'I love you but
I don't know what to
do.'
Jess stared at the words bitterly, having found the poem he was looking for, and hating that he'd found it. It hadn't helped, of course, and he's known that it wouldn't before he started flicking through his Bukowski. Poetry didn't. Not for Jess. He'd found, in his experience that it raised more questions than it answered. And for Jess, and the type of person he was, more questions were never a constructive thing.
Pitching the book across the room, he heard it thud against the wall and to the floor, /probably bending the pages of one of his favourite authors. But he didn't care. It was a day for not caring. If Jess really, truly started caring, today of all days, thinking about what had happened the night previous, he wasn't sure he could take it. He wasn't even sure that he could take being so numb. It felt like something massively important had been stolen from his body – his heart, maybe his lungs too.
It took him some time to gear up for the day, turning almost mechanical. Jess knew it was a defence mechanism, but he didn't care – he was coping, not thinking about it, not thinking about her, and he was fine. He could live without a heart, and without lungs, if she insisted on taking vital organs with her.
One thing was for certain, though. He was very glad that she'd left his liver behind, because he had a feeling he'd be using it.
-break-
Rory gripped the seat of the chair at the tiny desk in her old bedroom at her mother's house, staring out the window she always used to stare out of, her heart beating too fast for the rest of her.
She knew she would have to put a brave face for her Mom and Luke. But while she was alone, she could fall into herself – not exactly upset or sad, even, anymore, but apathetic. Rory never thought that she could be anything but that person who felt everything. The empath – the person who felt everyone else's pain, as well as her own like electricity jumping gaps between people. She felt nothing. She hated it. But it was relief.
There were pro/con lists in front of her that she and her Mom had started last night after crying together about how much they each missed the other. Her options were ill-defined, though. Maybe leave New York, maybe come back to Connecticut, maybe stay in New York and leave her job, maybe leave journalism altogether … There were no real options, there, and none that she thought would fix the mess she'd made of her life.
Maybe she should have married Logan. She vaguely wondered what her life would be like. Maybe worse than this. Maybe she wouldn't have hurt her soul so much. Or more certainly, she would have become a person even further from herself who lived in this little house in this little town in Connecticut. Less happy, maybe.
In fact, she was absolutely sure of that – her happiness did not depend on other people.
There was a knock on her bedroom door. Her Mom waited on the other side – it was odd and Rory hated it.
"Mom?" she called, and the door clicked open. Her Mom had a worried smile on her face, and Rory smiled back, as honestly as she was able. "Good morning, Mom."
"Hey sweets, you want to head to Luke's for breakfast?"
Rory thought for a second, trying to keep her expression impassive. She thought about bumping into Miss Patty, Babette, Maury, Kirk, Taylor … all of the people who knew her before, and wondered if they would be able to tell the difference. She wondered what questions they would ask her. She wondered whether she was a good enough actor to answer those questions.
"Or," Lorelai continued, noticing the change in her daughter, "Luke could come by. He's dying to see you, hon'."
I am fine, Rory thought to herself. I am not in danger. I am still myself. I am not lost. I am whole, and as pure as I may be. I am not as sick as I believe. I am not sickness. I am not heartache.
Rory hugged her arms around herself, smiled a genuine smile at her mother. Lorelai's worried eyes lightened. "I miss Luke's. And Luke. Give me a sec to change?"
Luke had given them privacy last night, but Rory honestly wished he hadn't. She loved him too – more of a father than her own really ever had been. She missed him. She wanted their reunion private. Rory pulled on a blue t-shirt and jeans. Normal.
It was quiet at Luke's – a regular lull to the throughput of patrons. Luke dropped the pot of coffee onto the counter and pulled her into the most protective hug she'd ever felt. She couldn't help her eyes tearing up. Lorelai looked like she might cry, too, as she stood next to her husband and daughter.
"You have no idea how much we've missed you," Luke said, his words almost felt brutal in their care. In his emotional expression, and her Mom's, Rory felt that it would be okay. That these people were who she needed – after all, they were the people who made her the person she was before everything. If she was ever going to find that naïve, witty and soft girl again, her Mom, and Luke, and this crazy town would be the ones to help her.
Rory's heart breathed a sigh of relief, finally feeling something, throwing herself at Luke's chest again, and hearing the rumble of his laugh through his chest as he embraced her once again.
-break-
A few weeks later, Rory called Jess. His phone rang out twice before she finally left him a voicemail full of nervous energy and erratic thought.
"Jess … uh, hi. I just … I wanted to call and, well … to let you know that you were right. That I needed my Mom and Luke and Stars Hollow. And … I wanted to say sorry for – for this emotional explosion that happened near you – at you. I am so sorry. I'm sorry for dragging you into this. I'm sorry for dragging you back into my life when I wasn't … I wasn't myself. It wasn't fair on you. I'm sorry for fucking up again. You always got the credit for fucking up, Jess, but we both know well enough that I did enough of that, too; I was not a good girlfriend to you, was I? I was as good a girlfriend as you were a boyfriend. We weren't good to each other. And we've continued to not be good to each other, haven't we?
