First Things First

September

By the time Jess Mariano forces himself to enter the apartment building he's been standing outside, staring it down for almost an hour. It hasn't budged, and he imagines he hasn't either, he's just going in to get something. An extra jacket would be useful. It's unseasonably cold. Or maybe it isn't, maybe he's just feeling it at the prospect of actually sleeping outdoors.

Outside the door to the apartment he stops again. Prepares, plans his movements to be as efficient as possible. In and out. He takes a breath. In and out. He fishes out his keys and opens the door in a jagged motion that stems from him not being able to make up his mind about if he should be quiet or loud. As a result the door strikes the hall stand and any chance of being sneaky about it is out the window. He freezes and loses valuable seconds.

He is about to enter his room, first door on the left, when his mother appears in the doorway to the living room. Her face. Her eyes are shiny, its edges red, her skin pale, almost see-through, spots and freckles seemingly freely wandering its surface. And her expression... Her usual range is distant mirth to apathy to rage, but now it's like she's actually there. And it hurts to see her. He bites down around the pain, glares at her.

"You're back." Her voice is nothing more than a hoarse whisper.

I just gotta get something. The words are on his tongue, but he can't speak for some reason. She stares at him and he can't return the look for long. He makes another attempt to enter his room. He's taller than his mother by now but her moving still feels like an earthquake. He hasn't been within her reach for anything other than screaming matches for a long time and is completely caught off guard by her arms around him, and what happens in him at her touch, what he imagines it feels like inside a baling press, a kind of implosion. He makes an embarrassing sound and is grateful that her already crying drowns it out. He sees himself in the hallway mirror but can't stand it, he hugs her back to hide his face, and disguises it as generosity.

At the same time, a good two hundred miles from there, at The Cheshire Cat Inn, just outside of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Rory Gilmore lies awake.

She's next to her mother who has finally fallen asleep, still without talking to her though. She stares at the flowers on the wall paper, artificial, frozen, and legion. She was pulled from her bed, about a hundred miles away, put in their Jeep, denied a map, her mother going on about an adventure, despite it obviously being an escape. In a way she's grateful to be gone, she has no idea how she's going to be able to face her would-be-won't-be step father again. Her mother wishes she could love him, that's all she could muster in terms of an explanation. And that's the crux, really. She'd stand by her mother through anything, no matter who she had to give up, but it's hard when you're not given rhyme or reasons.

The two of them have been on their own for so long, there's no one that could fit between them or perhaps even with them. They're bound to each other and she's as lost as her mother has to be. This is an escape, they're running, but she doesn't know why. Okay, maybe she does, better than she'd like to. She thinks about last year, about a kiss that had her running too, and about last spring, about three words she couldn't say. She doesn't want to think about that.

She's hungry, and wishes she could sleep. She wishes it wasn't their life but hers, so that she could decide herself when to toss it off. As it is now she's just Alice following the White Rabbit. What if the wall paper isn't frozen, but growing, what it's Wonderland and they're all mad here, maybe the walls really are closing in on them, maybe she'll wake up ensnared, completely entangled. It would be fair, after all, terrifying, but fair. It's interesting, she thinks, swallowing the ache in her chest to feed the one in her tummy, how you can be as close to someone as she is to her mother and still feel so alone sometimes.

But This Is How It Starts

May

It's a Friday, the slow part of the morning and it usually doesn't bother him this much. He prefers the busy hours, it's true, working hard is actually great for not getting stuck in thoughts of... well, being stuck, in every way. Normally he'll just pass the time by reading, but today he can't find the peace of mind for it. Liz has really been rubbing him the wrong way lately. He wants to blame it on her being single again, since she has more time on her hands to bug him with. Generally she's easier to handle when she's in a relationship, but of course then there's the boyfriend to deal with, so it's always something. He usually has no problems blaming Liz for, well, everything, but this time it doesn't fit, now it seems to be coming from him too.

Outside the café people are passing by, some walking with umbrellas up, some running under newspapers, the ones who saw it coming and those who didn't. Gloria, who owns the place is cool, despite being a friend of Liz's, a bit too cheery for him, but who isn't? Besides the paycheck the books are the main draw for him. The walls are covered by wobbly bookshelves filled up with worn and torn paperbacks, all for sale or up for trade. But the usual case is people dropping off boxes and bags of books they've cleared out, so the space is always filled to its maximum capacity.

The place is small, doesn't have the best selection of anything, the interior design is kind of generic, Gloria seems to have the strange ambition of it resembling the main chains without actually being one. The upside of this is that he gets to pick his own music, the downside that he has to wear an apron and a stupid nametag. But the place never pulls in the same crowd as the big franchises or the hip, selective little places, so he rarely has to deal with anyone but regulars who show up for morning coffee or occupy their favorite tables for hours on plain tea. Bad for business, good for his mental health. Sometimes he thinks going here in the morning, opening the place, putting on the coffee, maintaining some level of civility with the customers is what keeps him sane. But it was never meant to be for this long. He's gotten too comfortable with it.

He feels the need for some really angry music, but the table in the corner is taken by one of their more stubborn regulars; A long haired, bespectacled man in his forties who seems to have made it his mission to read every title they have on the premises without having the decency to take even one of them off their hands. Jess sighs and settles for The Jesus and Mary Chain.

More often than not these days he winds up thinking about why he didn't leave the last time him and Liz were in a clinch. Them arguing is a regular occurrence, but not tension building and breaking on an epic scale like that time. He corrects himself: Them arguing was a regular occurence. That was about a year and a half ago, and even if they've snapped at each other since then, it hasn't gotten out of hand. She's apparently on some kind of cleanse: no red meat, no drugs, no anger. She doesn't escalate, she's stiffly chipper and evasive. Being left alone is usually one of his favorite things, and he doesn't want to think about why it feels like this forced ceasefire she's got going on is slowly, quietly driving him nuts. She used to threaten to send him away. Now he thinks it was more of a standing offer. He should have taken her up on it while he had the chance.

