A/N: Dedicated to every faithful reviewer. It's amazing to know there are a few people who always review my stuff. They are the ones who always bring my muse back and make it worth a few less hours of sleep. They are the ones who keep me writing and many times put a smile on my face. I'm very thankful for that.
The first 'pick up' line is by an unknown author and at least where I live every girl heard that along with, "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" and some other just as cheesy. The poem is a sonnet by Luís de Camões, as I say in the story.
"How much do you love me?" she asks looking deep into his eyes.
"Rory…" he calls her name lightly, not wanting to be rude but trying to call her attention to the fact you do make this kind of question while one is literally inside the other.
She puts a hand to his shoulder forcing his movements to slow down and the face he makes isn't a happy one. Still, he won't fight with her. Who knows how long she could refuse to have sex with him for something as stupid as a few romantic lines during 'love making'.
"I want to know," she tells him seriously because she is serious. No matter what is the answer she wants to know. She suspects he will probably say 'a lot' or 'with all my heart' thinking that is what she wants to hear even if it is not true, could not be true. How one can love with all his heart when one doesn't know what love means?
However his answer blows her off. She really never saw it coming and for a moment she wonders who this person on top of her is. This person who should know her better than anyone and that she has been in a relationship with for the last two years give or take.
His lips brush her ear in an attempt to be as seductive as he can, "Take every single star from the sky and multiply them to every single drop from the ocean," he tells her in a husky voice, "that's how much I love you."
She freezes. What is she doing in bed with a guy that quotes stupid teenage lines to her? Who can't even give her a straight honest answer to a fairly simple question?
She shakes her head and pushes him away.
"Come on Rory, what are you doing?"
She grabs her panties from where they lie on the floor and put them on, "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"You're living cuz you didn't like my answer? Please!" he sits on the bed annoyed; his erection painfully throbbing while his girlfriend buttons up her blouse. She doesn't answer him and he doesn't like being ignored. He gets mad for no particular reason – maybe it had something to do with his hard on combined with the lack of release – and with a mocking smirk he raises an eyebrow, "Okay, so where are you going, huh? Who is going to take you in now, after all you've done? Your grandparents that are completely disappointed on you since you dropped out of Yale? Maybe Lorelai? I mean, you went behind her back and got yourself into the society she always sacrificed herself to keep you away from but cares? How about Lane or Paris? They are your best friends after all, right? Even if you barely talk to them nowadays and left them hanging when they needed you most. Of course they will just stop their lives to come to your rescue." He pauses looking at her pathetic form as she is faced with her sins before adding, "Besides me, who is going to put up with your shit Rory? Huh? Who is going to tell you that you're loved if not me?"
The cruelty of his words hit her hard but she tries not to show. And for once she is brave; she does the right thing even if it means never hearing those three words again. "I'm not coming back to get these stuff. I don't want anything that reminds me of my life while I was with you."
x-x-x
She knocks on the plain door nervously and steps back. She bites her lip and knocks on the door again, too anxious to just stand there waiting. It takes a couple of minutes but the door opens slowly, the lock still on. A couple of ferocious eyes meet her baby blue ones and the door closes for a moment as she hears someone unlocking it before it is opened again.
"It's three in the morning, who died?" he asks, his voice hoarse with sleep.
"No one died," she answers nervously, shifting her weight from one foot to another.
"Then you better have a hell of a good reason to be knocking on my door in the middle of the night," he warns, his eyes only half opened, the dim lights in the corridor giving them a more intimate atmosphere.
She nods unsure, "You remember a few years ago when you said you loved me?"
He groans and turns to the side, hitting his head against the doorway, "Oh, God, no!"
She takes that as a yes. "Did you really love me?"
He looks at her as if she is just a dumb school girl, "Do you like to read?" he asks making the parallel.
She bites the inside of he cheek, "I used to, not anymore."
He shrugs with a shoulder, "Yeah, well, that's life."
"How much did you love me?"
