[Anima Sola]

@Gilmore-Mariano: Hast du dich von deinem fast-Herzinfarkt erholt? Hoffe doch, sonst verlier ich ja nen lieb-kommentierenden Leser
Ich hoffe auch, dass du dieses Kapitel trotzdem magst, obwohl es weder Finn noch Logan direkt gibt und auch noch keine deiner spekulationen direkt beantwortet werden ^^;

@Little-Anni: Natürlich verzeih ich dir, hauptsache, du hast es gelesen, das find ich schon toll!
Jap, man wird sehen, wie sich das alles entwickelt^^

Allgemein muss ich mal anmerken, dass das Kapitel ne recht dunkle Stimmung hat und wie erwähnt gibts da nur Rory im Mittelpunkt, das Kapitel ist auch eher so ein Lückenfüller, sie kann ja nicht jeden Tag mit Finn oder Logan zusammen sein, ne?

Und nun viel Spaß mit dem sechsten Kapitel:

Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 6

Her plan on dumping Logan was harder than Rory had imagined.
After she had spent the rest of the day sleeping, she got up the next morning, taking a long, hot shower, gathering some clothes, getting dressed and finally walking over to have breakfast, stopping by a coffee stand on the way. Ordering the largest cup, she then headed to the dining hall, getting a bowl of cornflakes and sat down at an empty table.
Drinking her coffee, she already felt better, having slept more than just a couple of hours. For what she was planning to do, she needed even the tiniest bit of extra strength. After breakfast, she quickly walked to the offices of her professors, apologizing for having missed their classes. Other students might have given a damn about that, but Rory had to know whether her professors had noticed her missing. They had, but they didn’t mind, knowing Rory as a student who didn’t usually miss classes.
After that, she walked over to the newspaper office, finding it almost empty except for Paris, sitting gloomily behind her desk. Considering whether to talk to her or not, Rory finally decided to sit down behind her own desk, facing Paris.
“What are you staring at?”, Paris asked without looking up from the paper she’s been reading.
“I just –“
“Forget it, will you?”, Paris blurted out, her voice echoing through the news room. “I don’t care if you have one or two gigolos!”
“Paris!”, Rory shushed, standing up to walk over to her roommate. “I don’t have any gigolos!”, she then added in a low voice.
“How do you call them then?”
“I don’t know”, she replied, truthfully. “I haven’t figured that out yet…”
“And I won’t help you. Leave me alone with your problems concerning love!” Paris spat out the word love as if it was something poisonous.
“I will, I’m sorry”, Rory backed up, raising her hands apologizing. “Doyle still hasn’t called you?”
“Do you think I would be in this mood if he has?!”, Paris yelled, staring at her.
“I am not Doyle, save your anger for him, okay?”
“Oh hell, I will! That ignorant piece of –“
“Paris?”, they suddenly heard a small voice from the door.
Both Rory and Paris turned around to see –
“Doyle?”, Paris muttered in a mixture of surprise and rage.
He stared at them, looking rather puzzled.
“Doyle, Doyle, Doyle”, Paris said, her voice as cold as ice, before she stood up to walk over to him. “How nice of you to come by again…”
“Paris, what’s –“
“Um, I’ll better leave now”, Rory whispered and went back to her desk to grab her bag. Behind her, Paris and Doyle began to argue in high-pitched voices. Rory frowned. When she reached the door, she shot a glance over her shoulder. What she saw then, made her stare.
Paris and Doyle were hugging each other.
Rory raised two eyebrows, before she decided not to watch any more. ‘Alright, they made up again. Good. Gross, but good. Very good. Now Paris has her own life back. Now it’s my turn’, Rory thought leaving the news room.
She turned the next corner heading to her next class. Sitting amongst other students listening to the professor talking about nothing and everything (despite the coffee in her system, it was hard for her to concentrate), when suddenly her cell vibrated inside her pocket. She got it out quickly, looking at the display for who was calling her in the middle of class. It read Felicity. Rory grinned and quietly got up her seat, trying to leave the class unnoticed.
When she was in the hall again, she flipped open her phone.
“Hello”, she said, looking around.
