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Based on the look on Lane’s face, she must’ve been thinking that she was entering the cuckoo’s nest. And for once it wasn’t because of Paris.
No, Rory knew just how crazy she looked running across the room in every direction tossing curriculum and tearing off her top. “I’m sorry if I’m late,” Lane stuttered at the threshold to Rory and Paris’ new dorm. They’d been living in it for a couple weeks now, but it didn’t feel like home yet. She wondered if she’d ever spend enough time in any of her college accommodations for them to feel like home. “No, no you’re right on time!” Rory insisted as she ran into her room, picked up a blouse she’d left on her bed in the morning and pulled it on as she re-entered the common room. “It’s just a hectic day for me, is all.” “More like a hectic month,” Paris claimed from her seat on the couch, gluing a piece of riccoli down on her latest canvas. Lane looked worriedly between the girls. “What’s going on?” “Nothing, Paris is just in a mood.” Lane grimaced and whispered loudly: “Is she still in mourning?” Paris shot up from her artwork and glared at her: “Grieving is not a ‘mood’! It’s a serious state of sorrow for the loss of love, and it has countless rituals bound to it!” Then she muttered under her breath: “Besides, Asher didn’t want me to get trapped in grief. He wanted me to go on and live my life to the fullest.” “Go and love some more,” Rory said, and for as little as she got Paris and Professor Fleming’s relationship, she didn’t say it as a joke.
“Speaking of the living,” Lane turned back to Rory. “What is up with your schedule?” Rory pulled up her casual bag on the coffee table and dragged her school bag over to it. “A little more than usual, but not too much. Just classes and seminars and the Yale Daily News and Dean, which is going great, we’re really making this long-distance thing work, I wonder why we ever worried in the first place.” Lane pointed at the bags. “You’re putting the Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii and the Oxford Companion to Chaucer in your casual bag.” Rory flinched. “I’m trying to get ahead of my reading this year.” Lane observed her: “Are you going somewhere after this?” “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention!” Rory exclaimed and nearly slapped her forehead. “I’m meeting Dean this evening.” “But we made plans to hang today! And it’s a Friday!” “See what I mean,” Paris mumbled, focus returned to her pasta-based art.
“I know,” Rory insisted and turned away from her bags. “But it’s the only day this week that he doesn’t have to work ’till midnight, and I don’t have any time next week because I’ve got five assignments due three days in a row, including one,” Rory looked back at her bag and pulled up the Oxford copy. “- on Chaucer!” Lane sighed. “When are you meeting him?” Rory bit the inside of her cheek, knowing what look she was about to get. “An hour before my grandparents.” Paris groaned into her lap, while Lane threw her arms out. Rory struggled to mutter out an additional: “And once I’m done with Friday Night Dinner.” “Rory!” Lane yelled, clearly frustrated with her. Rory hated doing that to Lane. She’d never forgotten that time when she nearly lost touch with her back in high school, when Chilton and all the time she spent with Dean threatened to swallow their friendship whole.
“But it’s fine!” Rory insisted, pulling a hand up. “We still have an…” She looked over at the watch on the wall. “… hour and a half until I have to leave-” “Rory, I got all the way here-” “And we can drive back to Stars Hollow together, so that’s another half hour!” Lane looked over at Paris. At first it looked like an exchange of disappointed looks, but then it dragged on, as if they were having a mental conversation. “What?” Rory asked. The girls quickly looked back at her before resuming what she could only assume was psychic trash-talk. “Oh my god, what?” Lane broke first. “We thought we were going to get more time.” Rory blinked. “More time for what?” “We wanted you to have space to process without the risk of you making a run for the Bermuda triangle,” Paris continued for her. Rory processed the words and analyzed their expressions, taking it all in.
“Are you about to stage an intervention?!” she exclaimed. Lane and Paris’ eyes widened in fear. “No!” “Oh no!” they yelled out of sync with each other, but Rory couldn’t listen. “If this is about Dean, I’m not having it,” she declared and got up to step away from them. “He would’ve left Lindsay anyway, and I cannot have this conversation again when I’ve already had to go through it with mom.” “It’s not about Dean,” Lane insisted. “Of course it’s about Dean,” Rory replied. “And I get it.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, you’re afraid I’m going to disappear into my relationship with him again, but I won’t.”
