Chapter 5 – She showed me crimson, gold, and lavender
Jess' POV
Disclaimer: As I know you all know, I don't own anything to do with Gilmore Girls. I don't own any book or author references either.
A/N: Thanks SO much for all the amazing reviews! I really never expected to get great feedback like that! To Sirius, Katie, twinkletoes, Angel Monroe, Alliegirl, and Lioness-07863—thank you!!!!! Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, it was supposed to be up Friday, but I couldn't type it then, so now here it is! Hope you like it! Chapter 6 is done too, and I'm working on chapter 7 but I'm having a hard time deciding what will happen. Those will hopefully be up by Tuesday. And FYI, there should be Literati stuff in chapter 8, 9 if not 8. I'm probably going to run out of lines from this song for title chapters before I'm done, lol. Enjoy! ~Arianna
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to comfort Rory, but it was my fault that she was crying. And I really didn't know what to tell her. So I just held her and let her cry.
Rory pulled away after a while. I kept my arm around her.
"You okay?" I said.
"I guess." She was still leaning on me, and I was glad.
"Is there anything you want to talk about? Because there's no one I could tell." I smiled at her.
"Jess, don't say that."
"Sorry."
"No, I know you didn't mean it like that."
"So is there anything?" I asked quietly.
"I don't know. I don't know how I feel…but thanks for being here, Jess."
"Don't thank me." I couldn't tell her how much that meant to me. "I made you cry, it's my fault." It was, and I knew it.
"Hey, the Dean thing isn't your fault."
"You sure?" I waited for her to answer.
"Yeah," she said, smiling at me. "Let's talk about books. I need to think about something else."
"Something I'm good at, I replied.
"You could be good at anything you wanted to. But you're the only person I know who reads like I do." I grinned at that. She and I have more in common than she and Dean do.
"I guess we shouldn't get into Ayn Rand," I remarked. Rory laughed.
"No, for your sake!" she said. "How's Islandia?"
"It's good…the main character goes to Harvard, you know.
"I'd heard that."
"Got any books on your list, after Jane Eyre?"
"Well, I've read it before, but not for a while—I'm thinking A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." I definitely remembered that book.
"I loved that book," I told her, honestly.
"Really?"
"Oh, yeah. Don't tell anyone, but I used to want to go to Camelot."
"No way!" she exclaimed, laughing. "That's so not you."
"Yeah, well."
"I see. I wonder what everyone would say if they knew that Stars Hollow's resident rebel reads Jane Austen and wants to visit Camelot," Rory surmised.
"Don't you dare."
"I was kidding, Jess."
"Does coffee make you do this?" I grinned at her. "We've got to get you off caffeine."
"No, don't turn into Luke!" Rory was trying not to laugh, I knew.
"Scary thought."
"Yeah," she agreed, smiling. She put her head on my shoulder. It felt really good.
"Rory…" I didn't want to do this, but I had to. "Rory, do you think…I…don't want to mess things up for you. With you—" I hated to say it—"and Dean."
"Oh, Jess. That's really nice of you."
"So, not me, huh?"
"No, that's you. You just don't show it most of the time." I didn't know how to reply to that. But I was glad Rory thought so. Really glad. Suddenly I felt like someone was watching me. I turned slightly to the left to see, but no one was there. Rory checked her watch.
"Oh, I've got to meet my mom at the Inn!" she cried. "I'm sorry, Jess." She jumped up. I got up too.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" I said. "Hey, I'll walk you as far as the diner."
"Thanks." We walked off the bridge together. I'm walking with Rory. Then it hit me. Rory talked to me about Dean. She said 'the Dean thing' wasn't my fault. The Dean thing? Did that mean she was thinking…did that mean there was a chance we could be more than friends? Please let there be a chance…
Sure I'd always liked Rory. Loved her, maybe. Jess from New York would never care about anyone like that. I couldn't help it, though. And I had to admit I liked it. At least, I liked the idea. But I'd never let myself hope it would actually happen. Because if it didn't…I couldn't stand it. I couldn't get through it.
Maybe she didn't know me very well. But no one else wanted to, and she did. That meant a lot to me.
The "friends" I'd had in New York. They would never know me now. Maybe that was good. Yeah, I was different. But maybe better in some ways?