The door chimes and he curses silently, while putting on the blank face he uses with customers. It's a girl. She's apparently forgotten her umbrella and stops in the doorway slipping out of her jacket, shaking it and brushing rain drops off with the sleeve of her shirt. She's wearing a uniform from a private school, but he's never seen that particular kind around here and wonders briefly about it. Then she looks up.

He's used to pretty, but those eyes... She smiles at him, and there's an expression on her face, some kind of wild exhilaration that seems gravely misplaced in this place, time. He feels his mouth go slack but quickly adjusts it.

She takes a few steps up to the counter and looks at the menu behind his head. He turns his side to her, to be casual about staring at her. Her hair is wet, her lashes too, some mascara is stuck underneath her eyes, and she sniffles. He hands her a napkin automatically, and she looks at him, smiling again.

"Thanks."

He compensates his beating heart by shrugging. She wipes her face, and gets up on her toes and spies over the counter, throwing the used napkin into the bin next to him.

"Guess I'll have a big cup of coffee," she says, "first thing's first."

He nods and pours her one.

She slides her yellow backpack off of her shoulder and opens it to retrieve her wallet; It is full of books and must weigh a ton for it, there are six or seven, and at least three of them are fiction from what he can tell. Reading for pleasure. He can't help himself but stares, hungry, trying to make out the titles or authors. Bukowski, Austen and, ouch, Rand, but is that Howl stuffed in at the bottom?

He feels her eyes on him and pulls his mouth into an awkward smile, pointing to her backpack.

"That's a great book."

She does a double take and then follows his gaze, before looking back to him, absently handing him the money. He hurries to get her change.

"You take milk?"

She chuckles.

"No. And I'm guessing you mean the Bukowski."

He frowns.

"Don't jump to conclusions. I've read Austen. And Ginsberg. But I didn't want to say 'those books' 'cause then you might think I meant Rand."

She shifts her weight.

"Oh. You're one of those people."

"Sane ones?"

She gasps in faux shock, then sticks out her chin.

"A man is visionary, a woman is crazy."

"Hey, I don't discriminate, if a male author went on like she does I'd call him crazy too, which I didn't call her by the way-"

She shakes her head and stirs her coffee jaggedly. He smirks in defense.

"But yes, I was referring to Bukowski."

She looks at him.

"Okay. Then yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, it is a great book." She tilts her head and smiles sweetly. "But to be honest aren't they all?"

He smiles involuntarily, catches himself, gets a hold of it, clears his throat.

"You read much?"

"I haven't met my match yet."

He chuckles.

"Hold on."

He reaches into the corner behind the counter that holds his belongings, pulls out the stack of books that he keeps there and puts them up on the counter. She smiles. She locks eyes with him and he has to swallow, as well as restrain the smile he gives in response. She reaches into her bag and pulls out her books placing them on the counter and pushing them the few inches to his end. She reaches for his books and pulls them up to her looking through them eagerly. An exchange, an offer. He hesitates, but starts looking through hers also. He holds up Howl.

"Did I mention this is great?"

"It really can't be said enough." She agrees.

He browses the pages, they're folded here and there, but otherwise pristine, she apparently doesn't treat her copies like he does his.

"Haven't read it in a while." He mumbles.

"How come?"

He blinks at the question, it's so random, but honest.

"My-" he starts before he has time to think about it, "-mother's apartment is small and she has a temper, sometimes books go missing under mysterious circumstances." Even as a joke it's thoroughly strange to call Liz his mother, to even speak about her, he never does.

The girl tilts her head.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well."

He sighs, she returns her attention to his stack of books.

"There's actually stuff here that I've yet to read." She says after a few moments.

"Well, you can borrow them." He immediately offers.

What the hell, Jess? Maybe it was a joke, but her eyes widen.

"You can't lend me these." She objects. "They're library books."

"Those haven't seen the inside of a library since '96."'

She obviously covers up indignation, he has to smile.

"Didn't your mother teach you not to steal?" She says, tone light.

"As a matter of fact, no. She did teach me to share, though."

"You don't even know me."

"Call me crazy, taking a chance on a person in a school uniform."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, you think you got me figured out, do you? If you'd met some of my classmates you might think twice about assuming a person in a plaid skirt is Bambi on two legs."

He laughs, it feels strange.

"Hey, you assumed I referred to Bukowski!"

"And I was right."

"And I'm not?"

"That's beside the point. I'm not exactly local."

She finally takes a seat at one of the tall stools by the counter. He grabs a rag and casually follows her, pretending to spot things to clean there.

"Is that so? Where are you from?"

"The uniform's from Hartford, Connecticut."

He smiles at her deflection.

"Wow. And it's-" he glances at his watch. "Are you cutting school?"

"Told you not jump to conclusions." She leans over the counter to give weight to her words. "I could be hell on wheels."

"And I'm sure you are." He responds, trying and failing at containing the purr in his voice.

She leans back in her seat, points at him with a wagging finger.

"And you're one to talk. You're not in school either."

And, just like that he has no problem with controlling himself again. He smiles tightly, familiarly.

"Well, I don't attend school."

She frowns and looks him up and down, apparently trying to assess his age. Her gaze is sharp, he turns his back to it and shrugs.

"I haven't set my foot there for weeks, I think I might've dropped out."

He glances at her just to see her face drop, and he smiles, grimly.

