Everything comes back to you -J.MARIANO

[1.10]

ꪻaryn rapped hurriedly on the door of the Gilmore house, hoping that the Gilmore's were in and hadn't accidentally forgotten to turn off their lights again. It had happened before so the fear was rather valid, easily in her current dire situation. ''It's open!" Lorelai yelled from the living room, the sound barely reaching Taryn's ears. She hesitated and slowly opened the door, peeking inside to check she wasn't intruding on something important. Lorelai emerged from the living room and instantly sent Taryn an apologetic smile, she wouldn't have yelled if she had known who was behind the door but they weren't expecting her. As Taryn closed the door behind herself, Lorelai grew an uncharacteristic frown. "Taryn, honey, you look like you've seen a ghost."

"I don't know what i've done or how to fix it," she responded rapidly and began to pull her bag off of her shoulder. Slowly she pulled the grayish fabric from her bag and a previously confused Lorelai gasped once she saw the full extent of the mess that had been created. Taryn only ran to Lorelai, the person who had first taught her to sew, when the situation was unfixable to her extent of knowledge. The hurried rush to the Gilmore house was always a last resort, an attempt to save the piece of fabric used and the money she had spent on it. Silently, the garment and all its mess was picked up and inspected.

She smiled, attempting to ease some of Taryn's tension before responding, "Well this is quite a pickle."

"I tried to unpick the stitching but it just made it worse," she added as Lorelai looked over a particular patch where she had tried to pull away the thread holding the fabric in its squished and befuddling current state.

"Well huh," she chuckled, having figured that would have worked as it usually does. It looked as if her sewing machine had eaten, chewed and spanned the fabric round before spitting it out again. "Let's go upstairs and try to fix this..."

-

Taryn entered her home and dumped her bag full of partially saved fabric down at the front door, planning to deal with it later. The kitchen smelt too good to wait until she was called down to dinner. "Where'd you run off too?" her Dad asked as she walked into the kitchen.

"Lorelai's, fabric emergency," she responded whilst sitting down at the kitchen table, hand already reading towards the salad in the middle.

"Ah right," he muttered to himself, turning away from his daughter to stir what was bubbling on the stove.

"Where's Da?"

"He went for a walk to cool down," he explained quickly, turning round to sign his response as well, before returning to the stove.

She frowned instantly, now reaching for the pile of cheese that had been created on the other side of the table to her seat (she was notorious for eating it before dinner.) "What happened?"

"Nothing Taryn , don't worry about it."

She sighed softly, "Dad..."

"We're concerned for you," her Da called from the entryway to the kitchen and signed the same interruption soon after she turned around towards him.

Her brow furrowed and a line formed deeply between her brows. Her question came quiet and full of panic, "Why? Did the doctors call or something?"

She was incredibly aware of her parents' silent conversation, taking place with only their eyes. The longer the discussion went on, the more her brow furrowed. "No, not the doctor. It's about Jess," her Dad replied whilst Da plated up their food.

She frowned as her parents sat down around the circle table, her confusion only growing the more they remained silent. "We're worried about you with him," her Da added as he set her plate in front of her.

Her Dad shrugged and the tension within the room began to rise to a noticeable level. "He just doesn't seem like the nicest kid."

"He's always nice to you at Luke's... I don't understand, where is this coming from?"

Her parents shared a look before her Da replied, "We had lunch with Patty."

They collectively watched as a look of realization swooped over Taryn 's face and she sat back in her chair, beginning to twirl some pasta around her fork. She spoke softly, "Those are just rumors."

"The fact that you know what we're talking about speaks miles."

She hesitated and inhaled softly, wanting to keep her cool. Taryn had already had this discussion today and she couldn't understand why everyone was so concerned. He seemed like any other teenager to her, just slightly more rebellious than some others. It wasn't harmful either, he never did it to purposely hurt anyone. "I only know what you're talking about because that's all I hear from Tas. Don't you trust me?"

"Of course we do Taryn ," Da replied instantly, answering the question that could do so much damage if he left it unanswered for too long. "We're just concerned."

"Well I'm not. He's actually really sweet when he wants to be," she paused and put down her fork to reach for a piece of the salad. "And he's a really great friend."

"We'll respect your opinion and judgment of course," her Dad replied, interrupting her Da who wanted to make a different point entirely. "Just please be careful. We don't want you to get hurt."

She smiled softly, knowing that she hadn't lost her parents' trust. That was something she valued heavily. "I won't Da."