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SKIN & BONES
iii. WHAT AN ASSHOLE

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LORELAI WASN'T REALLY OPEN. She kept to herself as much as she could, which was ironic, considering all of her baggage was on constant display for the world, bones and all. But she didn't like to talk about her true feelings, the ones that made her vulnerable and small. Small in a bad way. Small in a weak way. She liked the wall she had around herself. She let a few people in, but it always took them all so long to really get her. All of them but Jasper, at least. The only one who really knew Lorelai best.

Funnily enough, Lorelai quickly learned that she never spoke to Bella about her relationship with the Cullens. To Lorelai, they were a second family. Carlisle was her idol. Meanwhile, Lorelai wasn't sure how much Bella was affected by their sudden... move. But it didn't take her long to figure it out on her own.

A key difference between Lorelai and Bella was that the former knew how to detach her emotions when necessary. She didn't always do it, but she did when she wanted to. With the disappearance of the Cullens, Lorelai knew she had to turn off her emotions. If not for her own sake, then for Bella's. Lorelai wanted to be there for Bella.

She didn't know it then, but being strong for Bella was going to be much harder than she realized.

"Bella? It's me," Lorelai had called one afternoon. She stood on the opposing side of her sister's bedroom door, her fist delicately knocking on it. "Can I come in?"

"No," Bella faintly called. Rolling her eyes, Lorelai turned the cold doorknob and entered her room where Bella had been sitting on a small chair in front of her windows. She scoffed loudly when she heard the door open and close. "Seriously? God, it's like I can't get any fucking privacy in this stupid house."

Lorelai raised an eyebrow. "I'm your big sister. Privacy isn't in my vocabulary, unfortunately for you—"

"What do you want?"

Lorelai walked over, sitting on the edge of her sister's unmade bed. "Alright, lose the 'tude," she stated. "I get it. You're upset because your immortal vampire boyfriend left town because he didn't want to kill you. What an asshole. But don't take your teen angst out on me, okay?"

Bella shook her head. "Can't you see that I want to be alone? I always let you be depressed when you want to. Just do this for me, okay?"

"I don't want you to end up like me, B," Lorelai gently confessed. "We never talked about it, but I know what Edward meant to you. I know you loved the Cullens as much as I did, really. But they're gone now. And they're going to keep living whatever pretend lives they have in whatever backwater state they end up in. But, you and I? We have real lives to live. Sorry, buttercup, someone's gonna be up your ass to keep living your life, then it's gonna be me. Whether you like it or not."

There was a short silence that fell between them.

"How aren't you a complete mess like me?" Bella bitterly mumbled.

Lorelai shrugged. "I've been left behind before."

That caused Bella to look back at her. She didn't reply, however.

Lorelai gave her a weak smile. "People come and go. But that doesn't mean the memories and lessons you took from them are worthless. Carlisle and Jasper were some of my favorite people on this planet, you know. Carlisle was the second parent I never got to have as a kid. But he's gone now. They left because they wanted to help us."

"Yeah, well, they did a shit job at that."

"No kidding."

Bella picked at a loose thread on her sweatshirt. "Do you think they'll come back?"

Lorelai shook her head, squeezing her sister's hand. "Don't do that to yourself, B. You keep asking yourself that, and you'll end up just like me."

"Maybe I should be more like you."

"That's funny because I want to be more like you." Lorelai nudged her. "You've got a bright future ahead of you, kid. You might be the first Swan to do something interesting with their life. Something more interesting than living in this boring ass town and abandoning your kids for a shit baseball player. Something with... I don't know, Shakespeare and science and everything in between. You'll invent something for yourself, Bella. And vampires or not, I'm going to be the one cheering you on. Dad and I, we're the ones that will be there. Not Edward. Not Jasper. You have to get that through your head."

The eldest of the two paused before continuing, "Look, I'm gonna let you sulk for as long as you want, but at some point, I'm gonna make you start living your life again, whether you like it or not."

Bella adjusted her sitting position to face her sister. She sniffled. "You know what? Thanks, Rory."

Lorelai cracked a small smile. "What are sisters for?"

After their talk, Lorelai had established a proper understanding of Bella's feelings, but there was still a great wall barricading Bella and her family. Bella quickly went into a deep depression, separating herself from all of civilization.

As for Lorelai, she wasn't really sure how she was doing. She liked to think she was doing okay, but to an extent, that wasn't true. Her heart ached for the Cullens. The way they left didn't sit right with her. When the sun was up, Lorelai was fine, but when no one was watching and she was alone in her bed, her thoughts were stuck on the Cullens. She missed them.

The vanishing of the Cullens affected her life in varying ways. Lorelai stopped her biweekly checkups because Carlisle wasn't the one working with her. She stopped watching her favorite reality TV shows just because she was too used to watching them with Jasper. Once, she even refused to read a book because the main character's name was Alice.

Lorelai refused to show that she was hurting even after months had gone by. She refused to admit that she missed them because when it came down to it, she knew she had to move on.

She was sure Bella thought the same way even if it was just a little bit. For a little while, it seemed like Bella was doing okay on the outside. But Bella and Lorelai were one and the same, cut from the same cloth. It was only a matter of time before they both began to crumble.

The nightmares started somewhere during the blur of the past few months. Always about Jasper, how he broke her hand, nearly killed her sister. Lorelai didn't remember when they started exactly, just that she was growing exhausted of them. Funnily enough, she wasn't the one having to deal with them.

