professional scatterbrain
Registered Member
Posts: 2
(29/4/05 8:49 pm)
Reply
|
There's no Devil, only God when he's drunk
Rating: PG – 13 to R
Written in response to the following fic request:
Things to include:
1. Lorelei giving advice or teasing of some sort
2. Either leaf raking or a party/dance
3. Tristan realizing how he feels for Rory
Things NOT to include:
1. If there's smut, there must be a plot present, with a good Trory vibe.
2. Tristan being too much of a man-whore lol3. Rory loving Dean, he can be there, but she can't be feeling mushy for him
----------------------------------------------
There’s No Devil, Only God When He’s Drunk
***
“Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.”
***
She was a blur.
A blur of blue silk and tulle.
Barefoot, she had abandoned her heels long ago. She twirled in circles, and for more than a second the boy with his glacier eyes wanted to join her. But he didn’t. If he did, it would change. The moment he placed her hands on her hips, the moment her eyes slowed down to meet his, he would have to see what he already knew to be there.
So he let her dance.
He let her dance, even though she wanted him to join her. He let her dance even though earlier that evening he had joined her. For one dance. One dance only. He had joined her. The blur of tulle and silk had slowed, his hand steadying her, placed on the small of her back, daring her to push the boundaries he had set up. For one dance only though.
He wasn’t imaginary.
He wasn’t the boy she imagined having a harsh childhood. He wasn’t the boy brought up by a nanny or maid he adored like a mother to this very day. He didn’t go round sleeping with every beautiful girl. He wasn’t a sweet romantic guy under the harsh exterior that would drive her to school each day with a coffee in hand.
He wasn’t fictional or make believe.
And he didn’t walk across the dance floor and join her after that one dance.
***
Later, when his eyes no longer watched her . . .
Later, when she no longer watched him . . .
Later when she no longer pirouetted barefoot . . .
Later, when she had to convince herself he had touched her, Rory unbuttoned the dress that she had swirled and twirled in that night. The air was damp, humid and hot. A sickly sweet autumn night. She was a sugar coated girl as she made her way to her bed. Purple sheets greeted her, and she wished that she hadn’t bruised her knees to a matching colour that night previously. Tying her messy and limp hair into a pony tail she wondered if the trees losing their leaves in that heady autumn rite of passage would be remembered. If she would be remembered, or if she would become another thing that passed with little, if any notation.
She wished he’d placed his hand on her back one more time.
She wanted to escape what he’d done to her life
She wanted to escape loving having him on her mind.
She wanted to help the way she was feeling.
She wanted him to have crossed that dance floor one more time.
Melting into the soft mattress, she was five years old again. In fire engine red pyjamas, she wasn’t the girl that was named and re named by a boy that spoke in innuendos and euphemisms. Instead she was a child renamed after a mother who wanted a second chance. As Lorelei entered the room, snatching the book in her daughter’s hands, Rory allowed the simplicity of the actions to take her over.
“You know, I love that dress,” Lorelei stated, staring at the creation hanging ever so neatly in Rory’s colour coded wardrobe.
She wouldn’t love it if she knew her mother had bought it for Rory.
She wouldn’t love it if she knew what that dress was worn for.
She wouldn’t love it if she knew what her beloved daughter did in that dress.
She wouldn’t love it if she knew the boy who did it to her beloved daughter.
But Rory didn’t say a word.
Not a word.
She didn’t tell her mother about how steady the palm of his hand felt and how she could feel every bone in her spine the moment he touched her. Nor did she tell her mother about how, after one dance, he thanked her politely, automatically, and then walked away. She didn’t tell her mother how she felt in that moment, and how she wished it never came.
No, she didn’t tell her mother that.
***
On school days she watched him, but only fleetingly.
She didn’t want him to notice.
He was always far too alert and on guard at Chilton for her to watch him freely.
On school days, the final ones, as her year drew to its inevitable conclusion, she traced his image from under eye lashes lacquered with brown maraca. She watched him, and remembered his rebirth into Chilton many months ago when graduation was but a distant thought on her mind. She watched him, gliding not gloating. A sullen and stark boy, she felt clumsy and like her heart was made of elastic bands snapping each time he returned a fleeting look.
It was today, the second last week of school she dared to follow him. He was going home, the classes he had in the afternoon were cancelled. Stalking down the hall, she watched people spread either side of him, accommodating the crystalline boy. He gave her a rare smile as she joined his side, tugging a little on the sleeve of his jacket to get him to slow down.
