Torn
-By Yo-yo
Disclaimer:C chappie #1.
Chapter 13- The Problems with Getting Older:
She brought the glass of wine up to her lips.
"Is it bad that I'm relieved?"
"No," Rory turned to her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "At least now you know. It was the smart thing to do."
"God, but what am I going to do? I've got to tell Dave, I just can't not tell him."
"Yea… how do you feel about this?"
"Scared… I want my Mommy… wait, scratch that, I want your Mommy."
"Is it okay if I fill in for now?"
"Yea," Lane brought the glass to her lips and took another sip. "Thanks best friend."
"Anything for you," she placed another kiss to her forehead and stared into the lit fireplace.
The flames danced in the fireplace in the warmth of the summer night. The warm air they could not feel as the enormity of the night consumed their thoughts and being. But the flames they could see seemed to touch them in the way the invisible air couldn't. Those flames traced warmth around their bodies, leaving only their troubles.
"Remember the first time that we'd broken up?" she whispered an hour later, dropping another tissue on the floor.
"Yea," she giggled a little.
"It was so stupid. My mom liked him, and I couldn't take it. And I picked a stupid fight with him, accusing him of just being with me because he wanted to lay me… I was such a teenager. Trying to make something out of nothing, putting so much emphasis on the trivial," she began to cry. "I realized that I loved him then… did you know?"
"Yea," she sniffled. "I realized when you came to my house crying. Remember you'd ranted for an hour and a half about how he was so transparent? How he'd play music for your mom's church just to be near you. How he'd hold band practice an extra half hour over just so he could sit close to you when you were writing songs together. How he'd pretend to be perplexed by notes on sheet music just to touch your fingers. How he'd stare at you in classes and make excuses to eat lunch with you. I think you were more transparent. I knew you were in love with him from then."
"Why didn't you tell me? I was such a basket case. I could barely survive that week of being apart-"
"I know, you were at my house every day… those puffy eyes and the three gallons of ice cream that you'd eaten from my freezer proved that to Mom and me."
"He loves me back."
"I know… everyone knows. Even Mama Kim knows, she would not have let you guys keep dating if she didn't."
"What's going to happen?"
Her voice was barely a breath, but with the only the sporadic crackling of the fire to break the stillness of the air, she heard.
Sorrow flushed through her as she turned her body to face her best friend who'd curled up on the sofa, with a tissue pressed to her nose.
"He's going to press a kiss to your forehead and tell you that he loves you."
"But will he?" Lane's dark eyes stared back into her friends, doubt filling her tears, tumbling down her cheeks.
"Don't you dare start doubting him now, Lane. You've been together for too many years and have experienced way too much to start being suspicious of his intentions now. That man loves you. He has always has and you have no reason to believe him to ever want to hurt you. He's going to do this right. He's not that guy, Lane. He's the Dave you've always known… he's not going to change."
No response came from her best friend as another tear trailed its way from her eye. She turned her eyes back into the fire, finding comfort in the eerie shadows they made.
He'd entered the apartment with a bottle of wine and a song in his head only to find her sitting on the floor staring at the fire and Lane lying on the couch, tissues on the floor before her.
He watched as her eyes found his, hers twinkling with unshed tears as she took him into the study and told him she'd have to take a rain check on their dinner tonight. When he'd asked her why, afraid her ennui during the day had seeped into her night, she told him she couldn't say and pressed a kiss to his cheek. With that, she had led him out of the apartment, sending an apologetic look before she closed the door softly in his face.
He could feel the eerie sadness that held the apartment. Even Mocha, who sat at Lane's feet, was silent as he laid his head on his paws and stared at nothing.
The melancholy seemed to permeate everything in the apartment. He felt it as he entered. It lay on his skin. It filled his nostrils. The sadness leaving the air heavy and stale as it remained in his lungs, even now. It shown in her eyes, her baby blues wanted to let go and yet she suppressed the urge. The dimness in the apartment from the roaring fire and few lighted candles dispersed the woe throughout the room. The gloom he felt sobering him even before she could cancel the date.
He wanted to know why. He wanted to know what made her cry. What made Lane sniffle so? What kept Mocha from bounding to the door when he'd come?
Wrapped in his thoughts, he pulled his blanket closer up his body as he stared out his window, staring at nothing.
