Chapter Text
Jess’ leg is shaking as the phone rings, his throat dry. He hopes to God it doesn’t go to voicemail, or worse, Lorelai answers the phone. His nerves are already shot as it is.
“Hello?”
It’s Rory. For a moment, Jess can only breathe. Relief balloons in his chest, but the shaking doesn’t just persist, it intensifies. He jams the phone between his ear and shoulder, digs his lighter out of his pants pocket and flicks it on and off, on and off, focused on the flame.
“Hey,” he says, after an entirely too long beat.
There’s hesitation on the other line. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” It’s like he’s choking on silt.
“Okay.” Jess hears Rory’s door snick shut. “Hi.”
Jess leans back a little, eyes tracking the flame as it sparks, appears, disappears. A smile pulls on the corners of his mouth.
“Hi.”
There’s another pause, this one still charged, but with an undercurrent of eagerness, waiting for the other person to speak. Jess almost forgets why he’s calling.
“I need to tell you something,” he says quietly, and even he can hear the pain in his voice, the apprehension.
It’s like he’s stabbed himself with his own knife, twisting and twisting until the pain is unbearable, fresh with each new turn. Disappointment bogs him down, weighs heavy on his limbs. He curls in half, thumb freezing on the lighter. The pad of his thumb is raw from rubbing against the metal wheel.
“I can’t go to the prom,” Jess says. He hates how it sounds, pathetic and sullen. “I couldn’t get tickets.”
“Oh.”
It’s a breath, a gasp, a half-formed reaction, like Jess has personally knocked the wind out of Rory’s lungs. Jess is starting to tremble in earnest now. The phone rattles gently against his cheek, and no matter how hard he tries to still his hand holding the lighter, it quivers.
Jess swallows thickly. “Yeah. Sorry.”
His voice cracks on the last word, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Fuck.
Jess runs his thumb over the grooves of the lighter wheel, swiping it quickly, listening to the sparks jump. His vision is hazy around the edges as he opens his eyes. There’s pressure below his eyes, anxiety wrapped around his chest like a vice.
He desperately wishes he had a cigarette. The last of his stash was buried in the bottom of the trash bin outside the diner from when he’d impulsively decided that he could quit cold turkey if he wanted, he was the captain of his own fate.
That sentiment was feeling a little foolish at the moment.
“Anyways, I just… figured I’d let you know.” His thumb is hovering over the end call button, and he just wants to go, he wants to go.
“Jess?” Rory says, and it makes him ache, the way his name falls out of Rory’s mouth, always a little breathless, but coming from her, it felt like his name was his name.
He wasn’t the mischief maker, wasn’t the perpetual failure. He wasn’t an apparition, an entity aimlessly walking the earth with no real home, no future. Rory was his future, and his name was safe in her mouth.
Jess grunts to indicate he’s heard her, that he’s still on the line.
“Can I come over?” Rory’s voice quavers, the string of a violin bow. “I know it’s late and Luke’s probably closing, but I want… I want to see you.” She pauses, contemplating. “Or… we can meet at the bridge, if you want.”
Jess clears his throat, bowing his head. His body still feels like it’s experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake from the inside out, but his heart rate is starting to level out, his breathing coming back to him in shallow, short intervals.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Rory.”
There’s a weighted silence. Jess can envision Rory shifting on her feet at the swiftness of being denied, but Rory’s never been one to take no for an answer.
“Please?”
Jess isn’t sure yet, what it is about this girl that can turn him inside out with one word, a split second. The girls he’s been with have always tried to take a mile when given an inch, and it doesn’t bother him much to deny them, because in the end, they don’t care either way what he gives them. Kissing and sex are nothing of consequence to anyone he’s been with, and in the end, it’s satisfactory for both parties involved, but Jess never lets anything go any further when it comes to emotions. Jess never gives more than he can get.
With Rory, he’d give her miles and miles, and he can’t put his finger on why.
“Okay,” Jess replies at last, the word constrictive, binding around his throat. “See you in ten.”
Jess ends the call. He flicks the lighter on, the flames dancing before him in the dimly lit apartment. He passes his hand a hairsbreadth above the tip of the flame, letting the flame kiss his palm, a gentle shock. He inhales and exhales.
Jess blows the lighter out like a candle on a birthday cake, stuffs it in his pocket, and shoves his feet into his boots.
He doesn’t believe in a higher power, but as he walks out the door, he wishes he did.