“Um, who’s there?”, a female voice answered her, making Rory grow rigid immediately.
“Um, it’s –“
“You are not Roger”, the female voice said.
Roger? Who was – oh. Finn probably had her number under another name. So she was Roger on his cell. Nice. He was really uncreative concerning names.
“No, but this is his phone. What can I tell him?”, she played along, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“Um, it’s fine. I’ll call back later”, the voice said, sounding irritated.
With that the call was over. Rory looked down at her cell. Why was a girl calling her cell, wanting to speak Roger, using Finn’s phone? Wait. Finn’s phone. How could a girl come to use his phone? It felt like a stab in the back when Rory realized what just happened. It was Finn she was thinking about after all. She was really naïve for thinking he would change just for being her dirty little secret. He was still a playboy and even though he had spent a lot of time with her lately, he still had his own life. A life with other girls.
She couldn’t help but feel confused, a little angry, and above all, disappointed. There she was, telling him to dump Logan and he was already having fun with another girl. She recalled him talking THE talk, how he had asked where they stood. He was the one sounding sincere. He really seemed to want to be with her. But why was there a girl using his phone? She wanted to think that he had lost it somewhere, but even for her standards that was a little too imaginative – and stupid.
She stood in the middle of the hall, holding her cell in her hand, staring at it. Biting her lip, she entered the classroom again – just to grab her bag and leave again. This time she wouldn’t stay unnoticed. Yet this time, she couldn’t care less. She stormed towards her dorm, unaware of how many stares followed her. Entering her dorm, she heard faint noises from Paris’s bedroom and assumed the worst. Even more disgusted, she entered her room and quickly gathered some things she shoved into her bag, before she flipped open her cell and dialled her mother’s number.
She almost panicked when Lorelai wouldn’t answer, but she reconsidered, calling her mother’s hotel.
“Dragonfly Inn, Michel speaking”, she heard the thick French accent of her mother’s employee. “What can I do for you?”
“Michel, is my mother there?”, she didn’t hesitate to ask.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Rory, Michel, who else could call the Inn to ask for her mom!”
“How should I know”, he replied, sounding annoyed. “Lorelai isn’t here at the moment. What should I tell her from her daughter?”
“Nothing, thank you!” With that Rory hang up again, cursing her cell for not reaching the people she wanted to speak to so desperately.
She sat down on her bed, her cell in her shaking hands. She felt tears welling up behind her eyes. This was all going into the wrong direction. Yesterday, everything was just fine. She had fun with Finn and was determined to dump Logan for treating her like one of many. And now Finn had done the same. Of course he had, he was Logan’s best friend. They were so much alike, she should have known that.
She wanted to be with Finn, she had chosen him over Logan because he was so sweet when he was with her. That’s why she wanted to leave Logan. She wanted to wait for Logan to call her, she wanted him to be desperate to see her, and then she would dump him. That’s how she pictured it – and of course it had to go into a different direction. Logan gave a damn about her. And Finn had found somebody else already.
Of course. Life was unfair. She of all knew that.
She felt so miserable. She had had two nice guys. And now it seemed as if she had nothing. Suppressing her tears, she got up, grabbing her bag and leaving her dorm.
“Damn it, Paris, keep it down!”, she yelled at her roommate’s door from which other side she heard disturbing noises. Great. Now Paris was happy again – and she? How quickly they’ve changed roles. Unbelievable.
Rory left her dorm, left Yale, and headed to where she had left her car. Getting inside, she threw her bag on the backseat, turning on her music extra loud and drove off. Trying to forget her fucked up life.
She drove for many hours, in circles, around New Haven, around Hartford, and when it was already dark again, she’d just reached Stars Hollow. She pulled behind her mother’s jeep in front of their house and killed the engine. She got out of the car, grabbed her bag and walked to the entrance door. Even though there was no light in the house, the door was suddenly opening. Rory backed up, just to see her mother with an umbrella in her hands, ready to attack her daughter.
“Oh, Rory, it’s just you, I thought there was a burglar! Oh wait, Rory?”
“That’s the name you gave me”, she replied.
“What are you doing here, kid? Don’t you have school?”