Out in the parking lot, under the harsh and brittle sun she blinked, trying to remember what she wanted to say, how she wanted to act. But she forgot. So, in the white blinding light and shifting grey cold, he waited for her articulated speech, but nothing came forth, her throat swelling and constricting anything she wanted to say.
“Do you want a lift?” he asked finally.
She didn’t, but she nodded anyway. She had classes, important ones that she shouldn’t skip this close to end of year exams, but she slid into his car. He switched on music, but unlike she thought, he didn’t glance at her to see if she approved of his choice. He didn’t need approval. He only glanced at her as she struggled with her seatbelt.
“Let me help,” he muttered.
Taking the belt away from her hands, he clipped her in. She looked at him in a way he couldn’t understand. Her fingers ran through her hair, and she unconsciously breathed in sharply, nervously. With a start he realised his hand was still holding onto the seatbelt, and she was watching him under deceptively wide eyes, telling him a secret, trying to believe her own lies.
She wanted to ask him to take her somewhere, but in the end, he decided to take her to his house. He didn’t establish any repour on the drive down the golden ash lined roads, nor did he take her hand as he lead her up the drive way and into his cold, cold house. The boy with the cold, cold eyes took her to his room, looking at her, wondering what to do, and what to say, and eventually giving up, letting the situation be.
She fumbled, lacing her hands together.
She watched him pull his blazer off his shoulders, and drop his half full school bag on the floor. Hers was still in his car. She didn’t come here to memorize her notes on the history of appropriation in art. She spoke then, as he moved towards her, mentioning various topics, all meaningless, hoping one of them might lead to something more, hoping he might pick up on the hints she was leaving for him.
But he didn’t, or he chose not to.
His hands still made her shake as he traced her spine, and kissed along each rib. She whispered his name as he laid her on his bed, but he didn’t whisper hers. He took control, and she let him, following his lead instead of creating her own. Her body was soft as they moved together, but she was strong under his touch not crumbling away like tissue paper set alight.
As Tristan watched her, her eyes quickly flickered closed. She saw a world he couldn’t. He placed a hand on her hip, kissing her desperately as she opened the cornflower orbs. Only for a second. But it was enough. She pulled him closer, and for once he didn’t correct her action, for once he didn’t pull back to a safe distance. For once this wasn’t something he’d compare to the others. Not that he ever really did that with her.
For once he was spinning out of control, reacting too much as she muttered his name into the quiet house.
For once his head wasn’t reminding himself of what this really was.
For once he let her have her way.
For once it wasn’t him that pushed her away when it was over.
***
It was cold in the afternoon when she finally exited his house.
She left the blue eyed boy to follow her blue eyed mother.
She didn’t remember it being that cold in his room.
But next to him, everything faded.
Rory had forgotten her jumper, and in her summer school dress, she shivered a little as her mother lead her out of his house and into her car. There was a stretching silence. There was a silence that stretched. She glanced out of her window, watching from the corner of her eye as Lorelei started the jeep, and fumbled with the gears.
“I don’t know why you were with him,” she stated finally, as her hair, perfectly curled, bounced around her face.
Lorelei truly was beautiful, but sometimes there was something unsightly about her. Her bitterness taking over her bright blue eyes and heart shaped face, making her appear . . . unsettling. Her beauty at the moment was counteracted by her actions, as if she was trying too hard to appear too young, trying too hard to look like a light hearted Stars Hollows resident when in reality she was . . . harsh and still suffering battle fatigue.
She could tell her daughter was lying.
And while Rory smiled, knowing her mother saw past some of her cellophane lies she also knew her mother was really the one lying. It was funny, Lorelei used to be so good at it, and now, it was so easy to see through her. See past the long, liberally applied mascara coated lashes, the jeans that only a teenager should wear, and the lines around her eyes that she pretended no one saw. Rory knew what was there in front of her, the child Lorelei desperately pretended to be, but Rory didn’t articulate it. Never. That would be far from the wise thing to do.
“I mean, come on Ror, act your act age not your shoe size. You don’t go to places owned by guys like him.”
But she did.
Far too often.
Often enough to forget the reason why she shouldn’t.