“That’s not-”
“We’re both older and more mature now, we’re capable of having lives outside of each other.”
“Rory-”
“You know he really supports me know, he thinks Yale is great.”
“Rory please-”
“Fine then, what?!”
“We’re still in touch with Jess!”
The air went out of the room. Rory’s mouth dried up and her muscles locked in place. She couldn’t move. “Rory?” Paris mumbled. Her childhood and teenage friends exchanged worries look. “Rory do you copy-” “Tell me I heard wrong.” It was all she could say in return. It couldn’t be right. It didn’t make sense for her to have heard it right. But neither one of the girls jumped to refute what had just come out of Lane. Rory was shaking. “Lane, tell me I heard it wrong.” Lane swallowed and opened her mouth: “You didn’t.” Rory’s heart skipped a beat, but it didn’t feel exciting. “Both of us are keeping in touch with Jess.”
Rory dropped her shoulders and exhaled shakily: “Oh boy.” She turned around, unable to look at her friends. “Just-” She didn’t even know where to start. “How?” Paris answered with a cautiously monotone voice: "Lane contacted him while he was still in California.” Rory spun around. “You what?!” Lane threw her hands out in defense. “I didn’t plan for this to happen; you have to believe me!” “Oh, you didn’t plan on becoming my ex-boyfriend’s friend,” Rory muttered bitterly. “I was trying to demand an apology for you!” Rory could’ve laughed: “Still haven’t got it!” Lane put her palms up: “I know, we’ve been telling him to get around to that-” Rory took a step back in shock. “You’ve told him to speak with me? Why- oh my god did you tell him to come here this spring?” Paris jumped out of the couch. “No we did not, that was all him!” Lane flashed her a supportive smile that only made Rory angrier. “Yeah, we both found out about that from you, he wasn’t talking for weeks!” she said. Wow, Rory thought to herself, feeling like a tap dancer was using her chest as their dancefloor. “So that’s unusual for him,” she snickered painfully.
The girls looked at her then, with something that looked way too much like pity. “Rory,” Paris started softly. “We didn’t mean for this to happen.” Rory nodded, grabbing hold of herself. “You clearly didn’t.” She believed them. But that didn’t mean this was right. That didn’t mean this felt right. She couldn’t even make sense of everything she was feeling now, it was all too intense. “We haven’t forgiven him,” Lane insisted. “For what he did to you.” Rory looked at her. “But you’re still friends.” She could see the sting on Lane’s face, and it pained her so much to cause it. But it felt just too. Lane sighed and tried but failed to smile. “We know how screwed up this is, we can cut all ties with him if you want-” “No, you can do what you want, I’m not the boss of your social lives!” Rory insisted, throwing her hands in surrender. It came out more ironic than she actually intended. “Rory, we will do what you feel is right,” Paris countered, making Rory step back again. “I don’t know what I feel right now!”
Suddenly, Lane started digging through her pocket and took out a scrap piece of paper. She walked towards Rory and stuck her hand out. Rory could already tell what it was and refused to move a muscle. So Lane did it for her: she softly took one of Rory’s hands, pulled it towards herself and planted the paper in it. “This is his number.” Rory began to shake her head. “You don’t have to call him,” Lane insisted. “I’m not telling you to do anything you don’t want to. I’m just giving you the option. Even if it’s to tell him to never speak to any of us ever again.”
Lane and Paris stared at her, waiting for an order she couldn’t give. She was too angry to pretend like this was okay. Like they weren’t taking his side by keeping him in their lives, as little as they wanted to admit it. Like he hadn’t broken her heart and her hope and sauntered back into her life twice just to step on the pieces and leave again. But she couldn’t find it in her to tell them to cut him out. It was too cruel, even for her rage. And stuck inside of her was all this rage, all this betrayal, this sorrow.
