CHAPTER 4: Wreckage
Rory had suspected that this would hurt, but she never thought it would hurt so much.
She curled up into a ball on her couch and cried, uncontrollably. She tried to stifle the tears, but they just kept on coming. She took shallow breaths between sobs, but couldn't stop.
She'd said too much, too soon, she'd said it all, and he'd walked out the door.
He'd turned to tables. They were back in her dorm room, he was laying his heart on a slab of cement, and she was stabbing at it with the word 'no'.
She couldn't sit, she couldn't stand.
Every ounce of her hurt.
Was this letting go?
- - - - - - -
Jess closed the door, took two steps and felt a wave of dizziness hit him. He sat down on her doorstep and tried to take deep breaths. Was this what a heart attack felt like? What heartbreak felt like?
He could hear her sobs through the door, or maybe he couldn't really hear them but he could imagine them with unbearable accuracy. He'd never been good at dealing with her tears.
He'd hurt her once, when younger, when he'd left her behind, and it had taken him years to convince himself that he wasn't a bastard, that he wasn't unworthy, just because of that one mistake.
And her smile, that one time when he'd visited her at her grandmother's house - that surprised, forgiving smile that lit up the moment she saw him - had almost made him believe he was human again, that he could be forgiven.
But now, sitting here, he felt the same way he'd felt back then. A monster. A traitor.
She had given him a chance.
He had shown her what his back looked like when he left.
With shaking hands and unsteady knees, he stood back up.
There was only one logical thing to do.
He had to be a man.
He had to climb in through her window.
- - - - - - - - -
He found her asleep on the couch, tears still wet on her cheeks, her eyes swollen, her skin red. How much time had passed since he slammed the door? Hadn't it been just a minute? The sky outside told of hours gone by.
He was close enough to touch her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
She had been his inspiration once. And he had inspired her to find herself once as well.
He tried to remember those few moments when they had been good to each other, good for each other.
He brushed a dull strand of hair out of her eyes and she opened her eyes slowly.
Her tears flowed unchecked. "You came back," she said, disbelief in her voice.
"I'm sorry," he said.
She shook her head. "No, don't apologize, please, just... don't. I'll be fine, you should go. Things always hurt, but people heal, right? You should go."
"You need a friend," he interrupted, stating the obvious. Her house was uninhabited, everything remained in boxes, comfortably out of the way, shoved against walls. She hadn't lived in Philadelphia yet; she just breathed its air and used its public transportation system.
She sniffled. "I need a friend."
He tried to smile. "I need an editor," he replied. "And I need to learn how not to hold a grudge."
Rory attempted a smile as well. "I could learn a little about that myself." She sniffled again. "Also, I haven't seen the Liberty Bell."
"Please tell me you ran up the steps like Rocky already?" Jess asked, sitting on the floor beside the couch where Rory remained, curled up, sleepy.
Rory shook her head. "Nope."
"Your mother must be very upset."
"I lied, told her I'd done it."
It was amazing how they'd slipped back into the comfort of friendship. No magic wand of forgiveness had been waved and they could both feel the weight of things unspoken hanging between them, waiting for the right time to leave their mouths. But at this precise moment, he could transport this conversation to Luke's apartment, after a school day, sipping on a Dr. Pepper between kisses and words.
"She didn't ask for pictures?" Jess asked, incredulous.
Rory shrugged. "I sent her a file attachment she couldn't open. My mother and computers don't get along too well."
Jess laughed. "I'll take you there next week."
Rory narrowed her puffy eyes. "What's the catch?"
"Review The Subsect. You know, really review it, only for me to read. Write on the margins of a copy. Dissect it."
Rory nodded. "No admissions of guilt this time?"
"Please, no."
"Ok."
"Ok."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
This girl and I, we pick the roads by rolling dice, by tossing a guitar pick in the air and calling heads or tails.
This girl and I end up in eskimo country. She tells me the proper name is Inuit.
I ask her about postcards and she just smiles knowingly.
This girl and I, we drive to beaches frozen.
This girl and I, we know each other's names. It seems to be enough.
This girl and I, we drive through snow and deserts and plains and mountain ranges. We visit historical sites of battles, crashes, destruction and death. She likes tragedies, body counts. They seem to soothe her.
We visit cemeteries, she touches headstones.
She's the kind of girl who can always spot the dead tree in the middle of a pine forest.
That's how she spotted me.
- - - - - - -
This was how it went. Rory scribbled on a paperback, Jess circled spots on a map.
Rory boiled water for tea, Jess made scrambled eggs.
Rory nodded off somewhere after midnight, on page 76. Jess covered her with a blanket.