“I do but I just wanted to see you”, Rory voice grew quieter.
“Aww, honey, are you alright?”, Lorelai asked, lowering the umbrella, making way for her daughter to step inside the house.
“Well –“
“Ah, I assumed. Come here, let’s sit in the kitchen. Are you hungry?”
Rory sat down at the kitchen table, biting her lip. “I’m starving, I didn’t even have lunch.”
“No lunch? My god, whatever brought you here, we surely have to kill it! It’s keeping you from getting big and strong!” Lorelai said, getting the phone. “Pizza or Chinese?”
“Chinese sounds good”, Rory replied.
“Chinese it is.” With that Lorelai ordered almost half the things on the menu. “So, kid, why are you so eager to see Mommy in the middle of the week?”
Rory bit her lip, trying to avoid her mother’s gaze. Even though she still felt miserable and desperate to tell Lorelai, it had sunk in how stupid and pathetic she was and had been. From all things she needed, it was not a disappointed glare from her mother. Or an ‘I told you so’-dance.
“Well, you remember Logan?”, Rory began, feeling how her mentioning Logan made her feel sad again. The whole day there had been no messages on her phone – and she had expected him to call her to arrange the date they had set on later.
“The blonde guy”, Lorelai said, nodding. “What did he do?”
“He did nothing”, Rory said, a little taken aback by her mother’s assumption that Logan might be the problem. Well, he was, but it wasn’t him who caused it. No, wait, he was, but yet again, it had been her decision to do what she had done and not his. “At least not everything”, she then added.
“But?”
“Well, I told you how jealous he was about me going to that party with his friend Robert and how we dated a lot after that and how everything seemed to become normal between us. But then the calls and meetings went thinner and then he didn’t call at all anymore. A week or so I haven’t heard anything from him. That’s when I met Finn”, she just said, with her mother listening closely. Mentioning Finn was harder than she thought.
“Who’s Finn?”
“Another friend of Logan.”
“That boy must have had interesting friends…”
“Well, we met at the Pub accidentally and –“
“And?”
“And… Mom, I really, really need you to not be disappointed, please?”
“Alright, I won’t, I promise!”, Lorelai replied, raising her right hand, her palm facing Rory, as if swearing on the bible in a court yard.
“Well, Finn and me, well, I began to date him and –“
“What’s the bad part about that? Dating people can’t be that bad…”
“Well… I… slept with Finn”, Rory finally admitted, looking down on the table. “The same night we met in the Pub.”
“I hope you didn’t do it on the pool table”, Lorelai replied, causing Rory to look up.
“You’re not mad?”
“Rory, it’s your life”, she just said, when it rang at the door. Lorelai got up and kept talking while paying the Chinese delivery man. “You are old enough to do what you like. And if that’s including dating and sleeping with the friends of your love interest, I can’t say a word against that.”
“I’m not sure that Logan’s still my… love interest. Or ever was.”
“But you dated him for quite a while now”, Lorelai said, handing out sticks and food.
“But our whole relationship is not based on commitment, no strings attached, that’s what we both wanted –“
“So I don’t see a problem with you dating his friend.”
“Well, it is, Finn’s his best friend and they’re sharing a dorm. And the confusing part about this is that Logan must not know about this thing between Finn and me. You know, I’m still seeing him as well and –“
“So you’re dating two guys at the same time?”
“Sort of… but, well, maybe that has resolved itself today.”
“What?”
“Logan seems to ignore me and Finn –“
“Hun, it’s okay. Just tell Mommy, it will help”, Lorelai said, watching Rory.
Rory sobbed, suddenly realizing she was crying. She quickly wiped away the tears with the back of her hand.
“I feel pathetic, Mom”, she whispered. “I mean, both… things, with Logan and Finn, they are nothing important, it’s just a little something in between. They both have other girls, and I knew that, I knew that before I started these tings. And yet –“ She inhaled sharply, looking towards the back door. “I just thought they liked me. At least a little more than their other girls…”
Lorelai moved her chair around to hug her daughter silently.
