CHAPTER EIGHT / RORY
the desperation and panic which rises in his voice at each syllable is shattering. i feel every muscle in my body seize up and every limb go weak. it's as though every part of me is mush and any minute now, i'm going to faint. "Jess.." my voice trails off and he doesn't look at me.
"as much as i want to be with you, it seems the more i try to get to you, the further we crash apart. so i'm done, i'm finished. this is it, rory. this is me walking away. finally."
"no! you're always the one leaving!" i finally find my voice and step closer to him, angry and exhausted, the mixed bag of emotions i've felt over the last 24 hours all thrashing around inside my body.
"no i'm not! THAT'S YOU, RORY! you turn away from us time and time again! you never even said you loved me! yet you said it to dean, to logan, to everyone but me, it seems. why is that? is it because you never did?" "you know it isn't." i scoff. "well, then, why? you owe me an explanation, i mean don't you think you owe me at least that?"
"at least, what, Jess? a reason why i never told you i loved you in the moment? okay, well if you get that, i want a reason for why you didn't just tell me what you were doing on that DAMN BUS TO HARTFORD! WHY YOU DIDN'T JUST SHARE YOUR PLANS OF CHASING AFTER YOUR DAD, WITH ME?! i want a reason for that, Jess!"
he rolls his eyes and takes his hands out of his pockets. "we've been over this, too many times, Rory. i'm not going in circles with you in the middle of the town square!" he holds his arms out wide. i look around us, noticing the stars have completely come out now and the town gazebo is to our right.
i remember him pushing me against that banister, kissing me as we walked through the snow and i tried to convince him to come to the winter carnival with me and Lane at 17. i remember that day like it was last week, but when i try to throw my mind back to all the moments i knew i truly loved him but held back from saying it aloud to him, i can't muster up a reason why. why did i hold back? from Jess, out of all three boys, why him?
"fine! well then, i'll think of something else! something else i want a reason for, something else you never explained! it can't be too hard to pick another situation when you kept something from me or acted out, since you practically never shared anything with me!" i blurt and he just shakes his head, touching a hand to his jaw, tilting his head down, losing his patience.
i know i'm pushing his buttons more than i probably have to now. i know i could get my point across with a different, more level-headed approach. but screw that, screw him. after all, i'm exhausted just like him, if not more than him! hell, i was the one who was in a foreign country only two nights ago.
"what would Jess ever say to me if i saw him again? you wanted to talk, so talk. what do you have to say to me?"
"I love you"
just the memory alone gives me the chills, but i can't let that stop me from getting answers. from finally confronting him about it. "how about when you drove off after telling me you loved me?! how about that, huh? why would you just drive away like that, Jess?" "what other choice did i have, Rory?" "oh, i don't know." i retort, sarcasm lacing my words. "maybe stand still for a single split second so i could respond! so i could react how—"
"no, see, i'm not doing this." he interrupts, shaking his head and holding his hand out, keeping me back. his face is cold. "doing what?" i wipe at my wet tear stained cheeks. "you weren't going to say anything, Rory! don't you understand how driving away was the only choice i had?! there was no other option!"
"you can keep telling yourself that, Jess. but it isn't going to change the fact that you never once tried to get in contact with me since then!" "oh, yeah? what about when i turned up at the dorms at Yale?!" my stomach drops and it feels as though the ground beneath my feet has collapsed. i have dreaded the day i'd have to hear his voice utter those words.
"what do you want?" i remember yelling at him, annoyed to even see him.
"i don't know i just wanted to see you. talk to you."
he asked me to come with him that night, he wanted us to run away together, to new york, to live together and just work dead end jobs. he didn't think anything else mattered as long as we were together. "we'll finally be together, it's what i want, it's what you want too."
"w-what about it?" i stutter, finally saying something and he knows he's hit a nerve. "oh, forgot about that, did we?" his tone is cruel now. i'd try to talk some sense into him, but i know it's not bound to do any good.
there was never any breaking through that wall — that goes up when he realises he's let himself get to vulnerable, bear too much — not back then and still, it appears, not in the present day. if he wants to close himself off, then who am i to stand in his fucking way?
"YOU ALWAYS PUSH ME AWAY, JESS! YOU DELIBERATELY BRING UP THINGS THAT YOU KNOW ARE GOING TO HURT ME AND ARE GOING TO MAKE ME QUESTION WHY I WANT TO BE WITH YOU!" he doesn't reply, he just stands there. he doesn't make some wise ass retort, fuelled by spite and he doesn't defend himself.
all the memories, all the arguments we've ever had, all the yelling, all the times he kept something from me or he avoided my calls when he felt insecure about dean, all the times i had to watch him kiss shane in front of me and act like it didn't bother me — it's all crashing down on me.
there's that night, after i dropped out of Yale when he poked his head through the gate at my grandparents' place and i took him upstairs to my room there and he handed me his book. "i just came to give you that…and tell you, i couldn't have done it without you."
the next day when he met logan and Logan was a jerk, Jess just walked away. he didn't let it get to him, he didn't start a fight. he proved to me, yet again, that he'd really grown up, moved past the attitude and chip on his shoulders that he used to have as a teenager.
