Chapter 23

The ride to Stars Hollow was long and silent. Not a single word was spoken and the only sound in the car was the faint music coming from the radio and frequent sniffling from Rory. It wasn't until they were parked in her driveway that Max finally spoke. "Are you ok?" he asked concerned. In the months that he had been seeing her mother, he had come to think of Rory as his daughter. Watching Summer berate her, seeing Rory sobbing in the cafeteria in front of everyone, he knew he had to step in. He couldn't stand to see her hurt again, not this time, not when he could do something to stop it.

Rory nodded. "I'm fine," she lied. She had been trying to gain control over her emotions the entire way home, and she wasn't sure she'd actually accomplished it. She knew the things Summer had said weren't true, or at least she hoped they weren't.

Max sighed. He knew she wasn't ok; there was no way after what he witnessed today that she could just... be ok. "I know you don't think so, but it really will be ok. People will forget about this. There is no reason for you not to walk into that school with your head held high. Summer is the one who should be ashamed of herself."

"What's going to happen to Summer?" she asked curiously.

Max shrugged. "I'm not sure. Chilton has always encouraged academic rivalry, but something like this hasn't happened in a long time. Emotional harassment is a completely different thing."

"But she'll be in school tomorrow, right?"

Max nodded. "Most likely."

Rory nodded. "Ok. Good."

"Good?" Max repeated confused. "How can you construe that as a good thing, Rory?"

"It's time for this to end, once and for all. I can't keep doing this. I'm missing too much school, and I'm tired of all the whispering."

"I know, but how do you propose you're going to end it?"

Rory shrugged. "I don't know yet. I'm sure I'll think of something," she said before opening her door. "Thanks for the ride home, Max."

Max smiled. "No problem, Rory." He watched as she climbed out of his car and headed up the walk towards her front door. He waited until he was sure she was inside before leaving.

Rory watched him pull out of the driveway, grateful to finally be alone. She headed into her room and pulled out her cell phone. 'Can you meet me after school; I need to talk to you. I'm already home.' she texted. A few moments later, her cell chimed alerting her to a new message.

'So am I. Where do you want to meet?'

'I'm on my way.'

'My house.'

Rory sighed and closed her phone again. Now she just had to wait.

xxxxxx

It seemed almost instantaneous. She pulled the box down from the closet and felt tears well in her eyes. She knew she had taken him for granted. She hadn't wanted him around until he wasn't there any longer. She hated how hypocritical she was becoming.

She had just pulled a copy of Romeo and Juliet out of the box when Jess walked in the back door.

"Rory!" he called out.

"In here!"

Jess smiled at her when he walked into her bedroom. "What are you doing home?" he asked. As soon as she locked eyes with him, he knew why. "Who'd you get into a fight with this time?"

Rory smiled slightly. "Summer, again."

Jess laughed and sat on her bed. "I take it, it ended badly?"

Rory nodded.

"So what's up? What did you want to talk about?" Jess asked her softly.

Rory nodded and dumped the box out on her bed. "This is my Tristan box." she said calmly. Then she walked over to her night stand and pulled a picture out of the drawer. "And this," she said handing the picture to him, "this is Tristan, and I miss him."

Jess looked at the picture and then back up at Rory. "Well, I already knew that."

"Shut up Jess," she said laughing. "The first thing Tristan said to me was 'Hey, Mary', and I was hooked. Not in the way he wanted, mind you, but I was hooked. He offered to let me borrow his notes, which would have been useless considering he had been gone the whole week before. Also the offer would have been more sincere if he wasn't leering at me the way he was." she said laughing softly

"Ror..." Jess said confused.

"Just let me get this all out. You've been bugging me for weeks to talk to you, that's what I'm doing."

"OK," he said making a promise to himself to talk as little as possible. If she needed to get it all off her chest before she could feel better again, he would gladly sit in silence and allow her to do it.

"I really thought I despised him. He wouldn't call me by my name, always Mary. It was irritating. He was irritating. He always made me feel like he was picturing me naked. He made me nervous, and what's worse was that he knew it."

