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Grief is an endless sea you can swim or drown in.
You can sit by it some days, listen to waves rushing and seagulls crying, breathe in the salt air. Or you can leave the shore, go inland, ignore it for a while. But if you go far enough, you’ll always be back on another shore.
Kierkegaard believed that when faced with the inevitability of death, we long for finding an eternal to replace the endless sea of despair inside us. That we have this mystical drive, trying to find who we truly are in the face of loss and finiteness.
To be clear, he intended for his readers to find a Christian heaven as their eternity, just as he did. Besides her decidedly not-Christian identity, Paris Geller only believed that all this was total and utter bullshit.
For one, she didn’t feel a sea at all. She didn’t swim, or sit, or God forbid (ill choice of words, she knew) drown in anything but paperwork and anger.
The smell of leather had settled in her nose as a permanent guest, just like she settled in this armchair, this study, seemingly permanently.
How could the family of a brilliant man like Asher Fleming solely consist of the most simple-minded, annoying individuals she had ever encountered? She knew people's intellect depended on genetic and environmental factors both, but in the case of this great man, the environment had to have been working over-time for the sixty-one years since his birth.
So, ever since his sudden passing, Paris had put herself in charge of his last honors in this life. She sorted through his whole personal library, organised a funeral, a wake, settled inheritance squabbles among the relatives. And she was starting to get so sick of it all.
She wasn't even sure if she was grieving at all.
Terrence, her coach, told her it was normal not to feel sad right away. That being overwhelmed usually came first, dealing with technicalities, realizing what had happened, before sadness even had space to step in. The five stages of grief. Denial came first.
But Paris didn’t deny anything. She was acutely aware of the professor’s death. She didn’t feel overwhelmed except by the stupidity surrounding her. She didn’t need time to process his death, but what she needed time for was to find out why she didn’t.
When Terrence’s jabbering turned from unwelcome into platitudes straight out of a Women’s Health magazine, she decided she needed another person who knew what they were talking about. Someone with the emotional intelligence of a functioning human being, instead of a confused mind like her own.
“Hello?”
This wasn’t Rory’s voice.
“Who is this?”
“Who are you? You called me.”
“Did you steal Rory’s phone? Did she get a new number? I swear if you stole her phone, I will report you to the police, or no wait, I’ll find you myself. That girl needs her damn phone, she’s barely ever off it.”
“Rory’s phone? No, you called my phone. This is Lane.”
Paris fell silent. Her eyes widened. She lifted her cell off her ear, and eyed the tiny display. It wasn’t Rory’s number, indeed.
“How did I get your number?”
“Paris?”
“Obviously.”
The line was suspiciously silent. She thought the connection had been severed, so she looked at the cell again, but she was still in line.
“You’re wasting my minutes here.”
“I put it in your phone,” Lane said hesitantly, “when I lived at your dorm for a while, you know? In case you needed me to get some coffee or something.”
Paris felt a rush of instinctive possessive anger asking for her attention, but what was more curious was that she didn’t want to respond to it. She learned to control her anger with Terrence, learned progressive muscle relaxation, breathing techniques. But usually, she didn’t want to use them, suppressed the anger for the sake of not offending any idiots who could potentially enforce negative consequences of her behavior unto her, not because she wanted to. She didn’t want to be angry now, instead, she felt curiosity tickle her stomach.
“Oh,” was all that escaped her. How long had it been since Lane left their dorm? They were sophomores now, and the movers would be carrying her furniture into the two-bedroom dorm she shared with Rory as they spoke.
“I’m sorry if you’re angry. I didn’t mean to just take your phone without asking.”
“You shouldn’t.” A firm tone, only because she didn’t know how else to respond.
“You wanted to talk to Rory? She’s in Europe right now.”
“Right,” Paris touched her forehead. She had heard. She even found a postcard among the mail a few days ago. “Guess I’m actually lucky that I didn’t dial her number overseas.”
Lane chuckled, a single release of breath.
They were silent, both of them. For some reason, this was awkward. She’d never talked to Lane alone like this. Lane ushered hasted greetings not directed to her phone, and Paris could hear dishes clank in the background.
“You’re working,” she stated, “at that tiny diner, right?”
Lane sighed. “Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll leave you alone before you burn some fries or something.”
“Wait.”
Paris was startled. Curiosity continued to tickle her insides.
“What did you want from Rory?”
“Why do you want to know?”
A pause. “She’s gone, and so is all the gossip. I’m bored. The guys aren’t fun to talk to.”
“I don’t think I’m one to gossip, either.”
“Try me.”
Paris grunted, shifted in her armchair. The stupid formal jacket scratched her elbows like steel wool.
“Please?” A pleading tone.
59 minutes left this month. Plenty of calls to the morgue and the florist left. And she was still itching to talk to Rory, listen to her goody two-shoes advice in her hey look, i’m a nice considerate girl voice.
But maybe a friend of Rory’s, a childhood friend even, would be a little like the original. They probably talked about stuff like this all the time. Suddenly, Paris wondered what it was like to have a friend who’s known so many versions and ages of you and still stuck with your bullshit.
Paris hesitated, played with the arm of her jacket. This was embarrassing. No one but Rory would understand the relationship she had with Asher. She knew everyone judged her, thought her crazy. They’ve always done that, but she’s never felt a shame so deep confronted with her peers.
And somehow, it felt weird telling Lane this. She didn’t want to talk about her former now deceased lover. Or former now deceased lover. It felt wrong, telling her this.
