Believe Me, I'll Be There

Rory's POV

Chapter 1 – Okay, I'm missing movie night

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has to do with Gilmore Girls, nor do I own any movie, book, or author references, and I'm not associated in any way with any university or Ivy League school, specifically Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.

A/N: I got this idea on winter vacation; I have almost 3 chapters written already, but I didn't want to start posting this until I finished "I Think it Was Here, Because it Never Was There." This story will have more conflict than that one did, but it's still literati of course. Please review and tell me what you think! I hope you like it.  ~Arianna

"So, Rory," my mom said. "Tomorrow's Friday, the end of a long, tiring week, you at school, me at work…" If I weren't careful, she would go on like this for hours.

"And the end of this sentence will be…" I said.

"You wanna rent movies and get junk food and have our first movie night in just about forever because of the endless homework you get in that evil school?"

"Oh. I…I'd like to. But I can't. Maybe Saturday night?"

"Okay." She looked slightly disappointed. "Why?"

"Because I'm hanging around with Jess."

"Ah." She didn't say anything else. I knew perfectly well that she didn't like Jess. But still, her obvious disapproval of him, and me being with him, hurt, in a way. When I first started going out with Dean…Mom invited him to our house for movie night. He helped her with the water bottles. I know she liked him. I know she likes him. I like him…but things are different now.

"Hey, I said, attempting to get her excited again, "how about Sunday, we get all the junk food in Doose's and watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?"

"Yeah, okay," she agreed, brightening.

"Mom?"

"Rory?"

"I'm sorry we haven't been able to hang out much lately…it's just I've been really busy and the teachers at Chilton all want to prepare us for college, and so I haven't spent much time with Jess and I promised I'd make it up to him—"

"Rory, don't worry, I understand. Why you'd want—never mind."

"What?"

"I edited that comment." That equaled: 'I don't want to hurt you by saying something mean about Jess; I hate him, but he is your boyfriend.'

"I'm gonna go to bed," I said. "Night, Mom."

"Night," she called. I went to my room and pulled Farewell to Arms out of my bookshelf, opening the front cover to read, for the millionth time:

Rory – Even if this isn't your favorite book, I think you'll like it. It means a lot that you'll read it because I asked you to. I've never known anyone else who reads like you do. And thanks for the copy of The Fountainhead.   Love, Jess

School was the same as usual the next day. Jess met me at the bus stop.

"Hey," he said as I got off.

I grinned. "Hey, Jess." He put his arm around me and we started walking. "Where are we going?" I asked.

"Wherever."

"So, basically, you have no idea."

"That sounds about right." I couldn't help laughing.

"The bridge?"

"Yeah, that's good."

I put my arm around Jess, and we walked to the bridge together. Where we went didn't matter to me, either. I was happy, really happy, with Jess.

"I kind of have something I want to talk to you about," I told him when we got there.

"What is it?"

"Well…don't be hurt or anything, okay?"

"Uh huh."

"You know my mom doesn't…"

"Like me?"

"I was going to say trust you."

"And you want me to…"

"Show her she can, yeah."

"What if she can't?"

"Jess."

"Okay, fine."

"Thanks." Jess leaned over and kissed me, and I kissed him back.

He grinned. "I'll try."

"I'm glad," I said. I sort of felt that missing one movie night was worth it. Jess and I had a great time that afternoon. We hung around the bridge for a while, talking, and then we went to Luke's for coffee. After finishing that, we went up to the apartment. Jess showed me what he was reading; I convinced him to let me borrow a few books. At about eight-thirty, I told Jess I had to go. He walked me home, so of course it took quite a while.

"Goodnight, Rory," he said, kissing me. He kept his arms around me for several minutes. I wanted him to stay there, but I finally broke away, smiling.

"Goodnight, Jess." I opened the door after he left and went in. "Hey Mom, I'm home!"

"I'm in here!" she yelled from the living room.

"What've you been doing?" I asked, sitting next to her.

"Watching TV. Thinking. Boring stuff."

"Thinking about what?"

"Rory?"

"Yeah?"

"Why? Why Jess?" She doesn't mean that. She means 'Why Jess and not Dean?'

"Mom…" I didn't know what to say. No one else seemed to see what I saw in Jess and I couldn't explain it.

"I'm not complaining. I just want to know…I don't think I get it yet."

"I don't know if I get it either," I said. "I just…know. Everything's so different with him. It's like everything lights up…and I can talk to him, about anything."

"Hey. Get the rest of the chocolate from the kitchen; we'll find something to watch."

"I thought we were saving that for tomorrow night."

"Since when?" I grinned. "So he's special?" she said.

So much for changing the subject. "Yeah, he's really special."

"How do you know he's not gonna…"

"Because he's Jess."

"Funny, that was the reason I thought there was a possibility."

"Well, there isn't!" I was mad. I shouldn't have been, but I was. My mom should trust me. Just because he hadn't let her see who he was yet didn't mean that he wasn't a great guy.

"Ooh, look, Footloose." Mom pointed to the TV, and I resigned myself to the distraction, at least for tonight. Remembering Jess holding me, outside the door, was enough for right then.

I knew Jess would show the rest of Stars Hollow, someone besides me, that he was more than a rebel-without-a-cause. At least, he would sometime. I put away the books Jess had lent me, watched Footloose with my mom, and then went into my room to read.