Author's Note: I had the song 'Samson' by Regina Spektor on repeat as I wrote this. You may want to give it a listen as you read. It really is a Literati kind of song...Enjoy :)

Contradiction

Her heart ached. It ached with possibility; with longing, desire, with the wonderment of what could, what might be. When she saw his arms around that girl, all she wanted was to run over, shove her down, and feel his warmth wrapped around her.

She wanted to trace the muscles with her fingertips, to feel the lines and angles of his body against her own. Rory wanted to have long, in-depth, conversations about all the books in the world, all the music, all the movies.

What she desired most was to feel his lips against hers against hers again. She longed for the musty taste of old nicotine on her tongue, the one that had disappeared too soon after she left for Washington. She needed to feel his warm, soft-moving, for-once-unsure hands, drifting along the side of her face, and then resting at her waist, trying to pull her closer, closer, never close enough. They gave her an anchor, confirmed it was real.

Rory didn't fully know why she'd done it in the first place – why she'd reached out and kissed him like that. It was impulsive, it was unthinking – those were the complete opposites of her character. But, the more she was around him, the more she wanted to take chances. Jess brought out the dangerous in her, he brought out a new side of her personality, he helped her explore, branch out.

He helped her life become fuller, with these new experiences, these new feelings.

But all she'd been through this summer was hell. Not seeing him, wondering if he felt the same. She'd seen the look in his eyes, before and after. It sparkled with 'I came back here for you, do something; I can't do it, I need your permission', but how could she be sure that that was true? What if it was nothing, what if his eyes said nothing. She just conjured it up, went with it, and on impulse, made a sick mistake.

Rory didn't understand it, not at all. She couldn't fathom how she could just stomp on Dean's heart that way. She just disregarded him in that moment, focusing only on herself, and how she felt, and how she wanted him to know what she was feeling, but she just didn't know how. And then...it happened.

And she had regretted immediately, because she had a taste, and knew that she'd always be wanting more, more of the slow, tantalizing, timid feel of their first kiss. More of leaving him breathlessly surprised (she loved having such power), limp arms at his side, and wanting more when she left.

And then she was there, looking at him with that thing, and she could feel something shift. She felt her face heat up, her throat going dry. She was angry. It was a white fury that pumped through her veins.

How dare he do this? How could he do this? How could she have let him? She never should have acted on her impulses, sh e was better than that.

But suddenly, Rory was painfully aware of the fact that around him, she couldn't control the impulses. His mussed-up hair, his dark, dark eyes with that flicker of danger and something else she couldn't yet place behind them. He intrigued her, and more than he intrigued her, the thought of who she would become with him intrigued her. She wanted to explore him, implore him, while at the same thing doing the same things within herself.

Rory could not focus on anything. She couldn't face Dean without this panging shot of guilt, couldn't look at her mother without feeling judged, and she couldn't be around Jess without feeling undesired, like some kind of burnt-out failure.

And though she felt these things, moreover, she ached. She'd never known such dull, yet pinpointedly hurtful pain. Everything with Jess was a contradiction – her character (at one moment, adventure-seeking and curious, another timid and boring), her feelings (anger, longing, curiosity, guilt). And even they themselves were contradictions – varying tastes in books, music, movies, yet still having favorites shared between them; his overwhelming urge for danger, and her urge to stay within the realm of safety, yet both still seeking something that was somehow wrong.

But to her, the contradictions always seemed better than being with someone who was boringly, dully, perfect for her. Being Jess's polar opposite made her try new things, it fueled rather meaningless fights with him that made her skin tingle with delicious want.

She liked him. Jess. Rory liked Jess. And perhaps a bit more than she liked him, she felt this need for him.

She hates this, because she knows he won't be the same as Dean. She knows that a relationship with him will be the part of her that all the town looks down on. But somehow, that's refreshing to her. Somehow, Dean and the 'good life' has begun to suffocate her. She loves him, she loves it all, she does, but it feels to her like that love...well, not that it has become lesser, but that it is overpowered, overshadowed by this unbelievable yearning for danger. A thirst for difference.

Dean is all she's ever known. And now she wants Jess, because he offers her a new world, as cliché as that sounds. A darker world, but a new world nonetheless. She wants to know him, to memorize him, to feel him, all of his thoughts, feelings, as part of her. She wants their differences to glue them to one another, wants to understand what pulls them apart so that she can use it to make them stronger.

Their contradiction is her happiness.

Author's Note: Hm. Well, there you go...a bit shorter than I might've liked. Please review. It would really make me happy to know there are people out there who read these mindless rambles.