Rating: R, just to be on the safe side.
Disclaimer: No way, no how, no hell does anything remotely close to Gilmore Girls belong to me.
The Chronicles Of…
Lorelai
As I watch Shane and Rory hugging up front I can't help but tearing up and hoping that maybe just maybe the healing process can begin because God only knows the two of them need each other to get through this even if they are too stubborn to admit it. Not that I can blame Shane for being reluctant to let Rory in again cuz daughter or not she hurt him unbelievably much the last time with her behaviour but even so she deserves a second chance and by the looks of it that's exactly what she is getting. Ok, so I have to admit part of me wants this for entirely selfish reasons because no matter how many times Rory keeps telling me I'm not responsible for something that would have come out sooner or later I can't help feeling if I hadn't gotten into that damn car wreck none of this would have happened. Even though I got my daughter and grandson back the price was too high and I almost lost them all over again.
Before Rory left for California I thought I had a better relationship with her than with my own parents, a lie I kept telling myself even after the car wreck and she was back, boy was I wrong. I should have realized my error already after Tristan's death when the fragile relationship we had built up the last months of her pregnancy came crashing down as Rory just pushed me away every time I tried to help her, but I couldn't bring myself to face it so I kept pretending. Since I could relate to the whole I can do it myself attitude I just stopped fighting to get through to her thinking she would come when she was good and ready based on my belief of our closeness, something I still kick myself for. Anyway when I finally realized it had all been an act and she wasn't coming around I had lost them both as Rory had taken them somewhere and had made sure I couldn't follow. After some mandatory grieving I went back to my every-day life with my every-day routines and chores but all the while I had this hole inside of me that just kept on growing and a couple of months after Rory's departure more and more people started to notice that I was acting differently. Luke was one of the firsts, which isn't strange since I spend a big portion of my days there and when I started accepting no for coffee he knew something was wrong. As he put it I never thought I would miss it, but things got too boring around here without your crazy antics. Where Rory and Shane ran into alcohol I ran into someone familiar, Christopher.
In all honesty I don't know what possessed me to go to him of all places but I did . It wasn't like I woke up one day saying today I'm going to go shagging Chris, no it happened gradually with a phone call here and there that left me oddly at peace and the more we talked the better I felt so the phone calls became a daily occurrence as we started working through some of our issues but staying clear of Shane knowing it would lead to a fight neither of us needed. We could talk about Rory growing up or rather I talked and he listened but never of Shane or Tristan cuz we knew we differed in our opinion of the guys in Rory's life and just accepted it. One would think it would have been easier talking about Rory growing up with someone who had been there, say Luke, but it wasn't and to this day I can't really explain why, I guess for better or worse Chris would always be a part of Rory even more so we shared a past and he knew me at a time when I was just Lorelai and not Lorelai, Rory's mom and I needed to find a more mature version of that 16 year old again for the sake of my survival.
A year or so after Rory had left, I and Chris meet again and it was awkward at first but we got over it and started seeing each other regularly for the first time in two decades and it was nice, really nice but nothing deeper. The first time we ended up in bed together it was all about comfort but over time it grew into something more. But at the time being with Chris became something of an addiction, I knew it couldn't be all that good for me but I couldn't stop as I needed a fix at least a couple of times a week to hold it together. In the middle of all this I couldn't deny that the chemistry was still there and slowly I started to return to my old self but coming into my own again made me realize I had fallen for Chris, despite all his imperfections and attitude towards Shane, I found myself head of heels in love with that man. Luckily the feeling was mutual and after years of sneaking around we made it official and moved in together but not to everyone's pleasure. Since I had the inn Chris had to move to Stars Hollow, something he did to my great surprise even though he was completely aware of the treatment he would be subject to, making me see the first changes in Christopher Hayden. Over time I started to see the man I always thought he had potential of becoming appearing in front of me and our relationship grew to something healthier for the both for us. I can honestly say that the only thing missing to make me completely happy was two persons, who I had found out lived in California, but for the first time it looked like me and Chris had future together.
