chapter eight! the confrontation
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"Grandma please just tell me,"
Thea begged, stalking after her grandmother, who had been trying to shut her down since she had returned from cheer practice.
"Thea, you need to drop this," Emily sighed, stepping into the kitchen and pulling a carton of milk out of the large fridge.
"Why did you never tell me why she left?" Thea asked once more watching as her grandmother began to warm up the milk without a word, "Please Grandma."
Emily sighed, taking a step back from the boiling milk and focusing her attention back on her granddaughter. Tears welled in Thea's eyes as she waited for an answer. Richard and Emily had always hoped, prayed even that Thea would never ask why her mother had left her. In all honesty, they wouldn't have known what to tell her as they had never been able to understand why their daughter had abandoned such a beautiful baby.
"Thea, dear, go get changed out of your uniform while I make us some hot chocolate and we will see what we can find on the television," Emily suggested, gesturing to her granddaughter who still stood in her cheerleading uniform.
Thea reluctantly nodded knowing she was going to get nowhere with her grandmother on this subject. With one last glance at Emily, Thea headed out of the kitchen and instead of heading up to her room she quietly snuck out of the front door.
• • • • • • •
The wacky town of Stars Hollow filled Thea with an unusual feeling since she was only ever in the hectic, city environment of Hartford. Thea had only stepped foot in the small town a handful of times and it had never been as quiet as it was now.
The teen had found herself pulled towards Luke's the minute she'd stepped off the bus. A diner her mother and twin sister frequented. The lights inside the beloved diner were out, but the lights in the apartment above gave Thea faith that someone was inside.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" Thea called out, banging her paled fist against the glass-panelled door of Luke's.
Heavy snow fell around the brunette, coating the moonlight streets of Stars Hollow. Droplets of snow mixed with the tears that streamed down Thea's pale cheeks. The grey cheerleading hoodie she'd pulled on as she fled the Gilmore mansion now sticking to her damp skin.
The glass door snapped open, revealing an irritated dark-haired boy, his scowl softening at the heartbroken girl in front of him.
The boy's dark hair seemed to fall across his face, almost blocking his vision. His hardened gaze seemed to soften as his eyes landed on the broken Gilmore in front of him. Thea recognised the boy from the Bracebridge Dinner as Jess, the boy she had spoken with before the dinner had started.
"Is Lorelai here?"
• • • • • • •
The soft ring of the diner bell, pulled Thea away from the hot mug of coffee, that Jess had placed in front of her, even though he argued that it was too late in the door for coffee. A middle-aged man, a little older than Lorelai, stood in the entranceway of the diner.
A backwards baseball cap offering his head little protection from the uncharacteristic heavy rainfall of the Connecticut town. Thea assumed the wearer of the backwards baseball cap and the flannel shirt to be the owner of the diner, Luke, a man Lorelai had mentioned before in passing.
The diner owner caught sight of the Hartford girl sitting at a table in the middle of his emptied dinner, a warm towel wrapped over her damp shoulder, strands of wet hair framing her damp face. His nephew sat opposite the girl as the two conversed, this was the most Luke had ever seen Jess speak.
The girl was an exact replica of Lorelai, from her dark locks to her caffeine addictions, right down to how she held herself. The only difference between the mother and daughter where the piercing green eyes that the younger Gilmore possessed. Luke assumed she had inherited from her father, Christopher, who he'd met once when he'd breezed through town.
"Jess, who's your friend?"
"She's looking for Lorelai," Jess answered, his attention focused on the green-eyed Gilmore.
Luke nodded, moving behind the counter and picking the landline off the hook. Turning away from the teens, Luke dialled the number for the Gilmore house, praying that the mother-daughter duo were home.
• • • • • • •
"I got back from Doose's and there she was,"
Luke burst out of the diner as soon as he spotted Lorelai approaching.
Lorelai stepped back, Luke's sudden outburst on the steps of the diner, shocking her, "Who?"
"Sat there drinking coffee, crying and talking to Jess," Luke continued, without answering Lorelai's question, gesturing to the rain-soaked girl through the glass door, Loreali peaked behind Luke spotting her youngest daughter.
"Thea?"
Luke nodded, pushing open the door, allowing himself and Lorelai to step into the near-empty diner. Lorelai moved cautiously over to the Gilmore, almost as if one wrong move would send her scurrying off as if she were a stray animal.
The mismatched outfit covering Thea's slight frame caught Lorelai's attention, bringing the woman to one conclusion. Half cheer uniform, half Jess'. Lorelai took the seat across from Thea, occupying the seat Jess previously had, "Thea, does Mom know you're here?"
"N-no, I'm not even sure Grandma knows I'm gone," Thea shook her head, panicking slightly as she worried about what her grandmother would say when she returned home.
Luke and Jess had retreated back upstairs to the small apartment, leaving the mother and daughter to talk.
Neither mother nor daughter knowing what to do or say.
"Why are you here?" Lorelai asked, finally breaking the silence that had taken over the diner.
Thea froze, unwrapping her still icy finger from the coffee mug, which had begun to turn cold due to the lack of caffeine, "I heard everything you said to Grandma,"
"Oh,"
"I shouldn't have to beg for my mother to be in my life." Thea spat out, shaking her head as her mother refused to meet her eyes.
Lorelai finally glanced up from her hands, meeting Thea's glossy green eyes, "I'm sorry, Thea. I really am."
"It doesn't excuse what you did, you left me without a word," Thea scoffed, a small nervous laugh escaping her chapped lips, "You put me through so much."
"I didn't mean to -"
"Every year, I waited for you to whisk me off to Stars Hollow," the young Gilmore cut the older woman off, tears now streaming down her cheeks, "You never did."
Lorelai's breath caught in her throat, her hands falling onto the table, "I never meant to hurt you, I was just trying to protect you."
"You could have left me a letter," Thea argued, rubbing at her slender wrists, "Anything, anything just to let me know why."
"As soon as I left I regretted it, regretted not taking you with me, regretting not leaving you a letter," Lorelai sniffed, tears welling in her bright blue eyes,
"I'm sorry, you thought I didn't want you."