Chapter 2- I think I like him
"Answer me, Rory!"
She looks down at her feet, trying to arrange the words in her mind, to form a coherent sentence and not hurt him, yelling the truth about what she was feeling.
"Do you like him?"
"I…" She stutters and then looks back at her feet, hugging her arms around herself even tighter. Great…she definitely didn't work well under pressure.
"Yes or no, Rory! It's not that hard!"
"Don't do this, Dean!"
"Don't do what? I'm just trying to get a straight answer from my girlfriend who supposedly loves me but spends all her free time with some other guy instead of me." The defeated look disappears from his eyes, leaving only anger behind.
"That's not true and you know it."
"I don't know anything anymore…I just want an answer. Do you like him?"
"Yes." Her voice is barely above a whisper now…
"Then I guess this is goodbye for us…" His shoulders slump down again, eyes falling to his feet.
"I never meant to hurt you, Dean." She touches his arm lightly, looking up at him. "Believe that, please." Tears sting the back of her eyes and she bites her lip, trying to hold them back
He looks at her one last time before slowly walking away, head held down and she watches him silhouette disappear out of her sight and, probably, out of her life as well. She turns around and opens the front door and moves to the living room, not bothering to turn on the light. She sits on the couch and stares at the pictures on the mantelpiece, the tears now falling freely down her cheeks.
Almost an hour later, the front door opens and her mother's voice rings in the foyer.
"Rory, you home? Why is it so dark in here?" She walks in the living room and sees the tired looking figure of her daughter, cuddled up on the couch, holding her knees. She sits down next to her and wraps an arm around her. "Rory, baby, what happened?"
She pulls her knees closer and moves in her mother's arms, not saying a word.
"Honey, you're starting to scare me. What happened?"
"I broke up with Dean."
"I'm so sorry, kid…what happened?" She kisses the top of her head, rubbing her arm sympathetically.
"Jess."
"Did that punk do something? 'Cause I swear I'll hurt him if he did."
"Nope…he didn't do anything. Can we just talk about this tomorrow? My head hurts and I don't feel like reliving tonight."
"Sure…ice-cream?"
"I think I'll just go to bed…"
"Ok. But if you want to want to talk or eat junk or just crawl in bed with me, or whatever else you might need, you come, no matter what time, ok?"
"Uh-huh."
She untangles herself from her mother's arms and gets off the couch, walking slowly to her room. She gets there and crawls under the covers, not bothering to change or take off her shoes and closes her eyes, waiting in vain for sleep to come.
The next morning she gets out of bed, after a few hours of restless sleep and walks to the kitchen, picking up a cup from the counter and filling it with coffee. She sits in one of the chairs and takes a sip of the strong liquid and looks thru a magazine that's been sitting on the table when her mother walks in and sits across from her.
"'Morning, kid."
"Morning."
"Feeling better?"
"Not really."
"You want to tell me what happened now or it's still too soon?"
"I came home and he was waiting for me on the steps. He asked me if I liked Jess, I said yes and we broke up."
"Wow…"
"Yeah."
"So…you like Jess."
"I…think I do."
"I think it's more then a you think you do if you broke up with Dean because of it. So…are you going to…?"
"Going to what?"
"Start dating Jess now?"
"I haven't thought about it."
"Really?"
"No. I have thought about it…a lot. But I don't even know if he likes me."
"Oh, please…you're not seriously doubting that. He spent 90 dollars on your basket!"
"So what? He only did that to annoy Dean."
"Geez, you really need to get smacked over the head with the obvious stick."
"Mom!"
"What? It's true! Everybody knows that he likes you…or at least everybody except Kirk. He couldn't see a dinosaur if it came and sat on his lap."
"You think so?"
"That Kirk wouldn't see a dinosaur?"
"No…that Jess likes me."
"Ah, that…yeah, I think so."
She watches as a smile appears on Rory's face and smiles as well, playing with the cup in her hands. She only hoped that he wouldn't break her heart.
A/N: Merry Christmas!