The Best of You – Chapter Fifteen
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I own nothing…
"Ro-ry! Are you absolutely sure?"
Rory rolled her eyes at her mother and continued to walk to their beloved diner. She nodded, only to be amused by the grave look on her mother's face. "Yes, I'm positive. I've missed three days already! Imagine how much work I've missed and how long it's going to take me to catch up."
"But surely one more day won't be too bad," Lorelai compromised, opening the door for her daughter.
Together, the two women found their regular table at their regular eatery and continued to talk, the elder woman seemed to be talking a mile a minute.
"Just one more day! I had a whole day planned," Lorelai grinned hopefully.
"No you didn't. You just made that up now to try to get me to stay."
Lorelai gasped dramatically, "I did no such thing. Here is the itinerary that I worked so hard on. I mean, I tossed and turned last night just thinking about another perfect mother slash daughter day…" she was momentarily stopped by Luke, who walked over to the two seemingly grumpier then usual.
"Coffee?" Luke asked, holding the coffee pot in one hand and two mugs on the other.
"Honestly Luke, as if you have to ask," Lorelai replied, rolling her eyes.
Luke snorted and hurriedly poured them the hot caffeine, "Breakfast is coming."
Rory took a long sip of her coffee and caught a glimpse of the clock before shaking her head profusely. "Can't, I have to go now or else I'm going to miss my bus."
"Luke, she'll have four pancakes, some scrambled eggs and five strips of bacon. And do take your time, we have the whole day!"
"Unless all of that food can fit into a paper bag no can do. I have to go or else I'm going to be late," Rory replied, grabbing her backpack from the floor.
"But I haven't told you what I had planned for the perfect mother slash daughter day," Lorelai argued.
"Okay, I'll give you one minute. Luke! Can I have two donuts and one large coffee to go?"
"So I figured, we'd go to the movie store, rent every cheesy teen movie imaginable, order Chinese, Pizza, Indian and Thai and go to Doose's for some Cheetos, chocolate kisses, some licorice and those things where there's a cookie on the bottom topped off with marshmallow that's usually filled with chocolate in the middle and get this daughter of mine, it's even coated with chocolate! Oh the sugary goodness!"
"Mom, you stayed up all night to think of that?"
"All the food, yes."
"We did that yesterday, except instead of cheesy teen movies we had 80's night."
Luke interrupted Lorelai's comeback with a paper bag and a large coffee, "I put something extra in there for you. You can't just eat two donuts for breakfast, you won't learn anything," he mumbled before handing Rory the bag and the coffee.
"Thanks Luke, bye mom."
"Bye evil one! Because of you I have to go to work today!"
"Hey, you're making money… someone's gotta pay for all those shoes you want."
-
Rory stepped off the bus feeling anxious about the day that was to come. She swallowed hard before proceeding to the entrance of the school. She had managed to make it on time; in fact, she was about fifteen minutes early. Rory walked to her locker slowly, thoughtfully chewing on her honey-glazed donut.
She arrived at her locker only to realize that someone was waiting for her.
"Feeling better?" Tristan asked from his cross-legged position on the floor. He looked up at her, his smirk firmly in place.
"What are you doing on the floor?"
"I got tired of standing. Wanna join me?"
Rory looked around, noticing that the hallway was rather empty; she gave a nonchalant shrug and joined him on the floor.
"Why were you standing near my locker anyway?"
Tristan shot her an amused glance, "Because I like to stand near lockers? I like to stand so close that I can smell the text books, sometimes if I'm really lucky and if I choose the right locker, I can smell rotten week old lunches."
Rory laughed, "Hey, whatever floats your boat."
"I was waiting for you."
Rory, being Rory blushed at that comment, "Why?"
"I wanted to see if you were feeling better," he answered the question as if the answer was so blatantly obvious.
"Oh… well I am."
"By the way you're devouring that donut, I can see that."
Rory paused, mid-bite. She closed her mouth and glared at him, "I like donuts."
"I don't. They ruin your teeth."
"You truly are the weirdest person on this planet."
"Why? Because of my dislike for donuts?"
"Yes, that is exactly why."
"I like fruit."
"Sugared?" Rory asked hopefully.
"Naturally sugared."
"No, I'm talking artificially sugared. Like candied apples or chocolate covered raisins."
"Then no, sorry."
"How about pie?"
Tristan leaned back against the lockers, contemplating her question. "What kind of pie?"
"Apple?"
"Hell yes, I love apples."
"With vanilla ice cream on top?"
"No ice cream."
"You don't like ice cream either?"
"Not on my pie."
"Fair enough," Rory concluded, finishing off her donut and her coffee.
"I've got one," Tristan thought of another food, not at all wanting the conversation to end, "How about salad?"
"I like the Lorelai."
"The Lorelai?"
Rory nodded, "She mixes licorice bits, mini marshmallows, some plain M&M's and peanut M&M's, pretzels and dried sugared coconut. She came up with it and decided to call it the Lorelai."
Tristan made a face, "How are you not 275 pounds?"