"That's never good." Jess threw in.

"He was so sure I liked him. He kept asking me out, and I kept turning him down and he wouldn't give up."

"He liked you." Jess added.

Rory nodded. "I didn't know that. I had heard all the stories about him. He was Chilton's playboy. All the girls knew him. And then he found out about Dean."

"How?"

Rory laughed a little. "I took Dean to a formal at Chilton that Tristan tried asking me to."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, I think I hurt his feelings. Anyway when we got there, he stared at us the majority of the night and then picked a fight with Dean, over me. Afterwards, Dean kept telling me that Tristan had a thing for me, and I refused to believe him. I kept saying that it was just a game Tristan was playing, but he just kept saying,'He has a thing for you Rory'."

Jess laughed. "Well, he did, didn't he?"

Rory nodded. "Yes. Anyway a few months later, when me and Dean broke up, I went to this party at Madelyn's house. Tristan was there and his girlfriend broke up with him. We were alone in a room sitting on a piano bench, and we were just talking. It was nice. There wasn't anyone there to judge us, just me and him. Anyway, somehow we ended up kissing. I immediately pulled away, started crying and ran off. I spent the rest of the night curled up on the couch eating ice cream and crying because I had just kissed Tristan, and I wasn't over Dean."

Jess sighed. "I bet Tristan loved that, you crying after he kissed you. Guys have this thing called ego, you probably shattered his."

"Then a few days later, we were forced to do a project together. And we talked some more. I tried explaining that the crying had nothing to do with the kiss, but I don't think he believed me. He said he was upset over Summer..."

"Wait...Summer, the girl you keep fighting with?"

Rory nodded. "Yeah that's her. Anyway, he said he was upset over Summer and I said I was upset over Dean, but then I reiterated that the kiss wasn't what made me cry. I told him it was a nice kiss, and he suggested we do it again. He said he was done with girls for a while and I mentioned that he didn't have to be done with girls, just a certain type of girl. I suggested someone smart, driven, has ambition..."

"Where you talking about yourself?" Jess asked curiously, "Because Rory that's you. And he probably thought you were talking about yourself."

Rory shook her head. "I suggested Paris."

"Paris Geller?"

Rory nodded. "And he did, taker her out. Later, I found out he only did it because I asked him to. But Paris came in the next day and she was talking about how he'd kissed her goodnight and I felt..."

"Jealous?" Jess supplied.

Rory nodded. "I didn't expect it, it came out of nowhere."

"It usually does." Jess admitted.

"Paris freaked out and went off on me, so I turned around and went off on him. He admitted he was still hung up on someone else, and stupid me, I thought he was talking about Summer."

Jess laughed. "You're so clueless."

"Apparently. So we agreed to be friends, and everything was fine until he bought me PJ Harvey tickets."

"But you love PJ Harvey..."

"I know he heard me mention her and bought the tickets, assuming I'd go with him. He wanted it to be a date. I said no. Then he told Paris I had agreed to, even though I didn't. She flipped out on me, even though I still wasn't going. He kept insisting that I was, and finally when Friday rolled around he asked me when he should pick me up."

"Persistent."

"Very. I told him I wasn't going and he stole my books. He told me I could have them back when I agreed to go with him. I got mad and stormed out of Chilton only to be met by Dean."
"You guys were still broken up, right?"

Rory nodded. "I had been trying to see him all week; he thought I wanted him back."

"Did you?"

"I thought I did. Really, I just wanted everything to go back to normal," she admitted, "So then he sees me with Tristan and gets angry and goes to leave. I called after him, made a big proclamation about hating Tristan and told him that I loved him."

"Ouch."

Rory sighed. "I can still hear the noise my books made when Tristan dropped them on the ground. It was easily the loudest 'thud' I've ever heard. I really hurt his feelings, and I couldn't take it back, not without destroying Dean."

"You didn't mean it."

Rory shook her head. "No I didn't. I didn't hate Tristan. I liked him, I thought we were doing ok being friends. Evidently I was wrong."