His eyes are more focused now and his body a little tense. He didn't go to bed expecting an ex-girlfriend knocking on his door in the middle of the night, questioning his love for her years ago. And the relevancy of it all still isn't clear to him. He really isn't in the mood to expose his heart in a windy chilly night just so she can have a good laugh.
"Why does it matter?"
"I just want to know… come on, just entertain me."
"I'm not your fool."
"I didn't mean…" she sighs. "Please?"
"Too much for my own good," he answers sincerely.
However, she is not sure if he knows what he is talking about. For all she knows he has never been burnt by love; he just felt lust, desire and possession towards her. She had been wrong; he wasn't any better than Logan.
She shakes her head taking a step back. "You never felt anything for me. Everyone was right; you were just the town hoodlum trying to get into my panties. You never cared about me. You've never known what love means."
And she wishes she is right because if he does know what love means, then she was the one who broke his heart and not the other way around. And she just can't stand that thought.
He wants to punch something; to go back in time and ignore the knocking on the door; to press her against the wall and get his way with her. Anything but prove her wrong about this; show his vulnerability. But he knows that is exactly what he is going to do. He looks to the side avoiding her eyes at all costs and sighs.
"Once I found a poem that described how I felt, it's by Camões," he says absently stepping closer to her and whispering in her hair, pretending he isn't really reciting it to her because that would probably just break his heart again. "Love is a fire that burns unseen, a wound that aches yet isn't felt, an always discontent contentment, a pain that rages without hurting. A longing for nothing but to long, a loneliness in the midst of people, a never feeling pleased when pleased, a passion that gains when lost in thought. It's being enslaved of your own free will; it's counting your defeat a victory; it's staying loyal to your killer. But if it's so self-contradictory, how can Love, when Love chooses, bring passion into the human heart?"
Her heart races in her chest. "Why you never…"
"I didn't know what it was, I had never… And to put it into words…" he sighs. "You just never wanted to know, and to tell you the truth I'm glad cuz you didn't deserve to know."
"He told me he loved me," she says, not to be cruel but to be honest.
"Good for you."
She shakes her head. "It's not true. He has never loved anything."
"Tough luck, but not my problem."
"He said no one would ever love me. After all I've done…he told me he was the only one who could accept me."
"And now you're trying to find out if it's true. What am I, number three? You could have been kind enough to come over on working hours at least…"
"I didn't care. I know my mom will always love me even if she also hates me. And I just didn't care about anyone else. I could only wonder if you could ever love me even after all the things I've put you through."
He stops and stares at her. "You have no fucking right to come here and throw this shit on me! I don't care what is…"
"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry," she cuts him off. "I know I shouldn't have… God, I'm so stupid. Of course you… Damn it!" she keeps murmuring half sentences, making no sense as she lets the tears fall to the ground. With her back against the wall she slides down to the floor sobbing.
He looks at this girl who once had his heart and now has nothing at all. "I don't know, I just- don't know."
She nods silently.
"What are you going to do?"
"I don't know," she says staring at a blank spot on the wall in front of her.
"You can't drive back to New Heaven like this, you'll get yourself killed. I can call Logan and ask him to pick you up if you want. Or maybe a cab," he offers.
"I told Logan I won't see him again. I have nowhere to go," she shakes her head. "Do you know any hotels around here? I'm just so…tired."
He looked at her broken form on his hallway floor and sighed. He bends down picking her up and bringing her to his apartment.
"Why are you doing this?" she asks quietly as the tears make their way down the corners of her eyes.
"Remember how you loved books?" She nods with a sad smile. "Well, I think you can go back to liking them. That even though you stopped reading them for a while you never really stopped liking them. I think it's already a part of you," he shrugs.
She leans back on the couch getting comfortable and reaches for her purse that is by the couch. Opening it she pulls a very old and worn copy of 'Howl' and hands it to him.
"You said you didn't like reading anymore."
"I lied?"
He nods, "Maybe I lied too. Good night, Rory." He turns to go to his room but before he reaches the door he hears her weak voice, "Good night... Dodger."