So this hit me and I had to write it. It's my fist Gilmore girls' fic so I'm sorry if it's a little ooc. Please tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore girls, the poem Date a girl who reads, or the poem that Jess and Rory quote which is Keats.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
'It was official, every person in this tiny, middle of nowhere town, is batshit crazy' Jess think as some strange man and a stranger woman interrogate him about grilled cheese and try to shove a lemon at him.
As he studies the books in Rory's room though, he thinks he might be wrong.
"Wow, aren't we hooked on Phonics." He says, mostly to see her reaction.
"Oh, I read a lot. Do you read?" She asks as he picks up her copy of Howl.
"Not much." 'What is much?' He thinks and looks around her room and notices the piles of books she has on the dresser and peeking out from under her bed.
'At least one person in this town isn't a moron.' He thinks to himself.
Find a girl who reads. You'll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She's the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That's the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
Jess isn't sure when it became a normal thing for them to go to the bookstore every week but he enjoys it. Maybe he'd love it if he were sap. Which he isn't. It's not even a date. Just two friends going to check out books and argue over authors. They aren't dating, she's got Bag Boy and he isn't interested in the Gilmore, she's almost as crazy as her mother.
She's just the only other literarily competent person in this town.
That's what he tells himself as he tries not to smile when he sees Rory, crossing the street towards the diner.
"Where are you going?" Luke shouts as Jess grabs his coat.
"Out."
She's the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she's kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author's making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Jess tries for the fifth time to figure out what book Rory is reading. She's been sitting in the diner for at least the past hour and he's pretty sure that not only has she not realized he's working and that her coffee is probably cold by now but also that Bag Boy is over an hour late. He hates that he's paid enough attention to know that she had a date tonight. And well enough to know that she's being stood up for a pick-up game of basketball.
He sits down at her table, knowing Luke won't say anything since she's the only customer. She doesn't look up until he sets down the coffee pot and new cup. He has to fight another grin when she looks up and blinks, obviously not realizing she's not in whatever world her story had taken her.
He thinks it makes her look adorable
Buy her another cup of coffee.
He pours her a fresh cup and picks up her book while she takes a sip. It's Harry Potter.
"Is it good?"
"The coffee or the book?" she returns with a smile. He raises and eyebrow and smirks.
"I like it, I've read it before but there are so many little details that I didn't notice before that are connected to later books. Little things too, like this necklace is barely mentioned in the second book but is kind of important in the sixth. And the motorcycle, I can't believe I didn't connect the motorcycle-"
The bell jingles, signaling a customer.
"Rory! What are you doing?" Bag Boy questions, looking at Jess as if he'd like nothing more than to punch him.
Jess kind of wishes he would. At least then Rory would see what jerk this guy is. And he'd be able to fight back, what he wouldn't give to be able to hit the other boy.
"We were talking about books. Where were you Dean, you were supposed to be here-" she looks at the clock and her jaw drops a little, "You were supposed to be here almost 2 hours ago!"
"I got held up at the game, I told you I was playing basketball today." He argued. "Doesn't look like you minded anyway." He muttered, pouting like he was the one being wrong.
Jess rolled his eyes and got up.
"I'll talk you later Rory, maybe borrow that book." He said, nodding at the forgotten Harry Potter on the table.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce's Ulysses she's just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
"I have yet to make it through it." Jess admits.
"Really? Try it. The Fountainhead is a classic."
"Yeah but Ayn Rand is a political nut." He argues, knowing that she won't be insulted just because he disagrees with her opinion on a book.
"Yeah, but no one could write a forty page monologue the way that she could."
"Okay tomorrow I will try again and you will…" he leads.
"And I will give the painful Ernest Hemingway another chance. I promise" He notices smiles, despite her tone and can't help but smile too.
"You know, Ernest has only lovely things to say about you." He tells her.
It's easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she's going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
Jess walks up and down the aisles of Andrew's and tries to decide on the perfect book for Rory. It's almost Christmas and he's decided he's going to give her the perfect book.
Except the woman has read every great classic. And then some. He's picked up a dozen books and put them back, not wanting to put too much meaning or not enough into the book.
He sighs and gives up again, waving at Andrew on his way out.
That night, he starts writing. It starts as a poem and then has a short story, just a couple of pages. He jumps and shoves the notebook under his pillow when Luke walks in, feeling ridiculous.