"I've been thinking a lot about when I came to Truncheon for your Open House, Jess. I've been apologising since then, I guess. Probably because you wouldn't let me apologise for it – what was it that you said? 'It is what it is, you … me.' You were so guilty about your own fuck ups that you wouldn't let me apologise for mine. I think maybe it's time for a clean – a truly, completely clean – slate. What do you think?
"Maybe you're fielding my calls. If you are, if I've hurt you too much, or you just don't care anymore, well …" Rory swallowed thickly, her eyes watering. "I can't do much about that, I guess. Bye, Jess." She hung up determinedly, taking a deep breath and hoping he would call back. But that was not in her control.
-break-
Her Mom sat her down on their old, beat-up couch, and asked what had triggered all of the things she had been going through lately. It had come much later than Rory had expected, and she Rory was business-like in her response because of this. She had gone over it a number of times in her head, planning what she might say, what her Mom might say in response, and all the things she might do as a result of the information.
She took a deep breath and said, "It started on the trail, in Baltimore. You're not going to like it, Mom."
Lorelai turned a little more towards her daughter, her face taut in tension, her eyes serious.
"I told you about our tour manager, Tom?" Lorelai nodded in answer, worry immediately lighting up her eyes, and Rory continued after another deep steadying breath. "Well, he and I had been talking for a while about what I might do after the trail. He'd been in the business for a while, and he knew the political news world like no-one else. He told me that he saw potential in me. That we should talk about it, that he could help. So … in Baltimore, he asked me out to dinner – what I originally thought was a business dinner. By the time he picked me up, I of course realised that it wasn't that. That Tom thought we were on a date. I went along with it because I didn't want to embarrass him, but you know how I was after Logan – I didn't want to date for a while after trying to. It was uncomfortable, and he didn't want to talk about work, which was all I had in common with him, really. It was one of the worst dates I've ever been on, and Tom drank a lot.
"He walked me back to the hotel and up to my room, where I tried to extricate myself without having to kiss him goodnight, but he or the wine obviously had other ideas about that." Rory swallowed over the lump in her throat as she struggled to continue, her Mom finally working out where her story was definitely going and covering her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide and fearful. "He forcibly kissed me. He bruised my arms, my hips, my stomach, my thighs." Rory swallowed again, not able to look at her Mom anymore. "The worst part wasn't that, though. The bruises would go away, I knew. But the helplessness wouldn't – not in a hurry. And it hasn't. It's been over a year. And while it was happening, I suddenly thought about what I once wanted to do with my life – I wanted to be an overseas correspondent, like Christiane Amanpour, and I thought about what risks would be constantly over my head every day in a job like that. Guns and bombs and men and women, all out to kill or maim, just because, or because I was American. I was weak. I couldn't even fight off a fellow journalist. I wasn't like Christiane. Mitchum was right – I'm not cut out for journalism."
She wasn't crying, but her chest was tight, and so she stayed quiet for a moment, listening to her Mom's panicked, laboured breathing.
"You didn't tell me," her Mom said, her voice sounding pained.
Rory shook her head. "I didn't tell anyone."
"But you called Jess?"
Rory nodded, biting her lip. "I can't explain why I did that. I was scared and he … I don't know."
"You should have told me, Rory," her Mom told her, and she reached out for her daughter. Rory held her hand.
She nodded, then shook her head. "I couldn't."
Her Mom was nodding, nervously, worriedly, holding on to her for dear life.
Rory eventually spoke again, tears in her voice as she fell against her mother, looking for comfort only her Mom could give. "I don't want to feel weak anymore, Mom."
Lorelai held her daughter, protecting her from the world as she said, "Oh, honey." She smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead, crying herself, angry and terrified. "I have no words for how much I love you, Rory. I want to take all of this away from you. You're better than all of this. You're one of the strongest people I know."
"I'm getting better," Rory said in a small voice. "I feel stronger, now."
"I love you, hon'."
"I love you, too, Mom."
-break-
Rory's Mom spent the next few weeks trying to make everything better – organising movie nights (lots of them), ordering take-out and eating an inordinate amount of junk food, dinners with Sookie, Jackson and the kids, and taking Rory to all the Hollow's bookstores. They went to movies at Black White and Read, they hung out at Luke's.
Rory had begun to feel much more human – much more like her old self. She started reading again – reading books she wanted to, rather than what work denoted. She read Jess' books in parts – she needed breaks between to catch her breath, but it was progression.