So she started with something more vague, but not too far astray from the topic. “Do you know what shame feels like?”
Lane laughed. Not in a vicious, or even an amused way. Her voice seemed surprised, and so sure of herself at the same time. “I was practically raised on shame.”
Paris knew her mother was the reason she stayed in their dorm for so long. She just didn’t know much about the details. Rory had sometimes mentioned Lane’s crazy elaborate plans in the past, to avoid her mother, talked about how she was seeing her band practicing in the Gilmore garage. But she’d never talked to Lane about this, obviously.
Paris searched her memories for what she remembered of last year, while she was busy playing hide and seek with Asher. At the thought of Lane and in an attempt to explain her curiosity, the memory of one evening jumped at the forefront of her consciousness. Paris, all her roommates and Lane were watching the news huddled together on the couch, but as soon as the evening entertainment went on, Janet and Tana retired to their room, leaving Rory, Lane and Paris on their own. A commercial blasted and when Paris reached for the remote and turned the volume down, Rory got up from next to Lane to get a soda from the mini-fridge. Paris was crouched on the very edge of the sofa, and since their roommates left, plenty of space was open next to Lane. Paris leaned back from her reach, brushing Lane’s legs with her own as they had been touching the whole time. She expected her to move, especially while Rory was still up, make some space between them. Lane didn’t budge. She was staring incessantly at an ad for Wrigley’s extra gum, as if the movie was already on.
Any time Paris entered the room and found Lane watching their TV, she’d always seen her skip ads with such haste she might as well have accidentally opened the midnight porn channel. But that night, she was just staring ahead while Paris was watching her, frowning until they both paid attention to the returning Rory. Only when Rory sat down ways away from Lane on the other end of the couch, Lane suddenly budged, ever so slowly moving away from Paris without sparing her a single glance. Paris felt as though she’d been left alone in the cold at night. But she never stopped to wonder why.
Now, she felt an itch in her stomach akin to what she experienced back then. A twinge of nervousness, anticipating the cold feeling, not at the loss of the small warmth of a leg, but at the cutting of a telephone line, the monotonous beep beep beep when someone hung up on you, and you were suddenly back in a room alone.
A study, cold and barren, despite the warm interior, the abundance of books and knowledge and life that came and thought before her. Paris didn’t want to be surrounded by the dead things she usually so worshipped right now, didn’t want to wallow in her confusing lack of feelings for the professor, tell family off that wasn’t her own (although that was easier than her own could ever be). She felt a sense of loss now, and it was greater at the thought of hanging up a damn phone than going to a full-fledged funeral. A recurring thought: Rory would know what’s up with her. Rory could always figure it out, know what those stupid flights of unease inside her were caused by, had a name for every unwanted sensation coursing through her veins, making her blood boil with the one thing she could identify, the anger of sharing a space with other feelings.
But Rory wasn’t here. Lane was. And Paris didn’t want her to go. Okay. She could work with that.
“Paris? You still there?”
“I thought you had your minutes. If you want to spend them in silence, far be it from me to judge, but I got limited breaks.”
“Can you come to New Haven?” she heard herself ask.
Now Lane was silent.
“Uh,” she stammered. “Why?”
“Well, I need Rory and since Rory is not here, I figured her best friend might do as well.”
“Flattering.”
“I’ll pay the cab.”
She could almost hear Lane considering. “I could leave at seven, after my shift is over.”
“Perfect.”
When she barged through their front door at six thirty that night, Lane’s rushing and running managed to make Brian and Zack pause their game in irritation, a feat formerly thought impossible.
She headed to her room, and in her haste, didn’t close the door behind her as she started rummaging through her closet and throwing pieces of her clothing on her bed one by one. Her collection had improved vastly since she no longer had to squeeze every piece of un-Christian fabric in the space between her floorboards at home. Thanks to flea markets, her own creativity and the occasional assistance of Lorelai’s seamstress abilities, she’d managed to assort a collection of clothes that made her feel like herself, both on-stage and off. It was amazing how her mother’s lifelong banning of any kind of fashionable clothing turned Lane towards a genuine interest in how she looked now. Exploring herself through her style was fun, and it helped the whole coolness factor of being in a band even more.
Tonight, this new-found interest in looking any good turned out to be a source of genuine anxiety.
“Uh, Lane?”
She turned snappily to the blonde Zack leaning on her door frame, Brian half-hidden behind his back, eyebrows raised. They actually abandoned their game.
“Can’t talk, got places to be.” She tended towards two pairs of pants she’d thrown on her sheets, a black ripped jeans and some tights paired with her favorite jean hot pant. She opted for the latter, comfortable and confident would be good.
Zack and Brian exchanged looks. “Where you goin’?”
“New Haven,” she said and pulled out a meshed top from her closet.
“But Rory’s in Europe.”
“Yeah, I know. I told you that.” She thought she’d explode if she heard the words Rory and Europe paired together in a sentence one more time today. Lane reached for some hair clips on her vanity, and smudged a faint red lipstick across her lips in front of the standing mirror.
“You’re not moving there again, are you?” Brian asked.
“If you want us to turn the game down after eleven, we can totally manage. On weekdays. But that’s what I bought those ear plugs for on your nightstand.” Zack added.
Lane rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not moving, I’m visiting a friend.”
She could practically hear a sigh of relief from the way their tense shoulders dropped.
“But Rory’s in—” Zack started again.
