A/N: Obviously, I've been working several months on this chapter. I apologize. But, all the same, you are unaware of how many times I deleted this file as a bad case of writer's block. Explanations were due in this chapter, but thoroughly providing them was an issue. In other news: I now have spell check again! You don't have to be all disgusted by my abhorrent tendency to type faster than I spell, anymore! Aren't you glad? Wheee! Now, let us begin this chapter…
Chapter Nine: Tristan—BACK! Existence—EXPLAINED! Love—HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE IN THE AIR! Heck YES!
They sat laughing, just like they'd never been apart.
"And then, my mom started yelling at her," Tristan continued. Rory was laughing already.
"But it wasn't like she told her to wear the dress!" Rory objected, still laughing.
"Exactly, which was made it so funny. Here was this girl, trying so hard to impress Mom, and my idiot brother, making it known in no uncertain terms that he was sleeping with her, and expecting me to be impressed, not thinking about the impact on Mom, and Mom starts yelling at her because she was wearing the same dress as another lady. I actually felt kind of sorry for her. But it was so funny the way my mom kept spluttering out random words like that!"
"God, I would have died had I been her. I know what it's liked to be disapproved of like that," Rory said, half hoping he'd ask her to explain.
"Oh?" He asked mildly, never disappointing. Rory shrugged and said as nonchalantly as she could,
"Yeah, my ex-boyfriend's superstar journalist dad told me I wasn't cut out for the writing biz." Tristan suddenly looked sort of serious.
"I that why you, I mean…" His voice trailed off.
"Dropped out of college? You heard?" Rory asked calmly, although feeling a little annoyed.
"Yeah. So, is that why?" He asked. She didn't answer for a moment, choosing instead to take a sip of her coffee.
"I guess." She said. "I hate how weak that sounds, but it's, well, the truth."
"It's not weak," he said quietly. He paused for a moment. "You had a real reason."
"Not really," Rory said certainly, pretending that it didn't bother her that she'd screwed up so badly.
"A better reason than I did." He admitted quietly. This caught her attention.
"You dropped out of college?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"It's… sort of embarrassing." He admitted. This only proved to make Rory more curious.
"You don't have to tell me," she said slowly, (well, slow for her, anyway), "but I definitely would, you know, laugh if you did."
"Well, I went to Harvard. I was sort of looking for you." He began. "I don't know if you know this or not, but back at Chilton, I was pretty infatuated with you. And when I got sent away, well, of course I saw other girls, but my thoughts were always around you. It's crazy, I know, I had just known you back in high school and not even very well, but, well," He paused to look at her and then, seeing her blush, looked away again.
"I went to Harvard because I thought I remembered you being obsessed with that place," he said, smiling at the memory. "Truthfully, I had no real interest in any college in any aspect. It was pointless to me. I had my diploma, I could get a job, what was the purpose in wasting four more years of my life to academic slavery? But, my grandfather insisted, and, well, I ended up there, figuring that as long as I was going, I might as well get a few laughs along the way, usually while torturing you."
"But I changed my mind, I went to Yale," Rory said breathlessly. She was, in a word, stunned. He went through all this because of her?
"Yeah, well, I eventually figured that out. Well, not exactly Yale, but I figured you went elsewhere. The first few months, when I didn't see you around, I just thought, 'well, hey, big campus, right? I'll see her around eventually," I even changed a few of my classes, and eventually my major, looking for the bookworm I'd fallen for so long ago," Tristan said, grinning sheepishly now. "But you weren't there. In the meantime, I met Amber."
"Amber?"
"She went to Harvard like me, and her grandfather knew mine because they were cousins, or something. We got pretty serious," He said. To Rory's repulsed face he added scathingly, "We were like, twelfth cousins or something, okay? Really distant. I'm not from Kentucky." He said vehemently. Rory looked at him in disbelief.
"Well, whatever. Anyway, we got engaged, and, long story short, she ran off with another guy, and I found out that she had done the same thing to tons of other guys, and even had a kid or two running around." He finished, looking slightly annoyed. Rory was silent a few more moments.
"She… was your cousin?" She repeated.
"Like fifteenth or twentieth!" He tried to reason.
"You said twelfth before!" She accused.
"I wasn't being specific!"
"You still aren't!"
"Ugh," he said, exasperated.
"I'm sorry," Rory finally told him after a silence, "that you went through all that, for me."
