Part 1

I followed Jess out of the restaurant, I couldn't believe how Logan had acted, it was completely unforgivable, it was everything he had constantly promised me he wasn't. He acted stuck up and rude and like he was above everyone else, though at the heart of it I knew it was because it was that he felt threatened by Jess, that was no excuse for the things he said, or the way he acted.

"What the hell is going on?" Jess sounded angry, which was completely understandable, we had planned a nice evening where we could catch up, just two old friends, and he ended up being attacked by my boyfriend for an hour before he finally had enough, and I honestly couldn't blame him, I was kind of impressed that he held on that long.

"I told you, he's tired! And his family's bugging him right now…" I didn't even know why I was defending Logan.

"I mean, with you! What's going on with you?" That took me by surprise, I knew that a lot of things had changed since I had last seen Jess, but I didn't expect him to call me on it, I didn't think that he would try for that kind of confrontation.

"What do you mean?" If he was going to accuse me of something, he could damn well tell me what it was. I wasn't the little girl he knew, but I also wasn't going to be his punching bag just because Logan pissed him off.

"You know what I mean! I know you. I know you better than anyone! This isn't you." He was right, with all the anger his comment stirred up, he was right; all of this wasn't me, and Jess did know me better then anyone, sometimes better then I knew myself, and that's what made me fall in love with him, and what made hearing all of this so hard.

"I don't know." I had changed so much, and so many things had gone wrong in such a short period that I didn't know where to start, where to go from here, how to fix it, that I had just let everyone else carry me along, I had let them run everything, and I knew that wasn't me, and so did Jess.

"What are you doing? Living at your grandparents' place? Being in the DAR? No Yale – why did you drop out of Yale?" And that was the heart of it, why did I leave Yale, and did I really want to tell Jess what a mess I had become since he left?

"It's complicated!" That was a lie, it wasn't complicated, it was simple, I ran scared, and I was ashamed to admit it.

"It's not! It's not complicated!" Of course he would call me on it, of course he would know, he had just told me he knew me better then anyone, but I tried to lie to him anyway.

"You don't know!" And the lies just keep on coming.

"This isn't you! This! You going out with this jerk, with the Porsche! We made fun of guys like this!" He was so angry, and he had a right to be, I was screwing up my life, and I had no real credible reason for it, I had let some big shot corporate guy tell me I wasn't good enough, and I had let that hold weight, I would have never done that before, I would have just said, screw him, and gone on proving him wrong.

"You caught him on a bad night." Why was I defending Logan, he didn't deserve to be defended, Jess deserved to be defended, he had been attacked, and now here I am lying to him, telling him that I'm okay with how my life is, and I'm not, telling him that my boyfriend isn't always a jerk, and that's not even true.

"This isn't about him! Okay? Screw him! What's going on with you? This isn't you, Rory. You know it isn't. What's going on?" I could feel my eyes fill with tears, he was so right, and I didn't know what to do about it, I didn't know how to change any of it.

"I don't know. I don't know." It was the first really honest thing that I told him since we had stepped outside, and I could see that he realized that, I could also see that he was giving up.

"Okay, uh. Maybe, maybe we'll catch up at a better time. Happy birthday, by the way. Wasn't that a couple of weeks ago? Your birthday?" He started to walk away, and my brain was yelling at me to not let him go, that if I let him go now I wouldn't ever really get this chance again.

"Yeah, it was a couple of weeks ago, and it sucked. Jess, don't leave." I caught him by the arm before he could step off the curb and go back to his car.

"Why not, Rory? You obviously have things that you need to figure out, and the first one is that blond bimbo inside." He gestured back to Logan, who I could see watching us from just inside the door.

"Screw him. Isn't that what you just said?" I hooked my arm with Jess' and guided him over to his car. "I say we go get pizza and coffee."

"Only if you agree that you need to fix everything." He stopped me from pulling him all the way to his car, and looked me in the eye.

"I agree, things got way out of hand, and I let them get that way, and your right, everything you said was right. I'm just not sure how to fix it, I've messed up so bad, I don't know how to go back." I could feel the tears running down my cheeks now, they where hot and they made a lump in the back of my throat, like they had been building up for so long that they where forcing their way to the surface. "My mom barely came to my birthday party, she isn't speaking to me. I didn't even give her my cell phone number when I changed it. How am I going to fix all that?"

"After pizza, we're going to drive to Stars Hollow, and you're going to walk into your house and you're going to tell Lorelai that you love her and miss her, and you're going to ask her to help you get everything back on track." I nodded my head, not able to say anything. Jess wiped the tears from my cheeks, and held my face in his hands, making sure I was looking him in the eyes. "Then you're going to ask her if I can crash on your couch, cause I don't have anywhere else to stay."

"Okay." I smiled a little through my tears, and reached out to put my arms around Jess, who pulled me into a hug.

"We can fix this, Rory. All you had to do was ask." He rubbed small circles along my back, and continued to hold on, knowing I needed the support.

"I'm asking now." I said in a small voice, one I almost couldn't hear.

"Good, I'll be here as long as you need me, but I do need to get back to Philadelphia sometime in the near future." He pulled away slightly and looked me in the eye. "But, if you need me to, I can write from here too, just till you get everything back together."

"You don't have to do that." I wanted him to stay, I wanted him to stay forever, but I couldn't tell him that.

"I want to." He leaned in and kissed me on my tear stained cheek. "Now, how about that pizza, I'm starving, all this drama really works up a guy's appetite. How about you, you hungry?"

"Please, I'm a Gilmore Girl, I can always eat." We headed to the car, leaving Logan to watch us from the restaurant; I didn't even bother to look back.