Now let's fast forward to the night of the accident. Chris and I had had yet another heated argument about Shane and I ended up in my car driving around to calm down. Stupid huh? I don't know how but I ended up in Hartford and after driving around for a while I had calmed down enough to look forward to our steamy make-up sex and I headed home. I didn't even see the truck swerving into my side of the road until it was too late. All I remember is hitting the brakes and then everything went black. Apparently the driver was under the influence, maybe it was fate's twisted way in telling what were to come.
The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed years later only to discover that the world around me was completely different from the memory I had of it. At first things were looking up when I learned that my long lost daughter and grandson were home again but my happiness was clouded by the fact that I saw the tension radiating in the room as soon as Chris was around at the same time as Rory, which made me sad since I now knew exactly how much Chris loved her. Therefore as soon as I was up to it I started working on making it better between them and slowly, slowly the tension disappeared, hell Chris even started seeing Shane now and again. However everything wasn't well cuz I felt like for some unknown reason, that Rory always kept her guard up around me and after a while when Shane once again had smelled alcohol when he visited me I took it up with Rory, certain I at long last knew what was bothering her and being the good actress that she was she convinced me she would deal with it and of course I rested assure after that. She must have said something to Shane cuz after that he never smelled alcohol while visiting me again. I figured everything was just fine and dandy and put all my effort into my rehabilitation.
I guess the reason I didn't see the real problem earlier was probably the same reason why Rory rebelled in her teens, I simply didn't want to see anything else than my perfect daughter with her perfect son, now one would think I had learned from my mistake the last time around like a normal person but when did Lorelai Gilmore do anything the normal way. I still, for some reason, held onto the belief that what I saw meaning that Rory had dealt with everything as good as it seemed was the god honest truth but appearance as we all know can be deceiving and boy was I on the top of that class.
When I got out from the hospital I started seeing more of the two of them and more often than not they seemed glazed over, forgetful and in hindsight a definite tell tale sign was the fact that they always were hiding behind a pair of sunglasses, but life moved on without any major disturbances until Shane got into some trouble involving the police and my parents tried to straighten him out, what a joke huh! It obviously didn't work but I still trusted Rory to do something about it, which was strike two. Right about this time Chris started telling me something was off but I didn't believe him, which lead to many fights between the two of us. Months and months of these argument all came to a head one night after Chris had made a call to Rory's and came out of it convinced something fishy was going on but I once again told him he was just being paranoid. Finally I guess he just got fed up and told me to get into the car, so I could see for myself, which I gladly did convinced that letting him see that everything was fine would put a stop to his increasing nagging.
The sight that greeted us though was as far away from normal as you can come and it definitely took away any illusions I still had left of two of them. The place was practically crawling of drunk teens, who had an all you can drink buffet on the counter, where all kinds of alcoholic beverages were displayed and to accompany all this was music blasting from the stereo at high volume. In this general chaos I spotted Shane heavily making out with some girl on the couch looking ready to nail her right there while Rory was dirty dancing with some teen, who had his hand up her shirt. Both of them were holding a bottle ready with the hand that currently wasn't in use to take a sip now and again.
After that display I think I was in chock for a week or so and I know Chris was too but since he already had a feeling something was wrong he snapped out of it a lot faster than me. Anyway we decided to talk to them the next time they came over and silly me thought something would be different this time, so it wasn't until they both denied it until they were blue in the faces that I realized nothing had change just because I knew. Although we continued to try and get through to them it was first two months ago when we set up an intervention as the last resort as we succeeded.
Now when I sit here hearing that parties like the one we witnessed were normal occurrences along with some other highly in appropriated things best left unmentioned, it scares me how blind I was. I thank some higher power everyday that Chris wasn't and that he made me see the truth cuz God only knows how it would have ended otherwise.
"You guys ready to go?" I hear Rory's voice coming through somewhere in the fog of my brain and I snap out of my reminisce of the past.
I merely nod as an answer to her before turning to Chris next to me offering him a smile, which he answers back with one of his own. Hand in hand we get up and follow Rory and Shane outside.
One more chapter left but that one will be the epilogue and differently formatted. However, I don't know when I can have that up since school has started and I'm fairly busy these days but I'll do my very best.
So what did you guys think?