A/N: Haha! Briana tried to get me to tell her who the pairing is going to be. Sorry guys, but I'm not telling. Oh if anyone has any suggestions for this story whatsoever please do email me at Naajem@aol.com. It would really mean a lot to me. Thanks a bunch for all of the great reviews!

Jess struggled to keep his eyes open. The teacher was up in front droning about military tactics in WW II. It was only third period on Monday but Jess didn't know if he could take it anymore. After the bell rang, they had about seven minutes to put their books away then Jess's next period was Physical Training. Jess groaned. That meant crawling around in mud under barbed wire.

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The tall, dark, intimidating Mexican boomed.

"I am Sergeant.. Rodriguez!" He shouted, pacing back and forth in front of the single filed line of frightened boys.

"You will eat, drink and sweat my every command! Do you understand me?!"

"Sir, yes sir!" All of the boys except Jess chorused.

Rodriguez stopped in front of Jess.

"Do you think you're better than me pretty boy?" He spat in his face. Jess resisted the urge to wipe of the droplets of spit from his face.

"Uh, nope." Jess said. Some of the boys snickered.

"I can't hear you!" Rodriguez shouted.

"Then maybe you need to get your ears checked out." Jess said, rolling his eyes.

"That's it, drop and give me fifty!" The Sergeant screamed, once again.

Jess hesitated but soon was on the ground doing push ups while the rest of them started their obstical course.

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Jess plopped down on the bed and was about to drift off into sleep when there was a pounding on the door.

"Mariano!" The unmistakible voice of Lieutenant Webb broke the door. Jess got off of the bed and walked pass a reading Tristan to open the door.

"Sir, yes sir." Jess mumbled. Repeating "sir" twice was really starting to bug him.

"You have a telephone call from your mother." Webb told him. Jess followed him to the main office to get the telephone.

"Lizzie?" Jess asked. He was wondering why she would ever call him.

"It's me." Her voice rang in his ears like music.

"Rory?" He hissed. He looked around to make sure no one had heard.

"Rory, how did you get this number?" He whispered.

"I have my sources." She said mysteriously.

"Huh." Jess said.

"So, how is it going over there?"

"Okay."

"Do you miss anything."

"Sure."

"Okay, what's the biggest difference between military school and regular school?"

"Everything."

"Come on Jess! Details man!"

"Look, I can't really talk right now. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything." Jess hung up the phone. He couldnt bear himself to talk to her any longer. As he walked away from the phone he felt as if an ice cube had been placed on his heart. Rory Gilmore would never know how he felt.

He got back to his roomto find Tristan staring up at the ceiling again.

"Why do you always do that?" He asked him.

"Do what?" Tristan asked, Jess doubted whethere he even knew who he was talking to or not.

"Stare up at the ceiling."

"I think about what could've been." Tristan said.

Jess understood perfectly. He was wondering how his life would be different if he wasn't there.

"How long have you been here?" Jess asked.

"Only about four or five months." Tristan replied. Jess suddenly felt very sorry for this boy.

"What school did you go to before this?" Jess asked.

"It was this private school in Hartford. Called Chilton Prep." Tristan said almost painfully.

Jess's heart was beating faster by the second. He now had some sort of connection, no matter how distant, to Rory. This boy went to her school and had her name written in his book. They must've been friends.

"You wouldn't happen to know a Rory Gilmore would you?" Jess asked, as inconspicuously as he possibly could. Tristan's eyes snapped up, an angry storm brewing inside of them.

"Why do you care? Rory doesn't matter to me. She hates me. I just need to get over it." He started off yelling but trailed off by the time he got to the last word.

Jess was a little surprised by his reaction. He thought that he and Rory were friends. He knew he was taking a risk by his next words, but what the heck? He had nothing to lose.

"Uh, what happened?" Tristan must've been surprised too, because his head whipped up and then his eyes softened. He rested his head against his pillow and stared up at the ceiling. He began speaking.

"It all started in Sophomore year. I wanted her because she was beautiful and because she didn't want me. My crush turned to infatuation. My infatuation turned to lust. My lust turned to ..... love?" Tristan sounded a bit unsure of himself at the end. He took a deep breath and continued.

"I tried countless times to get her to go out with me. When that didn't work I tried to make her jealous." He let out an unhumourous laugh."I should've known she was too good to be jealous. Well there was this party in the middle of Sophomore year. My girlfriend had just dumped me in front of a lot of people. I was hiding out in the piano room. She comes into the room and sits down on the piano bench next to me. She says she's sorry that I had to get dumped in front of all of those people. She had just got dumped by her boyfriend the day before. I laughed it off and told her that she loved it. I apologized for being such a jerk to her before. Then she asked me about Summer. She was the girl who dumped me. I told her I didn't want to talk about her so she started talking about random subjects in school. I don't know what made me do it, but I leaned over and kissed her." He paused and had a dreamy expression on his face. " For about two seconds I was in Heaven, nothing mattered. Then she pulled back and her face was heart breaking. She started crying and ran away...." He closed his eyes and continued. "Later on we decided that the kiss didn't mean anything. Well... she decided that for us. We became on good terms with each other for a couple of weeks. She set me up with this girl Paris." Jess snorted, he had met Paris once, and she didn't seem like Tristan's kind of girl. "We had an okay time but Paris found out that Rory set her up so she got mad at both of us. Rory got mad at me for telling her, then I told her we were going to a concert together. Rory just looked at me like I was crazy so I took her books and told her I wouldn't give them back until she went with me. She turned around and saw her ex boyfriend. She told him that she loved him and hated me and things went downhill from then. In Junior year, we didn't talk much, or at all really. I started hanging out with stupid people just to get my mind off of her. She questioned me about it. I just shrugged her off. We got assigned in our Literature class to act out Act 5 or Romeo and Juliet. Her stupid boyfriend came to every rehearsal and I finally cracked and told him that we had kissed before. I didn't mean to hurt Rory, only to get on bagboy's nerves. So we never did get to rehearse that kiss. It was the opening night of the play. I just was so frustrated that this girl would never see that I liked her, so I did the stupidest thing. I broke into a safe to get my mind off of her. She was so upset when I told her I was being sent to military school. I was glad she cared. The last thing I've ever said to her was, 'Take care of yourself Mary'. No matter how much she'll deny it, she'll always be my Mary." He finished.

Jess turned away from him. He was sure that Tristan was crying. And he knew that he wouldn't want to be caught in that position.

Jess sat pondering that night about that day's events. Tristan was in love with Rory. Would his feelings ever rival Tristan's? So Rory knew Tristan, he would have to ask Rory about that tomorrow.

A/N: Okay this chapter is extremely cheesy and I'm sorry for that, I know the basic framework for this story but I'm welcome to ideas as I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. Review and tell me what you think of the story so far.