Two days later, the phone rang in the late evening. Jess heard it faintly, over the sound of the TV and his mother and Greg's laughter, through the closed door of his room.
Someone moved to the phone, shuffling through the mess of junk that had accumulated on the floor of the living room.
"Hello?" Greg answered. "What for?"
"Who is it, baby?" his mother asked sweetly, and Jess scowled, though she couldn't see him.
"Dunno. Wants to talk to the kid. Jess!" he yelled.
Vaguely surprised, Jess set his book aside and stood up, leaving his room to take the phone.
He crossed the living room, then held out his hand for the phone. A long moment passed before Greg reluctantly handed it over.
"Hello?" Jess said into the receiver, turning his back to Greg, trying achieve at least a little privacy.
"Hello, Jess Mariano?"
"Yes."
"This is James Burnell from the record store. I'm calling in regards to your application…"
"Yes?" Jess said, anxiously.
"If you're still interested, we would like to hire you to work here part-time," Burnell said. "You are still interested, correct?"
"Yes," Jess said, then shot a look at Greg who hovered over him, and edged away a bit.
"Good. When can you start?" Burnell asked briskly.
"Anytime."
"Monday morning, at ten?"
"Yes."
"Excellent! I'll see you then! Goodbye," James Burnell said happily.
"Bye." Jess carefully hung up the phone.
"Who was that?" Greg demanded the moment the phone was in the cradle.
"No one."
"Tell the truth, boy," Greg growled, taking a step forward. His eyes were bloodshot, and Jess was forced to step back as the stench of marijuana and alcohol hit him.
"A guy from a record store," he said, setting his jaw.
"What did you do?" Greg almost yelled.
"Nothing!" Jess exclaimed.
"Bull! What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything!" Jess yelled back. Greg's eyes narrowed and he took another step forward, raising his hand and striking Jess across the face.
Jess was knocked back a bit, but regained his footing quickly, refusing to show even that little bit of weakness.
"Don't you talk to me like that," Greg hissed, his voice low and menacing. Jess just glared. "Why the hell is a record store calling you?"
"I got a job," Jess said, still glaring. Then a fist came out of nowhere and impacted just to the side of his left eye, causing stars to explode before his eyes and sending him reeling back into the kitchen counter. Reaching out to grab hold of something to catch himself, Jess broke one of the many beer bottles, the glass crushing beneath his hand, little fragments sinking into his skin. "Damn! What the hell?"
"Don't lie to me!" Greg roared, grabbing Jess by the wrist and forcibly moving him to the more open area of the living room.
"Greg…" his mother mumbled feebly, too drunk or high or whatever the hell she was to help Jess.
"Let go!" Jess demanded, trying to pull free. Greg tightened his grip on Jess' wrist, nearly to the point of breaking something. Greg then grabbed Jess' free arm to make him even more captive.
"You listen to me," he snarled. "If you ever lie to me again, so help me, I'll –"
"I didn't lie!" Jess said from between gritted teeth. Greg twisted one of Jess' arms behind him, still keeping the other in a secure grip. He jerked on Jess' arm until he thought it would come out of the socket.
"Don't interrupt me, either!" he bellowed. Jess remained silent, clenching his teeth against the pain. Greg made a disgusted sound and threw Jess from him. "Get back to your room."
Jess slowly picked himself up, slowly walked to his room, where he closed and locked the door.
"Damn it!" he gasped, dropping onto the edge of his bed, cradling his hurt arm against his chest. The shoulder felt as though it was beginning to swell, bruises were already starting to show on both wrists, matching the one he could feel forming across his lower back where it had struck the counter. His eye ached and stung whenever he blinked.
But the most pressing problem was his hand, which was bleeding profusely. He had read once that hands always bled more, because of all the tiny veins required to give them such dexterity. But his hand was bleeding a hell of a lot, the red pooling in his palm the sliding down his arm; dripping from the tips of his fingers to dot the knee of his jeans in little circles, perfectly shaped, as though they were trying to provide some order to something that was too chaotic to deal with.
Jess found an old T-shirt and wrapped it around his hand, watching the red soak through slowly.
"Damn it…" he said again, softer this time, as he sat, holding the T-shirt to his hand. Even as he said it, though, the pain was starting to lessen, his body accepting it as though it was just one more piece of the whole, something that belonged.
Even after almost a year away, his life was exactly the same as when he left. Still day after day of a place he didn't want to be, a house he couldn't call home, and a woman he could barely call "mother."
His life in Stars Hollow was already fading into his memory as something more akin to a dream than to actuality, a scene so foreign and brief that he could hardly believe it had been real.
