Gilmore Girls: Wish Upon a Snow

Chapter 39

If Rory could crawl under the chairs in the waiting room and hide, she would. Her skin was crawling with embarrassment at the realization that she was waiting for a paternity test.

She dug her fingernails into the luxurious chair she was sitting in as a young woman walked around the waiting room offering bottled waters to the patients. She longed to blink her eyes and be transported back to the cheap plastic chairs in her pediatrician's office. Nothing was cheap in Paris' practice. She never did anything inexpensively. 

I'm not ready, Rory suddenly thought. This thought gripped her suddenly, souring her stomach. 

How did I let this happen?

"Lorelei Gilmore?" called a friendly voice. A woman in bright blue scrubs was waiting for Rory with a clipboard. Her face was friendly and open, and she smiled a real smile at Rory.

Rory felt tears jump to her eyes as she walked up to her.

"That's me," she said quietly.

"Okay!" the woman said cheerily, "I'm Ruth, I'm your nurse today. You are here for some tests, right?" Rory nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.

Rory nodded, her mouth suddenly dry.

She followed the nurse through the door into a hallway of exam rooms.

Ruth chattered on about the unseasonably warm day, peppering the conversation with questions about Rory's medical history. Rory answered dutifully but paid little attention to the other aspects of the conversation. Every door they approached made her heartbeat quicken.

They finally stopped and went into a room. A large number "6" was hanging prominently in the middle of the door. It seemed almost ominous, somehow.

"Dr. Gellar wants to talk to you for a moment before we begin the amniocentesis testing. Do you have any concerns? Would you like to go over the risks of the procedure again?" Ruth flipped back quickly through the clipboard and made a few clicks on the sleek computer in the room. "Dr. Gellar mentioned she touched on them briefly. I have a pamphlet for you, of course, but we are more than happy to go over-"

"No," Rory said quickly, louder than she intended.

Ruth flinched but recovered quickly, offering Rory a small smile. "Of course. I am just going to check your vitals, then she will be right in to see you."

A few minutes later, Rory stared at the ceiling in the chilly, empty room. The occasional cold tear slipped out of her eye, running down her face and hitting the paper of the exam table before she could catch it. There were several perfectly round damp circles next to her hip. She could not help but notice that there had been a sudden shift in her feelings since she arrived for her appointment. When she had first arrived, she was praying for Logan to be the father. She had pulled her phone out to check the calendar multiple times, trying to do some kind of fruitless math to ease her mind. She had slept with both of them on the same day and no amount of counting back or silent pleading was going to change what the results were going to be. 

She had not heard from Jess at all. Her quiet, simmering anger towards him had faded. She felt younger somehow as if she was still waiting around for him to call when she was in high school. 

Rory just wanted to be able to end her relationship with Jess. She could not handle any more disappointment from him. Their pattern had become exhausting to her. They were always falling in love, drifting apart, and coming back together only when there was an imbalance of power. Someone always wanted it more than the other and it inevitably fell apart again when one realized the other was not all in. 

There was a soft knock on the door.