Her mother’s words, light hearted and almost jovial belied the warnings they held. This was Lorelei’s turn to play the part of a mother. No, not a mother. A ‘mother’ was Emily’s role. The role Emily was born to play. Lorelei wasn’t born to play the ‘mother’ role. Lorelei was the ‘hip mom,’ never the ‘mother’ or ‘mum.’ So, her advice came, tumbling like a torrent of glitter with sharp edges from her cherry pink mouth. Rory wondered if this time she was meant to really believe, really, utterly, truly believe, that Lorelei was doing what was best for her. If it was right to follow Lorelei’s little pearls, or rather, jelly beans, of wisdom.
When was it time for Rory to follow her own lead?
When would Lorelei trust Rory’s lead?
Lorelei glanced out of her window, a hand leaving the steering wheel to smooth the cracked lipstick coating her slightly too thin lips, “That boy, Crispin, I knew guys like that, I fell for guys like that, your father was, and probably still is, a guy like that,”
Rory wanted to ask just what sort of guy that was, but she held her tongue.
She didn’t bother to correct her mother.
His name was Tristan, but Lorelei didn’t need to know the details.
Details would change ‘Crispin’ from being a paper cut out threat into a real one. Details would force Lorelei to see just how dangerously her daughter had fallen. How she was waiting. Always waiting. Always. For a boy that pushed her away. A boy that pulled her close, but only to a point. She was held at arms length, like a child in a gallery, forbidden to touch anything and everything. He didn’t like her being too close, it was only on the dance floor, amid the swirling colours of taffeta and chiffon, did the restrictions fall. But he rarely danced with her. He didn’t like her being too close.
But sometimes Rory would get too close . . . sometimes.
Lorelei couldn’t know that. Because Rory wasn’t that sort of girl. Rory was the girl who was oblivious. Rory was the girl that never made the first move. But, maybe Rory had never been that girl, and maybe ‘details’ would mar Lorelei’s image. Maybe ‘details’ would ruin everything if Lorelei finally saw just how dangerously her daughter was risking everything for someone that couldn’t return the favour.
Yes, it was better to be silent.
Better to be silent.
So she continued, this time it was her that was the oblivious one in her suit and heels play pretending she was the Barbie business woman. With her costume jewellery and mooing alarm clock she was a caricature that tried to hide the bitter and brittle woman underneath the surface. She couldn’t see. Rory wouldn’t let her. The varnish, the gloss, the glaze that covered their lives couldn’t be scratched. Neither of the two were ready for what might come after. So Rory listened, not saying a word, and Lorelei continued, her voice clear, yet her tone clouded with unidentifiable emotions.
“Let me give you some advice as a person that has been through all this before. This boy, his charm, his charisma, it can’t take you places. Fifteen seconds of what he calls bliss can’t compare to what you can achieve if you keep your head in your books. Come on Ror, this is the most important year at Chilton, you’ve worked so hard for this, don’t give it up over him, please.”
Please.
Yes, please.
***
It had been a week since she had followed him back to his house.
A week since he had laid her on his bed.
A week since her bones turned to water as he touched her.
A week since her mother had ordered her to give him up.
Or did Lorelei plead?
It didn’t matter.
Now, she was back in his room. Lying on his bed, with the soft sheets on her skin, his hands resting on her waist, she felt his breath whispering along her collar bone. She wanted to smile a little at how calm things were, but she didn’t, because she hardly felt calm. That was what scared her. That was what left her in this state. The knowledge of what he did to her, what he did when he was near her, and what he did when she wasn’t.
Because the terrifying thing was . . .
The thing she used to ignore . . .
The thing she pretended not to know . . .
Was that she hardly felt anything when he wasn’t next to her.
Besides, she comforted herself, speaking at a moment like this would only ruin things. But maybe things needed to be ruined so they could be rebuild. Maybe. Maybe she was standing on the edge, waiting not quite so patiently for him. Maybe she needed him to speak, maybe she needed him too…but she’d had a life time of practice staying quiet, so she kept her crimsoned stained lips closed for now.
But she still wanted him to speak.
She wished for his voice, smooth, like a singer, to interrupt the silence. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t, so she lay next to him, quiet. His hand idly traced her spine. His fingers traced each arch and fall of her spine lazily, as if he’d memorized the path many times before. His eyes weren’t closed, but they didn’t see her, and she knew it was only a matter of time before this liaison ended.