Rory shrugged, "It's the Gilmore Girl metabolism. You have to actually witness one of our movie nights to see how much food we actually consume. It'll boggle your mind."
Tristan grinned, "Is that an invite Mare?"
Rory blushed, scolding herself inwardly for not catching her tiny slip of the tongue. She let out a breath as the warning bell rang, telling students that they had five minutes to get to their first period class. Rory stood slowly, Tristan followed suit.
She turned her locker combination quickly and for once in all of her Chilton days, her locker opened with ease. She took the books she would need and closed her locker once again, turning to Tristan.
"Don't you have to get to class?"
Tristan shrugged, "I can be late for a minute… or ten."
Rory shook her head, reaching into her open backpack. "Well I can't be late but here… Luke gave this to me but since I don't like them and since you love them, I figured you'd enjoy it more than the garbage can."
Tristan looked at her quizzically before his eyes reached her open palm. He fought to keep the smile from showing and swallowed back the butterflies. He accepted and took a bite of the Red Delicious gratefully.
"Thanks Mare, I didn't have breakfast this morning."
Rory watched him walk away, her eyes clouding over with an emotion so rare to her that she couldn't even name it.
"Did we just have a civil conversation?" she asked herself, surprised but what shocked her the most was that she was actually pleased.
-
"You're back."
Rory exited her third period class, hungry and cranky and was greeted by Paris Geller.
"I'm back."
"Good luck catching up, I'd offer you my notes but I don't really want to."
Rory walked past Paris, "Well then, it's a good thing that I didn't ask you."
"You'll never catch up without my notes. They are simply the best of our class and the most thorough," Paris argued, following the brunette into the cafeteria.
"We'll see about that. And I can borrow someone else's notes. They may not be as thorough as yours but they'll help," Rory sighed, taking a seat at her usual table.
Paris stayed standing, watching as Rory reached into her backpack for her book of the week and her Discman. She bit her lip to keep from screaming, how can she just ignore her like that?
"You and Tristan looked pretty cozy this morning."
Rory paused her search for a particular song and she set her book down, looking up to meet the blonde's blazing eyes and shrugged off her earphones, "Are you spying on me?"
"Please," Paris snorted, "Half the school saw you two flirting back and forth."
"We were not flirting."
"He's just using you, you know."
Rory almost choked on her saliva, "Excuse me?"
"It may seem like he likes you but he doesn't! Trust me… I know him," Paris replied casually, her hand wringing the strap of her book bag tightly.
"Why are you telling me this? I didn't even ask you!"
"I'm telling you before you make a fool out of yourself. Don't you think you've been embarrassed enough times in this school already?"
"Like you care," Rory bit back, "You're probably dreaming to see that! To see me humiliate myself."
"I've seen it already, and though it was fairly amusing, I would hate to see it again because it was actually pretty sad."
"I don't care," Rory said, her eyes descending down to her book once more.
Paris snorted before taking the chair opposite Rory. She stretched her body so their faces were inches away from each other.
"The attention you're getting from him makes you feel good, doesn't it? Makes you feel wanted? And let me guess, you're probably developing feelings for him that you thought would never, ever happen but they have and you don't know what to do. And though it may seem like he feels the same way, let me say this to you… he's only paying attention to you now because he wants a second go. Call it round two if you must but he wants that. And he's Tristan DuGrey; he'll stop at nothing to get what he wants. And you want to know what's sad?"
"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me."
"I actually thought that you were smart enough to not give in to him but seems like I've been proven wrong since you gave up your virginity to Tristan of all guys. And I have no doubt in my mind that you wouldn't even think twice about having sex with him again."
"Is that so?" Rory questioned, setting her book down one more time.
Paris nodded.
"Why should I believe this coming from someone who has never had a boyfriend and has to resort to bringing family members to school dances? And even if what you're saying is true, which I'm not saying it is, why do you care so much? Unless you still have feelings for Tristan, which I think you do." Rory closed her eyes, instantly regretting the comment. She was dreading opening her eyes, knowing that she would have to come face to face with a livid Paris.
Rory was surprised because as soon as her blue eyes opened, Paris Geller was gone. And for the rest of her lunch period, she couldn't bring it to herself to pick her book up and read.
--
Wow, I know… even I surprised myself at how quickly I updated! But I had time and a little bit of motivation so there you go! I loved the Trory action in this chapter, envision it happening in your head and it makes it even cuter.
And to all who have stated that the story had become too dramatic (which I agreed with and got me thinking about the route this story is taking)…Lorelai's not really going to make a big splash in terms of drama in this story anymore… it's just going to be Chilton and relationship drama because I like the concept of Rory having someone to talk to about it all and confide in. Though Lorelai will hate the fact that "stuff" is happening to Rory, she'll support her nonetheless and may even help her.
And eeeh! I'm glad someone caught my Mrs. Vaseline! It's just to show my love for the product and the fact that I'm not at all creative and it was just in front of me, teasing me. Hey… if it's good enough for a baby's buttocks it's good enough for my lips.
Have I told you lately that I love you guys? (And yes, the song did pop up in my brain as I typed the sentence!). Thank you all for the wonderful feedback and support!