"this isn't you, rory. i know it isn't and you know it too" the words he said to me that night outside the bar with a pissed Logan inside, are what made me go back to Yale. they're what made me truly snap out of it — it was Jess who convinced me that i shouldn't, that i couldn't let mitchum huntzburger tell me i didn't have what it takes to break into the media industry.
"maybe we'll catch up…at a…at a better time." those were the words he said as he touched my arm lightly, that night, before he walked away one final time. i had no idea in the moment, but now flashing back to it, i can finally recall the tortured look on his face, which showed how painful it was for him to leave me behind, leave me with Logan.
"i don't deserve this, Rory." i thought the last time i'd see Jess would be that book launch. i let him lean in, let him kiss me and then pulled away and treated him horribly. and yet, he still told me i could tell Logan something happened between him and i, if it'd make me feel better. "take care of yourself, Rory."
there's the night he stole my book and wrote in the margins, when we'd just met only nights earlier."i thought you said you didn't read much." he shrugs. "well what is much?" "good night dodger." "dodger?" "figure it out.." "oliver twist?"
there's the day he was fixing our rain gutters for extra cash, which Luke had arranged with Mum and i tried to give Jess a lecture and slipped up about how i'd thought there was something between us beyond friendship.
"I would really appreciate it, if you would try to get along with my mom..she's also my best friend in the world, so if you care about me at all, you will take that into consideration and you will be mildly polite toher." i'd said. "what makes you think i care about you?" comes his response.
it's all too much. all the unanswered questions, all the heartache, the lingered glances, the dance marathon when dean broke up with me right in front of everybody and jess came to find me on the bridge afterwards, telling me dean was a jerk. the way he'd kissed me, telling me there would be a next time of him meeting my grandparents but there never was. the way he'd watched me intently, unwavering and unafraid, on the day of Mum and Luke's wedding. it's all there, it's all proof of what we have, proof that he cares, proof that there's never been anybody else, that he's always stayed with me, whenever i go, whatever i do.
"I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE, JESS! I DON'T KNOW WHAT ELSE IS THERE! YOU SAID SO YOURSELF, WE'VE BEEN OVER THE SAME THINGS, THE SAME POINTS, AGAIN AND AGAIN. AND WE STILL CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHERE WE WENT WRONG! MAYBE WE'VE JUST GONE BACK OVER IT, ONE TOO MANY TIMES! MAYBE THERE REALLY ISN'T AN ANSWER! MAYBE I WAS IDIOT FOR NOT TELLING YOU I LOVED YOU WHEN I KNEW I DID, BUT MAYBE YOU WERE EQUALLY AN IDIOT FOR NOT COMMUNICATING WITH ME, FOR KEEPING A PART OF YOURSELF LOCKED AWAY, ALWAYS!"
i turn around, embarrassed at having lost myself in the past, unsure of what he's been thinking in these recent minutes and upset that we're still yelling, we're still locking heads when it comes to communication.
deep down, i know i have to say it, i need to say it. to him, about him. it's time. it was foolish of me to wait this long. to trick myself into thinking it didn't matter to him, it wouldn't help him. how blind was i, at seventeen, to not realise that was all he needed? for me to tell him i loved him and that we'd make it when i went off to Yale. that we'd be okay, as long as we were together.
"don't turn away from us, Rory. not again. please." his voice breaks through my thoughts and it's raw and it's honest and it's vulnerable. all the things Jess never wanted to admit that he is, all the things he would fight so hard to conceal when we were younger.
"i'm not, Jess. or at least, i don't want to.." i walk towards him, closing the space between us quickly and wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling him close. his breathes are short and quick. "can we really do this, Jess? finally dive right in?"
"we can if we really want to." "i really want to, i do. so bad." i tell him, locking eyes. "then i guess we're doing this." he replies, his voice barely above a husky whisper. "we're diving?" "we're diving." he confirms and i smile, before kissing him. "i love you, Jess Mariano."
we kiss some more and then pull apart, still standing as close as we can get. i'm leaning against his chest. his lips are cold but his eyes are warm and i'm crying again, but this time they're happy tears and he's the one reaching out to stroke my cheek, wiping them away so i don't have to do it myself. "i know we've had our hard times but i'm so glad we're together now. you are it for me. i think i've known it for a while..maybe even all these years." i tell him as his smile only grows, dimples popping in his cheeks.
and as his lips find mine again, all the fights, all the hurt — it all disappears. and the only thing left inside my mind, comes out of nowhere and is a line from a book i read a few years back, something which sums up what Jess and I are doing perfectly, in nine simple words. there's no denying, this may well leave a mark.