He had to recognize it, his anger dissipated quickly when she was nearby.
She had all kinds of effects on him.
He wanted to smother her, to murder her in her sleep. He wanted her to disappear.
He also wanted to kiss her, but that was inconsequential at the moment.
His life was always more interesting with her around.
The knowledge that that she needed him gave him a renewed sense of purpose.
She had never needed him before.
She had liked him, wanted him, loved him. She had wanted to see him, she had missed him, she had hated him.
But now it was different.
For once, they were equals. For once, they both needed.
He watched her sleep.
It was the first time he'd ever gotten the chance to watch her sleep.
It was true that the years had not been kind to her. It was also true that, right this second, watching her sleep, he was falling in love with the soft wrinkles forming around her mouth, with the wisps of brittle hair, with her chewed fingernails.
He caught himself. Jess Mariano, the fool, he thought. She hadn't sought him out for this. He hadn't called her for this.
He still wasn't entirely sure why they had reestablished contact, but he understood now, there was a pull that surpassed him, surpassed both of them.
Friends. He could do that. He could be her friend.
With that in mind, he drifted off to sleep.
- - - - - - - -
It's a freezing winter day when we find our way to Dave again. He's disappearing, all smiles and nervous hands. His fingertips are singed, but his hands haven't touched a guitar in months.
He's forgotten how to make music.
He hits us up for a quarter, a dime.
He's sick, he says, and I know it's not a con.
He's trying to kick a bad habit, he says, and she knows it's a lie.
We offer him a ride to wherever.
He picks a spot on the map that I'm not willing to go back to.
But a promise is a promise.
Dave wants to go home.
To his home, to my home.
And so that's where we go.
We don't even take the scenic route.
- - - - - - - - -
Rory woke up, a pen in hand, a blanket covering her.
She felt as if she'd just left the house leaving the iron on and the doors unlocked.
She felt as if she'd just slept next to a stranger. And in a sense, she had.
Jess slept fitfully. He'd never been a deep sleeper. She'd gone upstairs to Luke's apartment once or twice during their brief relationship, when Luke would claim he was sleeping. It didn't matter how quietly she opened the door, he would bolt upright. Some instinct of self preservation.
She'd never really seen him sleep before.
She felt something akin to fear at the pit of her stomach. What if she couldn't be what he remembered, who he remembered? Maybe she could never be the girl he had once respected. There were days she wasn't sure she could be that girl for herself.
She shook off the sleep from her eyelids, and blanketed herself in the warmth that Jess had surrounded her with.
She took deep breaths.
She had made many mistakes, unforgivable mistakes.
Yet here he was. And here she was.
Maybe there was hope for them yet.
She would give him what she could. Words circled in pink, underlined, liner notes, lyrics of songs that he reminded her of. He'd written The Subsect for them, about them. And although she had once told him what she thought, now she could show him.
She scribbled furiously on the margins of the novel as the sun started creeping back up.
- - - - - - - - -
He woke to the sound of a cup crashing on the tile floor. He was up on his feet before Rory could take a step.
"You barefoot?" he asked.
Rory nodded, biting her lower lip nervously, a child.
"Don't move, ok?" he demanded. "Those hard-to-break ceramics are the worst. They may not break often but when they do they shatter into a thousand little pieces."
"Sharp little fucking shards," Rory replied, trying to stand perfectly still.
"You've been reading my book too much," Jess murmured. "Where's your broom?"
Rory shrugged. "Behind the kitchen door, I think."
Jess nodded. His sneakers crunched the ceramic against the tile, a million tiny scratches coming to life beneath the soles of his shoes. He took the broom and swept around her, away from her feet.
"They say if someone sweeps your feet you'll marry an old man," Jess said.
Rory shrugged. "By all means, sweep away. Not the worst thing that could happen."
Jess smiled. "Better than marrying a rich man, I guess."
"Wouldn't know," Rory replied.
"So you and the blonde dick..." Jess ventured.
Rory shrugged again. "He proposed, in the middle of a party my grandparents held for me. Big, down-on-one-knee-with-a-huge-diamond-kind-of-proposal. The second the words came out of his mouth I knew he had no clue who I was."
"Yeah, I never pegged you for a public proposal kind of girl," Jess said, before he could catch himself.
"What did you peg me for?" Rory asked, curiosity etched in the way she arched her eyebrows.
"That's not what I meant," Jess started, but she waved away his words.
"Humor me."
"Honestly?"
Rory nodded.
"I never thought you'd be into the idea of a traditional wedding. Didn't see a church, didn't see an aisle, didn't see a flower girl, didn't see any bridesmaids," Jess rattled off.
