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chapter twenty-six: (so long, london) you'll find someone

a/n:

tw(s) -- someone gets their heart broken

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"So, this is it..."

"Yeah." Rory says, voice thick and nasal from all of her tears, staring at his red bed sheets so she doesn't have to look him in the eye. "I guess it is."

She wishes that there was a script to follow for this kind of thing.

If the rest of her life has been so thoroughly planned out for her, why couldn't this have been, too? Why couldn't someone older, someone reliable, tell her how she was supposed to delicately rip a boy's heart out of his chest and hand it back to him without ruining his whole life?

Why did it have to be so complicated?

When she got up that morning, she knew, like she knew nothing else, that today was going to be terrible. She ate a quiet breakfast with Bombay, who left early to handle some business that she was not privy to, and then, with no desire to laze around on the couch and watch what Minnesota deemed good daytime TV or clean her former coach's very sad house, she decided to just bite the bullet. Jesse agreed to come with her—— he was around every single corner lately, and she was both comforted and unsettled by his presence—— and, graciously, after taking a bus halfway across town with her, helped her pack her side of her dorm into a few boxes from Bombay's basement that they somehow fit into the trunk and backseat of her car.

(Rachel was, because every now and then the universe decides to flip a coin and take pity on Rory, not there. Rory left her a long note that thanked her for everything she did for her and left a way for her former roommate to contact her, begging her not to become a stranger.)

But, with all of the easy things out of the way and Jesse waiting out by her car, Rory got stuck here, sitting beside Rick on his bed, the things that he gave her and a great deal of space between them, as she tried her best to break off their arrangement cleanly.

"I don't want you to hate me." She admits quietly. Childishly. Selfishly.

He has every right to hate her. She wouldn't blame him for it.

But, even then, she knows she'd never recover if he did.

Rick exhales. "I don't... I could never hate you."

She feels new tears fall from her eyes, then, but she is quick to wipe them away, hiding her face from him. It doesn't feel right. Does she even have any right to be sad over this when she's the one pulling the plug?

He reaches across to hold her hand. She wishes he'd just stop, but doesn't move away from him.

"Hey, don't start crying again. Please?"

When she finally gets the courage to raise her head, he's already looking at her. He hasn't cried, yet, but she can tell that he's close to it.

She pulls her hand free to wipe her face again and takes a deep breath. The exhale comes out strange, a sob-like sound that makes her whole body tremble, and she puts her knuckles up to her lips in fear of what might come out if she doesn't.

"What's so good about this guy, anyway?"

"Don't do that."

"Did you ever actually like me, or was it just..."

"I did. I—— it's just, so complicated." She, taking her hand from his, runs her hands through her hair and tugs lightly on the roots as she tries to think. "Everything's just so... difficult right now."

Rick says nothing. Rory isn't sure if she wants him to or not.

She, in turn, doesn't tell him that she's a little afraid of the girl that being with him allowed her to become.

"Maybe this is for the best, anyway, right?" Rory sniffs and wipes her nose with the back of her hand in the middle of a sentence. "I mean, you're about to go off to college, and they're thinking about shipping me out to France, and things will be so different and amazing that we'd have no time for a relationship, anyway."

"I'm not going to college." He says, his argument half-assed, voice straining from the effort to keep all of his feelings under wraps.

"Yes, you are." She urges, her legs curling up and onto the bed as she gets closer to him. "You'll go because you are smart, and you are a fantastic player, and there is so much more to you than what you are right now."

A tear slips from his eye, finally, and she wipes it away, allowing her hand to linger on his cheek. The space between them has closed, now; the things that she was returning (the pictures of them at the zoo, his sweatshirt, and, of course, her varsity jacket) pushed to the side to make room and her knee touching his as he, instinctively, turns a little more toward her, too.

"I've been imagining it quite a lot."

"What?"

"Your future... You being drafted into the NHL right out of college and becoming a household name... It'll be amazing, Rick."

(She is unsure of who she is trying to convince.)

Rick gnaws on the inside of his cheek, eyes getting redder by the second. "I'll miss you. So much."

"At first." Rory nods. "But it'll get easier."

He nods, too, but more slowly, and then closes his eyes for a moment, leaning into her hand, before exhaling deeply and sitting up.

"It's only a few years, right? Maybe you'll break up with him. Maybe we'll find each other again."

"Maybe, but... you don't know who either of us will be after all of that, or what will happen."

He's crying now.

Rory swallows the insurmountable urge to throw up.
"You have done more good for me in months than most people have in my entire life, and I will be forever grateful for the time we spent together."

"I love you." He confesses, pinning her gaze with his. "I'll never feel the same way for anyone else."

(Rory doubts it.) "I know."

