[karana]

Okay, vielen Dank für eure reviews, wir fühlen uns wirklich sehr geschmeichelt.
Es ist möglich dass für die nächsten 2 oder 3 Wochen kein updates kommt, da Laura Probleme mit ihrem Internetprovider hat und zur Zeit nicht ins Internet kommt. Vielleicht kann sie mir die Vorlage fürs nächste Kapitel von der Arbeit aus schicken.. mal sehen.
Hier jedenfalls erstmal Kapitel 6:

Chapter 6 – Admitting the truth

Lorelai spend the night on Luke’s couch. She didn’t want to go home. She couldn’t handle fighting with Christopher again after what her parents told her. It wasn’t as if she slept. Her parent’s voices were going through her head all night. But it was comforting hearing Luke’s soft snores. She couldn’t help but think how that sound had always soothed her to sleep every night, a little over a year ago. Luke was a deep sleeper. When she watched him sleep she could see how he enjoyed it. Chris was different. He was restless and would wake up at the lightest sound.

“Hey. You’re awake.” Luke noted when he got out of bed the following morning.

She nodded and sat up. “Yeah.”

“Did you sleep at all?” He looked at her concerned.

She gave him a look that said enough. Luke sighed and tried to stroke the sleep out of his eyes with one hand.

“How about some coffee?” he asked then.

“Please,” she said and gave him a small, tentative smile.

She watched him as he made her coffee and some tea for himself. They sat down at the table and shared a quick breakfast in silence. After breakfast she took a quick shower and was ready to leave.

“What are you plan on doing today?” Luke asked her, still concerned how much more trouble she could take at the moment.

She raised her shoulders. “I’m supposed to work but I don’t really feel like it. I may call in sick and go see how my parents are doing. See if I can do something for them,” she told him honestly and she knew she didn’t need to explain how worried she was and how much her parents meant to her.

“Sounds like a good idea,” he said and his gruff tone was back.

She gave him a weak smile. “Thanks for letting me spend the night.”

“No problem. I’m here for you. You know that.”

She nodded. “Thanks Luke.”

“Come by later okay?” the gruff tone was gone again.

She nodded again and then left.

When she was gone Luke stayed in his apartment for some more time. He just sat at the table and thought about the last night and the events. He wished he could do more than just let her spend the night in his apartment. He really wanted to help her, but he didn’t know how.
After some minutes he walked over to his couch where she had put the flannel shirt she had worn for the night. He picked it up and walked to the carrier with the dirty laundry in the bathroom. He wanted to throw it into it, but when he moved it a bit of the scent which lingered in the shirt flew into his nostrils. He had to close his eyes because this scent was a bit too much for him and caught him off guard. Without opening his eyes he buried his head in the shirt and took her scent in. Then he opened his eyes, walked back out of the bathroom and tossed the flannel shirt onto his bed. He stared at it for some seconds, unsure if he had only dreamed those horrible last months without her. Her scent lingered in his sheets and his shirt, maybe it had just been a bad dream.
But then reality got him back and he sighed and walked downstairs to face the breakfast crowd in the diner.

-xxxxxx-
“Lorelai?” Emily was surprised to see her daughter in her doorway.

“Hey mom,” Lorelai greeted her and fiddled with her necklace.

“What are you doing here?”

Lorelai raised her shoulders. “I didn’t feel like working today. I drove around and I kind of ended up here. Can I come in?”

“Of course.”

Lorelai handed her coat to her mother and walked into the living room. “Is dad home?”

“No. He has a meeting.”

Lorelai nodded as she sat down.

“You want something to drink?”

“Coffee please.”

Emily nodded and walked towards the kitchen, ordering the maid to make some coffee. Back in the living room she sat down across from Lorelai. “What are you doing here?”

“What? Can’t I pay you a visit?” she asked although she knew that her mother knew why she really was there.

“You don’t stop by voluntarily without wanting something Lorelai.” Emily pressed the issue.

“That’s not true.” She sighed. “Okay it is true. But not today. I was just….”

“Thinking about your father?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t worry too much Lorelai. He’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

“You don’t know that. How can you believe that?”

“Because I have to.”

“I don’t understand.”

Emily sighed. “It’s easier to believe that everything is going to be alright, than that it won’t. Because honestly, I don’t know what to do without your father. We’ve been married for over 40 years. I can’t think of my life without your father. That idea.. it’s too frightening to think about it.”

Lorelai looked at her mother that was usually so strong, and saw genuine fear in her eyes. Even though she said that she was okay, and that she believed that he was fine, inwardly she was terrified.

“Just think about how you would feel if this happened to Christopher.”

She didn’t know how to reply to that. She knew she wouldn’t be as terrified as her mother was right now. Of course she it would be horrible if something happened to Chris. She would miss him… but not the way her mother would miss her father. Not the way she would…. She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about Luke now. It wasn’t appropriate; she was married now, to Chris. She forced the thoughts out of her mind, and her mother noticed this.

“What’s wrong Lorelai?” Emily wanted to know.

“Nothing,” Lorelai said and looked down to her hands to avoid her mothers piercing eyes.

“Don’t lie to me. I know you.” Emily said sternly.

“I don’t know how I would feel if Christopher…” Lorelai started slowly, barely able to admit this to herself.