"Don't feel bad. This is fine." He turns back to her, leans on the counter opposite where she's sitting. "And, just an observation, not an assumption: If you did in fact, feel bad for a second, it's the kind of thing Bambi on two legs might do."

She smiles, seemingly a little flustered.

"Fine. You caught me." She holds up her hands, palms out. "I don't usually do this. If I did I might have thought to check the weather report and adjust accordingly." She drags a hand through her still moist hair.

He is genuinely intrigued by now, and wants to keep the conversation going, but he doesn't want to frighten her off.

"I'm Jess."

He reaches his hand across the counter, and she grasps it. Woah.

"I know." She points at his nametag with her free hand, and he sighs internally, nothing's private. "I'm Rory."

She pulls her hand from his grasp. He desperately wants to ask her why she's here but decides to be sneaky about it.

"So, how come you don't usually do this?"

She frowns.

"What do you mean how come? Because school's important. Don't laugh at me!"

He covers his mouth while getting a grip.

"I'm sorry, I just like being right."

"Figures."

"Oh, come on. You do too. You're probably right most of the time-" He starts.

"Don't suck up," she says in a laugh. "Somehow it doesn't suit you."

He smiles quickly.

"-except today." He finishes and stares at her intently, trying to pry the information from her with the power of his mind.

She's serious all at once, bites her bottom lip. Shit. He shrugs and forces an easy smile.

"Hey, maybe it's just one of those days, huh?" He offers.

She nods silently and takes her first sip from her cup.

"This is good." She says.

"It should be, I made it."

He doesn't want to talk about coffee. He suddenly decides The Jesus and Mary Chain's white noise that he enjoyed just a while ago is annoying now, when he's trying to read someone's mind, but turning off the music might actually be too intimate of a gesture. He turns to the CD-player.

"Do you like The Go-Go's?"

She lights up.

"Yeah."

He takes a microsecond to process that she is perfect.

"Hold on."

He puts on Beauty and the Beat. The disc is scratched from being played and he has to skip the first tracks. The regular looks up at the intro of Tonite and glares at Jess, who pointedly ignores it and turns back to her. She smiles and they look at each other for a second in silence.

"I don't know what got into me," she blurts.

He bites back a smile and nods slowly instead.

"I was on my bus and when I got to Hartford, I just got on another bus." She snaps her fingers. "Just like that. I can't really be more specific than that," she shrugs. "I've never actually done anything like this before." She sips her coffee. "Just in my head." She adds quietly.

Something clicks inside him at her words. He's pulled plenty of disappearing acts in his days, but never actually got on a bus. He likes to consider himself adventurous, independent, but here's this girl outta private school besting him in badassery.

"I'm guessing you're a native?" She asks.

"Born and raised, sort of," he mumbles, somewhat embarrassed.

"And," she continues, a bit stiffly. "Did you always want to..." she falls quiet, looking around the place.

"No!" He says sharply. "I'm working to save money."

"For what?"

"To go."

"Where?"

"Away. Don't know where."

"And do what?"

"Don't know that either."

She looks at him for a beat before smiling, and having another sip.

"That's exciting." She says into her coffee mug.

Another click. Is it? Is that why he's going? Or is it just the away-part that matters? She lowers her mug and goes on.

"I'm going too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She confirms. "To Europe with my mom after graduation, and then- I wanna travel."

"You don't really need a fancy degree from private school to do that." He points out, taking the edge off the statement by rearranging the sugar and napkins on the counter.

She shoots out her chin.

"Well, I'm going to college first." There's a pause, and she looks away. "I'm starting Yale in the fall."

He whistles.

"High end."

"My grandparents are thrilled."

"Not you?"

He bites the inside of his cheek, too sharp. But she doesn't seem to mind, she twirls a strand of hair between her fingers and looks distantly at the shelf above the coffee maker containing beans and taste syrups. He looks at her fingers in her hair, and jerks when she speaks.

"Well, yes. It's just... It was going to be Harvard up until recently, and... I don't know, it's silly."

She makes eye contact. He stops fiddling with his rag and takes a step closer.

"Foreign to me? Yes. Silly? I doubt it." He forces a calm smile to hide his eagerness over what she's about to tell him.

She sighs, looks over her shoulder as if spying for someone she knows, this girl must really have a lot of people in her business.

"My grandfather is an alumnus. My mother never went to college. It's like an infected area in their relationship, one of many. And Harvard-"

"Was the alternative which wouldn't drive you mom crazy." He finishes for her.

"Right." She gives him a look, a tiny smile. "And we really aimed for it too. It was a given, my boyfriend-"

She has a boyfriend, of course. He's surprised at his disappointment, a sharp burn, what the heck is going on here?

"He even broke up with me for a while over it." She finishes.

He can barely catch his breath.

"Excuse me?"

There's a pause as she looks at him, a little startled from what he can tell. Her mouth starts moving before that expression has left her face.

"Well, he wondered how we'd make it work after I left and I didn't exactly know how at that point, I just figured it'd work out somehow, but..."

"But?"

He thinks he sounds too harsh, but can't really control his output. He hasn't expressed himself outside hostility and indifference for- how long? He won't think about it, but makes a mental note to acquire a better range. She in turn looks a little helpless, he thinks and forces a small smile to reassure her. She shrugs.

"But that wasn't good enough." She says. "He decided it'd be better breaking up on the spot rather than staying together for as long as possible..." She trails off, takes a gulp from her cup.

He bites his lip and takes a breath, leans across the counter with his voice lowered, to not embarrass her.

"He sounds like a bit of a jerk."

She actually smiles a little, tilts her head.

