‘What are you—’
‘Please don’t say anything,’ Lorelai heard herself say.
She thought she would be terrified. She was so certain she would lose her nerve and fumble her way through what she needed to say. However, some hidden confidence, a dormant conviction about what she had to do, awakened within her and soothed and silenced her emotions.
‘I don’t need you to say anything. You’ve said what you needed to say and that’s enough. I understand. The reason I’m here isn’t to do with me. It’s to do with you.’ Lorelai paused. As predicted,her carefully rehearsed speech had deserted her. Before she could think it through properly, she blurted out, ‘You’re going to die. On your flight home to London something tragic is going to happen and you’re not going to survive. If you’re wondering how I know…’No turning back now, ‘it’s because when you kissed me for the first time back home, I saw it. It’s a power I have. I see how people are going to die when I kiss them. It’s a gift of sorts. Although I suppose it’s only a gift if you listen to me and it saves your life. So please let it be a gift, Grayson. Don’t get on that plane. Take a boat, hitch-hike, swim home for all I care. It doesn’t matter how you get home just…get home.To Aden, to your mum, your dad, your aunt. They need you.’
Her shoulders dropped and the weight she had been carrying since her very first kiss all those years ago slipped from them and shattered at her feet. A friend, a mother and a love all now knew her secret. It was the holy trinity she didn’t know she needed. Tears began to flow but she didn’t turn her face away. Somewhere along the way she had decided to stop hiding. This was who she was and this was how she felt, and she no longer felt afraid of letting people know it.
‘Lorelai, I… What? I don’t…’ Grayson was at a loss. He stared at her, opening and closing his mouth like a fish.
Lorelai wiped her face and managed to compose herself. ‘Don’t get on the plane, Grayson. This isn’t a plea for you to give me a second chance. Or a third chance. I know I screwed up every chance you gave me, and I wouldn’t give me another chance, either. Even though I’d love just one more because… well…’ She smiled and said the truest thing she had ever said, ‘because the truth is I loveyou, Grayson. I know it’s madto say that when we barely even got started but I’ve spent so long running from my feelings and I ended up running right into you. That has to mean something. Iknowit means something. But this isn’t about me anymore. If I’m not the one for you then I want you to live to find the person who is. I want someone to feel as lucky as I felt… still feel that I got to spend even just a small amount of time with you. So don’t get on that plane, Grayson.’ She wanted to reach out and hug him, kiss his cheek, squeeze his shoulder but she knew that was no longer her place.
Grayson opened his mouth but when he couldn’t find the right words, he closed it again. So many emotions flashed across his face. Confusion about what she was trying to tell him, hurt by how she’d treated him and now she was saying she loved him, frustrated that none of it made any sense. In the end he said, ‘I just don’t understand, Lorelai.’ He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his gloved fingers. ‘What you’re saying… it’s… it’s madness. It makes no sense. And I can’t just make other plans and arrangements based off… off…’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud.
Lorelai’s heart sank. He didn’t believe her. But she had to try one more time. ‘I know.I know.Don’t you think I hear how this sounds? But I couldn’t not try. I couldn’t let you…’ Lorelai trailed off, not knowing what more she could say. ‘I know I’ve given you very little reason to but… if you want to live, you have to trust me. Please.’
Grayson stared at her, rendered speechless. When he didn’t say anything for a long time, Lorelai knew there was nothing else she could do now. He needed to make the choice to believe her byhimself. Lorelai took one last look at his confused, beautiful face and turned away from him. As she walked back in the direction of her hotel, she didn’t look over her shoulder. She had no need to. Lorelai had done what she came to do. Now she just had to pray that he had listened.
Twenty-Nine
The thought of staying in New York, in the same city as Grayson and not being with him in the way she wanted, made Lorelai feel wretched. She had never longed for her mother in this way before and, despite Lila being over three thousand miles away, Lorelai missed her with a fierceness that shocked her, and it was that closeness that kept her afloat in this period of darkness. As soon as she made it back to the hotel, numb from more than just the cold, she began to pack.
‘Hello darling, how did it go?’
Lorelai had made the call to her mother, not the other way around, and yet as soon as she heard Lila’s kind voice, Lorelai wasn’t able to speak.
‘Hello? Lorelai? I think it might be a bad line?’
She tried to speak through her tears but ended up squeaking as she tried to take a breath.
‘Oh sweetheart. Get your breath back and then tell me what he said.’ Lila waited patiently as she swallowed back her emotion. Lorelai didn’t take the phone away from her ear all the while, for the first time finding strength in having her mother close.
‘He didn’t say anything really.’
‘What do you mean? Nothing at all?’
‘Well, he said he didn’t understand but that was to be expected.’
‘You told him he was going to die!’ Her mother shrieked down the phone so loudly Lorelai had to pull her ear away from the speaker.
‘I know, but if you didn’t have the power you have, would you believe someone who came up to you and told you how you were going to die? You’d think they’d lost the plot.’
‘Possibly,’ her mother said stubbornly, ‘but I think I’d be a little wary from then on, just to be safe.’
‘That’s the best we can hope for now. I did walk away from him quite quickly once I realised he was struggling with what I was saying. But then again he didn’t stop me either,’ she added.
‘Then he doesn’t deserve you, Lorelai.’ Lila’s voice had hardened, her tone clipped.
‘Mum…’ Lorelai almost laughed. She’d never given her mother an opportunity to be protective. Despite the ache from her interaction with Grayson, the squeeze of love in her chest for her mum made her feel safe.
‘No, listen to me, darling. Power or no power, no man deserves you at your best if he can’t handle you at your worst. Regardless of what your worst may be. If you two were meant to be together, he would have stopped you from leaving and would never have let you go. It’s his loss and his loss alone. There is someone out there who would help you bury bodies if he had to and would feel lucky about it, too!’
Lorelai laughed and her chest loosened, her breathing coming more easily now. If she’d known she had been missing out on pep talks like this all these years, she would have opened up toher mother a long time ago. She wasn’t in a place to believe what her mother was saying was true, but it felt good that someone cared enough about her to try to make her smile.
‘Then I guess the search for love continues. Well… I guess the search begins really. I didn’t expect to find Grayson and before him I was quite content with Joanie by my side.’
‘Have you spoken to her?’