She turned her head to the wall and back into nothing. “I’ve gotta go, can’t be late for Dean.” She broke free of Lane’s loose grip and walked away. Her and Paris’ shoulders dropped. “You said we had an hour and a half,” Lane reminded her. “Yeah, well I’ve got to beat the afternoon traffic,” Rory claimed and grabbed her casual bag. “You’re not making sense,” Paris tried, but Rory was already halfway out the door. The last thing she heard as she swung the door open was Lane’s desperation: “Rory, please-” “I just can’t deal with this right now,” Rory managed to say before slamming the door behind her.
Rory stomped down the hall with one hand grabbing the strap of her bag and the other curled into a fist around the scrap of paper. She marched past fellow students crowding up the halls, trying to get into rooms or chatting on the thresholds. As she neared the exit, a familiar shape with blonde hair and the wardrobe of an Abercrombie model nodded at her. “In a rush there, Ace?” Something in her snapped, and she barked at him: “Don’t call me that!” Logan stepped back, his expression twisting from mischievous to shocked to worried. Oh great, he was worried. “Sorry,” he muttered hesitantly. Rory was at a loss for words over what she’d just done. All she could do was shake her head apologetically and cover her face from him as she ran out of the dorms.
Was she going crazy? Rory scolded herself as she rushed through the grounds, ignoring pedestrian traffic of the afternoon. This wasn’t Chilton. Logan wasn’t some prep school bully teasing her about her sex life. He was just asking her what she was doing. But how the hell was she going to respond to that? ‘Gee thanks for asking, you see my best friend since diapers and the one person I could really stand at my second high school just told me not only that they’re team ex-boyfriend, but that they want me to chat with him after he loved me and left me faster than Ashley Wilkes twice! So you might understand how frustrated and betrayed I feel, really, thank you so much for asking!’ Rory shook her head as she entered the parking lot. Yeah, it was probably better to look crazy in front of Logan Huntzberger than tragic.
Rory reached her car quickly, but once she got to the driver’s side, she found herself screeching to a halt. The door was right there. Her keys were in her bag. In that smaller pocket inside that she always put it in so she wouldn’t have to dig around for ten minutes until she emptied her bag and scanned the contents on whatever surface she’d poured them into. Like her mom would sometimes. But she couldn’t bring herself to lift her arm and grab it. She couldn’t unclench her fist. She couldn’t even lift a finger. She got a bitter taste on her tongue as the realization grew on her.
Dean was going to realize that something was off. That she was two hours early, that she was supposed to be with friends, that she had something in her hand. He was going to ask questions. She was going to have to explain. He wasn’t going to like it. And somehow, for some inexplicable infuriating reason, she was going to find herself defending the one person she wanted nothing to do with.
At last, Rory huffed and ripped herself away from the parking lot. If she was going to face Dean and successfully mask her current state of mind, she was going to need reinforcements. She went to the closest coffee-cart and ordered a double shot. When she paid, she failed to open her fist and had to maneuver everything with one hand. She used the same one to hold her cup, lift it to her mouth as she chugged it down in one go, and toss it in a nearby garbage can.
She hovered over that can for an eternity, just staring at it like Frodo at Mount Doom. It took everything she had to raise her fist over the opening and keep it there. All she had to do was unclench her fist. Stretch her fingers and let the damned thing fall down. She was sure to get muscle spasms by now. But she couldn’t let go of it. No matter how much her chest hurt, and that bitter taste stained her tongue.
Angry with herself for becoming a Gollum, she tried to walk everything off. She circled the parking lot twice. Then she circled her dorm, and when that failed to drain her of energy, she completed the grounds of two libraries. But it didn’t work. No matter how much she exerted herself, no matter how much her body jittered from the coffee, she couldn’t get her mind off it all. She couldn’t open her fist.
At last she returned to the front of her car. She got her keys with her free hand and unlocked the door, climbing in. She sat behind the steering wheel with the keys in the ignition, unturned. She breathed, trying to ease the aching in her lungs. Rory caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were bugging out. Big and glistening and all too revealing. She looked away and gasped for air.