"My mom thought he wasn't really breaking up as much as trying to get my gears working regarding the whole thing." Her pace quickens, her tone goes light. "He's done it before."

"He's pulled that shit twice?"

"My mom has a pretty high opinion of him."

Jess raises his eyebrows, unimpressed, neither this random guy or a mother's opinion means anything to him. She clearly registers it and continues, somewhat defensively:

"It is rare for her, and he is a good guy, really."

He shakes his head.

He knows it's a risk, girls defending their on again off again-boyfriends are usually a feisty bunch, considering most people judge them pretty harshly for their choices. He smiles at her though, and she returns it.

"I guess we'll have to agree to disagree." She says.

"So be it." He leans back and randomly wipes away some coffee grounds from the counter. "But I think it was time for our first fight anyway." Jeez, get your shit together, Mariano.

But she just laughs.

"I think we can handle it with our solid foundation."

He's relieved, and pours more coffee for her. He can't let it lie though, it's one of his worst traits, he leans closer again, and hands her the mug to soften the blow.

"See, either he broke up with you because he didn't get an answer he liked out of you on the spot or he was blackmailing you to provide one. He might be a good guy, but that's not good behavior."

She squints at him.

"I'm guessing you're an expert on good behavior?"

Ouch. He smirks.

"Only in theory."

She smiles at him again, broadly. A moment passes, and then she suddenly shies away from the eye contact, clearing her throat, and goes on talking.

"Anyway, then my mom figured out I could spend a lot more time at home if I went to Yale- we're tight-"

"I figured."

"-so she sort of accepted it, even grew to like the idea of it, and my grandparents are thrilled, and I..." She falters, looks at him again, and shrugs. "I told you I didn't really know what was bothering me."

She sips her coffee, remaining quiet.

"May I make an observation?" He asks.

She purses her lips.

"Maybe."

"Seems to me you've been practicing good behavior to the point where it's become a personality trait."

"And that's bad?" She mumbles into her coffee mug again.

"Not necessarily." He shrugs. "It certainly beats the alternative." He doesn't use her boyfriend as an example of that, mostly to avoid placing himself in the line of fire.

She lifts her face, straightens her back.

"Learn by doing." She says.

"And today you did something bad." He teases.

"Yeah." She breathes, and that expression she had when she entered the café is back, the one that he thought was misplaced, now he knows where it comes from.

"Any idea why?" The question is casually phrased, but he's starting to feel like he needs to know.

She smiles behind closed lips, turns the cup between her hands, scraping it against the counter's surface. She sighs, then starts speaking.

"This year has been such a mess. My grandpa and my mom almost killed each other over the school thing, so when I actually made the choice I couldn't do it without taking sides." She gestures, her eyes locked somewhere above his head. "And I wasn't even meant to be involved with the student counsel at my current school to begin with, but was roped into it by my so-called friend, for like political reasons-" her pace and volume increases, along with her gesturing, "-but she has a lot of enemies who does their best to sabotage everything we're trying to do, so now, there I am, not even supposed to be there, every week, trying to sort out issues of hem lengths-"

"Well, hem lengths are pretty critical-" He laughs, can't help it.

Her gaze falls to him and she smiles through the upset.

"And it's just school!" She continues. "The last thing in a long list of things. Like, my mom manipulated me into being her partner in a dance marathon, and taking care of a crazy neighbor's lawn and I have two left feet and practically black fingers, and my step mom's friends left me with her when she was giving birth-"

Part of her is venting, and the other part is entertaining, her expression is one of sensationalism, he leans on the counter behind him, arms crossed and listens, absorbing it. She goes on.

"And there's this guy Taylor in my home town, who's always signing me up for his stupid causes without asking and-" she stops to take a well-needed breath, "-it all just highlights this feeling I've had lately."

"What feeling?" He asks, slightly breathless, even without speaking.

She smiles, the corners of her mouth twitching slightly.

"That everybody likes me for the wrong reasons." She nails her eyes to the counter and lowers her voice. "No, not wrong per se, but for… for reasons that have nothing to do with me, who I really am. And today- We were meant to meet up and discuss senior activities, and I don't know. I just couldn't deal."

He nods, unable to produce a simple okay. She raises her face again and smiles, kind of bleakly, at him.

"So…" She starts. "Is the therapy included in the price of a cup of coffee?"

He tries to laugh too, but really, it's just an exhale. It's starting to catch up with him, the fact that nobody has talked to him, directly like this, for weeks. He is scared to think about it. It makes his chest ache.

"I usually talk a lot just, not about stuff that really matters." She adds, eyes back on the counter.

"I usually don't talk much at all." He offers.

She looks up, seems a bit dazed.

"Well." She strokes her now dry but slightly tangled hair behind an ear. "Now you know about me. And my mother, and my grandparents, my boyfriend, my education."

He tears his gaze from her fingers, still behind her ear.

"I don't know that much." He tries, certain of where this is heading.

"Tell me about you."

He's a stranger in his own life. No one fucking knows him. And now this actual stranger, this girl is gonna be the only one. He reminds himself to breathe, to smile. He turns, grabs a rag and starts to needlessly wipe the counter.

"You're not gonna tell me?" She asks, tone demanding.

He looks at her, and stops mid-motion. Her eyes. Her look of him owing her something, like they're in each other's lives now. The words of protest are on his tongue, automatic, dismissive, worn and safe. But he's wrong, she's right, even if it makes no sense. He swallows. He puts the rag down and turns his body to her, meets her eyes and shrugs.

"I don't have that much going on s'all."

I don't have that much going for me, is what he really means. She's going to college, she obviously can put two and two together. But she still chuckles, and the relief lets him breathe again.

