Chapter 2: Broken ovens, Broken hearts

Rory's tears began to lessen as she laid face first on her bed. She held one of her stuffed animals tightly and gripped the pillow with her free hand. A deep breath escaped her. "Rory!" Lorelai call as she entered the front door. Rory quicky sat up, dried her eyes and grabbed a book. "Sweet can i come in?" her mother questioned with a knock.

"Yeah!" she replied as Lorelai open the door. Rory plastered on a fake smiled. "Just doing some read before bed."

"Cut the crap." her mom stated bluntly. "What's going on Ror?"

"Nothing. What are you...." she stopped after recieving the death glare. "God Mom It's all wrong. Nothings the way it was supposed to be."

"You like Jess don't you?" She paused. "Well, i didn't get it at first, but some where is you middle of you making fun of Jess and the fight I realized it was all because you are jealous of Shane."

"I am not."

"Because you like Jess."

"Do not."

"Then what was the scene at the diner all about?"

"Fine maybe I like him." she admited.

"Does he know?"

"I don't know mom. I screwed everything up." Rory began crying again. "I was so scared of what you would say, of what Dean would do, of how Jess would react. I mean, I've never cheated on anyone before. I never had anyone to cheat on with."

"Wait back up? Who said anything about cheating?"

"I did. I cheated."

"On Dean?"

"Yes. I kissed him."

"Dean?"

"NO!

"You kissed Jess?"

"YES!" Rory banged her head on the wall gently.

"When did this happen." Lorelai wondered feeling kind of hurt the Rory hadn't told her. They ususally tell eachother everything.

"When i found out the he wasn't going to stay in New York, I was so excited. But a hand shake and a 'Welcome home' just wasn't good enough for me. no! and i just went ahead and kissed him." She yelled in a sarcatic tone. "i mean whats wroing with me? What kind of person does that? Dean is such a great guy. I don't want to hurt him."

"Sweetie you're just going to hurt him even more if you stay with him." Lorelai told her brushing her hair back. "I know it hurts, believe me i've been there. I know what it's like to lose someone you love, but Dean will be fine... eventually. It's just more cruel to lead him on."

"But Jess is with Shane now."

"Rory do you want to be with Dean?"

"I don't know." she sighed.

"Well, you NEED to figure it out! Jess or no Jess." Lorelai almost yelled. "I'm sorry to be so mean, but you have to think kid. You don't have to decide anything right away, just take your time and sort everything out."

"Thanks mom." Rory hugged her.

"Get some rest." she smiled and left.

//Next Day//

"Dean. It's me Rory" she spoke over the phone.

"Hey whats up?" Rory could tell he was smiling by the tone of his voice.

"I was wondering if you want to hang out. Go for a walk in town or something." she asked. After last night Rory decided that the only way she would figure out if you still wanted to be with Dean or not would be to spend an after noon with him and see how it felt, how she felt being with him. "OK great I'll met you at gazibo."

//Center of Town//

"Hey! I missed you." Dean beamed as he leaned down to kiss Rory.

"I missed you too." *That's not a lie, i didn miss him... kind of.* she told herself. "So I'm hungry wanna go grab some food? Coffee perhaps?"

"Yeah sure. Let's go to Luke's."

"Luke's but you hate going there." Rory was confused, he usually never wanted go anywhere near Jess. *Jess I can't even stop think of him for one minute. Everything reminds me of him. Even this stupid gazibo she sighed remember that they did the basket rafle right near it.*

"Yeah well, It's your favorite so i can make a sacricfic." Dean told her and kissed her cheek.

"Well, thank you." she smiled. In truth Rory would rather die then go in there after last night, but she didn't want to bring up Jess. If she refused to go Dean would know something was wrong. "Let go." He was so sweet how could she even think about breaking his heart. She sighed quietly and scold herself for not feeling the same way she used to about Dean.

They entered the diner and Rory shifted her eyes to the ground, not looking at Luke. She knew that he was staring at her and she was sure that Jess had told him what was going on. "What would you like." Luke asked approaching the table.

"I'll have an order of pancakes and orange juice." Dean read off his order.

Luke clears his throat and look down at Rory who still hadn't looked up. "Rory?"

"Coffee please." she told him pretended to be reading the menu that she had read a million time before.

"Don't you have that thing memorized by now." Luke questioned.