"I don't guess I regret it, really," he said quietly. He drained the rest of his coffee. "I guess it was a good experience for me to have, humbling or something. Anyway, I should probably go,"
"Wait!" Rory said urgently. He paused, looking at her severely, still sort of annoyed with her. "Do you want to, I dunno, have dinner, or something?"
He stared.
"Um, as a date?" he asked cautiously.
"Well, yeah, I mean, if you're still interested." She replied. He stared at her still.
"You don't have to do this if you, you know, feel sorry for me, or something." He said wearily.
"No, nothing like that, I just, I don't know; I've missed you." Rory admitted solemnly.
"Um, okay. When?"
"Today's… Tuesday, right?"
"Yeah."
"How about this Friday?"
"Can I drive?"
"Will you drive a million miles an hour?" She asked hesitantly, having enough boyfriend experience to be wary of speeders.
"I won't."
"Do you normally?"
"Not when I'm on a date, or taking random rescued former friends back to their mother's house." He snickered.
"Okay, pick me up at six, I'll decide where we're going."
"No, let me decide. I'd kind of like to go into Hartford, and I know the area better." Tristan countered stubbornly. Rory was hesitant. What if she saw her Grandmother there?
"Well, okay." She agreed slowly.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I might have to wear a ski mask over my face to avoid my Grandmother and her crowd, but yeah, okay." She agreed.
"I could choose somewhere else…" he started.
"No, I'm fine, just being over-dramatic." Rory confirmed.
"So, uh, see you then?" Tristan asked, already only a moment away from the door.
"Yeah," said Rory cheerfully. They smiled at each other and then Tristan left. Rory sighed.
"You can come out now, Luke!" she called.
"I don't like him. He's practically a stalker," Luke told her at once.
"Not a very good stalker," Rory mused. Luke rolled his eyes.
"I'll see you later," Rory said, before practically skipping out of the diner.
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Chapter Nine- Study
"I-told-you," Sarah giggled, "studying."
"God, you don't need it anyway, Javerson," Terrance told her confidently, trying to capture her lips once more. Sarah laughed in reply and pulled back.
"Maybe it's not me I'm worried about," Sarah said mischievously. Secretly, though, she wasn't all laughs. He was at her house, and there hadn't been a second chair she could have put at her desk to make room for him, so he had agreed to sit on her bed while she sat at the desk. But he immediately and sincerely needed help deciphering one passage, and she'd wandered over to assist. Upon the classic sudden awareness of the limited space between them, studying had suddenly dropped a rung on their priorities, so to speak. To make matters worse, Sarah had closed the door so that they could study in peace. Her parents were still home and awake (at least she thought, what time was it, anyway?), but it would still not pay anyone any favors to get to involved in the whole kissing thing, which in this instance, might turn into something more. Which she did not want. At least, that's what she kept telling herself.
He kissed her again, overpowering her with his strength, and she sighed. It was so hard to concentrate when he kept dazzling her, just by kissing her. Or being around her, for that matter. He pulled her down on top of him, and she was blissful.
God, what was wrong with her? She pulled back forcefully, now serious. He gazed back at her, confused. She simply shook her head, and then sat up, straddling him.
"I can't risk… doing anything I'm not ready for." She said quietly. With a sigh, she realized she probably needed to move before she cause some unwanted sexual tension. She did and sat on her knees, while he was still, watching her. She turned pleading eyes upon him.
"It's not that I don't trust you." She said in a whisper. "I don't trust me." It sounded stupid, and clichéd. But she couldn't help it if it was the truth.
"Hey," he said, putting his arms around her waist and dragging her towards him.
"No, Terrance, did you hear me? I said…"
"We're not going to do anything. I just want you to lie down with me, understand?" He said impatiently. Sarah stared for a moment, unsure.
"I won't try anything, I swear." He said sincerely, still impatient. "I won't let you try anything either, if that's what you're worried about."
She finally snuggled up to him, and realized immediately that it wasn't to hard, just lying there with him. There was still a part of her that wanted to go beyond this, bush the borders a little, but for now, that part was recessive. She felt content. He sighed. She decided to ignore it, knowing he'd come t her if he wanted to talk.
When she woke up, it was morning, he was gone, and the note on the bedside table was a simple "Tristan loves Sarah", with a little heart in place of the word 'loves'.
A/N: I wanted to explain Tristan, and to give Sarah and Terrance a bit more chemistry, because I thought it was sort of lacking. Overall, I thought it was a sort of sweet chapter. REVIEW!