"I doubt that." She says.

He gestures around himself, raising his eyebrows, and she laughs. Thank god.

"I live with my mother, who's also my arch nemesis, in a one and a half bedroom apartment." It slips from him, he drops the words, and he laughs a little to break their fall. "I also share this space with a steady stream of losers failing at dating the woman with the lowest standards in the lower east side, and whatever shit they're currently peddling."

Laugh or no laugh he shouldn't be talking about this here, he shouldn't even be thinking about it. What is going on? He feels the resistance inside but the words keep falling from him, he can't hold onto them.

"The place is let off a tenant of a tenant but stray paychecks barely cover the rent, thus half of what I make here goes to keeping the shitty roof over my head."

He chuckles coldly, and clings hard to his tone, that dry, humorous one.

"That is when my darling mother isn't threatening to kick me out-"

He doesn't really know why he says it, it hasn't been true for a while. Liz has threatened to ship him off for years, whenever things between them have gotten tough, sometimes to the father he doesn't know, sometimes to his equally unfamiliar uncle. But last time, a year and a half ago, he yelled that she shouldn't do him any favors, that he'd be fine on his own, and took off. He managed to stay away for a week, but when he finally made his way back, under the pretext of picking up some of his stuff, she wouldn't let him go again and wound up crying on the hallway floor until he agreed to stay. He doesn't know why he says it, maybe it's comfortable in a way. Every time he tries to pick a fight these days she gets the same look on her face that she had that night he came back, and then she deflects, gets out of his way, leaving him with words burning in his throat.

"-and I wind up sleeping on other people's couches."

Or in the occasional girlfriend's bed. He doesn't say that though. He doesn't want her thinking about him like that, it's worrying enough that he's started factoring in girls' living conditions to his decision on whether to go with them or not. He does this because he tries to stay out of Liz's way too, as much as he can, even if it doesn't make him feel better, but being gone still beats having to live with her like this. And in that instant he gets why; Tearing into Liz is one of the only times he ever gets to be honest, verbally and emotionally, and her denying him that satisfaction makes him miserable at a whole new level. It's probably why he's pouring all of his shit over this girl, this stranger. Rory.

It's caught up with him, and he can't ignore it; He hasn't talked to anyone this much for this long for weeks, possibly, probably longer. He's scared to look at her, but forces himself to anyway. Her smile is still there, but it's gotten soft and serious.

"It's not that bad. I'm used to it." He tries.

Not better. He stops talking, but keeps looking at her. She can put two and two together. She's about to step off an edge and fly, he's about to take the same step, but with a very different result. Any day now. He opens his mouth, but the man at the table picks that moment to come for a refill, and when he returns to his place in the corner, Jess has had some time to regain his composure, maybe Rory has too. She clears her throat.

"What about your dad?"

"Never met the man." He smiles firmly, shrugs. "How about yours? You've mentioned your mother enough."

She blushes.

"I feel stupid saying."

"Please don't. I asked 'cause I wanna know."

"He's not around much, but I don't feel right complaining about that at the moment."

He wishes she would. He wants to listen, to hear her out. He's desperate to be alone with her suddenly, to give her his full, unguarded attention, but it's also tied in with his desire to touch her so he can't go fully earnest.

"Feeling guilty that your problems aren't as big and bad as other people's is typical Bambi on two legs behavior."

She laughs, it bursts out of her like a surprise. A sunbeam falls across the room, and the both look up from it. Outside it's stopped raining, gotten lighter. The wind has parted the clouds. He looks at her, her gaze is still at the street outside and the light makes her eyes glow. She directs her eyes to him, and smiles, crookedly.

"Mom raised me on her own, my dad was too young for it, now he's older, but he has a new family." She sighs. "At least I know who he is, where he is."

"You don't have to go all silvery lining on my account. Plenty of misery to go around."

"Well, aren't you a ray of sunshine." She chuckles.

"I am what I am."

He can't stop looking at her. She smiles, drags a finger down the spine of one of his books and follows it with her eyes. He shivers, shifts his weight.

"You like to read." She says.

"Yup. You too."

"Yup. And you're getting out of here."

"Yup."

"Going somewhere."

Going down. He didn't ask for this. He doesn't deserve it. This is the best and worst thing that's ever happened to him.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" She asks, voice full of everything.

He laughs, mainly to get to let something out. She tilts her head at him, eyes attentive. He pulls his hand through his hair and tugs.

"Uhm, I don't know-" He sighs. "-grown, over it, I guess."

"That's not a career."

He ruffles his hair, and lets his hand fall, palm up.

"Do I look like someone bound for a career?" He points at her. "And that's not what you asked, you asked what I wanted to be."

She smiles.

"Fair enough."

"How about you?"

"Christine Amanpour."

He frowns.

"That's not a career either, that's a person. A person that's not you. Why would you wanna be someone else?" Why would this girl want to be anyone but herself?

She looks struck by lightning, pale. He's gone to work like it's just any other day, and found a fun house mirror, they're inverted versions of each other. He'd trade places with her in an instant if it didn't mean her getting stuck with his shitty life, his place in the world.

"Hey."

He reaches for her hand resting on the counter, without thinking about it, and takes it, like he has a right to. His palm folds around it and his fingers slip inside. Wow. She blinks and looks up at him, lower lip falling slightly. Her grip tightens around his fingers.

"You gotta give me your number." The words are like breathing.

She looks away, but doesn't move her hand.

"I can't."

"Then let me give you mine."

She looks back at him, tilts her head.

"It's not about the who gives what to whom, it's the intent."

"Well, don't we decide our intentions?"

She chews on her lip.

"I don't think we can."

