"The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person." (from Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk)
December 16th : Alcohol and Christmas carols. The burn in the back of her throat, the detachment she feels, everything in slow motion. His lips on her skin in a dark bedroom as she fumbles with everything. Her sweater snagging on the corner of his dresser. The faint sound of Little Drummer Boy in the back of her mind as he rolls off of her.
She throws up in his bathroom at four in the morning, trying to be quiet about it. Knowing his comfort would do nothing to calm her. The feel of his hand on her back won't make this any better. If anything, it will make it worse. She tastes the bile, the acidic flavor burning the roof of her mouth. She splashes water onto her face and watches her reflection as the droplets of it run down her nose and drip from her eyelashes. She sadly thinks, Merry Christmas.
She doesn't crawl back into bed with him. She takes her cell phone out into the hallway and, still half drunk, she calls him.
It's almost five now, but he still answers. She starts to cry when she hears his voice. She says, "Are you coming home for Christmas?" Her words slur together in places. She closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against the wall. She tries to imagine being with him, in his apartment. Not here, in Logan's dorm, drunk and sick and making a long distance call to a boy who doesn't love her.
She slides slowly down to the floor at his response, "Yeah. Liz asked me to come up."
She feels exhaustion coming over her suddenly. "Good. That's…good." And with this last word, she is halfway to sleep.
Until his voices comes again and everything inside her rises. "Don't try to see me while I'm there. Just…leave it. Okay?"
"I…" She is going to be sick again. She is gripping at the hem of Logan's oversized t-shirt, pulling at its seams, wanting to rip it apart. "I don't know if I can make that promise."
"Well, try." He hangs up.
She isn't sure if it is still the alcohol or something entirely different that is making her feel as though she is outside of her body, looking down at herself as she breaks down in the hallway, as she bites down hard on the collar of her t-shirt. She allows the darkness to take her as her head meets the floor.
She wakes up in the hallway, wearing only a t-shirt. She is curled up by the door with her phone laying open next to her. Logan is standing above her with an amused smirk on his face.
"Ace, what are you doing out here in the hall?"
She sits up and closes her phone, smoothing her hair with her hands. "I had to make a phone call and I guess I fell asleep."
He offers his hand to her. "Come on. Take a shower and we'll go get breakfast, okay?"
She stands, balancing herself with a hand flat against the wall. "I can't. I, uh, have to go. Meet my mom."
She rushes into his room, pulling on last night's clothes and searching for her car keys. She remembers that he picked her up last night. "Shit."
He appears behind her, a hand on her hip. "I can drive you home."
She closes her eyes and doesn't turn to face him. "No, no, no, no…" She whispers it over and over to herself.
His hands force her to turn around. "Rory, I can take you home. It's fine."
"No. I'll take a cab. I have money." She pushes him aside and makes her way to the door, pulling her shoes on as she goes.
She doesn't turn around and she doesn't explain. She doesn't think about him on the way home. She doesn't replay the way he had whispered in her ear as he fell asleep, "I love you." She doesn't relive every touch, not like she used to do when it was all new to her.
She is thinking about Philadelphia. She wonders if his apartment building is covered in snow. She wonders if his nose still turns red in the cold, if his eyes still become an impossibly light shade of brown when surrounded by winter. She wonders if there is a girl at work whom he hopes to get caught under mistletoe with. She wonders if he listens to Andy Williams singing Sleigh Ride on the radio and smiles. Or if he quickly changes the station or turns it off altogether. She wonders if he thinks about her at all when a snowflake lands on his lips.
He nearly falls over coming out of his building that afternoon. The ice on the steps being impossible to see. Annalise stands on the sidewalk and laughs at him as he tries to catch his balance, his arms flailing out. He gives her a look and she tries her hardest to keep a straight face.
He takes her hand when he finally makes his way down the steps and says, "It isn't funny. I could've broken my tailbone! And that hurts."
She smiles. "It's a little funny."
"Fine." He murmurs in defeat, putting his arm around her waist and pulling her close to him.