“Privacy!” She stomped towards the door, the approach scaring both of them away from the frame. The door fell shut, and she started changing her clothes.
When the cab honked outside and Lane rushed to catch it, she could swear she’d never seen Zack’s face look so forlorn.
After Dave, she’d never dated. The missing him was still ingrained deeply in her bones, and it ached anytime she thought of another potential boy. After him, no one ever seemed to compare as well. Who else would get her like Dave? Who else would spend sleepless nights studying the bible to convince her mother to take her to prom? The answer was, no one would. Boys were disappointing like that. Most of them that she’d met didn’t even use half their brain. Especially the boys of Stars Hollow.
The cab ride was long enough to let the nervousness rage freely. She leaned against the window in the backseat, one side of the pair of headphones pushed off her ear, in case the driver started talking. Morrissey wailed into her other ear, in hopes of calming her nerves with a high dose of classic Smiths melancholia. It only worked moderately.
She could have given in to the other side of her heart, then. The boys didn’t work out, so be it. Lane knew the way she looked at some girl classmates wasn’t just friendly when she tried to ask Rory about it in middle school. Lane remembered asking if she didn’t think the head cheerleader was just too pretty to be true a total number of three times until she gave up to the steady response of run-down shoulder shrugs and you’re pretty too, don’t be jealous’s. She appreciated her friend’s support, but gained something to ponder about for years to come.
Something to ponder, and to fear. It was temporarily lifted when she realized she actually had feelings for Dave, a boy, hallelujah. He wasn’t Korean and he wasn’t Christian per se, so her mother would still disapprove but at least a male he was, which was one major sin less to handle.
When Dave left, she was convinced she was cured. She’d loved a boy once, so who said she couldn’t fall for another? It scared the literal hell out of her then, when despite all her bundled brusque whirlwind of a force, she couldn’t stop looking at Paris Geller since she met her. Lane never mentioned it to Rory, or to anyone at that. She knew they’d all think her absolutely crazy, even if they knew about her interest in the same sex. Which they too, did not know about.
Paris was, like middle school Lane would have put it, too pretty to be true. More often than she’d like to admit, Lane wished she could touch her golden hair, brush it for her, put a strand out of her face when it fell out an up-do while studying. Lane made sure she was always out of their room when Paris was changing, learned her schedule to a t, afraid she couldn’t control her gaze, that someone would notice the blushing, most of all.
The Paris everyone knew was rude and calculatedly evil at times, casually cruel at others. She hurt the people around her like there was no tomorrow, like she was an island floating along, never needing anybody, no connection at all. But Lane had also seen Paris be loyal to Rory like only Lorelai or herself ever were. She was passionate and relentless with her ideals, of which she had plenty, and she was never afraid to fight when it mattered to her. And then there were the times she’d heard her talk on the phone to her Portuguese nanny with a voice so genuinely loving, she wondered if this was what real family sounded like. When Lane sneakily asked Rory about Paris’ mother, she dodged the question. And that was the last drop that Lane’s brain needed to short-circuit.
Paris teared the startled driver’s door open and extended a stack of dollar bills before Lane even had the chance to stash her headphones back into her backpack. Or even before all four wheels of the car came to a full halt. Lane swallowed hard, trying to gulp down everything that sprinted through her mind in circles in record-time during the drive.
Before Lane could do it herself too, the car door next to her opened, and Paris was crossing her arms next to it. “This ride should have taken at least twenty minutes less, which route did this moron take? I swear there isn’t one trusty cab company in this country anymore, they will all run scams on those poor small-town souls who don’t know their way around their own state.”
“Hello to you too, Paris.” Lane sighed and closed the zipper of her backpack before swinging it back and climbing out the backseat. The driver looked sour, she saw in the rear mirror as she got out. Of course Paris wouldn’t wait to complain until he was out of hearing range.
When she slammed the car door, the wheels spat dust in their faces as the driver was accelerating fast, probably to get away from them.
They were standing in the dorm courtyard, surrounded by a cloud of dust, five feet apart. Paris rolled her eyes after the cab and Lane made a mental note to clean her glasses upon entering the dorm. When the dust was cleared by the cold night wind, Lane tried to get a better look at the woman standing next to her.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Paris’ features were all swallowed by black. Not in the cool, goth girl kind of way. A pencil skirt, tight blazer and what seemed to be actual pearls around her neck made her look thirty years older.
Paris finally loosened her crossed arms, and started walking towards the building, Lane following her close by. She tried to study her face for anything other than the signature annoyance, and found contemplation, the look she usually had hunched over a particularly difficult essay.
“My boyfriend died.”
“Oh.” The sound just escaped Lane without thinking, her voice high-pitched toward the end, almost like a question, more like the utter confusion she was feeling. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was his time, I suppose.”
“Still the professor, right?” Lane asked carefully, just to confirm.
Paris rolled her eyes. “Yes, it was Asher. I didn’t make a habit of being a serial old man dater, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Sorry, I just wanted to make sure.”
They entered their new dorm, everything fully unknown to Lane. She knew they were moving this semester from Rory, but she kind of wished she could stay in the old dorm again. It was cramped and they were fighting all the time, and Lane remembered being eaten alive by guilt every single night she tried to sleep in the tiny room with Paris and Rory, wondering what her mother thought of her now and if she’d done the right thing. But it was still her first memory of living alone (kind of). Of waking up and dressing the way she wanted to, of not having to hide except to make herself more accommodating to Rory’s roommates, which was a thousand times easier than subjecting to Mrs. Kim. At least they were peers, and they let their spirits be calmed with fresh coffee, not prayer and guilt.