They look at each other, and there's awareness in her face now, like she's realized that she's stumbled into a parallel universe, an alternate reality. She pulls her hand away.

"I should-" She starts, sliding off the chair.

No. The response in him makes him go cold, the desperation sinking its teeth in. She's not just some girl, not a stranger, and that is terrifying.

"You hungry?" His tone is impressively even.

There's a gleam in her eyes, and she smiles broadly, suddenly.

"Constantly."

He holds back a sigh of relief, nods, and smiles back at her.

"I'll make you something."

She doesn't ask what or protest. Instead she kicks her bag further in under her chair and slides off it, taking a walk further into the room, inspecting the book shelves, stepping over boxes and bags stacked against them. He has trouble taking his eyes off her and almost cuts himself when he slices the ham; she drags her fingers through her messy hair, and takes off her pull-over, removing the weird little tie. Holy shit. The clouds outside are moving, light goes from obscured to bright and brighter when it mirrors the puddles on the street. She looks up in one of those, eyes bright blue, like a light on their own in the murkiness of the room.

"Bathroom this way?" She asks, pointing.

He nods, and she disappears. Without hesitating, without thinking, he grabs Howl from her book stack, takes a pen and writes his name and number in the margin, right next to Wild Orphan. He knows this book back and forth and has to stop to think that nothing about this is coincidence. He puts the book down again, biting back profanities as he tries to remember exactly how it layed. In the corner of his eye he sees the regular in the corner staring at him. He lets go of the book like it's red hot and returns his attention to the food.

She comes back, and he finishes making her sandwich. She pulls out her wallet, but he glares at her until she puts it away. She eats, and makes her satisfaction known through noises, and nodding her head, smiling through chewing. He's hungry from watching and makes one for himself too, despite thinking that maybe it's not food he needs.

"Y'know my mom says the closest relationship she has with a man might be with the guy running the local diner." She says, mouth full of food.

He snorts, slapping a hand over his mouth to keep the food in, and she freezes, having realized what she's saying.

"'Cause he feeds her." She mumbles, blushing.

He forces the food down, nodding.

"I got that." He says.

She gets redder, and swallows her last bite. She sits still for a while, gulps down the last of her coffee. She looks out the window, then at her wrist watch. He pretends he doesn't see it. She clears her throat.

"I really should get going, this whole thing, it's kinda catching up to me. I'm in New York City." She laughs, breathlessly. "I have to get back, my mom will have a panic attack if she finds out, and I heard that there are these express buses you have to take unless you wanna wind up on the ones making every stop known to man."

She has to go. And he has to let her. But he can't say goodbye, not yet, he tells himself. He leans over and glances at her watch.

"Listen, I get off in like fifteen minutes," he makes eye contact, "if you can wait- let me walk you."

She nods, almost immediately, smiles a little. He hands her a biscotti.

"You can walk me anywhere." She gushes.

Luna is his coworker; a surly punk in her twenties who oversleeps more often than not. Fortunately she shows up on time for once - what is it with this day? She grunts a greeting, puts on an apron and takes her place behind the counter, pulling out a comic book of a weird, alternate variety and starts reading. He puts his stack of books in his space behind the counter and goes to get his jacket. He comes back, and Rory stands waiting, backpack on.

He's about to usher her outside when he sees her copy of Howl behind the counter, at the top of his stack. He freezes. She chuckles.

"You weren't supposed to see that."

He looks at her.

"It was meant as a surprise. Something to remember me by."

He goes cold.

"I can't-"

"Yeah, you can. I'll have the perfect excuse to buy the new edition, or find a cooler, older one on the next book sale I come across. All thanks to you."

His heart sinks. He can't give it back.

"Thank you," he musters. "Let's go."

The sun is out, she has her pull-over back on, but her jacket in the backpack. They walk in silence. He's consumed by disappointment, trying to figure out some way to fix this. He wishes he had paid closer attention to her uniform before she shoved the emblemed parts of it down her backpack. Stilton, Dalton. Shit.

He automatically takes the way of the park, like he does when he needs to calm down. He doesn't even think about it until they reach the arch and she stops. He looks at her and she looks at it, and at fifth stretching out in front of her, shining from sunlight and wet left from the rain. She smiles at it.

"What?" He asks.

"Can we stay a while you think? Gosh, I should've taken notice of the departures."

He takes hold of her wrist and looks at her watch again.

"I got a pretty decent grip on the time tables, it's fine if you wanna take a walk."

He takes off to the left and she follows him into the spring green.

"Why would you know the time tables?" She asks, playful curiosity in her voice, that he can't match.

"It's a thing I do sometimes," he mumbles, "go there, make sure I got the latest version, look at it, learn the times." Think about going, all the places I could go.

He keeps walking and she almost skips beside him. He glances at her, the light in her hair - what do you call that color? - the irises of her eyes shifting between blue and green in the shade. All the time she's smiling.

No wonder she thinks this is fun, she's on an adventure, anything can, and may happen. He just tried minding his own business, keeping his head down, but he's been tackled by an existential crisis in the form of a girl. She's made an unexpected decision, while he's been handed this, this conversation, this day.

His chest hurts, he wants to smoke, but is unsure if he should, pretty sure she's not a smoker. If he smokes will she kiss him? Will she kiss him if he doesn't? He makes the decision and stops, pulling out his pack and offering her a cigarette anyway, with some ceremony. She shakes her head, and wrinkles her nose. Oh well, his chances were slim to begin with. He takes one himself and lights it. They keep walking.

"So, you know I gotta ask about this boyfriend of yours." He starts, and is truthful, he has to know who gets a girl like her. "Another ivy league prospect?"

She laughs.

