Author's Note: WOW!! I didn't expect to get that many reviews on my first chapter. Thanks so much for your support! This chapter contains major spoilers, just to warn you. I think I'll have one more chapter and then that's it, remember it's a short little fic. Thanks again and I hope you enjoy the story! Please Read/Review!

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Jess watched Rory sit there for a few seconds. Her legs dangled over the edge of the bridge and her eyes were downcast to the water. She could have been a statue, she was sitting so still.

She must have heard his rustling because she quickly snapped out of whatever trance she was under and turned her head towards him. For a moment, Jess thought he saw happiness in her eyes, but that was soon covered up by fear and resentment.

He braced himself for whatever might happen and approached her. She had already turned her head back towards the water when he sat down beside her. The silence that enveloped them was awkward but not deathly unpleasant. Neither struggled to find anything to say because neither really wanted to speak. The silence continued for minutes.

Finally Jess broke it. Not because he was uncomfortable with the silence, but because he wanted to hear her voice in reply.

"Shane thinks Hemmingway is boring," he said, trying to read Rory's reaction to this statement.

Rory jumped slightly at hearing his voice, she was lost in her own thoughts. She smiled slightly, turning her head towards him. "Well, I guess she does have a brain after all," she replied.

Jess was just about to start a debate with her but instead replied seriously, "She's never even read him."

Rory raised her eyebrows and nodded her head a little. "I see," she said quietly. "Well, at least she has the right opinion on Hemmingway," she added, testing Jess' reaction.

Jess looked at her incredulously. "Since when do you defend Shane?" he asked her bluntly.

Rory hesitated for a second. "I'm not defending Shane, just her viewpoint on Hemmingway," she stated simply.

"Which is totally illegitimate since she never read his work," Jess responded hotly. The thought of Shane dissing Hemmingway annoyed Jess more than Rory could have guessed.

"Hemmingway was an egotistical drunkard," Rory said.

"So was everyone in the Lost Generation. C'mon, Fitzgerald? That's not a good reason," Jess said, secretly relishing in the fact that they were talking again.

"Okay, yeah, Fitzgerald had his set of problems. But you cannot tell me that The Great Gatsby wasn't an amazingly poignant book," Rory commented.

"Alright, I grant you that. But how can you say that Old Man and the Sea wasn't either. He's talking about all his writings, his joy, his life getting eaten up by critics who just want to tear his existence out because they don't like the way he writes or what he writes about. The symbolism with the beautiful fish, the old man, and the sharks was beyond poignant," Jess replied.

That's exactly what he felt when Shane said that Hemmingway was boring. Something that was very important to him, his love of reading, was completely dismissed by a girl who probably had a reading level of a fourth grader.

Rory thought about this for a while. The passion with which Jess spoke could have been enough to convince her that Hemmingway was the best writer of all time, had she not read Hemmingway herself. "I understand your point, I just can't agreed. Hemmingway doesn't speak to me like other writers do, but if he speaks to you, that's fine," she said.

Jess nodded. He was slightly flushed from talking so passionately with Rory, something he hadn't done in months. He missed it.

"So, uh, why are you here?" Rory asked.

"Cause Shane said Hemmingway sucks," Jess said.

Rory chuckled. "I get it."

Silence followed. Rory needed to ask him this question that was eating at her for weeks now, but it really wasn't any of her business anyway. The worst Jess could do was snap at her and walk away and they'd be back to where they were twenty minutes ago. She needed to ask.

"Jess, why are you with her?" Rory asked quietly.

The gentleness with which Rory spoke caught Jess off guard.

"Why not?" Jess replied, tensing up just a little.

"Cause you can do better," Rory replied honestly.

"Obviously not," Jess replied coldly, anger seeping into his voice.

If he could do better, then Rory would like him and they'd be together. But they weren't together. He had convinced himself while she was in D.C. that he didn't deserve better than Shane. And that was the crux of it all: Rory's actions made him believe that he didn't deserve her.

"What? Yes, you can," Rory stated firmly, annoyance filled her.

"No, I can't," Jess replied, trying to control himself. The last thing he wanted to do was to blow up at her and show his weaknesses to her. Wait, what weaknesses? He had no weaknesses.

"She's not right for you. What do you guys have in common? Have you had an intelligent conversation with her? Ever?" Rory asked, unable to control her questions.

"That's not how our relationship works," he replied.

"So you guys just make out and that's it?" Rory asked, her frustration rising.

"Yeah, basically. But why do you care? Why are you here anyways? Aren't you supposed to be somewhere with Dean?" Jess asked cruelly. He didn't need his actions to be attacked, so he attacked hers.

"I'm here because I don't want to be anywhere else," Rory replied, hoping that Jess would understand the underlying meaning in her words.

Jess heard it, but ignored it too. "Dean'll get pissed. Then he'll start his whole 'keep away from Rory' shit," Jess said, annoyed.

"No, he won't. He broke up with me," she stated simply.