When they got to the last door on the hallway, two movers were carrying a few boxes each inside. Paris went straight in, while Lane waited outside and watched her pay the movers in cash, too.
“I took the chipped bed frame off your tip. Try being familiar with corners before you take on your next job.”
The guys passed Lane on the way out, very displeased and whispering to each other.
“Save the complaining for an e-mail or at least for when I can’t hear you!” Paris shouted after them. Lane smirked at the irony. Paris beckoned for her to come in, and she carefully obliged.
The inside of the communal room was mostly barren, no resemblance to the lively room they used to be in together. Since all of the furniture was sponsored by Rory’s grandmother, it was all missing. There were no curtains, no rug, especially no couch or TV. A single wooden stool was sitting between the two doors which she assumed lead to Paris’ and Rory’s rooms each, and out of the first of them, she could see boxes and a bed with an uncovered mattress peeking out.
When Paris spoke, the echo bounced off the walls around them. “Sorry, I don’t know when Rory’s movers are coming, she didn’t tell me anything. But you could’ve guessed. We decided to keep her furniture, no use in getting new ones.”
“That’s cool, don’t worry.” Lane was slightly uncomfortable with hearing her own voice be echoed back to her. That was usually Zack’s job on stage. The only sound she liked projected across a room was the energetic hammering of her drums.
She walked towards the stool, and placed her backpack on it.
“So…” she began, standing awkwardly, looking around the room like there was anything but empty windowsills and barren trees outside to look at.
“Oh,” Paris said, scurrying off to her room and reemerging with a bottle of red wine. “Do you drink? I got heaps and heaps of alcohol with my condolences across the family. I don’t know if they’re trying to be polite or assuming I’m gonna want to fry my brain out with ethanol.”
Lane chuckled once, her eyes widening in surprise. “Only in miniscule amounts. My genes are not in my favor here.”
Paris shrugged. “More for me.”
“I didn’t think you’d drink a lot, either,” Lane said and followed Paris in sitting cross-legged on the middle of the floor. Paris opened the screw-top bottle, looking around in what seemed to be contemplation and cursed briefly. She then took a sip out the bottle while murmuring no glasses and then offered the dark bottle to Lane.
She took it, but hesitated before placing her lips on the rim where Paris drank from. She couldn’t help but watch her reach behind her neck and open the pearl necklace, and Lane traced her neck with her eyes until she arrived at her lips, shuddering at the thought that just now, they’d touched the bottle she now took a sip of. The wine was very dry, it felt like she was drinking pure alcohol mixed with sandpaper when she swallowed the supposed liquid. It was warm in flowing down her throat and to her stomach.
Paris took the bottle back and took a few more sips without hesitating. Lane swallowed, the sandpaper still in her mouth.
“Is this what you’d do with Rory?” Lane asked.
Paris put the pearls down next to her knee, and proceeded to open her blazer, a white shirt revealing underneath, and when Lane made out the edges of her bra, she quickly stared at the nearest white wall. The cool exterior she tried to build during the ride was slowly crumbling to her nervousness.
“Well, we’d sit on a damned couch, for starters.” Paris stared at the floor, her troubled expression a contrast to her irate voice.
“The floor is good. More space,” Lane tried.
Paris didn’t react. She was clearly lost in thought, something was eating her up, tossing her around like a boat in a storm.
“Must be hard right now.”
The blonde played with the label on the bottle, tearing off one edge of the paper. Paradoxically, Paris’ uneasiness made Lane feel calmer. It was easier, helping someone else with their insecurities than facing your own.
Paris looked up, directly at her. She’d rarely ever done that since they met. “No, it’s not. I mean, not in the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the whole problem.”
Lane frowned. “What do you mean?”
Paris took another gulp out the bottle, then offered it back to Lane. She barely let the liquid graze her lips, afraid of what it might do to her restraint. She remembered the first and last time she was drunk, and how that was the start of her crumbling relationship to her mother. Or the first step to the only authentic relationship she could ever have to her, however distant it was now. But this was different. What she could do here was not as inevitable as what had happened between her and her mother.
“I don’t know,” she continued, “Rory would. That’s why I wish she was here.”
“To…?”
“Sort this out for me. Feelings. I’m no good at that. But her stupidly nice mother seems to have done some secret correct parenting to teach her how to deal with any of that.”
Lane nodded, and she instantly knew what she was talking about.
“I learned a lot from Lorelai, too,” she said.
“Well, you got that advantage on me. Must have been nice to grow up together or something.” Paris extended her hand, asked for the bottle back and Lane obliged.
“So what is it? How do you think you should feel?”
“Sad. Someone is dead, for Christ’s sake, and I knew him well.”
“Did you?” Lane just asked instinctively, more out of curiosity than anything else, but it seemed to hit something vulnerable in Paris.
“Of course!” she snapped, but retracted just as quickly. “I’m organizing his damn funeral.”
“That doesn’t have to mean anything. You’re good at organizing.”
That seemed to surprise the blonde. She frowned. “Right.”
“Did you like him?” Lane asked and the curiosity was now burning a hole into her stomach along with the neglectable amounts of wine. The question was more selfish than anything and Lane couldn’t tell anymore if the warmth in her cheeks came from her body’s inability to process the alcohol or from her fear of being discovered.
