Life and Death

By blackbirdfree


Chapter Twelve

Rory and Logan walked out of the pool house into the dark night. The stars twinkled merrily from the two's place beside the pool. There was no one else out there except the two of them.

Rory's purse was with her. She removed a cigarette from the pack of Newport 100s. "Have a light?" questioned Rory to Logan.

"Sure," said Logan easily. He removed a lighter from the back pocket of his jeans. The cigarette was in between Rory's teeth. He leaned forward to light it.

"So you've gone out with this guy, Jess?" questioned Logan.

Rory shrugged. "Yeah. I spent the weekend at my mom's place in this town named Stars Hollow. Jess lives there. We met up and went out."

Logan frowned. "It seems like he beat me to the punch."

"What do you mean?"

"I wanted to ask you out sometime but since my dad got sick… Life's been pretty crazy."

"Yeah, I heard," she replied. "How's he doing now?"

"It's touch and go. It's odd. He's never been sick before now. He has complications from pneumonia."

Rory nodded.

"But it's not like I can stop my life from happening, you know? I have to get back to school on Monday."

"Okay," said Rory. "That's good. You don't want to get too behind on everything."

"Yeah. And I thought waiting for college acceptance letters was going to be the hard part of this year."

"What schools did you apply to?"

"Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth are the schools on top of my list."

Rory smiled. "I want to go to Yale. Everyone in my family has gone there. They'd be thrilled if I did, too."

Logan grinned. "Then, we'd be at the same college together. That'd be pretty cool."

Rory nodded. "It definitely would."


Rory and Logan parted ways sometime throughout the evening. Later that night she ran into her grandparents. If the two noticed that Rory was a little drunk, then, they said nothing about it.

Rory and her grandparents went home late. For once, Rory realized that she had a fun time at Paris' birthday party. The highlight of her evening was the time she spent with Logan. However, the one negative thing about it was the fact that Logan hadn't asked her out on a date that night. He implied that he might like to do so but he never spoke to her about it.

Rory was in bed when her cell phone rang. She was about to fall asleep but, then, decided to pick-up her cell phone anyway. She didn't bother to look at the name of the caller.

"Hello?" said Rory.

"Hi," said a familiar voice. It was Jess.

"What's up?" asked Rory.

"I wanted to see if you got home okay," he said. "Did Huntzberger take you?"

"No. I went home with my grandparents."

"Okay." There was a brief silence before he continued. "I hate that guy."

"Really?" said Rory in surprise. "Why?"

"I just hate guys like him… guys with everything in the world handed down to them on a silver platter."

"Oh." Rory bit her lip. "So how do you feel about me?"

"What do you mean?"

"My grandparents are the ones that raised me. We're not bad-off."

"Nah," said Jess. "You're not like them."

"Them?"

"The rich, snooty, and out-of-touch."

Rory held back a smile. "I'm glad you think so."