But she needed him to speak.
She needed him to articulate everything.
Because she wanted him.
Because she needed him.
But mainly, because she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. She wasn’t so afraid of him, or what he could do to her know. It wasn’t love. To tell the truth, she didn’t know what it was. Sometimes, now, no longer afraid of him, she found herself afraid of what it, this, what she felt for him was. It was too deep, and each time he came closer, or each time she pulled him closer, it was becoming harder and harder to imagine it ending. It was like the tree, with its roots delving deeper and deeper into the earth, and as time passed it would become increasingly painful to wrench out.
But she wasn’t afraid of him.
She wasn’t afraid of him.
She kept telling herself that, hoping it was true, almost convincing herself it was. She kept telling herself she wasn’t afraid of him, just what she felt for him. But it was getting too confusing. She couldn’t really understand what she meant anymore. The idea of not being afraid of him yet being terrified by what she felt from him conflicted harshly in her logical mind. Before, before him, everything she had ever felt; everything that had ever entered her life, was like a puzzle. No matter how messed up, there seemed to be some reason behind the chaos. She believed there was order even when sometimes she couldn’t see it.
But with him, nothing was comprehendible.
It might be love, but it also may not be.
She was confused, and of course, suddenly and shockingly unarticulated.
Tristan had forced his way into her life. She had pushed him away. She had teased him every time he had taunted her. But maybe, despite it all, she knew, subconsciously, that even at that first night at Madeline’s party where the first sensation she felt after the grazing of his lips were her cold salty tears, that he wasn’t a puzzle, and she couldn’t organize him back together. Perhaps it was a warning sign she missed, or just perhaps, one she ignored. But after it all . . . she kept coming back to him, even after telling another boy she loved him, when obviously she couldn’t.
Shifting a little on the big as big could be bed, he slipped a hand along her stomach, following the invisible curve of her body until his steady hand lay in her hip bone. Sighing a little, she closed her eyes, feeling nothing and everything as their bodies intertwined.
They rarely allowed this sort of moment between them.
But the rules were broken now.
Rory had broken them by articulating what she always knew.
But really, he was beautiful. Utterly. He had the beauty of a predator that could as easily snap her neck as pur when she ran her hand along his arm. Little scars marked his arms and his legs; each night they where together she now found herself looking at them wearily. In her mind, they weren’t the result of many accidents in the games of soccer and water polo, instead that served as symbols of a boy that was fighting a civil war in the circles of society in order to rein over the masses
Dean.
The brown haired, honey eyed boy’s name flicker in Rory’s mind for a second before she pushed it away, but it came back, but unlike in the past, it only came back with memories, not anything that she needed a stiff drink to remove. He was the kind of boy all girls dream about. The perfect first boyfriend, the one that embodied all those girlish dreams and borderline fantasies.
She didn’t love him.
But it was oh so easy to convince herself she did.
If only for a little while.
Sliding her body closer to the boy laying next to her, Rory felt her bones turn into water. The sheets tangled around their forms, and Rory curbed the urge to fix them. Even now she still had the compulsion to make everything appear perfect. He didn’t mind, on a good day or on a bad. He didn’t reprimand her, or make a joke of it. To do that would be to step beyond the boundaries. He didn’t plan on doing that.
“Are you awake?” he asked.
She nodded, and he smiled a true smile that dazzled her, and left her breathless. God, she always came back . . . well, it wasn’t like that. That made it sound cheap, it made it sound dirty and everything her mother had told her good girls didn’t do. But even before she met him on her first day at Chilton she hadn’t considered herself a good girl. He was . . . he was . . . a weakness? A hidden secret? A kindred spirit? Maybe all the things in those dog eared mills and boon novels Sookie read.
She wanted to understand him. It was becoming dangerous. Fleeting looks were lasting longer. Soon he would see. Soon he would know what she was feeling. Soon he wouldn’t even ask her for the first dance. Soon . . . . soon . . . soon. She pushed it aside. She pushed him aside. Slowly beginning to get dressed, slipping her clothes back on her too tall frame with his watchful glaze following every meticulous action.
Love.
Love?
