Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls only whatever character I make up in this fanfiction.

Rory came home feeling absolutely drained. After the dog show, where Finn had adopted three freaking dogs the group had gone to Zero where they'd had some drinks. Of course if Rory didn't partake in the activities her friends would ask what was wrong and that wasn't where she wanted the conversation to go.

She threw her keys into the glass holder and collapsed onto her bed, holding onto her head. The day had majorly sucked. And even worse, Tristan hadn't showed up. Which meant he was off with that bimbo, whatshername?

Rory stopped moving. Why did she care so much about Tristan's activities? She'd been seeing them occurring for years. Maybe it was just because she felt ditched. That was it. She couldn't feel anything more for Tristan. It was simply not an option. Rory pushed it out of her exhausted mind.

She changed into a pair of boxers and a beater and was busy turning on her computer when her door opened. Christopher was standing in the door way glaring at her.

"So that was an interesting display of teen angst this morning." He said, sarcasm dripping off every word.

She just ignored him, not in the mood to get in a screaming match. She wanted to get out of the house, but she couldn't just walk over to Tristan's tonight because he was... occupied. She'd just have to stick it out for once.

"Dad, what do you want?" She asked while typing in her password.

"Nothing. Just wanted to give you some mail and to tell you that I'll be gone for the next couple of weeks in California. "

For the last year or so Christopher had been traveling more since his already huge corporate company had expanded internationally, while also setting up another main headquarters in California.

"Fine, whatever. " Rory replied absently. The familiar feeling of longing rose in her but she quickly squashed it down. There was no use in crying over spilled milk. Her relationship with her father was just another unfixable situation. There was no use dwelling on it.

Rory was actually surprised that he'd bothered to tell her he was leaving. He usually just told the maid or left a note.

The door closed and Rory heard footsteps retreating down the hall. Once she was sure Christopher was out of her wing of the mansion she went into the bathroom and found an empty vase that she'd made in kindergarten for him. This had become a tradition of hers. Every time something bad happened between her and her father she got something meaningful and broke it.

Rory pulled down the steps to the attic and ran up. She turned right, into the intimidating darkness, and switched the light on. She found the large metal piece she was looking for, the floor of her old playhouse. She'd broken that too after a particularly nasty argument. Now she used it as the backboard for smashing other things onto it.

Picking up the vase she hurled it at it and it quickly smashed into little pieces. It was an oddly satisfying thing. Looking at the broken shards tended to remind her of her life. Once a beautiful thing, forever broken. Unrepairable.

Later on as she was working on a paper for History her phone rang. She picked up her cell.

"Hello?" she asked distractedly.

"So what was that huge bruise that I saw on your arm today Rory. Or if you don't want to explain that maybe you could go to the bruises on your neck and stomach. Or the hickey that you tried to cover up behind your hair." Adi spit out angrily from the other end.

Rory froze.

"I'm waiting …" Adi said impatiently.

Of course out of all her friends Adi would be the one to notice her bruises. Wonderful. Out of all of them she was the one who tended to harp on things the most.

"Umm," Rory's mind was a mess. "I have to go I'll talk to you later."

"Rory did Ryan do this to you? Are you seeing him again?"

"Bye." Rory yelled and quickly hung up. What the hell was that? Why has she just done that? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Her phone was still ringing so she turned it off. Crap, this was not good.

She went over to her bed and climbed in, knowing she couldn't focus anymore on her work. Problems were arising everywhere. Adi wouldn't let this go. It wasn't in her nature. Crap what if she told everyone else? How was Rory supposed to explain this? They'd all assume it was Ryan.

Ryan was her ex-boyfriend. She'd dated him towards the end of junior year for a while and she had thought it was going great. But one night he began getting a little rough. At first she blamed it on alcohol. Then his family, friends, especially herself. Anything that would take the blame off of him. But after she had ended up with her cheek and stomach all bruised up she knew it was time for the relationship to end. Of course she had needed some help in that department since Ryan didn't exactly let go of his possessions easily. But with the help of Finn, Tristan Logan, Colin and Griffin Ryan had gotten the idea.

You didn't mess with the queen.

After a while Rory slowly drifted off to sleep.

He next morning Rory called Paris and made sure she was at school extra early.

She arrived and pulled into her spot and walked over to where Paris was sitting.

"So what do you need to talk about?" Rory asked gently.

Paris looked up at her with pleading brown eyes. I need your opinion. I don't know what to do. I mean there are no statistics. No data. I don't know how to analyze this. .."

"Shhh," Rory said sitting down next to Paris, "stop babbling and tell me what's going on."

"Colin and I had sex." Paris stated bluntly." Tell me your views."

Rory was in shock. Paris had said she would never have sex in high school. Too many chances of harming her college career. Plus statistics were all against it. With STDs around and pregnancy she didn't think chances were in her favor. That was good enough for her.

"Umm well was he umm nice? How was it?"

As Paris launched into a very detailed description of the night starting from the underwear she was wearing to the exact minute it ended Rory just soothed her telling her everything she needed to hear. That it would be fine and everything was great. Rory understood why Paris had come to her first. Louise and Madeline would have just gone straight to celebrating without considering Paris's emotional state. Adi would have been fine but she didn't like to talk about other people's sex lives feeling it was an invasion of privacy.

