TROUVAILLE ... l.danes (REWRITE)

chapter forty-seven; the past

IT IS THE LAST TIME SHE CALLS HIM ROMEO

nineteen-eighty-six

TAMMI'S LIPS are soft. They taste like peaches, completely separate from the taste of the gloss stuck to her mouth. When she kisses him, she places a perfectly manicured hand on the back of his neck and almost refuses to let go. Almost as if she's afraid he's going to run off.

Lucas has nowhere else to be.

He's supposed to be manning the store. His dad went fishing for the weekend, packing up the truck yesterday and passing the keys to his son with barely any warning. Yesterday was slow. It's mid-March and the weather has been surprisingly nice. Nobody wants to do handiwork around their house when the Spring sun finally pops through the clouds. So, he spent yesterday cleaning the store.

He found an old order his father had taken on one of the walls when he ran out of paper and decided not to clean it off. It might be nice for him to find in the future.

This morning, he woke up to Liz almost burning down the kitchen trying to cook them breakfast and he'd called Tammi. He couldn't be left alone for another day again. Left to his own thoughts crowding his mind. His own failures. It's been so long since they graduated and what has he done with his life? Sat here, in this store, in this town, stuck in the same place he has always been. Unmoving.

Even Jeff has got a real job. The inn on the outskirts of town, The Independence Inn, was looking for a new gardener and handyman, so he had applied and gotten the job since nobody else wanted it. Now, he walks around in the same goddamn blue boiler suit every day. There's grass stains on the knee and his name is sewn into the breast pocket in white thread. He's given up weed for regular old cigarettes and his pack can be found poking out the top of said pocket. Olive, too, has a job that she loves. She bakes in Weston's Bakery, in the kitchen at the crack of dawn, covered in flour all the way up to her elbow, singing along to the radio as Fran Weston makes coffees and teas with unique flavors. Any day now, Olive will give birth to the baby girl swimming around her stomach – Jeff's baby girl, too. Weird to think about – and they will have someone to care for.

He is stuck while everyone moves on.

Tammi traces the edge of his lip with her tongue and he opens his mouth wider for her to dive in. Her grip on the back of his neck tightens and he runs his hand up past the hem of her denim skirt, fingers playing with her ticklish thighs.

How long has it been since he saw Shelley?

She left last September. He doesn't remember seeing her at Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. She didn't even come back for her birthday last month. Maybe he just missed her. Maybe she hides from him every time she comes back. Maybe, she just doesn't come back.

He wonders if she's cut her hair since she left. It used to be long. Blonde and dripping down to her ribcage. Maybe, she's cut it all off to her chin and she's walking around Harvard, looking chic and like she fits right in. Maybe she has a fake I.D and she goes out to nightclubs and gets so drunk she can't stand. Maybe she hooks up with rich guys who she would never bring back to Stars Hollow.

Tammi shifts on his lap to get comfortable without pulling out of their kiss. This is what they're always like when they're bored. They sit, they make out, and they don't talk to each other. They've run out of things to talk about. And, anyway, she's moving to Illinois this summer to be a cheerleader at Northwestern and she'll start classes in September. They won't see each other again.