Jess reached out and placed his hand on Rory's comfortingly. "You just didn't know."

"I didn't want to know. I didn't want to see him the way he saw me. I was a scared little girl who was too worried about doing the wrong thing, hurting the wrong people. It never occurred to me that was exactly what I was doing. We came back to school after the summer and he was different."

"Different? How?"

"He had fallen in with these horrible guys..."

"Duncan and Bowman?"

"Yes, anyway he was spending more time on suspension; and when he was in school, he was doing stupid things to get himself suspended."

"That's not your fault."

Rory nodded. "Logically I know that, I do. It's just if I hadn't been so... if I hadn't said what I said... maybe he'd... I don't know, maybe he wouldn't have befriended them."

Jess shook his head. "You couldn't have stopped that."

"If I had been paying more attention to what he was going through, if I hadn't been so obsessed with making things with Dean work, even though I knew they weren't the same... The point is, I should have seen him slipping, and I should have tried to help."

"What would you have done, Rory? I mean really, what could you have done?"

Rory shrugged. "I don't know...something. We got stuck together in another project..."

"The Romeo and Juliet play?"

She smiled and reached out, running her fingers up the spine of one of the books. "Yeah, he was Romeo...I was Juliet."

"How fun." he said smirking.

"I went to Tristan and begged him not to say anything about the kiss to Dean. I went on and on about how things were good between me and Dean, and if you could have seen his face and heard the way his voice dropped when I said that you'd have smacked me. And still I was oblivious to it, blinded by my own desire to cover my butt and make sure Dean knew nothing about this kiss that lasted less then thirty seconds."

"I highly doubt I would have smacked you, Ror."

"You should have. I tried talking to him about Duncan and Bowman, but he got all defensive and then stormed off."

"How mature."

"Tristan took great pleasure in shoving the play down Dean's throat, while complying with my request, and Dean blew a gasket about it. He showed up at all the rehearsals, watching Tristan like a hawk..."

"Which only irritated Tristan right?"

"Exactly. Tristan was about to run his mouth about the kiss, so I asked Dean to leave."

"Oh, I bet that went well."

"He got mad because I told him to stop challenging Tristan and left. Tristan then proceeded to act like a jerk and I laid into him. I told him that he made it difficult for anyone to be nice to him. I basically called him pathetic, and said he wasn't worth the amount of suffering people had to go through to be his friend. And he got really offended and hurt. You would have smacked me again."

"I wouldn't have smacked you the first time," Jess pointed out, even though he didn't think she was listening.

"He left and went out with Duncan and Bowman. He was upset and they broke into Bowman's dad's safe."

"Uh-oh."

"The silent alarm went off and the police came. The authorities agreed to let the parents handle it. That's when Tristan's dad decided to pull him out of school and send him away to military school in North Carolina."

"Harsh."

Rory nodded, tears starting to fill her eyes. "He came back to let someone know he wouldn't be able to do the show, and he picked me. He told me everything. I tried to rationalize a way for him to get out of it, but he said it was no use. I was crying, I'm sure he was confused by that because I was, and he said "I'd kiss you goodbye, but your boyfriend is watching." Then he said, "Take care of yourself, Mary," and then left. And I'm standing there crying like an idiot, missing him already." Her voice spoke softly, sadly remembering the bittersweet farewell with tears flowing down her cheeks.

"Rory..."

"And I knew it was my fault."

"It wasn't your fault."

"It was, he only pulled that stupid safe prank because of the things I said to him. I hurt his feelings and I made him angry and he went out and did something stupid and got sent away for it."

"But you can't blame yourself for that Rory. You weren't in control of him. You weren't his girlfriend, you weren't really his friend. You had no obligation to..."

"I had an obligation to be a human being!" she yelled, "Instead I treated him like a nuisance. I haven't any right whatsoever to be as affected by his absence as I am, and yet I can't shut it off. Nothing has been the same since he left. I can't go to school without being targeted by people he left behind. I can't even look at Ms. Patty's piano, because it reminds me of him. Everything reminds me of him, and I don't understand how it happened, but it did and I can't move past it. God knows I tried, but I can't." she admitted before breaking into sobs.