Giving me a choice. Rory scoffed. Bull. She shook her head. This was hopeless. By now she was actually getting close to the time she was supposed to leave for Stars Hollow. She could just turn the key and put a foot on the gas, and Dean wouldn’t have to suspect a thing. Until he saw her up close. There wasn’t a single atom in her body that was willing to move to drive. She hated that, but she couldn’t fight it. So she stopped fighting it. Instead, she let her right-hand slide into her lap and her head tilt down.
Slowly, Rory unclenched her fist. The fresh air chilled the inside of her hand as her fingers rolled over, revealing the content in her palm. The ripped piece of paper was crumpled and warm, slightly moist from her fingers. But though it was curled up in a ball, she could still see the numbers inked clear and large.
Rory straightened out the paper. She stared at it. She breathed. She got her phone out and paused one final time. Then she dialed.
-
“I’ll let you get settled then.” The guy called Matt offered Jess a final comforting grin before closing the bedroom door behind him. And then he was alone in the room. Jess looked around himself. At the two twin-sized beds on each their side of the room, like a college dorm. At his roommate’s fully decorated side, with clean blue sheets, a writing desk with two cups full of pencils and pens, posters and maps pinned to the walls, and a shelf filled to the brim with books of various shapes and sizes. He looked at the towers of copies on the floor, left here because “We’ve yet to get the funds for storage larger than the coat closet”. Jess looked at the other side of the room. At two boxes full of beat-up favorites he never could bring himself to sell. At the duffel bag of clothes resting on the empty bed. At the clean new mattress that had already been there when he entered.
Jess had never imagined he’d move out of New York. Sure, he knew he was going to travel again, but if anyone had told him he would someday move out of his hometown of his own volition, he’d howl louder than Gothamites on laughing gas. And yet. As he’d pulled yet another Kerouac, driving into the sun and replaying that late spring night in his head again and again, he’d wound up in Philadelphia. And he’d gotten a job at a bookstore. And he’d met these two screwballs at a bar one night, feeling particularly self-loathing.
And they’d offered him a different job. A shitty one that somehow paid less than the dusty little hole owned by a retiree who was behind on his light bill. One at a startup run by a couple of twenty-something good-for-nothings with nothing but middle-class parents and gumption. One that would give him a bed in their building, a check just large enough for him not to have to get something on the side, and the place to do something he could actually love. Sticking it to the man. Getting right to the pulse of an art-scene. Helping people write.
He couldn’t help but laugh. Surely Ashton Kutcher was going to jump out from under his bed and stick a microphone up Jess’ nose. “You didn’t really fucking think it was gonna be that fucking easy, you little dick? That’s punk’d!” But no matter how long Jess stared at the closet, there wasn’t a single cameraman opening its doors. This was real. This was something. This was good.
His phone started buzzing in his pocket. He tried to get his head down from its melodramatic clouds and pulled it out. He knew he’d been neglecting Lane and Paris lately. It wasn’t that he meant to, it just sort of got that way. His pathetic attempt at a romantic gesture had made it too painful for him to seek out anything and anyone who reminded him of her. Even New York. He couldn’t bear the thought of walking down the same streets she had that day she’d skipped school just so she could give him a chance to say goodbye. That’s why he’d finally put everything he had in that shoebox apartment with at least 7 roomies in his car and driven out of the state. Jess had needed time to sulk and get over himself and forget before New York could feel like home again.
It wasn’t fair on the girls, though. He got that. When he finally answered their calls, he resigned himself to half an hour of getting his ear chewed out about the awful stunt he’d pulled. But then they let him bitch and moan too, and they let him have some space to lick his wounds in peace, in exchange for proof of life from time to time. But the thing was, he’d forgotten to send his last “I’m not dead yet”-text. It should’ve been done five days ago, but between getting his contract with Truncheon signed, figuring out the logistics of all the work he’d be doing and moving in, he’d lost track of time. So now he pulled his phone to his ear without even looking at the screen. Whether it was Lane or Paris, they were getting the same message.
