the others. Even Dean hadn't left as big a scar as Jess had. Even to this day, she sometimes wonders what life would have been like if she'd accepted his offer to run away with him after her first year at Yale. It was almost impossible. Life with Jess was so unpredictable. She could have been back in Stars Hollow within a month, or she could still be "away" with him now. Even though it seemed almost adolescent, every now and then when the phone rang, she subconsciously wished it would be him. She puddled through the Jess box. She pulled out "The Holy Barbarian". She'd bribed him with it, so he would go to dinner with her and her grandma. That was the one thing she'd never been able to share with anyone else. Her love for great literature. No one else understood her need to sit quietly and read. Even Ben didn't couldn't understand it. Next she came across the lyrics for "Guns of Brixton" by The Clash. He'd written them while she was trying to tutor him. He was meant to be writing Shakespeare. That was also the day he'd crashed the car Dean built for her and fractured her wrist. But despite all that, she still loved him. He'd done some of the most romantic things in his effort to win her affections, in fact most people would never know that part of Jess for as long as they lived. He'd out-bid Dean for her lunch basket a few years ago. He'd sat up for twenty-four hours while Rory danced at the Dance Marathon. He'd never said a word when she kissed him at Sookie's wedding and despite all the leaving without a word, she knew that he really did love her. Mainly because he told her so, but…
It had been a long time since Rory had thought about Jess in much depth. It had been two years nearly to the day since she last saw him. She'd moved on, gotten on with her life. Had he? Did he still work at Wal-Mart, counting down the days 'til he would appear out of the blue in Stars Hollow with an insane proposition. Did he read the books they had enjoyed together, thinking of her? He told her they were meant for each other. That he knew it the first time he'd laid eyes on her. If that were so, why was she sitting in her attic surrounded by all these memories, thinking about him, while preparing to marry someone else? It may seem irrational, but there's no way she could completely commit to Ben without knowing the answer. She couldn't live the rest of her life wondering 'what if?'