Chapter Four

An hour and a half later the phone call is over and I'm sprawled out on the couch in Jess and Ing's living room. My head hurts from a combination of the two hours of sleep and the lectures I'd received from both of my parents simultaneously. Dad's pretty pissed, even when we got off the phone he had nothing nice to say, to angry to evenwish me happy birthday...it's not that I blame him but it's turning out to be harder then I expected...this letting your parents down thing. I mean I'm used to it, I'm not what they expected when they had a daughter, but outright letting them down...I dunno, whatever.

Mom on the other hand knew she didn't really have room to lecture me, seeing as I was old and more childless then she had been when she dropped out of school and left home. Ultimately though they were both madder then I've ever heard them, mad at me, mad at Jess (as he'd predicted of course), mad at Ing and made at anyone else they could blame it on. And once everyone had been blamed they started blaming people again, something that went on for about an hour until I told them I wasn't going to listen to it anymore and I told them so just prior to hanging up on them.

Sure, okay not the most mature and rational, adult-like thing to do but they'd left me with little else to resort to. When your parents start blaming your fourth grade teacher for reading you the Boxcar Children and planting this running away idea into your head you've got to draw a line. And so I did. I told them I would call them later when they had calmed down. That I wasn't coming home so they might as well not even bother convincing me to do so. Mom offered me a happy birthday but I couldn't respond all of the emotions running through me were just to much to find the proper response to that.

Once again I'm not reacting the way I had expected to react to this. I thought I would feel an amazing sense of freedom, cutting this tie to my parents. But mostly, right now, I feel guilt for just taking off and leaving on my birthday, I know they had made plans. Dad made my favorite cake. Mom was going to take me shopping. But I had to do it today or I knew I'd never get out. But when I think about it I know that this isn't true, if I'd pushed it back another day it wouldn't have hurt anything, I wouldn't have given up on the dream that I'd been harboring since my 10th birthday when I first started saving for this next stage of my life.

I actually do have quite a bit of money saved up, eight years of saving birthday, Christmas and various other Stars Hollow created holidays worth of money on top of four years working in Dad's diner and not spending anything...let's just say I have enough to make do for a little while. Now that I'm here I feel a little lost but I set my mind to the things that I still have left to do. Find an apartment and a roommate. Ing had gotten me a job at Jess' bookstore, which is fine. Books aren't my passion but I'm smart enough to know that a job is a job.

"I'm leaving," Jess appears in front of me, his laptop bag hanging from his shoulder. "Stop by the store later and I'll run you through everything and introduce you to Jamie." Jess shakes his head, "I can not believe you drug me into this."

"Oh you know you're happy to see me," I can't help but grin up at Jess, he response with an eye roll before he walks out of the apartment. Jess and I have always been close, since day one, literally. He was visiting Aunt Liz when Mom went into labor, Jess was the one who took her to the hospital and he waited with her until Dad showed up. And then he waited in the waiting room until I was born fourteen hours later. He was always around for important things when I was growing up and he always said he was my annoying older brother. Something he proved many times, like when he broke up my first kiss by almost breaking my first boyfriend's nose.

I feel in love with Ing probably before Jess realized he was in love with her. They met about a week after Jess opened his bookstore; the bookstore is really just a hobby for Jess while he writes is psychological thrillers that have sold in the millions. Anyway, back to Ing and Jess. They met the first week Jess had the store open, Ing had just moved to the city after having bought a small store next to the bookstore to show off her art work. Ing wandered into the bookstore looking for something to read in her down time, she likes to read but art will always be her passion. And they just hit it off.

They were best friends for twelve years and on New Years Eve last year they had to much to drink and slept together. That freaked them out so much that they stopped talking for a month, they were to embarrassed and to stupid to deal with what had happened. The day before Valentines Day Ing found out she was pregnant, and there was only one possibility as to who the father was. When she told Jess he freaked out, a lot. Showed up in Stars Hollow freaking out, he just kept saying something about Ing and we were all convinced she'd died. And then the next morning he was gone, they called later to say they were getting married. They got married on March first, we were all there at a beautiful little ceremony, they were both so happy and they admitted in their vows that they'd been in love with each other for years.

The call came on the last Tuesday of March that Jess had rushed Ing to the hospital. That there had been complications with the pregnancy and Ing had lost the baby before anyone could do anything to attempt to save it. Ing was fine physically but both she and Jess were so devastated emotionally that we weren't sure they were going to be able to make it a month into their marriage. But they pulled through it and they're doing okay now from what any of us can tell.

"Hey so why don't we go out and do something to celebrate your birthday?" Ing appears in the same spot Jess had stood in several minutes before.

I shrug, "we don't have to do anything, I told Jess I'd stop by the bookstore and get a feel for things. That's enough."

"Hmm," Ing thinks for a second, "I was thinking something more along the lines of stopping at that Vegan restaurant you like and getting lunch, then stopping by my shop so you can see what I'm working on and then you could go by the bookstore and get set up."

"You had me at vegan restaurant," I laugh. Did I mention that I got my dad's health food sense to the tenth power? When I hit about twelve I made up my mind about what I would and would not eat. My parents and grandparents both claim to this day that I just do it to make Friday nights hard for everyone else, but that's only a bonus. It's a difficult choice, the vegan thing, especially in Stars Hollow but I'm surviving but the prospect of having multiple vegan restaurants near me makes me happy. And the one just around the corner from Jess and Ing's apartment serves black bean cakes with a spicy sweet potato sauce that they got me addicted to on my 16th birthday.

"That's what I thought," Ing laughs, "do you want to shower or anything before we go?"

"Is that a hint?" I ask with an arch of my eyebrow.

Ing laughs, "totally."

With a smile I shove off of the couch and grab my duffel bag, "I'll only be a couple minutes.