Paris grunted, exasperatedly. “Of course. He was brilliant. Mature. A real man.” Her voice sounded almost desperate, like she was trying to stay above water amidst her raging storm of waves.
“But did you like how you felt around him?”
“I don’t know if I regret this now, but you sound exactly like Rory would.”
That stung a little. Like a small icicle quenching a part of the burning flames. Like Rory, that’s why she was here. Get in line.
“Thanks, I guess.”
Paris suddenly pushed herself off the ground, the bottle still in hand. She grabbed the necklace on the way up, and just disappeared into her room. Lane watched the closed front door while she was away, not sure if she was contemplating to run away or waiting for the movers to come back and interrupt them, anything to free her from this awkwardness. Why the hell did she decide to come here, again?
Paris came back in a knitted sweater and a blue jeans. The sweater looked hand-made, a butterfly pattern was worked front and center into the wool. Lane stopped herself from calling it cute and just said nothing instead.
Paris didn’t take her seat back, but instead moved towards the window, and Lane had to look over her shoulder to see her.
“Thanks for coming.”
Lane raised an eyebrow. “Should I go?”
“No,” she Paris, very quickly. She cleared her throat, collecting herself. “I mean no, I’m glad you came. I don’t feel as…wrong as before.”
“That’s good,” Lane concluded. “You shouldn’t,” she dared to add. She got up herself, and moved to the next window, trying to see what Paris was looking at. A few students were standing at the coffee cart, wrapped in scarfs in the cold weather and laughing together.
“You must feel lonely, though.” Lane said.
Paris rolled her eyes. “Who doesn’t? Life’s a solo journey. People get in the way.”
“Not always,” Lane gestured at nothing in particular, but Paris seemed to get what she meant and grunted in response.
They watched the group talk for a few more minutes in silence, until they walked off towards the entrance together, and shortly after, they could hear them chat through the thin walls in the hallway. Gossip, about a shared friend it seemed, a few not-so-nice words were exchanged.
“Why are you so nice to me? I got you kicked out of our dorm.” Paris asked without looking at her.
Lane thought about it for a moment. “Well first of all, you didn’t. I know everyone agreed.”
“Details,” Paris said.
“You’re not too bad,” Lane said, purposefully understating.
“Why?” she looked at her again, and in the dim light from the window, Lane saw a reflection of herself in the deep brown of Paris’ eyes. Lane grabbed the bottle from Paris’ hand. “I know everyone pretty much hates me. Terrence tries to sugarcoat it and tells me I should just be more gentle, but I know he means that I’m too much for most people.”
“You’re not too much for Rory.” Lane started to hate how often she brought her best friend up as well. Rory was an easy topic. The only thing she was sure they both liked.
“Rory’s weird. She’s nice to everyone.”
“That’s not true.”
“Well, tell me one exception.”
Lane immediately thought of Dean and Lindsay, and she swallowed because this was neither the time nor the place, and she especially wasn’t the person to break the news to Paris of this mess Rory had just told her about. But she still wouldn’t say it was mean of Rory. Not nice, sure. But it wasn’t as easy as Lorelai — and Rory in her panic as well — made it out to be and Lane thought of the terror she saw in her best friend’s eyes when she tried to make sense of the ordeal. So she took the loss.
“She genuinely likes you, you know. Although it doesn’t seem like it sometimes. I thought she was crazy for sticking to you when you were so mean to her, but when I was living with you, I started to see why.”
That piqued Paris’ interest immensely. She opened her arms, her tense shoulders relaxed a little, and she raised an eyebrow. She looked like she was still restraining herself not to look too excited. “You really think so?” her voice suddenly got a soft tint, it pitched higher, more vulnerable. She sounded almost like she did on the phone, talking to her nanny.
Lane was kind of proud for tickling this out of her. Paris rarely spoke like this. And no one but her was here to prompt her to it. On the downside, this change of her voice made Lane’s heart pick up its pace like crazy. She could hear it beating in her eardrums, a steady but fast hundred beats per minute, give or take, she could tell from practice. She rarely spoke to a god she didn’t believe in anymore but oh freaking God, she wanted nothing more than to hear more of that voice.
Her own voice came out shaky, almost not manifesting past a whisper at all. “I do, yeah.” Paris must have been able to tell. She felt like a bunch of leaves rattling in the wind, her whole body must have been shaking so she quickly put down the wine on the windowsill to hide her trembling hands behind her back.
When she dared to look at the blonde, she seemed lost in her head again, brows drawn together in what seemed to be confusion, not angry irritation anymore. Whatever it was, it gave Lane dangerous hope and she wasn’t sure if she despised or loved it right now.
That was, until the taste of sandpaper wine landed on her lips once again, warm and fragrant and alive, as the scent of burnt candles and aged hardcover books surrounded her suddenly, a blonde strand tickling her cheek, even softer than she imagined it. Paris’ lips barely moved on hers, but Lane put her arms on the slightly scratchy sweater on her back, pulling her closer gently until more hair fell in her face and the lips on hers relaxed and she could feel a sigh of warm air on her face.
Oh God.
When their lips touched, it all suddenly fell into place.
Paris could make sense of it. All of it. The cure, her cure to the sickness, to the despair she thought she didn’t feel, she only tried to feel it in the wrong places. In the face of death, she found its remedy, but not in the way she expected it.
It was like all the dark clouds cleared from the sky, the glum downpour finally coming to a stop, giving way to a clear blue sky of endless possibilities.