He pulled the inconsolable girl against him. "It's ok. It's all going to be ok. You'll see." he murmured against the top of her head. "You didn't cause this; it's not your fault. He doesn't blame you."

"You don't know that," she mumbled into his chest "You never even met him."

Jess ran his hand comfortingly up and down her back. "He could never blame you for this. He cared about you enough to explain it all to you. He didn't want you to worry about him."

"Or maybe he just wanted me to feel guilty."

Jess laughed. "Maybe, but I doubt it. He cared about you; he wouldn't want you hurting like this."
Rory pulled away from Jess. "You sound so sure."

Jess nodded and pulled her back into his arms. "I am." he said confidently despite the fact that he wasn't. She was right; he didn't know this Tristan guy. Still, he knew Rory, and if the guy cared about Rory the way it was obvious he did, he would never want her suffering like this. "You need to go back to school tomorrow with your head held high, ignore Summer and her cronies, and know that he cared about you, no matter what they say."

Rory nodded. "I think I can do that." Talking about Tristan had made her feel better, more confident in her belief that she wasn't something meaningless to him like Summer implied. She could move on past this, put it all behind her.

"You want me to stay a little while longer?" Jess asked.

Rory shook her head. "Thanks, but no. I have some things I have to do."

Jess smiled. "Ok, call me if you need something."

"I will," she told him. She watched him walk out of her room and called after him, "Jess!"

He stuck his head back in the door, "Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Listening."

Jess smiled. "Anytime."

Rory smiled as she heard the front door close and reached for the things she had dumped out of her "Tristan Box". She picked up the books and put them back on their shelves, and then hung the costume back up in her closet. Then she pulled out her phone again and grabbed the phone number off the desk. She felt like she was finally strong enough to make this call so she dialed the number.

It rang four times before the voice mail picked up. She took a deep breath and left a message before she could lose her nerve. "Tristan, it's Rory... Rory Gilmore. I was just calling to... I don't know, see how you were doing, but you're not there. I'll call back later."

xxxxxx

She slept better that night than she had in a long time. After waking up and scaring her mom with her good mood she headed off to Chilton.

She breezed past Summer without a second thought until she felt the girl reach out and grab her arm. "Let go of me."
"I got a month's worth of detention because of you." Summer snapped.

"And you thought you'd what? Test your luck by not only verbally abusing me, but physically abusing me as well? Don't manhandle me, Summer. I'm not one of your clones, and I'm not the docile little girl you think I am."

Summer dropped Rory's arm and glared at her fiercely. She had never seen Rory Gilmore's backbone before and she didn't like it. "Says the girl who fled school yesterday crying."

Rory shrugged. "Things change. I'm over it."

"So it doesn't bother you that Tristan thought of you as a conquest? A conquered one at that."

Rory shook her head. "No, it really doesn't. Not anymore."

"You're admitting you slept with Tristan?" she asked surprised.

Rory smiled at Summer's awestruck face. "I would rather this entire school think I slept with Tristan Dugrey than let them think I was weak enough to let you get to me, again." she snapped before storming off and leaving a shocked group of students behind in her wake.

xxxxxx

Tristan stepped off his plane and smiled happily at the feeling of warmth that rushed over him. He was home. He was the first to admit that Hartford Connecticut held more bad than good memories, but Rory was here, and that seemed to make up for the bad. He smiled as his grandfather came into his line of sight and walked over to him. "Hey Grandpa!" he said before hugging him.

"Tristan! How was your flight?"

"Long."

"It was only a few hours." Janlen said laughing.

"You know I hate flying." Tristan told him heading over to baggage claim.

"That's true, so what are you going to do first?"