She'd been in Stars Hollow for almost a month – her sabbatical from work would have to be addressed soon. It wasn't fair to her colleagues who were picking up the slack for her in her breakdown. She needed to either quit, or swallow her pride and go back to writing about books she mostly hated. After all, it was her way to read literature with a capital 'L', not the trash that most people wanted to read on a beach. She loved the Russians, the Beats, the Classics – real literature that affected you. Or affected her, more accurately. She hugged A Confederacy of Dunces to her chest, remembering acutely when Jess had read this exact novel, and she wondered (as she often did about anyone who had read the same book as her) whether he'd read the same book.
"Rory, daughter of mine!" The front door of the house had slammed shut, and her Mom had hollered from the hallway. She stuck her head around the door, grinning at Rory who was sitting on the bed with the book still clutched in her hands. "I swung by the video store on the way home and thought we could maybe do a vampire night." She held up two DVD cases. "What We Do in the Shadows, because it looked funny, and Lost Boys, because, well, you have to, don't you? Look at Kiefer. He has no idea that the tragic '24' is in his future. Such promise," she said seriously, shaking her head in mourning. "Poor Kiefer."
"Poor Kiefer," Rory agreed. "Look at his hair in Lost Boys. It has so much potential."
"Chinese?" Lorelai asked, talking about food as she moved through to the kitchen, Rory following her. They both started emptying the bags Lorelai had brought in from Doose's full of junk food.
"Sure. When is Luke finishing?"
"About 10pm. He'll catch Lost Boys."
"I'm sure he'll be so pleased about that," Rory replied, laughing.
"Hey – he knew what marrying me entailed."
"Very true," Rory agreed, laughing. "Watching crappy 80s movies -"
"Cult classics, Rory. You should know better!" Lorelai cut across.
"- Okay, Cult classics that Luke Danes hates, and watch you eat an unconscionable volume of junk food."
"We'll have eaten most of it by then – Luke never needs to know."
"So long as you have a plan," Rory teased, laughing at her mother.
-break-
Jess had three manuscripts to review, two to edit, and a mountain of paperwork to do for the store. His head was pounding, and it was almost midnight as he sat, hunchbacked at his desk in the back of Truncheon, NYC. Dragging a hand over his face and turning another page in one of the manuscripts, his eyes burned. He'd been working since six AM and he felt like shit, for lack of a better word. But he had to at least finish one of the manuscripts or else he'd lose a writer, and they couldn't really afford that at the moment, considering they'd just bought this branch.
It was a process, and for the most part, Jess felt on top of it. But today had been one of those days where everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong. One of the poets threw a fit at some of the critique that Matt had for his work, and Jess had had to deliver this critique. Chris was sick, unable to help him when the stock shipment didn't arrive, and had to call vendors while keeping the store open. Then two of the musicians who were supposed to play at the open mic night the following night pulled out, and so did the MC. And on top of all that, the e-zine had lost a writer.
So understandably, Jess' stress levels were sky high. He was already in a terrible mood, though, but that was much longer standing. The stinging in Jess' eyes intensified, and he was forced to shut his eyes, cursing the day silently, then loudly.
He had texted Matt, telling him to send someone to help over the next few days while Chris got over the flu or whatever he had. Matt told him that he'd drive up in the morning, so at least there was that. Heaving a sigh, Jess struggled to open his eyes as exhaustion took over. He didn't really want to go upstairs because he couldn't afford to get sick, too. He grumbled, and lay his head to the side on the desk in front of him, bend double in the uncomfortable chair.
He knew he'd have to call her back, eventually. In all honestly, Jess had no idea how the time had passed between Rory's message and now – a full month – but it had. As far as he knew, she was still in Stars Hollow. Waiting longer made it harder and harder to call, even though he knew he should. She would make her own answer out of his silence. The only problem was that it may very well be the right answer to what he felt about it – about being with Rory again. Maybe it was the worst idea in the world to wipe the slate clean and start again. He remembered the beginning. He remembered how immediately attracted he was to her. How intensely interested in her mind he was. It was beyond a terrifying first experience of pure love, and he didn't know what to do. It made him angry. It made him want to run.
He had wanted to take her with him, hadn't he?
He turned his head so that his forehead was against the wood, nose squashed up and he groaned. His attraction level to her had never changed, though – and he'd never been more interested in her thoughts and opinions. He supposed she was just one of those people he would never want gone.
Lifting his head up, he looked to his phone, debating for a few seconds, before picking it up and leaning back in the chair to click on her name in his text message list.
When are you coming home?
It felt personal and bare, saying too much what he felt in so few words – maybe it was his tiredness, or maybe not. He sent it.
He stared at his screen, and watched as ellipses appeared and disappeared under his text, but ultimately she didn't send all the replies she'd obviously agonised over. He sighed, wondering whether anything about the two of them would ever be easy, and went to bed.
-break-
A/N: Hello fine people. I needed a cute Luke moment.
Hope you liked it. They'll talk to each other in the next chapter, I expect … there's that slow burn again, huh? :'). Review please – they make me so happy :) xx
