Without You

Kate Foley

Rory makes the decision not to be with Jess, but can she really stick to it?

PG-13

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Incomplete

Chapter One : Late Night Decisions

For the last two weeks Rory had been keeping as busy as possible. She had made lists and schedules and trips to Hartford to meet with Paris. She had packed and re packed her suitcase at least a thousand times, she had helped her mom re-organize her shoes and she had come up with an entirely new categorizing system for her books. That night she had watched a Billy Jack movie, re-read the Odyssey and painted her nails twice, doing anything she could to occupy her mind so that there was no room to think about it, to think about him. She had spent two weeks doing absolutely anything to keep that day out of her mind, including avoiding him at all costs which was probably the biggest sacrifice because that meant giving up Luke’s for two straight weeks and she was now experiencing coffee withdrawal, especially since Elvis (The coffee machine) had met his maker and her mother hadn’t gotten around to buying a new one.

Rory sighed and rolled over, her eyes fixing on the red dots above her, how her mother had managed to get nail polish on the ceiling she would never know. She shifted onto her side and glanced at the alarm clock, a quarter to midnight. She sat up suddenly and plopped her hands into her lap, looking around her room. She scanned everything, taking in the familiar images of her books, her mirror, her wardrobe, her nightstand, and then her eyes fixed on the picture of her and Dean at before the dance at Chilton last year, and she immediately felt hot water pricking at her eyes. Her hands shot up to stem the flow, but it was useless, the wanton tears wouldn’t relent, and so she just let them fall onto her comforter. For over three months she had been telling herself that everything was ok, that this was just some silly crush with Jess that she would get over it that nothing could be as great as what she had with Dean. But then she thought back to that day…she lifted her hand up to lightly touch her lips, remembering the unbelievable kiss they had received two weeks earlier. She just didn’t know anymore. Rory shook her head slowly and pressed her forehead into her raised knee, trying to figure everything out, trying to understand the plethora of emotions streaking through her mind…and through her heart.

She looked at the photo again, at the smiles on their apprehensive faces, both nervous for the night ahead. She looked into Dean’s eyes and she saw this glow and vitality to them, and then saw the mirror image of that emotion in her eyes and remembered how it felt to be with him then. She also thought back on the last few months between them, and she realized that that rush she used to get from the sound of his voice was gone, and the tingling feeling in her stomach she always used to get when she saw him had been absent for much longer then the rush.  She exhaled; frustrated at the fact that she had no idea what to do or how to proceed. She knew what her heart wanted her to do, but she couldn’t do that, she couldn’t go to Jess, she would upset everyone. She shook her head again, and as she something caught the corner of her eye. She turned her head completely to look at her window, it was open and the curtains were billowing softly in to humid mid-summer breeze, and suddenly, without knowing exactly what she was doing or why, she slipped out of bed and through the open window.

Rory walked around town, not precisely sure where she was going, and before she knew it she found herself at the North side of the town square. She let her eyes roam over the peaceful setting and they rested on something moving in the gazebo. She could only make out his profile, but then she saw a tattered, loved copy of ‘The Old Man And The Sea’ protruding from his back pocket and she knew it was Jess. She shifted onto her other foot and bit her lip, fighting the urge to run all the way home and curl up in her safe bed. But she knew him, and she knew that if she left without saying goodbye things would only be harder when she returned, and seeing as she was leaving in two days now seemed as good a time as ever. So she suppressed the flutter that had made a presence in her stomach and began to walk slowly over to him. She needed to do this, it was right, she couldn’t hurt her mom and this town by just disregarding their opinions, and she couldn’t hurt Dean like that, this had to be done, it had to end here.

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