“Don’t be crazy. You would be horrified. You married him Lorelai. You love him.”

“But it’s hard mom. We’re fighting all the time,” Lorelai tried to explain.

“What did you think? That it was going to be easy? You’ve known each other for a very long time. You’ve lived your own lives for a very long time. And now you have to find a way to bring those lives together. You have to make it work. It’s not going to work by itself. It doesn’t work like that. It’s not easy.” Emily was starting to feel mad. “Do you think your father and I would still be together if we hadn’t worked on it?”

Lorelai let out a small ‘no.’

“That’s what I thought.” Emily shook her head as she studied her daughter. She didn’t look like the woman she used to be. She changed a lot over the past few months. She tried to act happy, but Emily knew better.

“Do you love him Lorelai?” she asked her the question Lorelai feared the most. She knew if there was one person she couldn’t lie to about these things it was her mother.

Tears filled Lorelai’s eyes as she shook her head. “No,” she said and allowed her self to admit this not only to someone else, but also to herself for the first time.

“Do you think you could ever love him?” Emily asked her then and her voice wasn’t angry or aggressive, but soft and somehow worried.

She raised her shoulders. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

“Do you still love Luke?” Emily wanted to know. Lorelai’s head shot up and she stared at her mother. She wanted to yell at her for asking such a thing. She was a married woman and her mother asked her something like this. But when she saw the honest worry in her mother’s eyes, her own resolve crumbled and she let the guard down. The wall she had build around her heart the night Luke had let her walk away disappeared under her mother’s eyes and Lorelai was hit by such a pain that she could barely breathe anymore.

She nodded. “Yes,” she pressed out then and tried to take a deep breath.

“Do you want to be with him?” Emily questioned her further.

“I don’t know mom. I don’t know.” Lorelai shook her head and the first tears dropped on her hand.

“It’s a simple question Lorelai. If it was possible, would you be with him?” Emily lay her finger on the wound. Lorelai nodded again.

“Yes.” She let out a small sob as she admitted it. God, she so desperately wanted to be with him. Now that she admitted it, it nearly killed her that she wasn’t.

“Then I think you know what to do.” Emil concluded and raised her eyebrows.

“But…” Lorelai objected. She was married to Rory’s father. She tried to believe that she could someday get her whole package out of it. It was her dream. No, she told herself then, it wasn’t her dream. It hadn’t been anymore since the day she had had her breakdown on the bench and Luke had comforted her. Chris wasn’t her dream. The family with Chris and Gigi wasn’t her dream and never had been.

“I hate to see you unhappy Lorelai. You should know by now that life is too short to be unhappy.” Emily said then and Lorelai looked at her like she had grown two heads. But then Lorelai smiled slightly.

“I know you’re right mom. But is that what you want? Do you want me and Chris to divorce?” she asked her. She didn’t want to be a disappointment to her mother again. Not when her father was that sick.

“This is not about what I want. This is about what you want.” Emily said and folded her hands in her lap.

-xxxxxx-
Lorelai drove home feeling a lot better. She had finally admitted out loud what she was feeling inside all along, but had pushed back and never acknowledged. Not even to herself.. She never thought her mother would approve any of it, but apparently she understood. All she had to do now was go home and make Chris understand.

When she walked into the house she found Chris with the phone in the hand pacing in the living-room.

“Where have you been? I was worried sick!” he yelled and grabbed her by the shoulders. Lorelai let her purse drop to the floor and looked him in the eyes. So this was her husband, she thought. The man she should love and cherish for the rest of her life. The potential father of her potential future kids. A wave of sympathy came over her for the man in front of her. He really loved her, but he was a damn fool. He was still the sixteen year old boy he had been back then on the balcony when Rory was conceived.

“I was at my parent’s” she told him quietly and saw the doubt in his eyes. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t accept her. He only loved her.

“Sure, because that’s the place where you always go when we fight. Correct me if I am wrong, but the last time I found you at the diner with your ex-boyfriend.” He said and let go of her shoulders to pace some more.

“My ex-fiancé,” she corrected him and sat down on the couch. Chris stopped pacing and stood in front of her.

“Oh yeah right. Sorry I forgot, but it’s not like that matters anymore.” He said the bitterly.

“You’re right. It doesn’t matter. At least not anymore” she said and he misunderstood what she meant. He wasn’t able to read her eyes and never had been.

“No it doesn’t because we are married now. You and I and we will spend the rest of our lives together.” Chris said, appeased somehow.

“Chris..” Lorelai started and he took her hands waiting for a declaration of love and an apology.

“Yeah?” he said and tried to kiss her. But she pulled her hands away and stood up. She looked down at him and couldn’t even really feel sorry for him. Too heavy was the pain in her chest, that reminded her that she had lost Luke, the only man she ever loved, her dream.

“I want you to move out today,” she said.

“But Lore, I …” he started but she interrupted him.

“I don’t love you. Actually I never did. I love Luke and always will and I had to admit that to myself today. I can’t fight with you anymore, I don’t have the strength to fight with you for something which doesn’t mean anything to me anyhow. My father is sick and I lost the man I love. I just… I can’t pretend anymore… I will be gone for the rest of the day. Be gone when I come back tonight.” She told him and left the house while he was still sitting on the couch, not able to take in at once what she had told him.

TBC