She is new and she is beautiful. These are the two reasons he gives himself for seeing her. Her blonde hair is blowing around her face in the cold wind, herface flushes a bit, her smile overflows into spring green eyes. He kisses her freckled cheek quickly and she laughs out loud.
She's a poet. That's how he met her. His press is printing a volume of her poetry. Verse upon verse about trees and the sky and how the moon talks to the stars. He never cared for poetry much. Not until he read her poem about fallen clouds and skeleton trees. The words echoed of the past, of Rory, of the harsh contrast between his branches and her whiteness. It had liberated him in some way, to see it written down, to know that someone else had felt it and surpassed it.
She is drunk off of eggnog at a friend's Christmas party, leaning on him and laughing. He watches her as she sways back and forth, pressing against him and then gone and then pressing once more. He finds himself reaching out for her hand to keep her against him. She stays this time and looks at him. She kisses him firmly on the mouth and when she pulls back from him, her eyes dart upward. He follows her gaze and sees mistletoe dangling above them.
He groans, kissing the corner of her mouth again. "You know I hate stupid traditions."
Her hands have slipped beneath his blazer, running along his back. She frowns. "Bah humbug."
Later that night, they are facing each other in bed, the light of the moon falling on their faces. He thinks about kissing her now, making love to her again. Her legs reach out for his, entangling themselves. She moves closer to him.
"What are you trying to run from?" She asks quietly, her eyes not moving from his. When he doesn't say anything, she goes on, "You just seem to be pushing this relationship forward as quickly as possible. You've got to be running from something." And then, "I know I am."
His hand reaches out to push back a piece of hair falling into her eyes. Her skin is warm beneath his fingertips and he leaves them there for a second, trying to remember the last time he had been so tender with someone. The muscles of her face tighten as she smiles.
"His name's David." She says suddenly. Her smile falls, her eyes remain on his. "Who I'm running from. Who all the poems are about." And in a muted whisper that breathes against his shoulder, "My skeleton tree."
His fingers feel moist as her tears fall and he moves them from her face. And because her name is always resting somewhere in the back of his throat, waiting, it falls into the space between him and Annalise easily, "Rory." Her legs tighten around his for a second. "She's…" But, he stops. He doesn't want to open this particular floodgate.
He sees a flash of emerald as her eyes look up to meet his. He wants to take the name back and tell her, "I'm not running from anyone. I just want you." He wants to be able to say this and he wants it to be true. He wants to fall in love with her and not have it be false or incomplete. He knows right now this is impossible.
So instead he says, "She says she's in love with me. But, I can't do it again."
"Why not?"
He reaches out for her, pulls her against him, arms around her waist, her face in his chest. He feels her breath on his skin. "Because loving her kills me." He takes a breath and tries to get closer to her. "And I'm so fucking sick of dying."
Her lips press against his chest and she turns her head to replace her lips with her ear, listening for his heart. "Well, I just want to make someone feel alive for once."
(But even this, this beautiful blonde poet, his ability to feel weightless for her, his unafraid exhibition of this feeling, is because of her.)
There are three messages on her phone from Logan. All of them sound too desperate, too high pitched, not like him at all. She listens to the first.
"Hey, it's me. You've been acting sort of weird lately and the way you left this morning…What's going on with you, Ace? Is this about that guy? The one who wrote the book? Whatever it is, just talk to me. We can work it out. I want to work it out. I love you. Just call me back when you can."
He says it all the time now, that he loves her. She isn't sure that he means it, that he knows what it means to really love someone. She wants to ask him what he thinks love is, why it is that he thinks he loves her. She keeps her mouth shut though, because she is almost certain any answer he gives her will be wrong.
The two messages after the first are deleted at the first intake of air.
Maybe he does love her. And maybe she hates him for it.
A/N: Not necessarily my strongest chapter as far as writing goes, but I really like this one. I just really like the idea of Jess with someone else and just wanting to be able to love someone else. And I loved finding that Chuck Palahniuk quote in the midst of writing this because it was so applicable to everyone's situation here. Anyway, let me know what you think. Give me a review for Christmas.