“I know I’ve been too off-grid lately, but I promise I’ll make it up to you both soon,” he said with a loud sigh and an unseen smile. It was silent on the other end for a second, and he braced himself for another scolding from Lane that would have him teasing her about turning into her mother. “Well, you better plan something big.”
Jess froze. That was her voice. A boulder rolled down to the pit of his stomach, causing every rock he thought he’d managed to erase to jump up to his chest. His bones locked in place. Pressure rose to his head. It hadn’t even been that long since he last heard it, but it felt like years had passed hearing her again. “Rory.” He said her name. He managed to speak it. This was real.
The voice on the other end waited again before saying: “Hey.” It was small. Awkward. Weirdly shy, all things considered. Like they were back in junior year. Like they’d only met twice before. Like he hadn’t begged her to run away with him. Jess briefly short-circuited and reset to factory settings. “How did you get my number?” he asked. “How do you think?” she replied. Her tone was light, but he could tell she was annoyed. He always could. That first year he’d loved trying to see just how much he could annoy her before it was too much. How much he could bug her and still be wanted around. Jess connected the dots: “They finally told you.”
“You say that like it’s a long time coming.” There he went, saying the wrong thing again. The revelation was recent. “I’m sorry,” he said on instinct. He was surprised how naturally it came to him. But Rory didn’t seem to buy it. “Sorry for what? Sorry for keeping touch with my friends behind my back or sorry you got caught?” Jess pinched the bridge of his nose. His skull was pounding. “I’ll stop if you want,” he offered. He did it honestly. “Oh please,” her tone was bitter.
She didn’t believe him. Of course she still didn’t. She never did anymore. But that didn’t stop Jess from trying to prove that his word was good. “No, I’ll cut myself off. I’ll delete their contacts. I’ll call them the meanest, douchiest shit they’ll never forgive me for.”
“You’d seriously do that?”
“If that’s what you need.”
“No, don’t do that, don’t put that on me.”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“It isn’t.” Jess frowned. Then why was she calling him? “What do you want?” he asked without thinking and without regretting it. Rory went silent. Her breathing was so quiet he nearly considered asking her if she was still there. What was this damn call even about? She clearly didn’t want anything to do with him back in spring. He obviously infuriated her by staying in her friends’ lives. But he was offering her an out and she wasn’t taking it. Finally, he heard a light stutter on the other end. Jess braced himself. “… I’m back together with Dean.”
Jess wanted to die. He wanted to crouch down, lay the phone on the hardwood floor and lie next to it on his back, flat with his arms and legs posed like a corpse in a coffin, and watch the roof crumble and fall on him. But he didn’t want an instant death. He wanted his stomach to be hit so hard he was sent down through to the ground floor. He wanted to recognize that he was under a pile of bricks and concrete and planks of wood. He wanted one last glimpse at the dust rising around him. He wanted to survive long enough to feel every molecule in his body screaming out in pain before it all finally went dark. But the universe was a cruel woman with a hard-on for torturing the broken-hearted.
“Don’t-” Rory was noticing his silence. She was prepping to fight whatever comment he had, but he was too defeated to come up with anything. Jess shook himself out of his Goethian sorrow and spoke up: “I’m not saying anything.” “You have no say in-” “Don’t worry,” Jess insisted, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “I know I’ve screwed up one too many times to get to have an opinion about him.” She didn’t respond to that, just took it in on the other end of the line. How far was it between Yale and Philadelphia? He hated himself for having looked it up on his first day here. “This…” Rory started, and Jess held his breath. Just because he wasn’t saying anything about Dean didn’t mean he wanted to hear about the guy.
“This thing, whatever it is you’re doing with Lane and Paris. Is it good for you?” She’d dropped the subject. Jess had to hold himself back from sighing in relief. “Yeah…” He replied on an exhale. “Weirdly enough.” And then he realized what she’d just asked him. It was a minefield. And he might’ve just stepped a mine. “Huh,” Rory muttered over the phone. He’d definitely just stepped on a mine. Great job, asshole, he taunted himself. Real terrific.