Lane’s hands pulled her closer and she could feel all her muscles relax in a way she rarely knew outside of a good evening by herself, tea and a book she actually enjoyed. She didn’t know it was possible to feel that relaxed so close to a living, breathing person. Lane’s lips tasted like a very sweet cherry flavor, and that explained the delicious red tint that she noted coating her lips from the moment she stepped into the streetlight through the windows.
It was absolutely intoxicating. Paris didn’t know kissing could feel like that. Jamie’s and Asher’s lips especially were rough, big, sometimes too wet and sometimes too dry and chapped. This was perfect. Soft and warm and delicate, and she couldn’t get enough of it.
But that’s when she could feel Lane’s warm body pull away from under her suddenly, and the cold enveloped her harsher than ever before.
She opened her eyes to a wide-eyed girl, pacing back and forth between them, hands now shaking violently. A sinking feeling spread in her chest. What had she done?
“Lane—” she began, surprised at how effortlessly gentle her voice came out, never before did she have to put no effort into talking to someone like this before except to Soledad.
The girl raised her hand as if to halt her in her speech, she was biting her flawless lips now, and Paris almost reached out to stop her from destroying them.
“What was that?” Lane asked, her voice thin and high-pitched, drenched by panic that attempted to spread to Paris like it was contagious.
“You didn’t like it, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
Lane repeated the same hand gesture and stopped her pacing abruptly. “Why did you do that?” She held her gaze now, fixating her like she was a lexicon and she was looking for a very specific, very urgent answer.
Paris fumbled with the arms of her sweater over her hand, becoming acutely aware of her own body, and with that, a hatred seeping back into the cocktail of unwanted, too vague and undefined feelings inside her. Damn it, Lane was supposed to help her untangle them, not add a new one to the mix. But in some way, she supposed she did help already. A feeling this powerful she’d never felt before, and it weirdly made the most sense out of them all despite its power, or precisely because. She thought of their conversation before. “It felt right,” finally escaped her in her light voice, unable to look at the other, so staring at pale late September branches instead. She thought of Lane’s question about Asher earlier. “I like how you make me feel. It’s not like that for you?” she quietly added, her wish for clarity and to get this feeling back now stronger than whatever else feeling could get in the way.
Lane halted, bit her lip some more and the sight hurt Paris instead. “It is,” she finally said to the floor.
Paris almost approached her again, when Lane added, “for some time, actually.”
The blonde blinked.
“How long?”
Lane shrugged. An answer didn’t follow.
Paris leaned against the windowsill then, her lower arms spread across the wood, the cold of the room sitting empty over the break seeping even through her thick sweater. She was kind of grateful, as she got warmer and warmer, and the top seemed like the wrong choice, after all. “What do we do now?” she asked, another plea for advice she’d so desperately longed for all day.
Lane approached her, she could feel it in the air she dragged across the room in her movement and by hovering her hand over her sweater before pulling back right before she could touch her. Paris turned her head to the side so that she could barely look at her, and when she did she found distress beyond compare.
“Are you okay?” she asked, a question rarely posed by her.
“Oh no, I’m freaking out.” Lane’s high-pitched voice was like a cauldron finally boiling over. The pacing began anew. “It’s bad enough that I was even thinking about this, but this, this is bad,” she dragged the last word as if she was trying to convince them both to believe her.
It felt like they were in different worlds right now, or they weren’t speaking the same language. Paris tried to figure out what just happened and how she felt while Lane was completely unconcerned by the present, and instead kept asking about other people, and the future, and something about God and about how terribly complicated it all was.
Paris grabbed her by the shoulders while she was rambling, stopping her in her pacing.
“I can’t believe I’m calming you now, but please take it down a notch.”
Lane lowered her gaze, looking guilty. “Sorry.”
Paris sighed, but she didn’t let go yet. “Look, follow my lead for a second, okay?”
Lane nodded, obliged.
Like Terrence had taught her, she instructed Lane to breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven, then exhale for eight. They did this both, Paris holding on to Lane, three times in a row. The room seemed to slow down around them, and she felt the uneven fabric of Lane’s shirt, and she slowly let her hands glide down her arms, until she brushed her warm hands with hers, and Lane opened them for her, and she placed her own in them. The touch felt featherlight and nice and warm, like the kiss but gentler.
When she opened her eyes she looked at Lane, no longer trembling, and she opened her eyes too.
“I guess Rory wouldn’t have put that on you, huh?.”
“No,” Paris contemplated for a second, then decided to go ahead, “she reacted a bit different when I tried kissing her.”
Lane’s hands pulled out of her soft grasp suddenly, her mouth open in disbelief. “You what?”
Paris was a bit taken aback. “She never told you?”
“No!”
“Now that explains your frenzy even more.”
Lane shook her head, but she seemed a bit calmer now, the pure shock on her face watered down with the amusing irony. “Why did you kiss her?”
“To make some stupid boys jealous. That’s what I told her. I actually was a bit curious.”
“And how was it?” Lane asked, slightly timid.
“Short,” Paris concluded dryly, “she pulled away after two seconds. She was very mad.”
Lane looked like that information made a lot of sense to her. She hummed, as if she was solving a cross-word. Then, in some sort of shared absurdity, they both started to laugh.
The cab door closed under her touch with a soft whack that was nearly swallowed by the strumming of the rain against a crimson umbrella.
Lane looked at her from the other side of the stained window and Paris could barely make out her features but waved back when she waved, and the car started moving away right in front of her feet.