Tristan sighed. He had spent the entire flight thinking about that, and he knew what he'd come up with had the possibility of ending very badly, but he couldn't wait. He had been so upset that he'd missed her call the night before but so happy to hear her voice sparkling through on his voice mail. It was obvious she was worried about him, even if he didn't already have inside information. He sighed and made the decision. He'd deal with Duncan and Bowman later, but first he had to see her. "I think I'm going to go to Chilton."
Janlen nodded. "I thought you were going to say that," he said while watching Tristan pluck his black duffle bag from the conveyer belt. "Are you sure? I mean she's in class, right?"

Tristan looked at his watch and shook his head. "By the time I get there, she'll be at lunch."

xxxxxx

Twenty minutes later he was sitting in Chilton's parking lot thinking of the best way to approach Rory. He pulled out his cell phone and sent a text to Paris, How's Rory? Paris texted back She seems better today., he sent back before exiting the car. If she was in the library, then there was a good chance he could catch her while she was still alone.

Eating lunch in the library again.

Good, I gotta go

He headed towards the library, taking a back route that he knew not many people knew. If he was spotted by someone, it would ruin everything. He managed to slip into the library while the librarian was helping someone else and sighed in relief as he made it into the stacks without being seen.

He silently maneuvered his way through the shelves looking for Rory, when he saw someone heading his way. He moved quickly behind a shelf and smiled as he realized where he was--staring face to face with the Shakespeare section of Chilton's library. He reached for a copy of Romeo and Juliet and began flipping aimlessly through it.

xxxxxx

Rory and her new found confidence seemed to be having no problem making their way through the day, but she still found herself wanting to spend lunch browsing the library. She had a paper due and needed to get a few books anyway. She grabbed the books she needed by Chaucer, and decided to browse for a book to read for pleasure. With Tristan gone, her life had become one big emotional roller coaster and she realized she couldn't remember the last time she had read just because she enjoyed it.

She was holding a copy of Swann's Way by Proust, when she thought she heard something from behind her. A 'thud' that sounded vaguely familiar.

xxxxxx

Tristan had seen her the minute she stepped into the aisle in front of his own. Suddenly, he was struck by the thought that this was a really bad idea. She wasn't going to appreciate being blind sided. He should have just returned her call, and then if she wanted to see him he could come to Stars Hollow. A public reunion, even in an abandoned library was too much and he just knew she would kill him.

Hastily, he moved to put the book back on the shelf, but missed and managed to drop the book on the ground. He saw her head snap up in his direction, and he was glad that the rest of the books shielded him from her. He reached back down to pick up the book; and when he looked back up in her direction, she was gone.

xxxxxx

With a hint of dread, Rory turned the corner hoping that one of Summer's friends hadn't invaded her sanctuary. Instead, an involuntary gasp would escape from her when she saw a familiar-looking, blonde haired guy standing with his back to her. Rory knew she'd know that back view anywhere.

Still holding the book in his hand, Tristan was taken aback. Rory seemed to have vanished. He was mulling over his next move when he heard a slight gasp come from behind him. He turned and his heart seemed to stop. Rory. He smiled at the look of shock on her face. Like it or not, this was the reunion they were getting. He had thought long and hard about what the first thing he'd say to her would be and had finally come up with it the second he saw her face. "Hey, Mary." he said softly, echoing the first words he'd ever spoken to her.

Rory looked at him in disbelief. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. All she could do was think. Tristan Dugrey is standing in front of me, she kept repeating to herself. She was almost sure she was hallucinating. Has it really gotten this bad, that I miss him so much I've created him standing in front of me as a coping mechanism, she thought. Then he spoke. The words 'Hey, Mary' broke something inside of her and before she knew it she felt a tear slide down her cheek.

"Don't cry, Rory." he said softly. This is going all wrong. She hasn't said anything and now she's crying. "You'll break my heart if you cry."

Rory smiled finally and walked over to him. She reached out and poked him gently, experimentally.

Tristan laughed. "Rory, what are you doing?"

She shook her head. "Nothing," she mumbled under her breath before throwing her arms around him.

Suddenly it made perfect sense. Of course their reunion would take place in the Shakespeare section of the Chilton library, with one of them holding a copy of Romeo and Juliet.