I have always been focused and in control, never strayed from my plan in life. I have a steady boyfriend, steady life at Chilton and in Star's Hollow. Then...he showed up...

Trying hard to keep my balance

"Where were you yesterday Rory? I called you at like, eleven o'clock. You had to have been home, right?" Said Dean.

"Um...yeah, where else would I have been? I must've been sleeping, sorry" I lied, easier over the phone than to his face. I hadn't been asleep, I had snuck out my window and down the street. To meet with him. No, he was not Dean, my boyfriend. My honest, dependable, steady boyfriend Dean. He was the town's newest bad-boy. He had arrived here three months ago, moved in with Luke. His name was Jess.

I don't know how it happened, but he had become my best friend in these past months. Jess had rebel-without-a-cause written all over him. He wasn't my usual type of friend. He vaguely reminded me of Tristan, who's ironic last words to me before he left had been, "I'd kiss you, but your boyfriend is watching."

He had been the town's closest thing to a bad-boy until Jess showed up, and what can I say, Jess was intriguing. He was different, I suppose, and it was refreshing to know someone who wasn't the same as everyone else in Star's Hollow. Even Dean was the same as everyone else, come to think of it.

"Oh." Dean replied. "Well, I wanted to know if you wanted to go to the Prom with me?"

"Um...Yeah, of course. I'd love to." I replied robotically, my mind somewhere else.

"Cool, well, I have to go, my mom's calling, dinner's probably ready. I love you"

"Love you too, bye" I hung up.

Tap

I sat up on my bed. What was that?

Tap tap tap

I looked at the window. Oh, it's Jess.

I got up off the bed and opened the window, only to be hit between the eyes with a pebble.

"Jess!" I whisper-yelled.

"Sorry, I threw it just before you opened the window, what was I supposed to do? Telepathically will it to come back?" Jess said sarcastically.

"It might've helped," I muttered, half to myself. But, all the same I climbed out the window onto the trellis, all the way down to where Jess stood.

"Hey." Jess said simply. As always.

"Hey. Where to tonight?"

"Park? We could sit on the swings like we do every night, why do you even ask anymore?"

"Habit?" I looked at him, only to find he was already looking at me. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"How am I looking at you?" He said, still looking.

Like you want to kiss me..."Like, um, like...well, the only other place I've ever seen that look was...on Dean's face...right before, well...right before he..." I trailed off.

We stopped at the arch that served as an entrance to the park.

Jess looked down, then met my eyes again. His eyes looked like they were burning. He had always had a silent fire about him. "Right before he kissed you?" He smirked.

"Well, yeah. What are you smirking at? I was just saying-" He pulled me toward him and I stopped speaking, the air pushed out of my lungs.

"I was smirking at how you seem to know everything, and yet you haven't noticed me looking at you like that for weeks." He looked me in the eye for a single second more, and then he kissed me.

I saw stars.