Chapter 5: It's always easier after midnight
Luke woke up. He turned to look at the clock that was setting on the table next to him. 1:13 in the morning, God why am I awake? he thought, angry that he hadn't been able to get a decent nights sleep. He'd been walking up every half hour or so, each time unable to get back to bed.
He had grown accustomed to the TV being on, to Lorelai lying next to him, and her indistinguishable mumblings as she slept. Now, all of those things were gone, never to return. And it was his own doing. He knew that.
Luke had never told Lorelai that he loved her. He had a feeling that she knew he did, but he'd never said it. She had given him the perfect opportunity to tell her today, but the words were just too late. He'd watched her run down the stairs, and only said he loved her after she was out the door and out of hearing distance. He knew that she had cried and that he could stop her tears, but he didn't do it. No matter how badly he had wanted to, it wasn't his place anymore. He wanted his place back.
He sat up in bed, combing through his hair with his fingers, remembering how she used to play with his hair in the middle of the night. It had calmed him then. This time, he was doing it out of his own frustrations.
Incapable of falling back asleep, not for lack of trying, but for lack of the will power to stay that way, he got up and went down into the diner. It was empty, dark, isolated. Like he had forced himself to become lately. He knew he was going to feel this way from the moment those words escaped his lips…the words that ended everything. He could still remember them as if he were still saying them…I cant be in this relationship, it's too much. He felt like such an idiot for those words now.
He sat down at the table, her table, the one she'd sat at every day, for the most part, since they'd met. Now, he feared, he'd never see her there again. He didn't want that. How can I not see her every day? I don't want that. He jolted up from the chair he was in, walked over to where his coat and keys hung, grabbed them and walked out the front door.
Luke sat in his truck, thinking what he'd say and practicing his speech out loud.
"Lorelai, I changed my mind. No that sounds too…oafish, okay. Lorelai, I love you. I'm sorry. No, don't open with that. Lorelai, I'm a stupid, stupid man. No, she already knows that…I'm sorry. Yeah. That'll work." He started the engine to his truck and was off.
When he pulled up into her driveway, he saw something that he'd never expected to see, something that he wished he hadn't seen.
This can not be right he thought to himself. There was a truck pulled up next to the front steps. It wasn't just a truck. That he could've dealt with. This was a truck with a purpose. A moving truck. It didn't matter what kind or how big, but it was for moving. That he was sure of.
Rory came out the front door. She spotted him before she made it into the cab of the truck and stopped. Her face panicked, she tucked her hair behind her ear, looked down and then behind her.
"What's with the stoppage? Did you…" Lorelai began and stopped when she turned to see Luke's truck in her driveway, Luke at the drivers seat with a look of desperation on his face.
"Luke." she whispered.
He couldn't watch this. He stared at her for a few seconds in awe, utter disbelief. His mouth open and eyes welling up. Luke wasn't a man who cried. He wasn't going to now, but this was the closest he'd come to crying since his dad had died.
He dropped his head, unable to look at the scene laid out before him for any longer, started the truck and threw it in reverse. He started to back out of the driveway when Lorelai ran to the window, her own tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
"No…wait…Luke." she said just as desperately as he felt.
"Don't go, we can talk. I know I should've told you. I just couldn't." she said.
He put the truck back in park, looking at his hands in his lap now.
"How could you not tell me, Lorelai? You're leaving…you're…just leaving." he said in an almost whispered tone.
"I know. But I wasn't sure that I was going to until…I don't want to discuss this like this. Come inside, sit down. Talk to me. Please?" she was begging now. She'd kept control of the tears and held them in. Now she was just in a state of panic.
He contemplated it for a minute, turned to look at her and said "Okay." He turned the truck off and she opened the car door for him. He stepped out, feeling as if the ground would give way at any moment, as it already had in every other part of his life.
They went inside and sat on the couch in the living room. He faced forward and she sat at the opposite end, facing him, one leg on the floor, one bent over the cushion.
"I should've told you earlier. But I wasn't sure I was going to leave until today. After I left the diner and everything…fell apart I guess." she admitted to him, hesitantly.
"Don't." he said.
"Don't what?" Lorelai replied, confused.
"Don't go." Luke pleaded.
"I don't want to."
"So don't. Don't leave." he said again, insistently.
"Why not?" she whispered.
He looked up at her, a determined look on her face, trying to figure out exactly how to say what he wanted her to hear.
"Because…I miss you being in my arms. You're not there anymore and I can live with that." He said, followed by a short pause. "But I can't live without you in my heart. I've tried and it doesn't work, mostly because I don't want it to. I can't not have you there. And if you leave, you won't be able to be there anymore and…and I won't even have the hope of seeing you in the morning and at night. I need you here…I want you here…And I lied in the apartment today." he admitted.
"What do you mean you lied?" she said, breathing as if she hadn't been since he started talking.
"I lied. When I didn't say anything while you were here, I lied. You left, and I said yes. I said yes, and you didn't hear it because I was lying to you by not saying anything." he told her.
"Wait…you said yes after I left and that was the lie? You said yes when I asked if you had loved me…and it was a lie?" she said confused but hopeful.
"No. I lied because I didn't tell you that I loved you" he said, staring down at his knees…"That I do love you."