For the sixth night in a row, Lorelai pressed her pillow over her face, groaning as Bella released a bloodcurdling scream in the dead of the night. "God dammit," she mumbled, forcing herself out of her bed. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, hurrying over to where Bella had been previously sound asleep. "If Edward hadn't left, I would've thought she was getting busy or something..."

Through a yawn, Bella mumbled, "Sorry." She sat up in her bed, her gaze falling on her sister's figure as she stood in the doorframe. "I'm fine. You can go back to bed."

"Are you sure?" Charlie inquired from behind Lorelai. "That seemed like quite a nightmare."

"All of her nightmares for the past six nights have seemed like 'quite the nightmare'," muttered Lorelai. Sleepily, she stumbled forward to sit on the edge of Bella's bed.

Charlie shot his eldest a hesitant glance, to which she just nodded. "Get some sleep, Pops," Lorelai insisted. "I'll see Bella to it." He just nodded before making his way back to his room. She looked down at her sister and sighed. "Maybe you should start going to counseling or something, B."

Bella shook her head. "No, no. I'm just... I don't know," she said. "Rory, you aren't going to leave me, are you?"

"Where would I go, Bells?" Lorelai wrapped an arm around her, pulling the covers over them both. "I belong in Forks. With you, with Dad. I'm not going anywhere."

Lorelai liked to think she was doing alright. She was going to continue down her road to recovery just as she had been before. Sure, it was a bit more difficult since her biggest source of support had just up and left her, but Lorelai wasn't going to just give up everything because of something like that. Lorelai was a survivor. She was going to survive and get through this. She was going to be healthy, even if her terms of healthy meant staying at least 90 pounds.

Her sister, on the other hand, was only getting worse.

"That's it," Charlie Swan announced one morning, forcefully slamming Bella's truck door shut. The sound caused the sisters to jump, but nothing would surprise Lorelai than the fact that Bella Swan had actually gone outside for the first time in months.

"That's what?" Bella asked, dryly.

"You're going to go live in Jacksonville with your mom," Charlie declared.

Lorelai's eyes widened. "Wait, what?"

Bella spat out, "I'm not leaving Forks."

"Bells," Charlie softly spoke, "the bastard ain't coming back. I think it'd be best if you moved to Jacksonville." Lorelai glanced at her sister, noticing how it looked like she was going to cry. If Bella wasn't going to cry, then Lorelai was.

"You know, you'd think after the first time one of your daughters was sent away, you'd realize that it's a terrible idea," Lorelai snapped.

Charlie sighed. "This is different—"

"Not really," interjected Lorelai. "Look, I get you want your daughter to be happy, but this isn't the way to do it. You saw what I went through, you saw Renée send me away firsthand. Do you really want Bella to experience something similar?"

"I just want you to be happy, Bella," Charlie said, defeated. "You can go to Jacksonville if you want, baby. Make some new friends. Be happy."

"I like my old friends," Bella muttered rather unconvincingly. "Rory's my friend."

"Your friends that don't live in this house, Bella," Charlie said. "You don't even see them anymore."

"I do, too," Bella argued, which wasn't true. "I'm going to hang out with Jessica today. We're going shopping." If there was another thing that differed between the Swan sisters, it was that Bella was a horrible liar in comparison to Lorelai.

Charlie narrowed his eyes. "You hate shopping."

Bella nervously chuckled. "See, I'm such a good friend."

"Oh, yeah you are," muttered Lorelai, shaking her head. Bella hardly liked Jessica as far as she was concerned.

The argument seemed to end there. Bella's stomps up the stairs practically shook the old house as Charlie set his jacket down. His face was graying with wrinkles. Between his two daughters, it was a race to see which one would kill him from stress first. When one was soaring, the other seemed to be falling lower and lower from grace.

Lorelai joined his side, setting her chin on his shoulder, holding onto his arm. "You okay?"

Charlie sighed. "I don't remember you ever acting like this over a guy. Or girl, whatever you're into. I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"Hey, you're not doing anything wrong," Lorelai gently said. "You've always been exactly what I needed you to be. Supportive, but you give us space. That's all she needs."

"She's had enough space though, don't you think?" Charlie asked. "It's been months. How long do breakups usually last with kids your age?"

"Cut her some slack. As much as you didn't like Edward, when you're our age, everything feels so much bigger than you think it is. I trip coming down the stairs and think it's the end of the world. I open the fridge to expired milk and swear God has it out for me."

That got a little chuckle out of Charlie. "Jasper was nice to you, at least. Made you smile. Made you... feel better. He was polite. I liked him for you."

"Yeah, well, he still left," Lorelai muttered.

Charlie pulled back, giving her a look. "We haven't really talked about that, have we? You and him?"

Lorelai shrugged. "What's there to talk about? People leave all the time. The only one who hasn't is you, old man."

Charlie wrapped an arm around her, kissing the side of her head. "You know how we Swans are. Stubborn as they come," he said. "I'm not goin' nowhere, Rory. I'll always be waitin' for you at home."

Lorelai could've cried hearing that. He'd said that to her so many times, but she still couldn't wrap her head around it. Charlie was everything Reneé wasn't. Charlie was everything Lorelai needed. He was everything she wanted, everything she deserved. Bella would get that soon enough. Maybe going out with Jessica would be the push she needed.

Whatever this was, Lorelai was just happy that Bella was beginning to live her life again. For a depressed person, she only had so many motivational speeches left in her.

Oh, if only Lorelai knew that that was the least of her worries.

Revised: January 6th, 2020
Revised: October 31st, 2024