Suddenly, a soft rapping came from his door.
"Come in," he mumbled.
"I'm sorry to wake you," she peeked her head in the door. "I just wanted to say sorry about tonight."
"What was wrong?"
She tiptoed to his bed and crawled beneath the covers, burying her face in his shoulder where he soon felt hot tears soaking his skin.
"I can't say," she sniffled and he wrapped his arms around her trembling frame. "I just…I just needed you. Is it okay if I stay here?"
"Yea," he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Do you want to talk?"
"Not now," she mumbled, the tears still falling and his body still cradling hers.
He held her as her tears subsided. He held her as her body uncoiled from its taut sadness and she relaxed to him. He held her as she began to breathe evenly. He held her even when he believed she was asleep. It wasn't until an hour later that he heard her voice again.
"Are you awake?" she whispered, moving her head from its position in his shoulder.
"Yea," he pressed another kiss to the top of her head.
"I'm sorry for coming here like this; I know this is the last thing that you'd want."
"No," he breathed, hoping she did not look in his eyes to see the truth in them. "When you need me, I'm always here for you."
"It's just that, god, things have been going okay, but today was so bad. I was just so… depressed. And then I get home, and Lane is going through the same thing… only her sadness is so concrete, so tangible, and I felt so small. I felt so sad, for Lane, for me, for Dave for-"
"Is she okay?" panic entered his voice now.
What was she saying?
"No… she's okay. She's fine…" she pressed a kiss to his chest. "Don't worry."
"Kay…"
"We're growing up, ya' know."
"Yea," he pushed her hair from her face. "I know how you're feeling. It's daunting."
"I wish we were dating right now," she breathed, but he'd heard.
"Why?"
She didn't say as she pressed another kiss to his chest, and brought her body closer to his. Her tears had subsided, but her body still trembled. He couldn't tell if the trembling was from the emotion that still rippled throughout her frame, or if it was another type of emotion that was slowly making its way through his as well.
"Mary," he breathed as she pressed another kiss to his chest, the pads of her fingers igniting little burst of warmth where they met his skin.
"Rory," he moaned, a little time later when her lips moved themselves against the column of his neck, her tongue tasting him and her teeth gently nipping as her fingers trailed his chest, tracing circles around his nipples, driving him crazy.
"Please," she whispered moving over him, her lips moving from his neck, up to the sensitive spot right below his ear that caused him to groan and lift his pelvis to her. "Please," she breathed again, this time moving to his Adam's Apple which she took into her mouth and began to suck on, causing her name to fly from his lips and disperse into the air above them.
His eyes screwed shut and his hands left her body to grip the sheets as wave after wave of passion rolled over him. It was her, the girl he'd wanted since he was too young to understand what she truly meant to him. This was the woman he'd met a few months ago and had fallen in love with in mere seconds. This was the woman he was supposed to marry. This was the love he couldn't live without. And she was lying on top of him, asking him to touch her in the ways he'd dreamed about. She was willing to do the things he'd wished for when he was in high school that left his sheets wet in the morning. She was begging him to make her feel … something.
She needed to feel something, and he knew this wasn't what she needed.
She straddled his hips at this point, her lips hovering over his, brushing over them every few moments, nipping, licking and causing him to moan into her soft kisses. Her pelvis pressed into his, intimating an act that under the circumstances he felt extremely disappointed he could not carry out.
"Rory," he groaned, his eyes finally open and his hands moved to grip her hips and gently move her away.
"Please," she breathed, a soft whimper coming from his lips at the loss of contact.
"Can you look me in the eye?" he asked her, stroking her arm as the frustration on her face melted, and her eyes fell to his. "I don't want it to happen like this."
She squirmed a little, trying to press herself closer to him, for warmth or to touch him again, he did not know.
"I wish we were dating too, because it is really hard for me to stop this, but we can't. If we are going to start something, I don't want it to be like this."
"I need you."
"No, you can't do this. If you want to be with me, we'll be together. But we're doing it right. If you don't want to be with me, then you can't come my bed at night, you can't ask me to do something like this. You can't…"
"I want to be with you," she breathed, her eyes burrowing into his. "I want to touch you. I want you to be able to hold me," she looked away, "but I c-"
"That's fine, I can accept that…"
"I'm sorry," she pulled away, tears welling in her eyes as she moved from beneath the covers, out of the bed.