Maybe . . . Maybe not. But at least with him she never . . . never what? Once she had never pretended, nor did he. But know she knew better. Now she knew she lied all a long. Because he wasn’t just a boy who knew how to touch her. Now he wasn’t just a boy with sparkling eyes. Now he was more, and she, somehow, felt less. As if she was hollow, waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. Whenever she was around him the world used to slow down a little, but now instead of being able to close her eyes and not worry about how different things could be when she opened them, she just kept feeling as if the world was moving too slowly, and she was waiting for far too long.
Although everything was changing, and she couldn’t affect the change she wanted.
Her last year at Chilton, with only half a week to go, and she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. Sure, she would go to college, that was a given. Harvard probably, Yale maybe, Princeton perhaps, and the list continued, each name matched with a rating and the classes she might like to take. Or at least look at in the guide books. She was meant to be a writer, to be specific, a foreign correspondent, that, of course, had been ‘decided’.
“I’m tired,” she whispered, but she wasn’t referring to a physical need.
“I know,” he replied, and they both knew what she meant, “I am too.”
Removing herself from his reach, she walked over to gather her jumper, tugging it over her head. She chose, perhaps stupidly, to gaze into his slate eyes, watching him for a second. He never looked away, not this time. Maybe this time he was used to her stare. Maybe he refused to be defeated by a seventeen year old girl that was too tall and uncoordinated to match up to her mother’s image. Everyone looked at her mother first, that wasn’t anything new, and Rory had never felt bitter about it.
Lorelei was . . . she was everything.
Most of the time.
When she meet Tristan on that terrifying first day of the new life her grandparents had preened her for, he looked at her. Small, but . . . it was stupid, but . . . even Dean looked at her mother first, as if to trace the genetic code, to match up what Rory was, with what she could be given another sixteen or seventeen years. Tristan didn’t seem to care, nor did she.
Of course later her Grandmother told Rory stories about his family.
Not with the salt truths of Paris.
Emily retold stories of power and empires, with a slate eyed boy that led a charmed life. Her eyes flashed, and gleamed with the possibility of her granddaughter marrying well. Her daughter was a lost cause, but Rory, well Rory was the saving grace.
Only Rory didn’t feel too much like the wonder child born to save the ruin of the Gilmore family.
“Are you going out tonight?” she asked not caring about the answer, just the sound of his voice lacing over her body.
“My cousin’s having a family thing,” he muttered, following her earlier actions, dressing, albeit with more grace; his long fingers buttoning a dress shirt; his motions claming her as he continued, “Backdoor business deals and talk about the old country.”
Rory nodded, the basic details were the only insight she had of his life. Much like all the other outsiders, she imagined that she remembered the velvet tones of Russian being spoken. Sometimes she saw his family, in her mind they all looked similar, all beautiful and untouchable, most with hawk like eyes picking up all faults and failings, while the others looked at her with hazy half drunk eyes. Emily had told her what all the society pages printed. The DuGrey’s were the final layer of society, they were the powerful, the beautiful and the damned. She imagined his family, his life, once again stepping over the boundaries they had set long ago when she was just a twirling girl in blue tulle and satin and he was just the boy that asked her for a single, solitary dance.
She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t pretty, or gorgeous, she was just another girl. She was smart, that was her thing. Facts and figures were easy to remember, and her looks . . . well, they didn’t matter. She was just herself, she wasn’t Louise or Madeline with there china doll looks, or her mother and Lane’s blinding charisma. She was just a girl that worked hard on fading into the background. Background was safe, people didn’t notice the background, and in the blind spot, it was easier for Rory just to be.
But, unfortunately, the background didn’t keep her invisible for as long as she liked.
But as she looked at him. As she heard him yet again only give her the basics about everything in his life she couldn’t be silent anymore. She couldn’t be quiet. She didn’t move close to him. She stood, paused, at an impasse, knowing she had to speak, wanting to speak, yet not wanting to move closer to him.
“Tristan, I don’t think I can keep doing this,” she stated, choosing deliberately not to use the words she had heard her mother’s various boyfriends use with her.
“What do you mean?” he replied shortly, carefully, without any hint of translatable emotion in those huge slate eyes of his.
“I don’t want this, to feel like this,” she found herself replying, her words not of her own, not articulating what she wanted to say, acting as nothing more than harsh interruptions to the silence. But she tried, once more to say what she wanted to say.
Once more.
Someone once stated that ‘It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar,’ but now, Rory realized she was tired of the half truths and white lies, and lies and everything, and although she was scared, she had to tell him, she had to. Because although she could wait for him, she couldn’t wait for herself.