“Get home safe,” Paris had said, her voice a perpetual sigh by the time it hit two in the morning.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to stay?” Lane asked. Her gaze had turned sad, but she was tired and so was Paris.
“Let’s sleep on this,” Paris said and Lane nodded languidly.
Now that she was gone for the night, Paris let her shoulders slouch as soon as the vehicle took the corner to the main street and was out of sight. She went back inside, and the dorm door falling shut behind her felt like she’d entered a portal to hell and the way back just closed with a bang. Save for the streetlight outside, the bare communal room was pitch black and cold. The empty bottle of wine was still sitting at the window, and it was the only sign that Lane had just really been here, that Paris didn’t dream this up in some sort of insomniac mirage. Yet that felt like the more logical option. And, the one closest to how she felt about the situation.
Paris fled the empty room as soon as she could, left the bottle where it was and entered the boxed up, unknown territory of what was supposed to be her own room. Despite its unfamiliarity, and the decidedly unromantic cardboard surroundings, it felt freeing to be here. This was her room now. She had worked to be here. She didn’t share a room anymore, she wasn’t at home where her parents’ shouting posed a constant background acoustic irritation to the point where it replaced what silence felt like to Paris. And, most of all, she wasn’t in a study of a dead person anymore, surrounded by people she didn’t know, doing chores she didn’t want to do. This was hers, only, cardboard and all.
She had decided now. She’d go to the funeral, attend the wake, and then never return. She’d try to be as polite as possible, finish what she’d started, but then she would finally close the chapter. The regret dawned on her now, seeped slowly but deeply into her core with every repetition in her head of what she now knew had been excuses all along, the whole year. If she wasn’t in love with Asher, why did she do any of this?
She fell asleep in Soledad’s sweater, her cellphone on the pillow turned to maximum volume, just in case.
When her best friend was finally back in town, Lane had never felt so glad to close her arms around someone.
For having just returned from a dream Europe trip soaked in luxury, Rory’s usual shine and excitement was still dimmed beyond a simple jet lag. Lane knew the Dean thing would still bug her for weeks to come. It wasn’t something a person like Rory could just shake off and move on from.
So Lane’s mission then, was to get her mind off her struggle, and off the horrible, four-person town square fight her friend had just stumbled into. Rory knocked on her door shortly after, tears streaming down her face.
“Oh come here,” Lane said and Rory sobbed into her shoulder.
Lane kicked Zack and Brian out of the apartment to finally tackle the pile of dirty clothes at the laundromat, and warned them not to return for a few hours. They’d find something to do in the fresh air, away from the endless hypnotic draw of their Xbox.
Rory was leaning over a cup of coffee, seated at the kitchen isle in one of their red bar stools while Lane was pulling an opened package of stale Doritos out of the cabinet and spilling its contents on the counter between them.
She was nodding along to her friend’s rant, reassuring her several times in between teary eyes and ruffling hair and exhausted sighs when suddenly, Lane’s phone wouldn’t stop chiming on the couch.
Rory ceased talking at the sound of the second call. She looked over her shoulder, then to Lane. “Shouldn’t you get that?”
“Nah, it’s okay,” Lane chewed on a chip that felt like cardboard in her mouth, “they can wait, we’re having important conversation here.”
Rory smiled gratefully.
About an hour later, when they moved on to the TV the boys were usually occupying to laugh at the DVD version of Scary Movie that Lane had rented from the video store, the doorbell rang.
Lane frowned, putting down her cup of tea on the floor. The doorbell rang a second time.
“Are they back early?” Rory asked.
“No, they have a key. Unless they lost it again.”
A third ring. Rory paused the movie.
“I know you’re in there, open the damn door.”
And that was the moment Lane froze.
“What is—?” Rory started, the look of recognition dawning on her face.
“Lane! If you can’t answer your phone, at least don’t make me waste two hours of cab rides for staring at your house all day.”
Lane scooped herself off her floor seat faster than picking up a dropped piece of your favorite candy. No. No no no. She looked around with her limbs paralyzed, as if a helicopter lifeline or a magical portal could turn up at any moment, granting her an opportunity for escape.
The ringing turned into pounding against the door.
Feeling as though she wasn’t in control of her own body, Lane moved towards the entrance, trying to embrace the inevitability of her untimely doom. Here goes.
Paris’ fist was raised, hitting air as Lane swung the door open. When she locked with the pair of eyes Lane had wished to see again for the past week, the longing morphed into a twisted, mean anxiety once again, horrified by the reality of a dream come true in the worst timing imaginable. It was a tiny relief then, that Paris seemed to freeze as well at the sight of her, and Lane wondered what was going on inside her mind at this second.
A soft brown coat and a plaited scarf protected her against the cold autumn breeze, playing nicely with the warm color of her tied-back hair. “Finally,” Paris cleared her throat, her hand lowered slowly and she broke their intertwined gazes to glance at the apartment behind Lane’s back.
“Paris?” Rory’s voice brought Lane’s feet firmly back to the ground of reality. She’d gotten up, and appeared next to Lane at the door.
Paris’ eyes widened, exchanging a panicked look with Lane before going back to Rory. “You’re back,” she stated plainly, but the scared undertone was clearly audible.
“Yeah, my flight came in yesterday. I wanted to call you tomorrow about the dorm but —” Rory’s gaze burned into Lane’s side like a laser beam. “What are you doing here?”
