OMGSH! It's been forever! I'm so, so, sosorry that it has taken me this long to post the next one up. I could give you tons of excuses, all valid might I add, but that would just be wasting time when you could actually be reading my new chapter. I hope you like it and I hope it's worth the wait. I find this chapter to be more angsty than the rest.

Hope you guys haven't deserted me!

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STAND STILL, LOOK PRETTY

CHAPTER 7

The Line between Love and Hate

The dial tone that had filled his ears suddenly stopped, replacing itself with the infuriating, repetitive musical failure.

Had she known it was him?

Throwing the cordless phone on his sofa, he began to pace the room, averting his eyes from his front door to quench down the awful memory that continuously and unrelentingly always crept into his head, unbidden.

Jess had figured that an appropriate amount of time had passed that deemed his action to call rational; he guessed that maybe Rory didn't feel the same.

The still, hospital-white phone tauntingly tempted him on its' perch, difficultly he resisted.

He couldn't stand another second in his apartment where every part of it reminded him of her fleeting presence and while every second enticed him to call and to force his voice and pathetic excuse on her.

Had an enough amount of time passed? Jess quietly wondered as he quickly grabbed his army-green jacket from its position on the kitchen counter. Would he able to stand another cutting rejection?

The front-door, forevermore tainted and yet, beautified by the brief memory of Rory's stunning, torn and broken face, was a source of irrepressible pain for Jess. His hand burned as he turned the brazen knob; the pioneer action to liberate him from the bitter hurt in his heart that he could not manage on his own.

Shutting the door to the hell behind him, Jess donned on his jacket and stepped out of his building.

There was a slight downpour; the rain trickled down his hair and face as he exposed himself to a rather discomforting breath of fresh air, to a strange sense of freedom that he subconsciously did not want. He ignored the incredulous stare that an ignorant passerby gave him, his jacket an enough protection against the stinging drops.

The passerby, holding a purple umbrella as a shield against the downpour that was becoming harder by the second, was taken aback by the gentle ferocity of emotion on Jess's face, but he walked on without really sparing her a glance. What did she know, anyway?

The rain was usually a form of cathartic medium for him – cleansing him off his problems. But, it was not working today. Of course he didn't expect it to work this time anyhow.

Jess walked on, unsure of where his legs were taking him. His feelings were a jumble of confusion, confusing even him. He was having a hard time of picking one emotion from all the others, to focus, to fix, and to discard in order to move on to the next.

He would repeat this process over and over again until there was no more aching emotion in his system.

It was a difficult thing for him to do, but he'd done it before and he would do it again. Numbing the pain, yes, that was his constant solution to the beginning stages of the hurt caused by theGilmore. Eventually the numbness would fade and the wound a far memory.

But then he would idiotically begin to think that he was ready for a new kind of relationship with her, that he had put all the history behind him. He would think that maybe this time, they could be friends.

Oh how bloody naïve; he couldn't bear to be just on the sidelines.

As he continued to wander aimlessly, all the while fighting an inner losing battle, Jess suddenly saw a sign in the dark, flashing lamely – Falcon. He remembered being there back in his dark days. Truth to be told though, most of the incredible parts of his book was written in that pub, all his angstystuff. It had shocked him how true and unerring he could write whilst in a drunken stupor; how everything he had felt could transform accurately and stingingly on a piece of paper. What a revelation it was for him.

Feeling that there was no fitter occasion to return there than this, he made his legs carry him there; pushing the door open dejectedly once he had reached it.

The bartender's name was Lucy, blonde and in her late twenties. She had grown accustomed to Jess's brooding presence back in the day, and had felt a lost when he had stopped coming.

She was standing behind the bar when Jess entered, catering to her customers seated haphazardly around her.

When her green eyes spotted him, they narrowed, but betrayed no sense of surprise. Instead she turned her back on him, took a glass and filled it with cold beer, placing it in front of Jess just as he reached an empty chair directly in front of the counter.

He drank it without saying anything while she scrutinized his face. She sighed when Jess placed the now-empty glass hard on the bar.

"Alwaysher," Lucy muttered as she turned to fill the glass once more. She was still familiar with Jess's routine, long ago that it was.

Jess said nothing as he picked up the glass again.

"Well? It's her,ain't it?" Lucy demanded and was surprised that it shook.

Unaware just as he were those years ago of Lucy's tender feeling towards him, he shrugged and went on with his drinking.