In the end, he gives her Alice in Wonderland, because he knows she doesn't have it and because he can see a bit of Alice in her.
His notebook stays hidden, moved from under his pillow but out of sight never the less.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
She gives him Harry Potter and he can't stop the smile that forms when he realizes not only is it her copy, but she left notes in the margins for him.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
He was beaked by a swan. He was beaked by a swan. He was beaked by a swan! First he has to go to this stupid dinner at her rich grandparents' house then he has to show up with a black eye because he got beaked by a swan!
He thinks he should've known she'd assume he got into a fight with Bag Boy but it still hurts.
It hurts more that she only believes him because Bag Boy confirmed his story.
So he lies. Because it's embarrassing that he got beaked. And because he has a reputation. And because if she wouldn't believe one truth, she might not believe another.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Jess sits on the bus and stares out the window as the bus passes through the center of town. He thinks it should be funny, him leaving again. The first time he came here, he didn't want to. The first time he left, he didn't want to. He came back for her now he's leaving for her.
He knew that once Luke calmed down he'd let Jess stay, hell he even knew he could take his GED by the end of summer and Luke would be fine with it.
But he doesn't think he'll be able to stand seeing her face when she finds out he's not graduating, can't take her to prom, can't get her mom or grandmother to approve of him.
He thinks he should be used to it by now, letting people down, but he thinks his heart might just break if he sees the disappointment in her eyes.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
California is almost worse than Stars Hollow Jess decides after a month of sleeping on a cot at Jimmy's house.
He thought he missed New York because it was a city but it's more than that, he misses the people, the attitudes, the clouds. The sun is so much worse without clouds!
He decides to make his way back east, thinking it will be good to be on his own.
And even if it is a cliché, he hopes he'll find some answers.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She'll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
He isn't sure when he became a morning person but he blames Luke. The man got up at 5:30 every day.
It used to annoy him, first in the apartment, when he just wanted to sleep in, then when he was travelling and didn't have a reason to be up that early.
Lately though, he kind of likes it. Because she isn't a morning person. He can watch her sleep and hold her close. He can sneak out of bed to make her coffee and use it to bribe her to get out of bed. He make her breakfast while she showers.
He used to hate mornings but then again, he never had a reason not to.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she's sick. Over Skype.
He thinks of a million ways to ask. He considers all the clichés and even tries to put a spin on them. He thinks about putting a ring in a glass of champagne. Or at the bottom of her coffee (he'd been running on only a few hours' sleep for that one). He considers asking her in Stars Hollow, on their bridge. Or in New York. He considers asking her in the dedication to his second book but knows she'd think it was too big.
Finally, he digs out his old notebook and adds one more story, filling it up at last.
It's a short story, only a couple of pages long and ends with this:
'He knows he can't live without her; that he wouldn't want to. But he's never been very good with words, at least not of the spoken variety. So he finds another way. And he asks her, in the only way he knows how. Will you marry me?'
He gives it to her on a Saturday morning, sliding the jewelry box to her as she covers her mouth. Tears glimmer in her eyes and prays that she'll say yes.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn't burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
After the initial shock wears off, he realizes that he's actually excited to be a father.
They decide to decorate the nursery with a book theme and he laughs when she ends up covered in paint. He makes her let him finish the painting. She makes a list of names.
When the twins are five, they start reading. And much like their parents, they don't stop.
He tries to persuade them that to read Hemingway.
She pushes Rand.
And when he is woken up at three in the morning by three giggling girls, begging him to come see the first snowfall of the year, he can't refuse. Magical things happen when it snows, or so his mother-in-law says.
"O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind" Rory quotes, trying to wake him up.
"And he's awake who thinks himself asleep." He replies, supplying the ending to the poem she began.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you're better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Jess smiles when Lorelai calls him hoodlum, despite the fact he hasn't been anything close to a hoodlum in over a decade. He smiles because once upon a time, she meant it, but now, like her James Dean and Danny Zukko references, she is teasing. And when Lorelai Gilmore-Danes teases you, when she mocks and banters, she approves.
He didn't deserve Rory, not when he was 17 and hated everyone but her.
But now, he thinks he might. He isn't that kid anymore and he's won over even Lorelai.
He knows he never stopped loving Rory, he never will.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
Jess wakes up to breakfast in bed and notebook on their tenth anniversary.
He picks it up and begins to read, knowing how it will end because it's their story.