“Why wouldn’t you just talk to me.” It felt like a question even if it didn’t sound like one. And Jess wasn’t sure what she meant by it. “I did,” he replied. “No, not this spring.” He furrowed his brows. There was a lump growing in his throat. “That night.” He knew instantly which one she was talking about. He could still remember how much his body ached after all of Dean’s punches. He remembered the blue lights in the yard from the police cars. He remembered her eyes staring at him as he left, big and glistening and sad. Like he’d let her down. Because he’d been doomed to let her down from the start. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
Jess swallowed. “I just couldn’t,” he answered. It’d been like that entire lot was covered in a black box. There were no doors to pick open or cracks to crawl through. There was no use trying. Rory gasped quickly. He didn’t want to think about how she might be crying. “You could’ve just explained it to me,” she insisted. “I had to find out from Luke. And still I don’t get it all because you just left. And on the bus, you didn’t say a thing. You were leaving me right then and you didn’t tell me.” Jess shook his head. “I’m so sorry.” He was struggling to speak, his throat was closing in on itself. But he had to get it out. She had to know that he really was. “Why did you leave me?” There was a crack in her voice and it broke his heart all over again. Jess wanted to have an answer, a good answer, one that would dry her tears.
“I thought I was too broken,” was all he could come up with. The only reason he could hold on to. “Too damaged for you.” “That’s not for you to decide,” Rory replied quickly with a newfound anger. “I’m supposed to get to choose if you’re too much for me or not. You took that from me.” He knew he’d stolen some stuff, both real and metaphorical, but it didn’t feel like he’d taken that from her. “It was hard to believe anything else,” he admitted. He couldn’t sugarcoat or hide. That was just going to crush her down the line. “How,” she demanded. Jess sighed.
“I mean look at that town. They hated me. The only one who actually liked me was you, and I couldn’t put all of that pressure on you.” He barely got to finish his sentence before Rory retaliated: “That’s not true, you know I wasn’t the only one.” Jess fought another wave of pounding to his head. He did know. Now. “Yeah, well I found out too late,” he said. And that seemed to be the end of it. He heard Rory try to start a couple arguments, but she didn’t get a single word out. It reminded him of a year ago, when that would be something he liked. Making her all flustered and stuttering. But this wasn’t that. And it didn’t feel fun.
“I don’t know where to go from here,” Rory said. “Me neither,” Jess replied.
He let himself rest in that confession. He wanted to see a road ahead. Anything. The tiniest trail. But as little as he could imagine himself without Rory Gilmore in his life, he couldn’t imagine how to go on with her. Where to start. How to heal. What to do to make it all okay again. If they had ever really been okay.
“Don’t…” Rory stuttered again. Jess inhaled. “Don’t cut them off. Don’t call Paris a bitch, or something like that.” Jess heard what she said, but he couldn’t really take it in. “Really?” he asked, not quite believing it. “Yeah it’s- not my business. They can be friends with whoever they want.” There she went again, doing whatever made everyone else comfortable. Letting Paris strongarm her into the student body. Failing to stop Taylor from putting up his curtain. Staying with her safe boyfriend that everyone in her jolly little twinkle town loved. Jess wasn’t going to let that slide. “Not if it hurts you,” he insisted. Rory sighed. “It doesn’t, it’s fine.” Jess pulled his phone closer. He wanted to be loud and clear. “I don’t want you to get hurt.” She paused. Then: “It’s a little late for that.”
