Inside Out
Chapter 5 – I never wanted it to end this way
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Reference from Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne.
A/N: Ah. So. Heh. Sorry for the wait! I will finish this one, I promise. Feedback is always very much appreciated.
To Elise, because despite being crazy busy, she took the time to be an absolutely fabulous, wonderful beta, as always. To Christie, because she is Christie. (You're amazing.) To the SH Lits (I wish I could list you all here) for being the incredible group of people that you are, for thousands of very different reasons. You all rock my world.
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He moves over her slowly, carefully, gently. She longs to pull him closer; she's sure she's dying from anticipation and pure want—she still isn't used to this. It's different now that it's not her first time. Not their first time. It's not as important to get it all right, but it's sweeter and nicer and more exciting—she knows it will be; nothing's happened yet. It's elegant, it's his finesse as well as his blind need and his—dare she think it love? She feels the passion he's trying to hide with every slight touch of his fingertips on her skin, and she desperately hopes that he feels it in hers. She hopes it tingles so much it hurts.
She slides her fingers around his arm and then up to his shoulders, clinging to him; feeling the heat of his body on hers, and she thinks she might scream from the perfection of it all. Jess, and her, Rory… Jess and Rory, together, together like everyone means when they say the word. The two of them, finalizing what they started only days ago, confirming that it's right and couldn't be more so.
His lips move across her face to meet hers, and suddenly—beyond anything she's ever felt before—this is enough…who was it who told her the second everything is always best? Or did she just make up that fact herself?
There's no more space left between them, and it's so warm here and she's so happy.
She feels a childish smile appearing on her lips; she kisses him again, and everything melts into wonderful.
-
The first thing she sees is the irregular cracks in the tan paint on the ceiling, all the warmth from her dream gone. The sheets are icy beside her, but their fight has drawn his side off-limits.
Grudgingly, she abides by the rules that will never be stated aloud. Everything from the night before floods back to her, all of it some level of painful. Their relationship daily becomes more complex, involves more: sadness, helplessness, worthlessness. Tears, shouts and fights and run-on sentences she can't stop using when she's upset.
It involves four-letter words.
And sleep is no longer a rest, but an escape.
He wakes in the sudden, inexplicable way he always does, and she pretends she has just awoken too.
There isn't enough room when they stand up. She's nervous and she's sorry, and she's trying unsuccessfully to get herself worked up, angry with him again.
"Jess?" It springs involuntarily from her lips. He ignores it.
"Jess."
She steps closer in some wild hope that her dreams have become premonitions. She looks up at him and feels his breath on her face. She repeats his name but he doesn't seem to hear her.
She feels the air solidifying, questions rising to the surface, questions waiting to be answered. This is the way it always used to be, meeting after days, weeks even, wondering if things were still the same. The questions, they're the same now as they were then, and she knows from experience that 'yes' tastes so damn good.
He breaks away, almost an audible crack in the building tension, and nothing happens, and they're another unconventional American couple (of people) on a road trip.
There isn't much room on the elevator down, and something keeps drawing his eyes her way. If his lips touch her hair at all, ever-so-slightly, she can't tell. But he's furious with himself all over again and he can't help it, and reluctantly he adds desire to his list of things forbidden.
It is today they notice the passenger window won't entirely close, leaving a tiny opening for air to seep through. Not noticeable earlier, back when it was warmer, and it's all too irritating now. Really, though, it is just another miniscule scratch. It is the pressure that hurts, pressure that refuses to lift, pressure threatening the one thing in her life she counts on despite knowing she shouldn't.
Her and him. It's not consistent but she loves it and she thought he did too.
That's right, she loves it.
She's always believed in this at the bottom, desperate, uncertain part of her heart (possibly even her mind). More than A's on tests, college acceptance, the job she wanted so badly once upon a time. Without all that, it's wonderful, it's so freeing (nothing matters!) and it's absolutely terrifying. So scary, because sometimes she gets the chance to look into his eyes and she doesn't see her own reflection.
-
"What the hell does this mean?" he mutters, snapping the silence in two. He swings into the right lane and Rory shakes herself awake, helping him unfold the map he's struggling with.
"What is it?"
"All these fucking signs. They need directional help in this damn state."
"Which would be?" she says casually, unreasonably proud of herself for keeping the trembling out of her voice.
