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It was almost midnight when Rory heard a gentle knock against her door. Surprised, she looked up from the book on her pillow - The Time Traveler’s Wife - and toward the entrance. "Who is it?"
"It's Paris. Can I come in?"
"Er... yeah, sure."
With a quiet creek the door opened just far enough for Paris to slip through, her body barely outlined by the dim light of the lamp on Rory’s nightstand. "Kirk talks in his sleep," she stated after simply standing in the room for a few seconds.
Rory nodded in understanding. "So you want to sleep here?"
"If that's alright with you..."
"Sure. I just wanted to finish this chapter. Is it okay if I keep the light on?"
"No worries, I'm not really tired anyways", Paris mumbled, placing her pillow on Rory's carpet. It was unusually fluffy.
"Thinking about Doyle?"
Paris bit her lip, holding back a harsh comment. "Yeah, something like that."
"Guys suck."
"Amen, Sister."
For a while they both went quiet, Paris staring at the ceiling, Rory staring at the pages without really reading the words.
"Do you think it's easier to date women?"
Rory physically flinched. Why would she bring that up? "I... don't know."
"I mean, it's gotta be difficult to find someone who's into women too, but when you got that part down, women are probably a lot easier to date than men. They’re definitely less smelly and easier to live with. And that's not even considering the sexual aspect of it all."
A nervous flutter had started to rise in Rory's chest. Did Paris know? Surely she couldn't. Rory had done everything she could to hide her little crush.
But then that meant that Paris was actually considering a relationship with a woman; which was impossible too.
Then why was she talking like this?
"Have you ever considered it?"
"Who me? No. I mean, obviously I haven't..."
She was immediately reminded of their kiss last summer. It had been abrupt and harsh and honestly awful. But she hadn't been able to stop thinking about it.
Paris was... a lot at best and a relationship with her would definitely be a challenge, but the feeling she'd had that night had been haunting her ever since.
Why was she even thinking about it? It wasn't like anything was ever going to happen between them.
The silence in the room dragged on for what felt like forever before Paris spoke up again. "I have."
"Oh yeah?" Rory did her best to sound casual, even though her heart was racing.
"It's not like there's some all mighty man in the sky that gives a crap about who I kiss and if it's the wrong gender he'll send me to a bad, magical place after I'm dead, so who’s gonna stop me?"
"So you’re saying if there’s no punishment you would date women?"
"Idunno. The point is that, apart from society and the judgement of other people there's no one that can do anything about it. And it's not like there's any guy that's going to put up with me. Doyle certainly isn't. I probably should have guessed. I'm too high maintenance."
"Nononono. None of that. You are awesome. You're insanely smart, which you know, but you’re also hilarious and beautiful and anybody would be lucky to get you. And yeah, you can be a lot, but somewhere out there is a guy - or girl - that will love you soooo much and that can handle all your moods."
A huff sounded from the darkness. "Yeah right. You’ve seen how bad I was as a roommate last year. You’re the only one that didn’t try to kill me and I’m sure you’ve thought about it multiple times.”
“You’re being dramatic - nobody tried to kill you. Plus, you definitely got better with time. The most annoying part of living with you this year was Doyle.”
“Really?” The hope in Paris’ voice made something in Rory’s chest ache. “So you don’t think that I’m going to drive away everybody that could potentially care about me?”
Rory swallowed, focusing her mind on what mattered now. "It worked with Usher, didn’t it?"
For a moment Paris fell silent. They barely talked about the Professor. Rory wasn't sure if Paris had ever really gotten over him. "He was different. He understood me."
"I don't think you're as impossible to date as you think."
There was a bit of shifting while Paris turned over on the floor. "Thank you. That means a lot coming from you."