“I wanted to be that kind of girl, the little adventure girl that doesn’t care about anything. I wanted to be like that but I’m not. I’m not the adventure type, I don’t even like adventures. What drove me that I actually thought I liked adventures? And now look at me, ooh, adventure girl, you are pathetic, crying your eyes out! I feel so stupid…”
“You’re not stupid, love”, her mother whispered. “You are sweet, and you don’t deserve such a treatment.”
“Yes, yes, I don’t deserve that! That’s what I told myself – but every time one of them approaches me, I fall for them again. It’s annoying! I don’t want them to dump me… you know, I wanted to dump Logan but he won’t even call –“
“Maybe because he knows you are going to dump him –“
“And then there was this girl on Finn’s phone and none of them had even tried to reach me today. I’m sick of it!” She felt how her sadness mutated to frustration to anger. “Oh and on top of that, Paris is back together with Doyle! It’s so unfair!”
Lorelai raised an eyebrow.
“One day you have everything and the next morning you realize it was just a childish dream! And – oh god, I missed a whole day of school because I had to spend the day in bed with Finn! What am I?”
Lorelai could barely hide her surprise, yet she ignored her daughter’s comment. “You keep telling me that’s college, hun.”
“I don’t like it. I always thought of college as a great place to learn. To learn everything I wanted to learn, to read and to study and –“
“But life’s so much more, Rory.”
“I know”, she cried. “But still I don’t like it! It’s so confusing and – ooh, I forget to mention that I had to watch Moulin Rouge sitting between Finn and Logan. That totally ruined the movie for me!”
“Nothing can ruin Moulin Rouge, babe, don’t make those boys that important as to be able to ruin Moulin Rouge!”
Rory looked at her mother.
“How important are those two for you?”
“I… don’t know. I thought they were. At least I thought Finn was. I was already considering introducing him to you.”
“Oh, now I feel special!”, Lorelai smirked. “But anyhow, don’t forget it’s your life and if you like Finn, than Finn it is. Forget about Logan. And if you think, it’s not Finn, it’s Logan. But if it’s neither of them, you are on the market again, babe. The world is full of men!”
Rory couldn’t help but threw her mother an awkward grin. “Thanks, Mom”, she said and hugged her mother. “I feel better now.”
“That’s what mothers are there for, dirty laundry and dirty stories.”
Rory grinned even wider, getting up slowly. “I guess I have to get back to Yale.”
“I’m glad we talked, hun”, Lorelai said, watching her daughter.
“Me too.”
“And remember to call whenever you want to. Mommy’s there for you.”
“Thank you, mum”, Rory said and hugged her mother again.
“Ooh, and send me a picture of that Finn when you’ve got the time. I just want to make sure my grand-children won’t look ugly.”
“Mom!”
“You like him, do you?”, she asked, walking after her towards the door.
“I think I do”, Rory replied, stopping in front of the door. “I really do.”
“Get him, Adventure Girl, turn him into Couch Potato Man!”
“Couch potato man?”
“Yeah, the boring old man with a belly and a bald head, so no other girls can ever come between you!”
Rory chuckled. “I’ll try.”
“Make Mommy proud”, Lorelai said and kissed Rory on the forehead.
“Bye, mom!” Rory waved her goodbye and walked over to her car.
When she got back to Yale, she – even though she didn’t want to think such things – half expected Finn or Logan to sit in front of her dorm, waiting only for her. And even though she knew it was naïve and childish, she was highly disappointed as the hall in front of her dorm door was empty. She unlocked the door and went inside, heading to her room. The thoughts came back, when she entered her room – as did the disappointment.
“Stop thinking they would care for you! They don’t! Forget about them!”, she mumbled as she dropped her bag and took off her coat.
She switched on the light and again half expected someone to sit in the dark. But her room was empty. She turned around, maybe said someone just came from the bathroom. Nothing. She bit her lip, swallowing her frustration. Turning around, closing her door in the movement, she then sat down on her bed, pushed off her shoes and grabbed the nearest book, trying to fight every thought concerning certain males.
This was the hard way of learning how life worked, and even though Rory’d never wanted to experience something like that, she knew she had to go through it, assuming that she could only grow stronger. Life was not a television show where everything looked so easy. Life was life. But even life didn’t expect people standing in front of windows.
...to be continued...