“Are you ending this?” he asked, his hands paused as he buckled up the leather belt with its gentle lustre.
She shook her head, but this time Tristan didn’t press for answers.
This time he waited.
“We can’t, I can’t,” her voice broke off, and she looked away, finally, she meet his gaze, “It isn’t what, I mean, what this is . . . I mean, if you want me, really want me, then I think things have to change, and I think they already have, because I want you, really,”
Her voice ended at a whisper. It was if she was suddenly embarrassed and feeling more uncomfortable than ever before in her life. As stupidly, and idiotically as she had spoke, she had put herself, what she felt, what he was to her out on display.
“Think about it,” she muttered finally, before fleeing the room, not leaving him the chance to do anything else but fumble with his belt and stare with dark eye at the spot she’d once stood in.
The silence had been interrupted.
***
They had three final days at school.
She didn’t speak to him.
He didn’t speak to her.
It wasn’t like the avoided each other with great stealth or determination. In the hustle, with teachers, friends, everybody at the over priced school slipping their rose coloured glasses over their eyes, it seemed like there was so much to do, and so little time. She studied, hidden in the library with Paris by her side with colour coded flash cards, while he sat out in the sun, both pretending their mind was on the scene playing out before them, not the internal one that had began when they were merely sixteen.
It wasn’t until the final day of school they spoke. He said he’d drop by sometime; she nodded shortly before she was pulled away by a shifting and unsettled Lorelei. Her hand, warm and soft, held Rory in place, but it wasn’t until Lorelei dragged Rory half way around the school looking for a place to carve her name, did Rory realise that her mother was just that, her mother.
Lorelei didn’t own Rory’s life, and although Rory respected her mother, it didn’t mean that her words, her guidance, her advice always had to be followed. Life wasn’t about right and wrong. Life wasn’t about mistakes and good judgement. It was about risks, and just living it out. Lorelei had chosen her path, and now, it seemed as Rory finally, abet in a small stand, choose not to follow her mothers whims, not allowing her name to be carved into Chilton, was left with the knowledge it was time to chose for herself.
‘Crispin’ may be the sort of guy Lorelei had known all her life.
But Tristan wasn’t.
Tristan wasn’t her father, or the guy that would bring Rory down.
He was just Tristan, a boy, not a fallen angel leading her into temptation and certain ruin; he was just a boy.
Just a boy.
She didn’t need Lorelei’s advice about him, because Rory could make her own. Tristan was a risk. But to gain anything in life, risks have to be taken. It could, and had a huge chance of backfiring, and ripping her in half, but it was worth it, because she couldn’t live with just one dance, just one fleeting glance that was always broken before it could become too much, before they meant too much to each other.
And so, this time, she could wait for him patiently, because in the end, to be with Tristan wasn’t about being pushed away after one dance, but how terrified and mesmerized she felt in the one dance. It could end. It might not even begin after all she had revealed to him. But she could wait, not on edge anymore, but somewhat calmly.
Because in the end, it was her choice.
Not her mothers.
Not her grandmothers.
Not his families.
And it was his choice too, one that needed to be made.
So, she waited, not lingered for him, for the boy with slate eyes.
***
A week had passed since she gave her valedictory speech and he spoke to her on that final day of school.
She was out, in the mess, the jungle of her garden, when he came to her.
Welcome to the jungle.
Peeking people, and gnomes fishing.
Cats and dogs and picket fences.
With her in the middle of it all, raking the fallen leaves.
Yet he came to her, his long lean legs moving around the piles of leaves the trees had shed, his slate blue eyes examining everything but her. He was beautiful, stunning and out of place, like a marathon swimmer in the ocean, fighting for his way.
She waited for him to speak.
He reached her, and stood, uncomfortable and all too mesmerizing, hands dug in his pockets, and blonde hair whipping around as a sharp wind rushed through the atmosphere. There she stood, in her messy clothes and knotted hair, with a rake in her hand. Finally, she had decided to clear the gilded leaves that carpeted the grass. It was only midday, and she’d only been raking the leaves for an hour but she already had blisters on her ungloved hands. She shifted a little on the spot; drawing in air and reaching up to brush her mussed hair behind her ear. His eyes, slate blue, dark and enigmatic met hers, and she didn’t look away, she couldn’t, not this time, not again.