Leave it to her. The avalanche of guilt spills back on top of him—and here he was just beginning to forget. "Pennsylvania," he replies. He isn't sure when exactly they came from New York to here, but he knows they are here now. It's strange somehow…only a few miles into a new state, but the unfamiliar name makes everything different. They've been driving for quite awhile, and it's only hitting him now.
"Long way."
"Long way," he concurs, not in the mood for an argument.
"Ask somebody," she suggests quietly, detecting the undercurrent of frustration in his voice.
He hears the obvious naivety in hers, and for the first time, it frustrates him. "Ask who? Give me someone to ask and I'll break the rules and ask for directions." He grips the wheel harder and the car speeds up. She braces herself against her seat.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
"Don't be." He means more like, don't whisper. Don't act so fragile. It scares him like nothing else, and infuriates him like nothing else can, and he knows his speed is scaring her now, and he really doesn't give a damn.
He slows down slightly.
"What are you sorry for?"
"What?"
"I said, what are you sorry for?" Jess repeats. He has had it with her alluding to things, has had it with the vague references he doesn't understand and pretends not to when he does. He doesn't want to hear that she loves him. He's unbelievably worried that he might love her back, and he is sick of all this pretending, on both their parts. He thinks he's seen enough lying for a lifetime.
If she says it all straight out, he can't ignore it anymore: it might just be a worthwhile lesson.
Perhaps then, the rules would no longer apply, and he could touch her without feeling guilty before everything ended. He is convinced it will not be long before everything does…for him at least, but not for her. She has so much, and he's doing nothing but holding her back.
Maybe she deserves it, but he doesn't like to think so.
"Rory," he says.
"Yes?" she replies, trying desperately to be annoyed.
"Do you want to forget it? Do you want to go home now? All we have to do is turn around."
"No."
"You're gonna need a better answer than that."
"Jess, please, no," she begs.
"Okay, Rory. Explain something to me?" He pauses, then continues. "No. I'm sorry I answered your stupid call, I'm sorry we went to that restaurant, I'm sorry I was always where you were in the past four years. It was stupid of me, but it wasn't all my fault." Again, he stops, but something else needs to be said.
"I'm sorry I had to be your first."
Your first everything.
She was his first real everything too; love makes everything real— God, he's going insane.
"I told you," she says nervously. "You can't change that." Had to be…didn't have to be. It was my choice, it was all me. He doesn't know how many times she was asked out, how many times she refused. How she took so long choosing those people to whom she gave a small chance—half hoping it wouldn't work out and she would have an excuse to leave right away, half hoping it would be so much better, better than him, and she could follow the path everyone wanted her to follow in the first place.
"I know I can't!" he yells, furious. "I fucking know that, you think I don't? Forget it if you want, but it still happened. Pass it off some other way if you need to for your own conscience, but I am the reason you are not on a CNN jet to Cambodia right now. Deal with it, Rory, that's the way it is."
"Jess."
"Look, I'm sorry." His knuckles are white against the steering wheel, and carefully she lays a hand on his. He jerks it away. "Stop."
"You wanted me to explain something," she says, almost calmly for her, and he is astonished at her tone. This is anything but Rory, the opposite of freaking out and choking, crying, apologizing. He appreciates it, just a little.
"Why. Why you want this, or wanted this, whatever. We can turn around right now. We'll go straight, we won't stop, you'll be there in days and everyone will stop worrying about you. Sent them on enough of a guilt trip yet?"
He thinks he needs to shut the hell up.
"It wasn't their fault!" she says helplessly, ignoring the fact that no one could ever make coffee like he does.
"I know that. They don't."
She glares at him. "That's not fair."
"What's not fair? It's the truth." For once he has the upper hand; he wants to enjoy it, but it isn't the least bit fun. This can't be how she feels, it can't…
"That's not why I'm here."
"You asked to come. And you know what? I couldn't say no. There it is. I couldn't say no. Manipulate me all you like."
"I don't," she says abruptly.
"Oh really?"
"Of course not." So frustrating. "Jess… I thought this had to be better. It was, wasn't it? I mean, you and me, traveling…that's what I wanted."
Wait, wait…what he wants. What about that…this was it, wasn't it? She defends her reasoning to herself, quickly, desperately. He was the one getting into the car, running out the door. He was the one who wanted to escape; it was him, not her.
She is becoming a better liar, quickly and easily, and she hopes…maybe, she can understand him better now.
"It is not what you wanted," he corrects her.
"It is!" She stops. "Maybe it wasn't, but now it is. It's better than applying for a job and getting nothing. Better than offering everyone sandwiches around the offices, taking peeks at their computers and getting glares when I get caught? Come on, you know it is. I was serious about that…" she trails off.
"I wouldn't know," he says mutely.
"When the best part of college is meeting some guy randomly around town and making out with him instead of going to class, instead of getting grades back, instead of working hard and seeing what happens with my life? I think there might be a problem there." She's nearly crying. "What kind of person am I?"
"Rory," he says again.
"How do you know you were so special?"
"What?"
"How do you know…" She struggles to keep her voice even, stop herself from crying. "How do you know you were the reason I could stand it? How do you know you were the reason I stayed? Doing all that…keeping at it all… You don't know that it was all because of you!"
"I…never said that," he answers defensively, feeling ridiculously helpless.
What? What, he never knew this. All along…he should have looked up her schedule...he should have done something. He should have been encouraging her, not plastering her mouth to his. He takes a regretful breath and concentrates on something else.
He should have been her sounding board instead of her excuse.
He should have been her college fling, should have been the phase in her life in which she learned what almost loving was, what sex that never happened was. Should have been just the person she came to after the inevitable bad dates. Then she could have moved on, he could have run away, and she could have progressed to a job, to life, to love.
They slowed down too much and they can't lose track of the pain any longer. It's over, it must be over.
"Rory," he says, otherwise speechless for the moment, unbelievably furious for a flashing second.
"Never mind."
"Rory!"
"Never mind," she repeats. "It doesn't matter. I was scared. I chose what I wanted."
"Do not play the guilt card," he says, angry. "I've had plenty of that."
"Sorry," she says shortly, turning her attention to the window. He pulls the map out again, realizing he still has no idea where he is. Tugs it out of the glove compartment so fast it rips, but he ignores it. Rory shifts slightly at the loud sound of tearing paper but makes no comment, and when they turn down an exit, she is staring at the ground, unaware.
She does not feel like insisting on driving. Let him take them where he will.
-
When she looks up, her eyes are greeted with a neon-colored sign telling her there is a McDonalds in two miles, a Marathon station in five. She doesn't bother to wonder, but inwardly she is curious…they're stopping?
Please God, don't let this be the turnaround point, please.
She isn't ready yet.
She isn't ready for life. Which could conceivably mean she isn't ready for love either, but she refuses to let herself believe that. She is, she must be, he proves it. She isn't a kid anymore.
Suddenly the sharp smell of gasoline rolls over her, and she struggles to stay impassive, but she has to relent and sit up. The door slams as he steps out to fill the tank, and she feels a desperate need to have a part in this, one that means something. She slips out her side of the car and closes it as quietly as she can.
It takes him about three seconds to realize where she is, and instantly he follows her, unsure of why he feels he has to. It is a longer walk to the door than it looks from the car, but methodically he makes his way across the water-stained pavement, black and dirty and faded gray, and he pushes open the door. He is greeted with a pungent odor, a crisp wave of air conditioning that is unneeded today, and Rory talking animatedly with the clerk.
"The nearest city?" the cashier says. Jess squints at her nametag. She is Betsy. Or Betty. Or something. "Aren't too many around here. You got any particular one in mind?"
"Not exactly," Rory replies, shifting on her feet.
Against his better judgment, he steps up to the counter with her. "What's going on?"
She turns, her back to Betsy/Betty/whoever. "I'm finding out where we are," she tells him matter-of-factly.
"You care because?" He watches the cashier's eyes travel from him to Rory. You asshole is printed clearly across her face. She doesn't even know him.
"And you were planning on telling me what you thought?" she says defiantly. "Jess, you are no Phileas Fogg."
"He had a purpose," he replies coolly.
"A crazy one," she says softly. "Kinda like…us…"
He doesn't hear her.
"Hey," Betsy-or-Betty says uncomfortably, "could you guys maybe…" She jerks her head to the side, nodding toward the small line now gathered behind them. Rory blushes.
"How far to the next town?" Rory says again, quickly, wanting some—any—destination. She may actually be heading into the unknown, but she does not intend to let anything be unknown forever.
She shrugs. "Real town? About thirty miles?"
"Doesn't matter," Jess mutters.
Rory whips around without even staring back, and then she's out the door. He runs a hand through his hair and shoves the other in his pocket, pushing the door back open with his shoulder. A wave of icy breeze hits him and he bends a little further over, focusing on the concrete.
"Fuck."
He screws everything up, and if he doesn't then she does. He used to think the problem was that they were far too different; now he worries they are far too much alike.
She doesn't understand the impending result of all this, and the reasons she has implied today only point more clearly to it. Maybe she never will…maybe all her constant crap about being open minded and excited for the future was exactly that: crap, lies, literally nothing. If she wanted it enough, wanted this, nothing else would have mattered, not for any time. And had she wanted it that much, he would likely have run away, because the guilt would have overcome him far too fast.
There is nothing special about him; he doesn't understand. He wants to justify it to himself. He wants to feel like he forced her, like he lied about loving her, but he has never even said those words. He wants to cast himself as the evil character in a clichéd plot—he is tired of all these stupid shades of gray.
She waits for him, trying her best to appear nonchalant and failing, leaning against the car. She doesn't feel the water on her face until the wind hits her too, and then she swallows hard, fighting it. She's getting cold again. But he sees it immediately; the few rays of light bursting through clouds glisten on her face, and his heart drops to his stomach.
He says nothing.
-
They are halfway to the highway before he drops the bomb he has been hiding and asks whether maybe they can't do this.
Didn't it need to be put out there? He wants to ask so badly.
Her glare suggests that it did not.
He gives up, deciding that whatever his mouth says will be the right thing. He's become wrapped up in her strategies, after all these years: he thinks about it too much. He wonders what she'll think, if he kisses her now, or now, or now. He wonders if she'll like it if he touches her that way.
Well, what the hell.
"Why are you here?" Aside from the clichéd phrases, he is really beginning to feel like a broken record.
She shakes her head, looking upset, and 'mistake' rings in his ears but he blatantly ignores it. The things his head tells him are wrong, wrong, wrong. She's too pretty for her own good, she'd be lost out on the streets of life…he'd like to believe she's incapable, right now. He'd like to believe that her doubting herself was the right thing to do, that running to what would (will?) be trouble and occasional ecstasy was the right decision, but he knows better.
"What? I just…I just told you that."
"I want to hear this from you, Rory. If you're looking for a valet, get anyone. No, go out on the streets and find someone because they'll be lining up."
She starts to cry but she turns away to respond, and something tugs at his heart. He swallows and stares at her back for a moment, hoping she feels the incredible pressure he does. "I tried, Jess. I…am trying. This is what I want, I told you this is what I want, but it isn't what you want and I don't get it." She wipes her eyes and looks back at him. "I don't get it; I can't figure out what you want," she says shakily. "Explain it to me, please."
"Stop sounding so damn helpless."
"I'm not trying!" she bursts out.
"This is what you want?" he says skeptically.
"Yes."
"Why? No, really, why. You could have anything. You know you could have anything." He takes a deep breath. "You get everything you want."
Her voice is low, trembling, tight with holding back tears as she replies. "No, I don't." She keeps swallowing, unsuccessfully trying to fight it all back. She doesn't need to get emotional over this but she can't help it, she never can. He always gets her this way and she wonders why she loves him.
"Jess," she tries again. She thinks perhaps she says his name too much, that it comes too easily. She dismisses the notion in a moment. It doesn't matter, just like all the rest of the important things they pay no attention to. "I do want this, I really do. It's better than…"
"Better than?" It stings, because the only considerable reason she could have offered him would have been a twisted thought that this truly was The Best. This is his only chance to be the best, not that he ever thinks about or wishes for that anyway.
"No, no, that's not what I meant. It's just…" She shrugs. "That's not how I meant it," she repeats.
"What do you want?" he asks her yet again.
"You're joking." She is getting angry now; glad for the rush, the adrenaline that will keep her from becoming numb.
"No, I'm not. I have never taken any stupid classes; I don't know the rules for what comes next when someone leans this way and says that. I know you, that's what I'm judging everything on, and you can fucking go out there and do anything, Rory."
"Fine. Show me. Point me to a place where I can do anything. Lead me into a building where they'll accept me and cheer and grin every time they see me because I'm the one they need. God, Jess, it doesn't work that way!"
"So explain to me why you couldn't just get your GED. Why does it matter that you are an Ivy Leaguer? It matters to you. It matters to your family. It mattered to me because I was in the same town, okay? That's why it mattered to me."
"That's not true, Jess."
"Oh yeah?"
"It's not true. It wasn't stupid." Suddenly all her arguments fly out of her head and it hurts and what if he really thinks that, what happens then?
"It wasn't you, I never stayed because of you." She needs to make this clear to him, to herself. She needs to make it clear and convince herself it is true, it is true after all; she is really being honest. "You weren't anything."
What does he have against her, college? He knew how much it meant to her, that she could be one of the chosen few. It's painful for a moment, admitting that in that, he is right, but he is and she will live with it.
Doesn't he know that's what she always wanted? Trying as many things as possible, learning what she could for the sheer fun of it, for the fun of knowing she'd really done something. The fun of seeing a crisp red 'A' on the corner of a paper she spent time on. Knowing she was good at it, she was talented, she was a top student at a famous college about to achieve all her dreams. No matter where she went, what she did…she is glad for those four years. They were more than worth it.
Worth the stress, the work, the pain, the time. All the nights she stayed up too late and the apologies she was never very good at.
Wasn't it worth it? Maybe it won't be the best part of her life, when she looks back, but it was worth it, wasn't it worth it. All the stuff she will remember, everything she remembers now. Everything she learned, like how to say yes without actually saying yes exactly, and how to find a hidden place to bring someone when you need more comforting than a casual acquaintance telling you it will be okay.
Her traditions. Sitting quietly by herself in a dorm cafeteria, until people began to talk to her; she started making friends. Going out with them on Fridays, and studying, and doing well without being crazy—it was nice, it was fun.
Eating casually alone, book in front of her, weeks before midterms, trying not to worry. In cafés, after classes. In the library, hiding her sandwich under the desk between bites and messily handwritten paragraphs. In small, quaint coffee shops that never managed to remind her of Luke's, where, so often, she could find Jess ambling by, hands in pockets and don't-give-a-damn look plastered on his face.
Thankfully, for her own sanity, the four years of college had been littered with coincidences.
"And I suppose I'm still nothing, huh," he replies, after minutes of thinking it through and calming himself down for both their sakes—he's on the road, going fast, after all.
He wants a cigarette and one of the illegally taken beers that always gave him so much satisfaction.
No, he wants someone in his arms and someone else's mouth on his and something for nothing but the pure pleasure of it all. There it is, that's what he wants right now. She has always offered him the challenge instead of the easy way out, and every time he's taken it.
He's so stupid.
"Jess, that night?"
And here she turns around again. She has no attention span, he wants to tell her, except she would take him seriously.
He nods.
"I mean, it was amazing. You know that, right? It was what I always wanted. Even though…I still… I wouldn't have…I wouldn't have hung around, if I didn't want you, you know that, right?"
He nods quietly. He does not want to reassure her and then inform her that love doesn't make everything work, supposing love exists here at all. He knows for sure she wouldn't have left Yale just because she didn't want him anymore.
She said it herself: he was never anything. He knew it the whole time and put up with it for something they didn't have in the first place.
He looks from the windshield to the threatening gray clouds to her. They have reached an impasse, he decides. He can't tell her the truth now, because it contradicts everything he knows. And he does know those things, he's positive. She gets her hopes up too high, she always does. But he can't lie, because that will kill her, and it might very well kill him.
Thunder cracks and a raindrop lands directly in the center of her window, and she watches it slowly, slowly, make its way down the pane of glass. It is almost at the bottom when she hears him take a deep breath; she turns around, thinking she probably owes him that.
"You watch all those movies. Read all those books, and you never understood them? Life's not like that, Rory. The good goes with the bad. If you want life, you want a job, you want all that stuff your grandparents paid for? Then fine, do it without having sex with me."
"I wish you could fix things," she tells him. "I wish we could erase it all." It isn't even true, but she needs to hurt him back. Doesn't he know she gave him everything? Everything, without even trying.
Because having experienced both, he is not what she wants to give up. And now she knows, she'll have to.
"I'll never be perfect," he answers easily, relieved and aching.
"Tomorrow," she says, very softly. "Tomorrow we can turn around."
He does not dispute her acting like she is in charge, and maybe, after all, she always has been.
"Alright," he answers, concentrating on breathing evenly.
"I loved you," she says, indecipherably, but he has learned after years to read her lips.
"You wanna drive?"
"No. Go ahead."