"No," he grabbed her arm. "You need me and I'm here for you."
He pulled her back into her previous position, curled up to him and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
"Let's just sleep."
She nodded against him, tears still spilling from her eyes as she clung to him.
"I'm sorry," she let a whisper escape in the night.
She stayed like that all night, wrapped in his arms until that morning, when the air in the room ushered in the soft melody of Adrien's aubade'.
"The construction seems to be going well," she nodded to Joseph as they made their way back to the office after inspecting the worksite. All throughout the walk she had been self-consciously brushing away imaginary dust from the worksite.
"Show's all you know," he smirked, "they're a week behind schedule."
"I never played with Legos as a child, okay. What do I know about steel beams and piping?"
"Obviously nothing," he stopped to let her through the door for the high-rise. "And stop brushing yourself off, there's nothing there."
She stuck out her tongue at him as she pushed through the revolving door. In the elevator he poked her in the side in retaliation.
"You're mean, I don't like you anymore," she smiled, moving away from him. At the next floor five people filed into the elevator and they were reduced to making faces at one another from separated ends of the chamber.
When they'd left the elevator car, a few of the women left raised their brows.
"I'm starving," she gripped her stomach as it made a loud growl.
"Aren't you always?" he smirked as they made their way past the front desk.
"Lorelei et Joseph," Chanel called out to them. "M. Duval and the partners are waiting for you in the board room."
"Merci," Rory followed Joseph down the hall.
An hour later, Joseph and Rory remained in the board room, waiting for lunch as they chatted.
"…How are you feeling today?" he smiled remembering her unusual mood yesterday.
"Comme ci comme ça," she shook her head, remembering last night's occurrence.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he shifted closer, responding as her eyes traveled away from him, acknowledging she was hiding something.
"Non," she looked up to find him close to her, his face merely inches away.
"J'ai ai voulu vous demander quelque chose depuis que je vous ai recontre." '' He breathed moving closer, his breathing deep as his eyes kept darting for her lips.
"Qu-?"
Before she could finish, his lips pressed themselves to hers…
"Bonsoir, M. DuGrey," the receptionist greeted him as he entered the office.
"Good afternoon, Chanel," he smiled. "I'm here to take Lorelei to lunch, is she in?"
"Oui, she just got out of a meeting, she should be at her desk."
"Merci."
He made his way through the maze of cubicles on the bustling news floor, trying to find the one with its own coffeemaker and black and white photographs of the people she loved pinned all over the walls. He finally recognized the small area to be hers when he read the name tag stapled to the carpeted walls that read "Lorelei 'Rory' Gilmore" in bright pink script with glitter and stickers… Lorelei's handiwork.
He stuck his head in to find it empty.
"Rory," Yolande entered, thumbing through an oversized magazine. "I was reading this article an-"
She looked up and stopped abruptly to keep herself from knocking into him.
"Bonsoir," she grinned, her eyes running over him as this was the first time she'd ever gotten close to him.
"Bonsoir, Je suis Tristan DuGrey," he proferred her hand.
"Je connais," she smiled shaking his hand. "I do work in a newspaper, and your name has been floating around a lot lately."
"At least not in the tabloids," he smirks.
"Well then obviously you're not up-to-date on your tabloids. I've seen your face at least three times in the supermarket."
"And yet, I've never seen yours."
"Je m'appelle Yolande."
"I know you, Rory talks about you all the time."
"She does?" her eyebrows shooting up. "She never said-"
"She really enjoys working with you."
"And I reciprocate that compliment," she pushed her hair away from her eyes.
"Are you here to see her?"
"Yes, I wanted to take her to lunch, she's been down these last couple of days."
"I see, well she should be here. Although she did just get out of a meeting… maybe we should check the board room?"
Yolande took the lead, not forgetting to sway her hips as she made her way to the board room, smiling at the prospect of going on a date with the fine specimen trailing behind her.
"There she is," her voiced trailed off at the sight of Rory and Joseph locked in a seemingly heavy lip-lock.
TBC…
Written w/ luv, Yo-yo
'aubade- A song or poem greeting the dawn; also, a composition suggestive of morning (word of the day, March 21, 2006)
''"I've been wanting to ask you something since I first met you."