Run

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. Not even the computer I wrote it on.

Summary: Prequel to Believe. Rory POV.

Feedback: Reviews are fun. Like a barrel of monkeys. Why anyone would put monkeys in a barrel…I don't know, but it's supposedly a lot of fun.

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She freezes as soon as the door closes behind her.

She's running.

She thinks the guilt hurts more than anything she's ever felt. But the guilt quickly turns to sadness when she realizes one of them is always running. And that hurts more.

When did you learn to run like that?

The girl who cried herself to sleep the night she found out he left wants to go back inside and tell him she learned it from him. That she watched him run away so many times she knows the exact steps to thoroughly shatter someone's heart.

The girl she is now wants to cry until she's numb because she knows she hasn't stopped running since she became this girl.

And she knows that's not his fault.

But she wants him to hurt like she does. So she gets in her car and drives away, knowing he'll watch her until she's out of sight and maybe then some. This, she knows, is step two. Right after drop a huge bomb on your intended victim, i.e. tell them you love them, or ask them to run away with you.

The minute she sees the Welcome to Connecticut sign, the need to hurt him disappears.

And all that's left is the dull ache inside her. The thought that it's been there since the moment she told her mother that she hated her makes her want to cry.

She stops at a red light and debates whether to go straight to Stars Hollow or to turn right to New Haven.

Okay, so I just go straight and we'll be back at Luke's.

Good sense of direction.

Of course, I could turn right and then we'd just be driving around in circles for awhile.

She still hasn't decided when the light turns green, but the car behind her starts honking and she turns right.

As soon as she turns she knows the decision had been made since before she even stopped. Because she's always known what would happen if they had gone straight. They would have not studied until Luke came home. And then she would have left. Things would have been the same the next day. He wouldn't have left. She wouldn't have skipped school to visit him in New York. She wouldn't have missed her mother's graduation. He wouldn't have gone to Sookie and Jackson's wedding. She wouldn't have kissed him. She wouldn't have run.

She also knows she's going to do it again. Run.

Because when she stops her car outside of the apartment building she can't quite call home, she realizes she turned right for a reason.

And suddenly running doesn't hurt anymore. Because she's done running away.

The ache starts to disappear.

She knows what she's going to do.

She just hopes she has enough trunk space to do it in one trip.

This is step one of the other thing he taught her.

How to stop running.