Knowing full well that he would never feel for her the way he felt for her,Lucy tucked her passion away just as she had done before and asked him the one million dollar question.

"Did she read the book?"

He paused his drinking. "No."

Of course. "It's a shame, it was a good book. My girlfriends loved it."

How could they not? It was a book filled with odd revelations, with hopes and regrets, with witty sentences and beautiful lyrics. The book did not justtell a story but rather, it spoketo the readers. It brought the readers to Stars Hollow, described by him in the beginning to be his personal hell, an unbearable punishment for all the wrongdoings he had done. It told the story of a boy who had lost his way, had lost all hope, only for it to be restored by an unexpected second party. But the most brilliant part of the book was how he talked about her, the way he introduced everyone to thegirl; acquainting everyone with her intelligence, her quirkiness, her strange but endearing habits, her beauty and her love.The words that he used when he talked about her were simply breathtaking, even the parts that were written bitterly. Truly, theywere true love.

It did not take a genius to figure that out, and Lucy was not stupid.

She watched him gloomy countenance and wondered when she would ever see his happy ending.

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It was around two hours later before he found himself back in his own apartment. He drank just enough to numb his pain but not quite enough to plunge him into a state of unawareness.

He collapsed on his bed and tried to block out his memories – usually achievable after consuming a significant amount of alcohol – and watched the raindrops against his window.

Apparently it wasn't enough.

For the moment his head had hit his pillow, he thought of her. He cursed immediately knowing full well that once his mind started to reminisce, it was impossible to stop.

"I need another drink," he muttered resentfully as his mind began the works.

For a long time he was unable to push the thoughts of her out of his head; her face was everywhere, her voice a ghostly music to his ears. She was in his mind, body and soul! Just as he was beginning to place her in the corner of his heart to be gently remembered and loved from a far, she had returned to his life, shattering all the hard work that he had done of putting her on a pedestal to be admired, but never to have.

Oh how his heart ached! His mind told him to let go and start afresh with someone new but his heart couldn't stand the thought of her being in anyone else's arms but his.

Could he let her go without a fight?

No.

Could he ever forget her?

God, no.

So was he going to fight?

Yes, oh hell, he was.

Burning with a new rekindled sense of passion, strongly fueled by the alcohol he had consumed, Jess got up from his bed, his head filled with nothing but her, his heart felt nothing but intense relief that he had decided to fight and win her back. He had known all along that it was going to come down to this, but it was always so hard for him to take the first step.

He did not fear rejection now; he was up for anything as long as it contributed to the odds of having her back with him.

He picked up his phone which was still perched on his sofa and without a moment of hesitation, he dialed her number.

It was peculiar how he saw things in perfect clarity whenever he wasthis drunk. If he had drunk just another couple glasses of beer, he wouldn't have been in this state of mind. He would be cold and numb, in his bed, or somewhere, trying to brutally kill his thoughts of Rory, succeeding for a while, but it was never permanent. Lucy definitely knew just how much of an amount to give in order for Jess to find his way back.

Great woman, she was.

The dial tone stretched on. Rory just had to pick up this time, she had to. Jess waited impatiently with bated breath, going over the words that he was going to say to her in his head. This time, it had to go right. This time, she had to come back to stay.

"Jess?"

It wasn't her.

The silence grew long.

The other person sighed. "She's in the bathroom."

Jess recognized the voice; the blood drained from his face.

"Stop calling."

The blonde dick from Yale.

They both switched the phone off at the same time. It dropped out of Jess's hand as something tugged at his memory, something that he had read about Logan Huntzberger. The name sent his head into a spiral fury.

Dizzy and a bit tipsy, Jess went into his messy study and turned his computer on, the glare making him nauseated. He sat down on his chair, tapping his fingers incessantly on the table, trying hard to not think of the possibility of what surely was going on with Rory and that detestable Huntzberger. He quickly opened his internet browser, googled Logan Huntzberger and scanned the page of results.

It took him a few minutes to find what he was looking for; the news was rather outdated after all. But having found it and his memory having returned and confirmed, Jess just stared at the exploding headline in front of him, dumbstruck. Rory mustbe aware of this, how could she not be? She's a freaking reporter. To be fair, this was not her type of news, surely not at all, but shouldn't she know these things? And about someone she personally knows, too? She knows, oh she knew.

Sick with disgust, Jess at that very moment, hatedRory Gilmore.

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