Rick wipes his eyes and rubs the heels of his palms into them. She swallows thickly again, hands twitching with the urge to touch him, comfort him, but she doesn't know if it's her place anymore.

"I'll go, and you'll stay." Rory whispers, and he nods once again, all of his words escaping him. "Everything will be okay."

She presses a chaste kiss to his shoulder and squeezes his bicep comfortingly before getting up from the bed, a quiet I love you, too without as many words, and leaves.

Strangely enough, she doesn't cry.

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"Hi?"

Rory stands in the doorway of Bombay's house, half-asleep and crossing her arms over her chest. She was already tired, emotionally spent, but she is confused now, too. Les, wearing his skates and street gear, is in front of her on the porch with a bouquet of dainty white flowers.

"Hey." He grins softly, extending it out to her. "My old man said that I should bring these to you—— he insisted."

She almost smiles at the thought and takes the flowers. They give off a nice aroma, fresh and not too sweet.

"Tell him I said thank you."

"I will." A beat of silence. "Are you alright?"

"Not really, but I'll be fine."

He nods skeptically.

"Do you, uh, want to come in?"

She realizes as soon as the words leave her lips that it's wrong to invite a boy in without getting Bombay's permission first, but she knows that Averman's been here before and thinks that the man wouldn't mind. It's not like they're going to do anything they wouldn't do with him there, and she figures that he'd prefer the two of them sitting and watching TV over her sitting around and crying over a life she has no choice but to ruin.

"Sure."

Les sits on the couch and picks up the bag of chips she was picking at while she slips into the kitchen. When she finds a cup big enough and feels like her flowers are sitting in enough water, Rory returns to the living room and sits beside him.

They watch a few minutes of an episode of Friends, sharing the chips, before she, gnawing on her bottom lip, breaks the silence.

"I, uh, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I loved you back last night."

He shrugs softly, and a lazy grin spreads across his face. "That's okay. I know you love me. I mean, who couldn't, right?"

Rory rolls her eyes halfheartedly. When he leans in to kiss her, she pulls back, and his eyebrows draw together.

"Why'd you do that?"

"I don't—— I want to take things more slowly, okay?"

Her stomach rolls. "I have been doing everything at Mach speed, and you really hurt me, and I have had the worst day."

Averman nods and puts a hand on her knee. "Okay... Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"

"Do you really want to hear about how sad I am that I broke Richard Riley's heart today?"

The words come out so much more bitter than she intends them to. Averman doesn't flinch.

He does, however, sigh. "I don't like the guy, but I... I've come to terms with the fact that he's very important to you."

Rory nods. She wipes her eyes before the tears can even fall.

"He made the last few months bearable... He's more than important, and I don't think he'll ever speak to me again."

Averman doesn't say anything. He wraps an arm around her and lets her curl into him, rubbing her back as she sniffles pathetically.

Just then, a lock clicks, and the front door opens with a bang, startling them both.

"Hey, Ror—— oh!"

Charlie Conway (because if there's a God out there really, really hates her) freezes on the threshold as the not-really-a-couple jumps apart from one another. Bombay follows him, brows at his hairline and hands on his hips.

"Hi." Rory blurts out.

Les crosses his arms over his chest and smiles awkwardly.

"Hi..." Charlie says.

Bombay simply pinches the bridge of his nose and whispers. "I don't get paid enough to deal with this."

"You don't get paid at all." All three kids state at the same time, causing his face to fall even flatter.

"Anyway, uh, Charlie, you wanted something?"

"Oh, uh, yeah." Charlie looks at her. She finds his sudden ability to meet her eye strangely disturbing. "We're gonna go play some street puck... wanted to know if you were gonna play, Ror."

Her gaze flits away from the hope in his eyes.

She's not sure she's ready to be around them all the time, even less sure about playing hockey.

"I'm, uh, I'm good." She wets her lips with her tongue. "I had a long day, and there's a Friends marathon that I was tuning into..."

Charlie's shoulders fall.

Bombay nods solemnly. "Alright boys, you heard her. Let's get going."

Averman squeezes her hand before reluctantly getting up. Rory waves goodbye at her former coach and her former captain as they also walk out, getting a small gesture in return from the both of them. When they're gone, she feels that hollow sort of ache again, and she starts to regret not sucking it up and going with them—— but she was trying to send a message, after all, and she really doesn't want to play that stupid sport ever again.

Hell, with the way things are going, she might not have to.

Pulling a blanket over her body and curling her legs to her chest, Rory picks up her chips and returns to her daytime TV, too sad to think about anything else.

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a/n:

word count — 2000

so we have three chapters of canon left? idk if there's actually much for me to write past the big game except for the epilogue...

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and they motivate me to continue! thank you