The conversation was nearing its end when two cars pulled up. Rory recognized Tristan's Jag and Finn's Ferrari along with Griffin's shiny new black SUV. Adi and Louise piled out of Griffin's car while Madeline and Logan got out of Finn's. Tristan sauntered out alone, looking quizzically at Rory.

"Why didn't; you wait for me to pick you up today? "he asked.

Shit. She forgot that it was his day to pickup and she hadn't called.

"Sorry Tris I had to get here early."

She turned towards the rest of the group but was surprised to see they weren't smiling back at her. Adi walked up to her and gave her a glare. Rory sighed, but was stunned when Adi pulled up her shirt sleeve to show the extremely large purplish yellow bruise that was covering her arm from the elbow up and then pulled up her shirt to look at the ones on her stomach.

"I told you! "she said triumphantly with anger mixed in.

"Rory, love, what's going on? " No one was laughing, but instead were all looking at her seriously. Paris and Tristan with more shocked then the others. Rory assumed Adi had told the others in the car and then called the people in Finn's.

"Rory !" Tristan exclaimed. What the hell was going on here? How did she get those bruises? He was already getting fired up to go and kick some one's ass

Rory didn't know how to respond so instead she just turned and began walking very fast inside.

" HAYDEN GET BACK HERE WE AREN'T DONE TALKING TO YOU." Louise yelled down the hall.

Rory stopped and sighed knowing she couldn't run from this. She walked back to her friends and looked at them for a second. For once they were all taking something serious. She could see Tristan running his hands continuously through his hair. A sure sign he was upset. She could also see Griffin cracking his knuckles. Always a signal that he was getting ready to do something drastic, something not usually in his nature.

"Follow me."

Rory led them into a spare classroom. Tristan pulled Rory down to sit next to him while the rest circled them.

" Rory what's going on ?" Adi asked softly this time. Her initial anger turning into deep concern. Running was normal Rory behavior, but not usually from her friends. It scared her to see Rory like this.

" Did Ryan do this ?" Griffin asked quietly in his deep voice. You could see the anger rising in his normally calm deep brown eyes.

Rory sighed. This wasn't going to be easy.

" Ok, look I'll explain everything to you guys. You've just got to promise not to get mad. I can't fucking deal with it right now.

They all looked at each other and nodded. Whatever was going on, they were in it together.

Griffin sat down beside Rory and pulled her into his lap, wrapping his big arms around her. She smiled back at him, feeling a little bit stronger with his support.

Tristan discreetly moved away, as if he'd been burned. Usually he was the one that comforted Rory. Why didn't she come to him now? Worry and hurt were building inside him.

"Get on with it Hayden," Paris said.

Rory sighed. "Alright. About a year and a half ago at some girl's party I met a guy named Alex. He was hott so I was talking to him for awhile and he invited me to come over to his place that night. I was drunk and told you guys I had a ride home with Ryder because of our rule not to go home with older guys when intoxicated. So I went with him back to his place."

Rory stopped for a breath and looked around. Her friends were all sitting quietly watching her.

" So we got there and well one thing led to another and we slept with each other. Then the next morning I wake up to find him gone so I decide to look for him. When I went down into his basement I discovered it was, well, a crack house." She saw the shock on her friends faces and pushed on quickly, feeling Griffin's arms wrap tighter around her. " So I thought hey why not try some and well I started visiting more and more after that. I didn't sleep with him every time, but his products were good and I guess I liked going somewhere where no one knows me. Anyway yesterday I was pissed and couldn't decide where to go so I got the idea to go there. The perfect place to calm down. I was in his bedroom," Tristan jerked next to her while Rory stopped to take a deep breath. " I was in his bedroom when the cops came. Long story short I got out of a window, jumped off the roof, and hurt myself. There are you happy now?"

Rory was close to crying so she pulled away from Griffin and started to try to run away when Louise grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug.

Maddy and Finn quickly joined Louise and Rory along with Adi and Paris, them doing it a bit reluctantly. They knew that Rory needed comfort but they couldn't help feeling anger. Tristan was sitting rigidly trying to sort out his feelings.

" Why didn't you tell us ?" He asked softly,standing up to face her. It was killing him to see her cry but he couldn't help the anger he was feeling. " Why didn't you fucking tell us Rory! We're you're best friends and you've been hiding this from us for a year and a half ! How could you do this?"

He looked at her one more time before storming out, slamming the door behind him. It was quiet for a minute before Rory burst into further tears. Logan, Colin, Adi, and Paris were feeling the same thing as Tristan. They wanted to comfort Rory but they were hurt. She hadn't confided in them. Hell she'd been lying to them for a year and half.

They each picked up there bags and slowly walked out of the room. Leaving the group divided. Louise understood where Rory was coming from and Maddy could never stay mad for long. As was the case with Finn since he was comforting her and trying to make her laugh again. Griffin was hurt but knew Rory needed him. That was enough.

They had made their choices about who to stick with. They could only hope for the best.

Hey guys soo sorry it's taken so long to update there have nbeen a lot of problems but yea i won't bore you with excuses. Anyway plz plz plz review. This chapter is diffrent then i thought it would be cuz my whole story line somehow got erased from the computer. Also do u think I should boost this up to M rating cuz i'm thinking i should. So yea plzx review I love you guys so much your the ones that motivate me!