"Emergencies only," Jess told her firmly when he gave her the number.
He could hear the excitement in Lily's voice as she swore not to call him unless something was bleeding or at least seriously fractured.
It had been three months since Jess had been in contact with her, or Sasha, or Jimmy. That was the way he'd wanted it, the way he liked things, yet when he received his newest cell phone number (one sure to stick now that he had a steady job and could pay the bill every month) he had the urge to tell someone where he was.
A little earlier, two of his roommates had dragged their sorry butts out of bed and headed off to work, or a bar. He wasn't sure. One of them was still passed out on a mattress, likely avoiding the killer hangover that was inevitable. One of them hadn't even come home the night before.
For no particular reason, this made Jess mad. He should have been used to it, all four of his roommates were drunken losers, who'd either flunked out or been kicked out of college, no doubt for lack of soberness. That was why he liked them, they had no ambitions, no plans further than their next drink, or hit.
If he died it would be weeks before they noticed the body.
After briefly considering (and rejecting) calling Luke, Jess had decided on Lily. Sasha would be at her pottery class, and there was little chance of Jimmy answering the phone these days.
Part of him was already hating himself before Lily had even said hello. It wasn't fair of him to call like this, after so much silence.
His resolve to stay away (both emotionally and physically) had begun to really waver the day before, one of his roommates had come home stoned, again. When his high began to wear off he started telling stories about his family, or what little there was of it. In between incoherent babblings of his dead crack addict mother and a sister who turned tricks in an alley near 67th Street, Jess found himself thinking about Lily.
The summer he'd lived in California she had changed over from being a little girl to a young woman. Her gap toothed smile now included metal braces with purple accents and her chest was no longer flat, to the delight of her male friends.
Lily didn't deserve the hand she'd been dealt anymore than he did. As much as Jess wanted it not to be true, the little bookworm had wormed her way into his heart.
So, he gave her his new phone number, threatened her life she actually call it, and said a gruff goodbye before she could tell him how anyone was, including her.
Jess glanced at the clock as he passed a lump of roommate. Todd was going to lose his job if he didn't get up soon, but Jess wasn't going to be the one to wake him.
There was a firm knock on the door. Jess hoped fervently that it wasn't the landlord, since two of his roommates hadn't handed over their share of the rent yet.
"Hey, neighbor, the guys next door just ran out of crack to sell, so they sent me over to borrow a cup. Hey, nice place. You put those holes there yourself?"
Jess blinked twice at the figure before him. Luke? What was Luke doing there? He didn't even think Luke knew where he lived.
"What are you doing here?" Jess voiced the question in what he hoped sounded like his normal, sarcastic self.
Luke walked past him into the apartment, not even attempting to hide his dismay. "Just wanted to see how you were doing."
"Doing great." Jess gritted his teeth.
"Great, you're doing great. Wow, you're doing great. I'm not doing great, and I have running water."
Jess tried very hard to get angry. He should be angry, Luke was here insulting his home. "The place is fine." It might not have been much, but it was warm and most days he got a decent meal or two.
"Fine? Not great? What happened to great?"
Now Jess was beginning to feel a little less like falling apart and a little more like punching Luke in the stomach. "All this and no housewarming gift."
"Okay, okay." Luke held up his hands in surrender. "I just thought you were going absolutely nowhere with your life. Glad I'm wrong. Hey, which filthy mattress is yours?"
Jess blinked. Why had Luke come there just to remind him that he was a high-school drop out living in squalor? "Right there."
Luke followed the directing Jess pointed in, continuing his repartee of insults. "Oh. Well, you got the good corner, with a view of the mold."
"Yeah, I won the toss." Jess gritted his teeth. "Now if you don't mind, I've got places to be."
"Let's get down to it."
Finally, Jess thought.
"Liz told me you weren't coming to the wedding."
Jess snorted. "No way you're here about that."
"I am here about that."
Jess tilted his head, wondering why Luke cared. Liz's new fiancée was an idiot with half a brain, but that wasn't why he wasn't going. "Why?"
"Why?" Luke exclaimed. "Your mother's getting married and you're not coming."
"No biggie. I'll just catch the next one." Jess tried to look nonchalant as he mentally ticked off the reasons he needed to stay away from Liz's wedding. 1. Liz was making a stupid mistake. 2. Rory. 3. He couldn't get close to anyone. 4. Rory….
"Jess, this guy is different."
"Come on." This guy wasn't different, he just had less brain cells.
Even Luke realized how stupid that comment was. "Well, he could be different. He seems different."
"Jeez, man."
"I've seen him with Liz. They seem to work. We need to support this thing to give it a chance."
Sheesh, Luke sounded like an episode of Dr. Phil. "No, we don't."
"You are gonna regret this."
"I doubt it." Jess walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door, staring at the empty shelves with nothing but beer and ketchup on them, trying not to question his decision.
He shouldn't go.
"No, you are. If you ever manage to grow up and get yourself together and drop this selfish self-destructive behavior that you are so fond of, if that ever happens, you are gonna look back on this moment and you are gonna feel like a big steaming mound of crap that you missed this."
He couldn't go.
"This could have been a turning point. You could have witnessed something good for your mother who, yes, has screwed up a bit in her life but now seems to have found something to make her happy, and you miss that, you refuse to be a part of that, you are gonna be very sorry."
He wouldn't go.
Jess tugged the beeper off his jeans as it went off, glancing at the familiar number.
"What are you a drug dealer now?"
"I'm a messenger." Drug dealers probably made more money. Jess changed his mind and decided that Todd needed to work so he could pay his share of the rent. "I gotta go. Hey, Todd, it's four o'clock."
Todd's foot twitched, signaling that the hangover had begun.
"You owe me."
Jess froze.
"I was there for you when no one else was and I want you there… and you owe me."
Jess gulped. "I gotta go."
"So, do I. I'm going first." He stormed out of the apartment.
Of all the people in the world he had pissed off lately, Luke was the only one who made him want to change. "Hey, Todd," Jess called one last time, before following Luke out the door.
xxx
He wasn't sure why he went to the bridge, why that was the place his feet immediately headed for. It was well past dusk and would have been pitch black along the path if it hadn't been for the night's full moon.
"Rory?" She must have heard his footsteps, but she didn't look up until he said her name.
Her eyes were red-rimmed and filled with tears. The blue orbs reflected with fear as she swallowed.
"Tell me." Rory held up the tattered pamphlet.
Jess felt his stomach lurch.
"Please." It was no more than a whisper but it broke down the last barriers he had built around his heart.
Jess sat down beside her and took one of her hands, tracing the lines in her palm idly with his thumb. "The night after Kyle's party Jimmy," he paused, "my dad, he came to see me."
Rory nodded slowly as he spoke, urging him on.
"I wasn't graduating, I thought you hated me, or you would soon, and Luke kicked me out. I didn't have anywhere to go, so I hopped on a bus to Venice Beach and found Jimmy's address in a phone book.
"At first he didn't want me to stay, which I thought was just because I was this screw-up teenager that had showed up on his doorstep." Jess' jaw tightened. "I'd been there a month when he finally told me the truth."
"What?" Rory asked, after a long silence.
Jess' voice was shaking when he finally continued. "He'd been having these weird muscle spasms so Sasha made him go to the doctor." His hand gripped hers tightly. "After a lot of tests they finally figured out what was wrong."
"Huntington's." A tear rolled down Rory's face. "It was Huntington's, wasn't it?"
Jess nodded slowly.
A moment later, his shoulder's began to shake. Rory pulled him into her arms and held him tightly as he wept, letting loose of all the tears and pain that had been bottling up inside him since Jimmy finally told him the truth.