Jess froze again. He could feel something welling up in the corners of his eyes. He wondered if this was what it felt like to have the entire roof over him. Rory shook her head on the other end, her hair crinkling over the microphone. “How are you? Are things okay?” She couldn’t be serious. She couldn’t really care after all the damage he’d done. But who was he kidding. Of course she did. ‘Cause that’s the kind of person Rory was. Jess snorted and replied: “I’m not sleeping in my car if that’s what you’re asking.” “Please don’t say that because you’re actually sleeping on the road,” she moaned. Jess smirked. He looked at his surroundings. “No, I’ve got a roof over my head.” He stepped to the center of the room and turned around, breathing in fresh air. “I’m good, I’m…” And he was. As beat down and fucked up as he felt, he was doing well. At least for a guy who went halfway across the continent to beg for a couch to sleep on from the stranger that’d made him. But everything wasn’t in place yet. “I’m figuring it out.”
“How about you?” he asked her. Jess realized he was dying to know anything he could. Hopefully not about Dean, but anything that told him she was okay. Anything that meant he could know more about her now. Anything that could keep her on the line just a little longer. “Oh I’m great,” Rory replied. Something in her tone was suspicious. “Totally, everything’s cool, yeah…” Part of him could’ve chuckled at realizing she was trying to sound impressive to him. As if she hadn’t always been. Then her tone changed, shy and awkward again. But more real. “I’m figuring it out too,” she said. Jess put on a smile he wished she could’ve seen. He settled for saying: “That’s okay.”
It went quiet again. He listened to her breathing, and thought about how she might be doing the same. Every other split second he would get hit with a jolt of fear that she’d hang up on him, but then three more would pass and she didn’t. So Jess decided to take a chance. “Rory?” She hummed a little – not enthusiastically, but just enough for him to know she was listening. That was all he needed. “I want you to know that I meant it.” She didn’t respond, but he didn’t need her too. She just had to be on the other end. He fought his throat. He let go of the rocks in his belly and he ignored his hurting head.
“I love you,” Jess told her. “And I’m not saying that to ruin things with him, I just-” He needed to stop and gather more strength. He had to see this through. “You just need to know that you didn’t do anything wrong.”
She couldn’t have saved him. He knew that, the whole time, but for over a year the truth had pained him. Some stupid part of him, deep inside, had wished it was possible. That rock bottom wasn’t inevitable. But now he would never know if it could. He had to accept that. And maybe Jess was being self-centered, maybe he was assuming he was a bigger deal in her life than he’d actually been. But he still thought she needed to accept that too.
They held the line in silence for another minute or two. “Uhm.” Jess waited patiently. “Bye Jess.” It took him aback. He’d expected retaliation. Or confirmation. Or something. Not goodbye. But that was her choice. And he had to respect it. “Bye Rory,” he said through a mouth that felt like it was full of needles, but he got it done. And then she hung up.
He held the phone to his ear a while longer. For what reason he wasn’t sure. Maybe it hadn’t truly settled in him that the call was over. Maybe he was hoping she’d get a second wind. But she didn’t call him up again. So he let the phone go.
It didn’t feel finished. Jess had said everything he needed to say, but it still didn’t feel finished. He wiped away a tear before it could fall and cursed. It was all too hopeless, too confusing, too stuck. This wasn’t defeat or victory, it was a stalemate. They needed another hour on the chessboard at least. Oh, who was he trying to fool? He wanted all the hours in the world. Jess was back in front of that bus station, looking up at Rory with her accessorized cast, wishing she would stay. Or at least that she would say “See you later” instead.
Her words rang in his ears, every single one. From her bitter rebuttals to her forced forgiveness. But most of all, why he didn’t tell her. “Why wouldn’t you just talk to me?” Jess circled himself, tapping a finger on his side. He wanted to smoke, but he was out of packs. And he really ought to quit. “Why wouldn’t you just talk to me?” Matt or Chris or that other guy he’d met today might have something. They were bohemians, they had to smoke. “Why wouldn’t you just talk to me?” He looked over Matt’s desk and wandered over to look through the compartments. Like a damn thief. “Why wouldn’t you just talk to me?” He hadn’t even finished his first week there. Jess looked through the drawer, but all he found was loose pages full of scribbles and a folder marked ‘5th draft’. He closed the thing with a mix of disappointment and guilt and looked up at the desk again. “Why wouldn’t you just talk to me?”