"Huh," Rory said. "Did you see the groom?"
"Could only see his floppy hair," Jess quipped.
"Ah, you see, the thing is, had it been Dean, it would've been the whole nine yards. Layer cake and all," Rory pointed out, as if it were a triumph.
"I was joking about the floppy hair," Jess said.
Rory nodded. "So was I."
Jess looked away and kept on sweeping. Rory watched blood slowly bloom from the tiniest cut just to the side of her ankle.
- - - - - - - - - -
The road in front of us shrinks. Eight lanes become six, six lanes become four, and sooner or later it will all be reduced to dirt and dust and cornfields.
She will look at me with absolute certainty that I have lied.
She believes me to be a different man from a different place.
She believes me to be different.
As we approach the town Dave softly calls home, she will see.
The place I come from is as small as I am.
The expression in her face, it won't be disappointment.
It won't be anything.
I drive.
Four lanes become two.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Jess paced the living room while Rory showered.
Why had he stayed?
He hadn't shaved and he could feel the two-day's growth, scratchy and uncomfortable. And he could hear the shower, and all he could think about was water on skin.
He tried to think back at what his teenage self would have done.
He closed his eyes and listened to the pounding water.
His teenage self would have let himself into the bathroom, if only to be closer to her. If only to make her jump.
Jess shook his head, tried to clear it. She had no right to come back into his life, yet she did.
He had no right to think what he was thinking, yet he did.
He tore himself away from the spot where he was standing and headed back to the kitchen. At least there he could do something.
He rifled through the cabinets and finally found it. Rory had once called it the comfort food of all comfort foods. A box of Pop-Tarts.
Though he hated them, always had, he popped two tarts in and plugged the toaster.
He silently watched the coils of the toaster burn red hot.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Rory watched the thinnest trickle of blood, washed away.
She couldn't tell if he was still outside. She couldn't hear anything but the water against the shower walls.
The steam was comforting. So was the running water.
They hid the fact that she was crying so well, she almost believed it herself, that she wasn't crying.
She had left the bathroom door unlocked.
She never, ever, left the bathroom door unlocked. Not even when she was by herself, not even when she'd lived at home.
Was she extending him an invitation, wordless, unwitting?
Was she expecting something to happen?
She knew she had no right to expect anything.
Still...
She shook her head, letting the water roll off her, and sobbed quietly for all the time she'd lost.
- - - - - - - - - -
Wrapped in a towel, she stepped out of the bathroom. The band-aid on her foot wasn't necessary anymore, but she wore it out of an odd need to be healed.
Maybe if she looked the part, she could act the part.
She made her way quietly to her bedroom, dressed quietly as well.
When she stepped out into the living room, she spotted the Pop-Tarts on the coffee table. "You made these?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at Jess.
Jess readjusted his position on the couch and nodded.
"You hate these," she reminded him.
He ignored the comment and waited for her to sit down. "Your foot?" he asked.
"Better."
The silence grew to a point where Rory needed to break it. She grabbed a Pop-Tart and munched on it, loudly.
The noise filled the room eerily.
Jess watched her eat with fascination. With her hair wet and a Pop-Tart in her hand, he could almost see her, sixteen again, in Stars Hollow, innocence still sparkling in her eyes.
"Did you finish?" he asked, gesturing towards the wrinkled copy of The Subsect.
Rory shook her head. "Not yet," she answered, covering her mouth with her hand, so he wouldn't see the food.
"I should go. Chris and Matt are gonna start to wonder, and then they're gonna start making up stories," Jess said, trying to gauge Rory's reaction to his words.
With blank eyes, she nodded slowly. "I should show up at work, too. Sooner or later."
Jess tried to picture her at a desk, writing. It was almost as hard as picturing himself at a desk, writing.
He hadn't put pen to paper successfully in such a long time.
He gave a quick nod, a sort of goodbye, and headed to the door, but her voice stopped him.
"I... I'd like to go to Truncheon again. See what it's become," she said, nervous.
He took a shallow, shaky breath. Where had his anger, his bravado, his balls all gone? "Tomorrow?"
"Whenever you want. I mean..."
"Tomorrow's good," he said, cutting her off.
She nodded. "Tomorrow then."
"It's exactly where you last left it," he added.
And then he walked out her door.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
And two lanes become one.
Dirt and dust and cornflowers.
TBC...
Author's note: I'm sorry I'm not updating as often as I used to, but I'm still sticking to it. I'd love for you guys to tell me what you think about it, how it feels, how the parts of the book work. It helps me a lot to know how the story flows, as it has original characters/plotlines that are non-canon. Thanks for all the reviews so far, and please, tell me what you think!