Paris shifted her legs, pulled her hands into the safety of her coat pockets. “I uhm—” she stammered, “I heard from Lane you were coming back.”
Oh wow. Lane’s punishing look seemed to hit its target as Paris showed the faintest sign of rolling her eyes at Lane. Because that was an effective excuse.
”I didn’t know you two were talking,” Rory said skeptically. For her usual loudmouth, Paris turned really quiet.
Lane counted her options. As much as she didn’t want to lie to her best friend, she desperately wished she would have been less of a coward for the past days. She remembered her thumb hovering over the call button on her cell for what were probably cumulated hours on end, for several nights after work. But she never dared to call, the uncertainty of what had happened between them a week ago eating her up on the inside. They should have talked about this at the very least, before turning to Rory. But they never did. And now she was here, and Lane wasn’t sure how much of their awkwardness would slip past Rory’s attuned feel for tension.
She considered turning Paris away, speaking to her another day, finding an excuse. But she felt bad, and she longed for her company, and even more strongly, she longed not to soak in the puddle of guilt next to Rory, who she would lie to and who would absolutely know that she did.
So she sighed, defeated. “Come in, Paris.”
“What am I supposed to tell her?” Paris’ voice was a sharp whisper in the corner of Lane’s room. “You should have told me she was here.”
“I didn’t know you were coming,” Lane’s silhouette protested, keeping her voice down as much as possible.
Paris put a hand to her forehead, pacing back and forth. “This is a disaster. Did I provoke this? Did I wish for Rory’s presence way too hard before, and this is some sort of cruel payback?”
“No, it’s not. She was gonna come home today anyway.”
“You could’ve told me,” Paris hissed, but she realized her absurdity.
Lane stayed quiet, and breathed in deeply.
Paris had been so determined when she got in the cab headed for Stars Hollow today. She pondered the possibility the whole morning, after she woke up with a strange and sudden urge to finally do something about the fuzzy feeling inside her. With the funeral done and over, and the next semester looming on the horizon, she felt invigorated, the spirit of a fresh start, of new action possessing her to finally talk to Lane.
Her dreams were haunted by her face. By her memory of their shared kiss, and she could still feel Lane’s lips on hers when she woke up panting in the morning, images of soft tracings of her unclothed body flashing through her mind and her body. She didn’t know how to deal with another feeling so novel. But after a few days of strict contemplation and passive use of her cellphone only, she realized that while the memory fueled her desire, it wasn’t enough to satisfy the burning inside of her. The gaping hole was aflame, desperately reaching for the opportunity to experience some fulfillment previously unknown.
Now, the voice she’d heard inside her head was right before her, and while she could barely make out the shape of her face in the darkened room, the scent of cherry lipstick and sweet perfume and Lane all over her personal room enveloped her, and Paris could swear it was like hunger tearing her apart. Next to the added problem of, well, Rory.
“Why did you come here?” Lane finally asked, and her voice sounded softer.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Paris said.
“My call history the past week says otherwise.”
“You could’ve called me, too.” Paris was just stalling, she knew. She felt her heart pounding against her chest, anxiety and longing fighting a war inside of her.
“You kind of kicked me out the other day,” Lane’s voice started shaking, just a little.
Paris grunted. An abundance of words usually came as easy to her as breathing, but this was excruciating. No matter how many monologues she had held in her head of this moment, it was all gone now, her grasp of the English language slowly succumbing to the turmoil inside her.
“I can’t stop thinking about you, about — us.” Paris bit her lip. Her body hadn’t quite adapted past the cold outside yet, but the nervousness made her boil inside, so she was sweating with cold limbs. She rubbed her hands together in a pathetic attempt to keep them warm, and keep her busy.
Lane was quiet for an uncomfortable while.
“I think I want to try this. Us. If you do, too, of course.” Paris breathed so shallowly that she felt faint. It made her crazy, not seeing Lane’s reaction in her face.
“Guys?” Rory’s voice called from the living room.
“A minute!” Lane shouted back and in her absurd obsession, Paris was delighted to hear her voice resound past a whisper no matter its content.
She could feel Lane move closer to her. “I’m scared,” Lane said, and her voice cracked in between the words, a quiet sob escaping her. Paris felt her body stiffen up, a habitual reaction to other people’s tears and despair. But she fought it. The flush of worry in her chest was strong enough to push it away, and to close the gap between her and Lane, to pull her into a tight embrace. Lane’s warmth rushed through her cold hands, and the emptiness inside her was filling up slowly like rainwater dripping into a bucket after a drought. She felt relief, the relaxation instantly restored in her body, just like the first time.
“It’s okay,” Paris said, and she started to like the soft, reassuring tone in her voice.
“Do you actually think this could work?” Lane asked in between her tears dampening Paris’ chest, and the frames of her glasses poking against her sternum.
“I’d like to try,” Paris responded truthfully.
“My mother will murder me,” Lane said, and Paris knew she wasn’t kidding.
But she felt a chuckle escape her anyway, knowing that maybe precisely because of this common ground, their chances probably weren’t the worst. “Mine, too.”
They would simply have to start at the glue of their budding relationship, the one other person that always haunted their minds and seized their loyalties. At her second shout from the living room, they decided to face Rory.
If it was dumb luck or some sort of Kierkegaardian mystical drive that drove them together, Paris didn’t know. She still despised the guy. But she had to admit, although he was probably wrong in all his intended regards, in some twisted, absurd way, she had found her own answer to eternity.