Part One: By the Book
She thinks about how he would map out the crevices of her mouth, going over the folds of skin with his tongue.
La boca, she remembers. The mouth.
She doesn't like to think of him that much. It's all too depressing, it's all too cliché.
Heartache can make you very foolish.
She used to think of fairy tales and books and movies that gave everyone happy endings with people that they love. Now, she's much more cynical. How can you have a happy ending? You fight, you have troubles, someone dies. That's why you choose someone comfortable. You won't mourn too much when they die. You will cry, you will go to the funeral, you will not be attached.
Her mother had been afraid of settling. She was afraid of doing anything better than settling.
She loves to read, and she's done it forever, but she will never write because she has nothing to say.
She decided that Jess would be a phase. Everyone has to date a bad boy, she might as well get it over with while she's young.
Dean was nice, but it ended because you aren't supposed to last with your first love. She lived her life by the book because that's all she ever knew.
Jess was a good kisser, but she never responded because it would never last. You never respond, love must be hit and run. You say it back because it's safe and they need to hear it. At first, she wasn't quick enough, and whoops, there it went. Oh well. It came back.
But with Jess, she slowly found herself deteriorating from her rigid point on love. You don't mistake silver for gold, and you will never mistake your gold for silver.
Sometimes she wishes she could just be on a boat at night on some ocean so she could see a shark or a whale or something and just know what it's like to be scared. To see a ghost underneath the water and feel absolutely terrified. She thinks that it feels something like being in love.
Life doesn't seem to be important anymore. Just come out of it without any scars or scratches and you'll be okay. She doesn't even know that he'll be the one thing thing that she'll regret letting go of.
She didn't grow up around men, so she doesn't know much about them. An image of her grandfather, a couple of her father flit through her head. A mess of phone calls and waiting and wondering why mommy is crying.
A long time from now, and she'll wonder if her failure to love has anything to do with her father's sporadic part in her life. Blame is something she usually takes but will push away over the years. It's because of the dad, her mom. The weather. Paris. Inflation. Dean. Taylor.
One day, she decided that if her life were a book, even she wouldn't read it because it would be so boring.
Sometimes, she would lie down of the floor, her cheek against the nice carpet in their nice place with their nice life. She didn't like it. It felt soft. All her life had seemed soft and fluffy and numb. All except for one part, and you can guess which one that was.
So now, with her pride tucked away and her heart out of order, Rory Glimore, at the ripe old age of 28, left her home base and headed straight for the unknown.
Part Two: Never Saw it Coming
He was sitting down when she told him. She marched up to him while he was folding the laundry and watching a football game. Fire and determination blazed behind her eyes, breaking out behind a pathetic wall of fake sadness. There was also something else there. It was pity. He hates pity. He doesn't want to be pitied.
I'm sorry, she says.
Liar. You aren't sorry. Poor Rory, she tries to hide her emotions so much, but anyone can read her like a book. It's because she doesn't need to hide her emotions---or so she thinks. It's almost sad- she can't let herself in her own feelings, yet they're no secret to the rest of the world.
I just... I need... I need... something else.
Ah, finally; some honesty.
Her eyes are dark and stormy. He's never seen them look like that... heavy... and informed.
Someone else, you mean? he asks. He doesn't want to make this easy on her. He doesn't know why, but all of a sudden, he's spiteful and angry. Why not?
she exclaims.
Ah, dependable Rory. She doesn't want to hurt anybody.
But that doesn't change the fact that she does.
Bitch.
No. It's just... it's, okay, it's time for me to... open my eyes. Start living, she says, her eyes dragging across the room.
You're bored? What is the matter with him? He hasn't ever felt this mad. Why now?
Yes. I just... need to be living because it's fun and good, not just be living because I have to.
Oh, and that's so much better.
He sighs. Dammit.
Give in.
Smile faintly, nodding
It's okay.
You suck.
Thank you. I'm sorry.
Not!
Let's stay in touch.
10 dollars says I'll never see you again.
Right. I'll go start to pack.
I will never see you again.

Later, when she's gone--- To a hotel, I'll be fine, she promises--- he sits down with a beer, contemplating where things went wrong.
Why was he so angry? They hadn't had the most passionate love ever. Why was it so important?
Because we had a plan,' he thinks.
Date for 6 months. Live together for 6 months. Be engaged 6 months. Start to try for kids after 6 months of marriage. Have kid. Wait a year. Have another. Boy and girl, tudor house, soccer practice, white picket fence... being that sweet old couple at the nursing home, the one that's just so in love.
What had gone wrong?
He goes to sleep with her scent on his pillow, a velvet box with a ring in it clutched in his hand.

Part Three: A Road to Nowhere
Guilt. Gnawing, painful, horrible guilt. Guilt that she can only remember from her teenage years.
She thinks of Dean.
Dean. Floppy haired, tall. Sweet as a puppy dog. She thinks of her time with Dean.
She likes to think of it as a road (like she does all of her romances). Dean was a gigantic hill. She gradually went up it, pushing and working. It wasn't hard to do, so much--- it was just anticipation. She was always waiting for the passion. But when she finally reached the top of the road-
Nothing happened. She kept on waiting for the drop and it never happened.
At least not with Dean.
See, eventually, that road began to lead upwards. It rose ever so slightly, and she never noticed. When she did notice, she ignored, denied it. But eventually, she can to the top of that hill, and it dropped, and she was speeding along, a whirlwind road, a whirlwind romance.
She had always found Jess sexy---not just in a physical way. She loved that he could get her riled up about George Orwell, tell her that Mark Twain is a genius and the Brave New World was written by an exaggerating nut.
That's what she liked about Jess.
Ahem. Loved about Jess.
He attracted her to him so easily, with his brilliance and that little fact that her made her blood boil in her veins. He drove her crazy.
Jess. Jess who hurt her, who treated her like crap while they were dating, who ran off to California or wherever like a little rat.
Jess. The bastard.
As... happy? Wonderful? Different... that part of her life was, she doesn't want to go back to Jess. She didn't want to come crying back to him, weeping about how he was the best thing that ever happened to her and wouldn't he please take her back?
She would be more likely to say... that he took the innocence out of her thoughts.
And she liked it.
But as much as she could have changed while she was with Jess, she kept her footing, wishing to remain as the small-town princess for as long as she could.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it, right?
Sure.
And so, the road stopped. And it seemed to always lead to nowhere.
Now, where does she want the road to go to? Thinking it over, she decides that she's going to get off of the damn road and try a train. She's always gotten carsick anyway.