Jess winced. Because he hadn’t said it all, had he? His fingers itched. Stealing cigarettes was a dick move, but surely they’d understand a pen. Fuck, this was a publishing house, they probably encouraged it. Jess tsked and grabbed a black pen in the closest cup. He marched over to his boxes and tore it open, fetching the notebook he’d left on top of the stacks. He jumped on the bed and sat up by the corner of the walls, opening his notebook and clicking the pen. “Why wouldn’t you just talk to me?”
Jess put pen to paper and began to tell her everything.
-
The second Rory ended the call, she pushed her phone on top of the dashboard and wept. Her nose plugged up and she gasped for air, as the streaming tears warmed her cheeks. She couldn’t stop it; it was like a flood. So she didn’t bother trying. She even let herself wail and moan. Rory knew she was going to be embarrassed with herself – ashamed for shedding even a single tear for a boy like him – but she was too angry to shame herself. Too angry at him. Too angry at her friends. Too angry at the people of Stars Hollow who made him choose anywhere else over her. Too angry at the pain in her chest, still as fresh as the day he left for good.
Her eyes dried up half fifteen minutes later. But she didn’t feel better. The flood hadn’t cleansed her, it hadn’t watered her crops. It just made her feel empty. She took a centering breath before exiting the car. There was no use trying to get to Dean. Not like this. Not today. So she walked back to her dorm, arms limp on the sides of her body, and that damned piece of paper left on the floor of her car.
Rory entered the building and tried to fix her posture. It was obvious she’d cried, but they weren’t going to see a complete wreck if she had a say in it. And if anyone was telling them about her decision, it was her. She reached her door and turned the knob.
Lane and Paris were both on the couch, arms crossed and shoulders up to their ears. When they saw her by the threshold, they both shot up. Their eyes were big and apologetic, and scared. Rory walked inside and closed the door behind her. She dropped her bag on a nearby chair. Then she looked at them both. “You can still be friends,” she declared. The two girls looked at each other with worry and back at her. “Are you sure?” Paris asked. “Yeah,” she replied and nodded. “But on one condition.” They hugged themselves tighter. “Don’t tell me about what you do with him,” Rory said. “Do whatever you want but keep me out of the loop. I honestly prefer not to know.”
The girls slowly untensed. “Okay,” Lane said with a supportive smile. “We won’t,” Paris added. Rory drew her mouth into a line in response, not strong enough to grin. Lane took a small step forward. “Did you… talk to him?” Rory nodded, but soon everything was hurting again. And here she thought she’d cried enough for the day. She gulped and looked at a blurry Lane: “You really shouldn’t have given me his number.”
Lane and Paris immediately ran over to her and covered her in hugs. “We’re so sorry,” “So sorry,” they echoed around her. Rory let herself sink into the hug before taking a deep breath and straightening her back. The girls took the hint and let go. “Can you cancel on the grandparents today?” Paris asked. “We can sit on the couch and watch a movie or talk or do anything you want,” Lane offered. Rory wished she could, but she shook her head. “No, I have to. Besides, they’ll ask questions if I bail on them, and I don’t think I can have that conversation with them.” They frowned and looked at her with sympathetic gazes. “Still, are you gonna be okay?”
Rory didn’t want to answer that. “I can come back after dinner, you can stay the night if you want Lane.” She nodded furiously and stroked Rory’s upper arm. “I’ve got the time, I can do that.” “Yeah, it’s not like I’ll be able to face Dean tonight,” she said in a cold chuckle. “What’ll you tell him?” Paris asked with furrowed brows. She wasn’t completely sure. He was going to be mad, but that was inevitable at this point. “I’ll tell him something came up. He’ll understand.” Hopefully he would.
Rory looked over at her bag and went to retrieve it. “But I should probably head out now. I’ll call you when I’m done in Hartford.” The girls watched her like pitying hawks. “Rory,” Lane tried again, and Rory turned around and looked at her. “Are we good?” Rory thought about it. “Yes,” she said. “We’re good.” And they were. She forgave her friends. But she wasn’t okay.