Gilmore Girls

Pt. 6

"Coffee?" Jess asked with the pot on his hand.
"Oh, yeah, thanks." Lorelai accepted, she was sitting next to Luke while talking management business for the new inn. "How are you Jess?"
"Well I'm not bleeding or anything." Responded the teenager coldly as always.
"Yeah, then it's gonna be a good day, huh?"
He finish pouring the coffee on the big mug. "7:45" He said to his uncle.
"So?"
"So, do you want me to go to school or you want to openly defy child-labor laws?"
"Go. Stay out of trouble." Luke commanded his nephew. Jess put down the coffee pot in the table and walked to grab something behind the counter.
"Guess that means calling off the chickie run." He defied.
"Out!" Shouted Luke annoyed.
"Wow. So much... Love." Lorelai shyly added. Luke just carried on with their previous conversation.

Jess was about to open the dinner door heading to school, when this suddenly opened widely. He froze in place clearly annoyed at the person who almost slapped the door on his face, holding it with his right hand.
"Sorry." Was heard in a low and sweet tone. His eyes falling on the figure walking pass him. It was the youngest Gilmore. He doubts that she had noticed it was him who she almost smacked. Turning back around and continuing his way out of the dinner was when a question fell to his mind. "Why wasn't she heading to school?"
She clearly wasn't skipping class since her mother was there. He haven't seen her since she walked in the dinner that night wearing a dress, even though he should have beacuse they both work in the dinner. But he put the thought away, "she probably works when I'm not."

Inside the dinner, after picking up the apron from the counter Joey went straight to the table where she had spotted her mother and Luke.
"Sorry I'm late." She tied the red apron behind her.
"Hey you don't have to apologise, we've already talked about that." Luke spoke.
"Yeah, sorry." She apologized again gaining a raised eyebrow from him.
"Just pick up the pot from where Jess left." He nodded to the coffee.
"Sure."
"Did you slept well? You seem tired." In fact she did.
"Yeah mam, just fine." She quickly answered and picked up the pot and went away to serve.
Lorelai, in fact, new that she was lying, not because she was specifically a bad liar, but because she heard her awake at night, sometimes just the bathroom door or movement around the house, but other times she had heard her cry. She didn't bother to ask cause, as you may see, she already knows what the answer would be. But still, she was worried about her daughter's well-being.

Luke noticed Lorelai's concerned face. "Hey, everything's okay?"
"Mm? Yeah, yeah." She didn't sound so convincing, gaining a glare from him. "No, no. I'm just worried about her." She looked the way her daughter was, serving the customers with a smile on her face.
"Joey? Why? Something happened?"
Lorelai really didn't wanted to talk about her daughter, she thought this matter was more of a private business, but she couldn't contain herself, she felt like she needed to tell someone, and of course Luke was a good candidate.
"I don't know. That's the thing. I don't know what's happening to her." Luke trying to follow her rambling. "Like- like, she's always so happy, and making people laugh, she's so humble, never really asks for anything..." Of course Luke couldn't fine the problem in that. "I don't feel like she's acting like a teenager, even Rory is more than her. She doesn't hate the world like others clearly do... But that's not all. She's all this sunny, shining self, but then she's really down. She has a lot of trouble sleeping, and- and I can hear her crying herself to sleep. You know how hard that is?" She was talking sad, loud and rambling, but not a tear threatened to fall. "And the worst part is that I can do nothing about it. And of course she acts like nothing happens."
Luke was silent. Of course he didn't knew about it, and clearly Lorelai was the only one who noticed this.
Without really knowing how to help, he tried his best to keep Lorelai calmed.
"I'm sure things will come around. Maybe just found the right time to talk to her." A few seconds went on without word. "I guess we're both having teenage trouble."