"No. He's a pretty regular guy actually." She turns around and walks backwards, to face him. "He got into Southern Connecticut State, but he's still deciding."

"New Haven. To be close to you."

"That's not why he applied there!" She objects.

He snorts.

"He is a good guy." She insists.

He stifles a sigh, takes a drag, gives her a look.

"I hope you're right."

She looks away, a bit pink, turns her back and walks beside him again, their arms touching with every step. He keeps them on the outskirts of the park, next to the fence, walking slowly, to make it last.

"What makes someone good, you think?" She asks, eyes to the ground.

He looks at her, trying to figure out why she asks, what she wants. Seems it's him that should have asked the question, but now he gets to answer instead. A good guy.

"Not just following the rules, that's for sure." He mutters.

He falls quiet, realizing he has no idea how to be a good guy. He's never really tried. The regular guy who's with her has broken up with her twice. And now applied to a college in the same city. The whole thing seems insane to him, but maybe the guy has tried to do the right thing, tried to be good in some backwards way, breaking up with her to let her go. And he's hurt her in the process. Maybe there's no such thing as a truly unselfish act when you're in love with someone.

"Maybe you gotta start by being good to yourself?" He sighs, frustrated.

She nods, like she's considering it.

"And is that something you do?" She asks. "Are you good to yourself?"

No, he's not. No denying it. He's hellbent on doing the wrong thing as much as possible, but the only person he has left to do wrong by, is himself. He's been dealt this, without having asked for it, this conversation, this day. He deflects on pure instinct, a hard edge in his voice.

"Are you? Or is all that stuff reserved for the future version of you?"

She stops, and he stops too, afraid to look at her. He clenches his jaws: hellbent on doing the wrong thing. She turns to him, takes a step closer and reaches for his hand. He swallows. She takes the cigarette, burnt down to its filter, from between his fingers, and he looks at her face. She squints at the butt and puts it out against a trash can, dropping it into it. Then she meets his eyes.

"I could probably be better to myself." She nods gently.

It hurts, but he still smiles, tries to fit an apology into his expression.

"Me too."

She smiles also, softly, holding his gaze. He bears it for as long as he can, then he looks at her mouth. All there is, is him wanting to kiss her, it fills his head, his limbs. But it's too big for just one kiss, and more about having her crashing into him, knocking him out of whatever orbit he's in. Words form in him, ring in his ears, and he clenches his jaws around them; Step into me and push, pull, change me, and I wanna change you too, make you mine. Then a wild exhilaration that seems misplaced, he just met her. Oh god. He looks back at her eyes, and it's like she heard him. She blinks.

She takes a step backwards, serious.

"I don't want to ruin this." She mumbles.

"How would that work?" He objects and has to clear his throat to get his voice back into his words. "How could you ruin this?"

"I could make this extraordinary memory into something-"

He interrupts, objects.

"This is happening right now-"

She ignores him.

"-into something I'd try to forget because we decided to get too familiar."

Too familiar. He's pretty sure they passed that mark a while ago. He presses his lips together. He knows he has it in him to kiss her anyway, to play rough and take his chances, her relationship to this obviously random guy means nothing to him. Only, As insane as it is, she means something to him. No one fucking knows him. He can't let her walk away and feel bad about what's happened. That's how he would definitely ruin this for himself. He takes a step back, and a slow breath, nods, smiles behind tight lips.

"Come on." He says. "We should get going."

They pick up their pace and pass under the archway, heading north. Under any other circumstances he would have taken the subway, but now? No way. She probably walked here anyway.

After a few blocks she stops to get a soda, he buys some chewing gum, self conscious about the cigarette. They haven't spoken since the park, and he wants to, but can't figure out what to say, he doesn't want to bullshit her, he wants to keep it real. She helps him out, picks up their conversation again after a few sips from her coke-bottle.

"You know," she starts, "you shouldn't feel bad about not being happy with your life right now." Another couple of steps. "It'll change, get better."

His instinct is to mock her, and that's crap. He smiles instead.

"You know this for a fact?"

She chuckles.

"I have a feeling about you. You'll be fine."

He feels ridiculous leaning into it, listening, soaking it up, but there it is. It's all he has.

"Not just fine, but great." She goes on.

"What you have is a guess." He mumbles.

She waves her finger at him.

"A guy like you just doesn't fall off the edge of the earth."

He raises his eyebrows, smiles to hide the fact that that was his exact thought earlier.

"No?"

She turns her face to him, earnest.

"I don't want you to. So please don't."

"What difference will it make when you won't even take my number?" He starts, forcing humor into his voice to not make it an accusation. "You'll have no way of knowing."

She smiles, sunly, gestures to accentuate her words.

"Just say you won't, and I'll know that you're out there somewhere doing okay, doing great, thinking about how right I was about you."

He laughs. He thought he'd grown out of any romantic notions, but apparently not, he hates that she makes sense. It's a dance, a game, they're playing it together. It's just words, but they'll make a difference to her, and maybe to him too.

"Fine. I won't." He offers.

"You'll make something good of what you're given, I know it."

"And all signs point to you having a very charmed life." He responds.

Her eyes go absent, but the smile stays on.

"They do, don't they?"

"You doubt it?"

She shrugs, and glances at him.

"I just want it to be mine."

He holds her gaze.

"It will be. Worst case scenario you'll have to misbehave a little bit. Do something wrong, do something a little bit bad."

She smiles, a little surprised he thinks. Then she takes his hand, and his heart stops while his body keeps moving, legs walking. Her hand is warm, its grip firm. No girl he ever went with would think to hold his hand. For several moments he thinks of nothing but how it feels to be held onto, trying to record this moment, this feeling, so he'll be able to relive it when he needs to. They walk like that for a couple of blocks.