She wanted to say something.
But she knew she had to wait.
For some reason, she had let him speak first.
“You need some help?” he muttered finally, meeting her blue gaze with his own electric eyes, not flinching or shifting at her wavering look.
“Sure.”
As he took the rake from her hands, she waited for a purposeful touch, a slight grazing of skin, but none came. He smiled a little at her, a true smile, almost open, almost trusting. It was enough for now. It was enough for her to start, for her to speak. Her voice was clear, and seamless. It wasn’t lost among them, it didn’t fall in a tangled heap of verbs and nouns, instead it travelled, and Rory was certain every person watching them could hear if they bothered to listen.
“I think you’re my best friend,” she told him, knowing that this was the time to speak, to articulate everything she couldn’t in his bedroom, it was time to tell him everything she couldn’t on the dance floors after he left her after one singular dance, “I know you are.”
Under long dark lashes he folded and unfolded her, knowing there was more to come, neither offering her the comfort she would have liked to continue on with, nor the rebuttal that would have stopped the flow of words from her mouth.
“If you give me the chance, I want to be your friend,” She dropped her gaze, more afraid of the truth in her word, the truth he was finally hearing, more afraid of him than she had ever been of anyone in her life. “If you give me the chance, I’d want to be more than a friend, because I l-”
“Ror . . .” his voice wavered interrupting what she was saying, only to have his voice cut short, restarting only when he took a step closer to her.
This time he couldn’t walk away after one dance. Her words had halted him, had made it harder and easier, and everything in between. He couldn’t remember what he came to say or do. He imagined kissing her, leaving her breathless like in the paper back novels Madeline used to read in the back row of the class room with Louise looking over her shoulder with a pout on her face.
“Ror, I . . .” he was out of breath and out of ideas, so he reached over, and took her hand.
He patted it, an unpractised gesture, and she carefully brought him closer, aware of the danger she was putting herself in. the closer he was the more he could hurt her. Vice versa. It always was both ways. He wanted to hold her, to say everything that he felt. The trees shifted and creaked in the wind, more leaves falling, leaving a dappled pattern over the oh so green grass. A dog barked. The clouds flew across the sky. They didn’t form patterns though.
She was pretty, not beautiful. She wasn’t breath taking like her mother. She wasn’t an image that would feature on glossy magazines. But she was offering him something true. She was offering him herself. She was offering him more then Lorelei or his mother, or the girls he flirted with ever could understand. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand how she was willing to risk everything, how she could give him everything, how she could give up everything for him.
All he could offer her seemed petty.
He wanted to take her away. To lock her in his pocket. To have her on his arm, to never let her go. To have her in his life. To hold her so selfishly. To never let her go. He knew he couldn’t love her as truthfully, as openly as she loved him. She knew that too, yet still, she waited for him.
Then she smiled a faint half smile at him.
Then, with her glittering dancing eyes she drew him closer, until he could feel her warm breath on his neck.
Now he understood.
He understood everything.
He understood why she teased and taunted him. She tried to stop him from getting too close, to deep into her heart. Even then, on that first day, unconsciously, she pushed him away. It was egotistically and stupid, but he believed what he know knew. She had pushed him away then to try and protect herself. A safety net made of barbs and sharp words of hate. But later, as they pulled each other close, it then became him pushing her away; the tables turned. She had submitted first to what she felt, yet he had not, even now, he wondered if he truly had.
“Tristan . . .”
Blue as blue could ever be. That was the colour of her eyes. Her skin was pale. Her lips were red, too red for the town princess. But then again, she’d never been perfect enough for that role. He had ruined her for that maybe, or maybe she’d always been ruined, and it had just been him that had cracked the varnish she had been covering her flaws.
“Tristan.”
Her hand touched his cheek, and he leaned into her touch. She would accept him, whatever he said. He knew that. More than that, he felt it. If he told her to fuck off, or fuck him, or anything, she’d accept it. She’d still wait though. Because she knew. Under all the bullshit. Under all the lies he feed to her. Under the self delusions. Under the self obsession he had, and she had. Under it all, she knew. She knew what he really wanted.
He wanted her.
He wanted her.
He wanted her.
He wanted her.
He wanted her.
He wanted her.
But most of all.
Most of all.
He needed her.
So he told her.
***
The End
***
|
Email This To a Friend
Click to receive email notification of replies 
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies