Dinner felt like it dragged on forever. As much as Rory wanted to just sit back and enjoy being with her family and friends, Logan was on her mind the entire time. When she ordered chicken piccata for dinner he popped into her head because he hated olives. The white wine they had with dinner was a brand that Logan had recommended they order on one of their dates shortly after her 21st birthday. Even the necklace her mom gave her from Luke reminded her of how Logan had a flair for giving her extravagant gifts, which in turn made her think of the beautiful engagement ring that was probably on its way back to the jeweler for a refund. Everything made her think of Logan, and it hurt.

In the brief moments she wasn't think about Logan she was observing her family and Jess, hoping nothing would happen. They all seemed relaxed enough and Jess even took a recommendation on what to order from Emily, which she seemed pleased about. Sookie was surprised to see him there and not Logan, but thankfully she was as sweet as always. Her dad seemed wary at first, but he got involved in the conversation when Jess mentioned the bar at the bookstore. Everything seemed fine. Of course, after dinner she knew Lorelai was probably going to dig into her for the real story. While everyone seemed to accept their parting of ways, Lorelai kept giving Rory little glances like she knew there was more to it than Rory had said. Considering the night before Rory had been thinking about marrying him it wasn't surprising that she had caught on.

It was a while before the two of them could talk, though. After dinner they had to load up the rest of Rory's things from the apartment, which was no small task. With Jess there it went by faster, but it was also kind of awkward. It was bad enough that Logan had broken up with her, but she was sad about leaving her apartment, too. It wasn't a great place by any stretch of the imagination, but living there with Paris had actually been fun. Paris had already left with Doyle by the time Rory got there so she didn't even get to say a proper goodbye. With every minute that went by Rory was getting closer and closer to falling apart, but she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of Jess.

When they finally got home Rory collapsed on the couch and closed her eyes. It was late and she was dead tired, but she knew Lorelai wasn't going to let her go to bed that easily. Sure enough, she plopped down on the couch next to Rory. But to Rory's surprise, it wasn't Logan that her mom wanted to talk about.

"So what's going on with you and Jess?" she asked without preamble. "You haven't seen him since you went to his bookstore forever ago and he's showing up at your graduation?"

Rory shrugged. "We've been talking for a while. And I've seen him a few times. He came up to help fix Luke's window after the car crash and we had dinner with Liz and TJ and Luke. Paris and I went to see him in Philadelphia last summer, too."

"You've been hanging out? You had dinner with his mom and Luke? Why didn't you say something?"

"You and Luke had just broken up. I felt weird telling you I was having dinner with him."

"That's not what I mean," Lorelai said. "You've been hanging out with Jess for a year and you didn't tell me? I thought we told each other things, Rory." As much as thinking about Logan hurt, Rory would rather have been talking about him. She didn't like the way her mom sounded. Almost like she was disappointed in her.

"Come on, mom. You never liked Jess."

Lorelai just shook her head. "I wasn't his biggest fan, I'll admit, but it's not like I would've told you that you weren't allowed to talk to him. I was just surprised to see him at graduation. I didn't know if I should be worried about it or not. For all I knew he was stalking you or something!"

Rory laughed, but it sounded thin and weary. "He's not stalking me. I didn't know he would be there, but I told him when it was so it's not like he did anything weird. We haven't even seen each other recently. We've just been talking."

"Is that why you and Logan broke up? He saw you there Jess?"

"What? Mom, no," Rory said, incredulous. "I didn't even know Jess was there until after Logan left."

"You said before that he came to see you and got in a fight with Logan. What am I supposed to think?"

"Not that Logan broke up with me because he saw Jess!"

Lorelai's demeanor instantly changed. "He broke up with you?" she asked softly, looking at Rory sympathetically. Rory had been avoiding direct eye contact with anyone all night, but she couldn't do it anymore.

"Yeah," she said quietly, feeling completely beaten down by the day. "Yeah, he did. I thought we could do the long-distance thing again, but he didn't want that. He said it was all or nothing."

"And you got nothing."

"I got nothing," Rory agreed. She wanted so badly to crawl in her mom's lap like a little kid and cry until she couldn't breathe, but she wanted to stay strong too. "Except that necklace from Luke. That was really nice of him."

Lorelai hesitated like she didn't want to change the subject, but took the bait anyway. "He's always been thoughtful like that. I accidentally told him about the proposal," she added with a cringe. "So be prepared for that if you go into the diner tomorrow."

Rory sighed. "Thanks for the heads up," she said. Thank god Luke wasn't a big talker. "Oh no, you didn't tell Babette or Miss Patty about it, did you?" If either of them knew it would be all over town, which meant her breakup would be all over town tomorrow.

Thankfully Lorelai shook her head. "Are you kidding me? No, I wasn't about to let that get out. But if Babette saw Jess bringing boxes into the house earlier…"

Rory hadn't thought about that. God knows what people would be saying about her if Babette had seen them. "I didn't even think about that," she admitted. "He was helpful though, right?"

"I guess," Lorelai said grudgingly. "He gets that silent-but-somewhat-useful thing from Luke, I think." She looked like she wanted to say more, but stayed quiet. Rory recognized her internal struggle face. Finally, she gave up. "What's really going on with you two?"

"What do you mean?" Rory asked, confused. "We're friends."

"A 'friend' took the train up from Philadelphia just to have dinner with you and your grandparents? Rory, come on. He obviously likes you."

Rory looked at her like she had grown a second head. "No, he doesn't. We're so far past that. I've been with Logan the whole time we've been talking again." Until today.

"What did Logan think about you two talking again?" Rory suddenly became very interest in her nails. They looked terrible with all the spackling she had been doing. "Rory," Lorelai said slowly. "Did he not know you were talking to Jess?" Rory just shrugged. "Rory!"

"The one time they met they completely hated each other. I didn't think Logan would want to hear about it."

"So you hid it from him?" Lorelai asked. "I thought you were all about honesty."

"I wasn't hiding anything from him," Rory said casually. "It just never came up."

"In the year and a half since Logan saw Jess it never came up? How often were you talking to Jess?"

"Whenever," Rory said. "It was on and off for a while. Really, it wasn't a big deal. It just didn't seem important."

"I bet it was a big deal to him," Lorelai said.

It made Rory a little uncomfortable, but she had to admit Lorelai was right. Every time she and Jess had gotten into an argument over the last year and a half it was because of something to do with Logan. Rory could respect that Jess didn't like Logan as a person, but most of the time it seemed like Jess didn't like Logan because he was Rory's boyfriend. There had been a lot of jealousy there.

And Rory would be lying if she said it didn't go both ways. Jess hadn't dated much, but it was hard to deny that she hadn't exactly been happy to see him with Kassidee when she visited him in Philadelphia. It was wrong, but in her head Jess had always sort of been hers. She was the first (and possibly only) person in Stars Hollow that he had liked and even after they broke up he kept trying to come back to her. Even though she had turned him down each time, she kind of got used to the idea that he would always try to come back to her. She had kind of liked it. Dean had married someone else after he dumped her in high school and then completely ignored her after they broke up in college. Even though it was too soon to tell, Rory didn't expect to hear from Logan again. But Jess had kept coming back.

"What are you going to do about him now?" Lorelai asked, breaking Rory out of her thoughts. "Are you going to see him again while he's in Stars Hollow?"

"Mom, I don't know," Rory said. "Maybe. It's not like I'm going to get back together with him or anything. We're just friends."

"Rory, I'm telling you right now. He knows you broke up with Logan and he's not going to want to just be friends anymore."

Lorelai seemed so certain, but Rory wasn't sure. She didn't even know what she would do if Jess tried to initiate a romantic relationship now. The thought honestly scared her a little bit. It was just too much to think about. She couldn't even process not being with Logan anymore much less someone else trying to make a move. She just wanted to go to sleep for a week or two. Everything was just too much. The past two weeks had been awful, and she still had to unpack her things at home and send out a ton of resumes before she and Lorelai left for their rollercoaster road trip in a week or two. Thinking beyond the rest of the night was exhausting. She had been keeping it together so far, but all of her anxieties from the past month were catching up with her fast.

"I really just want to go to bed," Rory said softly. "We can talk more tomorrow if you want, but I… I just want to go to bed."

Lorelai nodded like she understood. "Okay, honey. Sleep good. We'll do something fun tomorrow, okay? Don't worry about unpacking or all those resumes yet. I know you like to get things out of the way, but just relax. School's over forever. It's time to have fun."

Rory smiled wanly. "Right. Fun." From where she was sitting, fun seemed light years away.