"You believe in fate?" She asks, tone more serious.

"No." He says.

"Me neither," she says. "At least until today."

He looks at her helplessly. He gets where she's coming from, having behaved badly, done something she's never done before and walked right into this. What are the odds? But he just went to work, as always, and she just happened to come there. It's the best and worst thing that's ever happened to him, but it doesn't make it any less random.

"I think we'll see each other again," she says, and looks sure of it. "One way or another."

He can't answer with words, so he just squeezes her hand and walks on quietly.

They reach the bus station about ten minutes later and he accompanies her as she buys a ticket, scopes out the dock and heads there with her. There's a roof overhead, the stops zig-zagging along the space, the ground covered in oil stains, chewed gum and cigarette butts. He makes a point out of spitting his gum into a trash can.

They stand next to each other silently, waiting for the bus to come in. His heartbeat hurts, every second bringing them closer to part ways. She looks lost in thoughts and chews on her lower lip. For a moment he loves her. Another misplaced feeling, he just met her, and yet… The words are ridiculous and true, he remembers the feeling from looking at his mother as a baby. And just like then it's nothing but longing. The only shape of it he's ever known. He still can't stop looking at her, because any minute it'll be too late.

The bus rolls in, people line up. Fuck it.

He pushes himself away from the wall they've been leaning on, reaches for her arm.

"Wait." He takes a breath. "We gotta get real."

She swallows, but remains still, listening.

"I don't believe in fate, I believe once you leave here I'm never gonna see you again." He shakes his head. "You've made your case and I gotta respect it even if I think that you're wrong."

He weighs his last words, and takes a step placing himself in front of her. He has to brace himself to be straight like this, he so rarely is.

"How would you feel getting on that bus without having kissed me?"

Her eyes widen, her mouth twitches, like she can't decide what to do with it. He doesn't even know why he went with this, he wants her number, for their story to be able to continue, but the bus is here and the discussion will take too long. He goes on.

"'Cause i gotta tell ya, I'd feel really bad about it."

Her eyes fall to his mouth, and she takes a breath. He's out of acceptable words. She makes eye contact and he steps closer, reaching to touch her hair. She opens her mouth and he halts, expecting her protest. But she leans into his touch instead, eyes scurrying his face. He strokes his hand down her hair, twisting a lock between his fingers and watching it, a bit dazed.

She doesn't move, doesn't step away, he feels her breath on his face but can't look at her or he'll lose it. In the next instant she puts her lips to his. He has no way of processing the feeling, it's too much, too good. She has her eyes firmly closed, like she's going on a roller coaster ride she's been talked into. But he keeps his open, placing his hands on her neck under her hair to hold her in place, before opening his mouth. Holy shit. She kisses like she talks and he has trouble keeping it together.

She pulls back, taking a sharp breath and looking at him like a deer in headlight, Bambi on two legs, in a plaid skirt, but now he has the momentum he needs. He can't let it pass, is all too willing to lead if that's what's needed. So he doesn't let go, just gives her a determined look and keeps kissing her. He takes another step and any space between them is completely gone. He leans her against the wall. She makes a little sound, a little plea, a little purr, and he's cold and hot.

Then she pushes back into it and kisses him hungrily, mouth open, like she means it, meant to, like it can go anywhere. Her hands sneak around his waist and up his back and he's gone, lost. He has to stop or he won't.

He pulls back and breathes, looks at her. She leans her head on the wall behind her, eyes half closed, mouth half open, lips, cheeks rosy. More. He swallows and kisses her again. It's easy this time, going deep, sinking. She's pliable, so sweetly open. Holy shit, no, not shit, just holy, fucking holy.

"Express bus to Hartford, Providence, Boston, departing at dock 35."

She whimpers at the sound of the voice over the speakers, and turns her body against his. He lets her go, and she steps sideways, away from her place between him and the wall. Her eyes are wide and wild, her chest rising and falling in sync with his. She turns and takes a few steps toward the bus.

"Rory!" His voice is strange to him, desperate.

She stops and turns to him, eyes shiny. Don't go. He turns his palms up, shakes his head, shaping his lips around her name again. He can't do anything else, can't ask her to stay, it's too absurd, too real. She shakes her head too, pressing her lips, pink from the kisses, together and climbs the steps onto the vehicle. She can't do anything else.

He follows the shade, shape of her with his eyes as she boards, and then walks along with her as she searches for somewhere to sit. She takes a seat by the window, he stops, looks. For a moment she stares at the seat ahead of her, then she turns her head, her eyes to him. It's all there. Holy.

He smiles at her, and it shocks him. He really feels like crying, but here he is smiling at her. She smiles back, eyes glittering, and it makes him weak at the knees. They smile at each other, while the bus pulls away, they can't do anything else. He follows the vehicle with his eyes for as long as he can before losing sight of it.

He shouldn't have kissed her. Because now he can't imagine living without having done that. And she's gone and he'll never do it again. He doesn't believe in fate. You can't do that in New York City. He'll never see her again.

He leaves the bus station and walks slowly in the general direction of Liz's apartment, taking the way back around the park. He sits on a bench. He smokes the rest of his cigarettes. It's getting dark.

He didn't ask for this. He's been given this, this conversation, this day, without having to ask for it. It's a gift, he thinks, despite being in pain. There's someone like her out there. Someone who knows him.

It's a Friday, he's in a rut, and it hadn't really bothered him so far, not enough to do something about it. But now, something has to change, and he has to change it. He can't keep being someone to send away, someone left at stations, he has to become a contender if he ever meets anyone he wants like that again.