IMAGINARY GIRL

He'd always thought of himself as a realist. He more or less took people on face value and didn't expect much more than what he saw.

But with her...he thought he had seen something else. From the moment he'd first met Rory Gilmore (in her bedroom, at her desk, warm smile, shining eyes, between the pages of her books...) he'd convinced himself that there was more to the girl than just being the princess of Stars Hollow. She didn't belong on that kind of pedestal anymore than her mother.

And during his months in the one traffic light town, Jess had thought he'd found it. He'd teased and wheedled and coerced and bullied until he found her.

He was jostled from his thoughts by Chris nudging his side.

'Hmm?' he grunted, barely looking away from his beer.

Chris nodded at the almost empty glass. 'It's my round. You want another?'

Jess's vacant gaze turned to one of surprise. He hadn't even realised his glass was so close to empty. 'Um...yeah. Thanks.'

Fighting back a heavy sigh, Chris slid out of the booth and headed for the bar.

Jess felt a little guilty. He knew his friends wanted to console him, but he couldn't even begin to articulate what was wrong. He'd never been known as the sharing type.

'It won't hurt forever.'

Jess found Matthew staring at him with what seemed surprisingly wise eyes. He cocked an eyebrow in response. 'Oh yeah?'

The younger man nodded. 'And with the application of copious amounts of alcohol, you can stop the hurting now as well,' he mused aloud, and then added as an afterthought, 'But then you'll have a whole different kind of hurting to deal with in the morning.'

One of Matthew's friends (Paul? Barry? Jess couldn't remember), chimed in at this, apparently keen to share his experiences of the world of broken hearts and alcohol. Jess was thankful that the attention had moved away from him, and slumped back into his seat, draining the last of the beer from his glass.

'I know you better than anyone! This isn't you!'

It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't feel so goddamn stupid. When he'd said those words to her, he'd honestly believed them. Seeing her in Hartford, playing trophy girlfriend to the Blonde Dick from Yale, had hurt. He'd been horrified, worried, disappointed, shocked, freaked and a whole thesaurus of other words, to find that that was what his Rory had become...But it had been nothing compared to this afternoon.

'I couldn't even cheat on him the way he cheated on me.'

Had that been her plan all along? Coming to Philly, acting like she cared - pretending like she was Rory again... Just so she could cheat on the blonde jerk. Was that all that he was to her? Someone she could use when it was convenient?

'Despite all the bad he's done, I can't help it. I'm in love with him.'

He didn't understand it. He couldn't. But he was starting to realise something. Jess had broken his own rule: don't look for anything more than what's on the surface. Rory may not have been the princess that Stars Hollow had made her out to be... But neither was she the girl that he'd imagined, with blazing eyes and unstoppable energy, waiting to burst out of her fairytale... Perhaps that girl had never existed at all.

'I come bearing ale!' Chris cheered, as he returned to the table and handing out the drinks. Jess had downed his whole glass before Chris managed to sit back down.

*****

A/N: So obviously this was my attempt at dealing with the Philly incident. Yes, I kind of took the cheats way out, 'cos I didn't want to go into the 'incident' we've all seen and cried over a million times.

The chapter title is a reference to the John Waite song, which I came across while googling for something appropriate. The lyrics are disturbingly relevant.

Thanks for reading, and please leave a review.

~VC