"What?" she looked up. "OH umm... yeah." she sighed and closed the menu, giving Luke a weak smiled before he walked away.

"Are you ok. You seem... weird." Dean's voice was filled with concern.

"Yeah i'm fine. Just a little tired. I was reading till 12:00 last night." she lied.

"I don't know how you could read that long." he laughed. There was a long uncomfortable silence. They had absolutly nothing to talk about.

"Oh thank god." Rory whispered to herself as Luke approached with their food.

"Pancakes, orange juice." He slide the plate on the table. "Coffee." he placed the cup infront of Rory." Luke could tell that Rory was upset and she was doing a horrible job of hiding it. At that moment, Jess walked solumly down the stairs. He stopped in his tracks at the bottom of the stairs and locked eyes with Rory, then looked over at Dean shoke his head and went into the kitchen.

"Well, he's his usual happy self today." Dean scoffed and took a sip of his orange juice.

"Yeah." She sighed into her coffee cup. "So how was your summer." she asked trying to change the subject.

"It was OK. Pretty boring without you though." he smiled and reached over to grab her hand.

Jess stood at the counter staring, making faces and rolling his eyes. "Pretty boring without you." he mumble under is breath wiping the counter down.

"Hey jealous much." Luke whispered with a nugded.

"I am not jealous. Why would i be jealous of bag boy." he told him sternly.

"Because Bag boy... has Rory." he stated honestly.

"Whatever." Jess stopped scrubbing for a minute and looked at Rory. She was sitting with her hand rested lightly on her chin, looking as bored as can be. She stared blankly out the window, as Dean rambled on about is summer. "Look how interesting she finds him." Jess joke to Luke. "She wants to hear about books and writers, not his boring summer vacation." he continued. "He's not right for her."

"And who is?" Luke asked before walking away. Jess looked over at Rory once more, this time she was looking at him. They both quickly turned their heads away quickly.

"Jess!!" a bubble voice called from the doorway.

"Shane what are you doing here?" he wonder out load.

She winked and made her way to the counter. "Wanna go for a walk. I'm bored."

"I don't know I haven to...." he stopped and looked over at Rory who was giving him the death stare. "Actually, that's a great idea lets go." Shane smiled in satisfaction, as Jess grabbed his jacket and walked around the counter. He glanced at Rory to make sure she was watching, then pulled Shane into a kiss. "Let's go."

Rory's heart broke at the sight of Jess kissing another girl. "I think I should get home now." she excused herself. "I'll see you late Dean." she leaned down and kissed his cheek softly. Then put on a fake smile and walked out the front door to find Jess and Shane getting ready for their walk. She bumped against Jess as hard as she could and continued to walk down the street toward home.

//Later that night//

"Luke is coming over to fix this stupid oven for me." Lorelai informed Rory as she slamed the over door closed.

"Mom you don't cook." Rory stated flattly as she looked up from her book.

"I might want to cook in the future."

"Might." she agreed and Lorelai smiled. Luke wasn't coming just to fix the stove, they figured that if they got Rory and Jess in the same room for a while they could work somethings out. It was Luke's job to get Jess to actually come.

//Luke's diner//

"Jess you're coming with me to Lorelai's house." Luke told him as he entered the apartment after his walk with Shane.

"No i'm not."

"Yes you are. I have to fix her oven and i need your help."

"I said i'm NOT going." Jess restated sternly.

"Why because of Rory. Come on. Be a man." Luke tried to pressure him.

"That's not gonna work."

"Damn." he cursed. "I'll give you 30 bucks. 30. and all you have to do is stand there."

"Fine." he sighed. "I'll go."

//Gilmore House//

"That's them... I mean Luke" Lorelai announced cheerfully.

"Them? Mom you didn't.." Rory called as her mom went to get the door. Rory stood and tried to gather all her things. Once she got everything she walked towards her room, dropping a book. She bent slowly to pick it up trying not to drop eveything else, but someone beat her to it. Rory looked up to find Jess looking down at her. He held out the book.

"Here." he offered then pulled it back as she went to grab it.

"Give me that." she growled and ripped the book from his hands, then continued towards her room.

"Don't be so nice." he told her sarcasticaly.

"I'll try." she shot back over her shoulder and slammed her bedroom door.

"Jess why don't you go talk to her?" Luke asked pushing Jess towards her door.

"Do I have to?" he wined.

"YES!" both Lorelai and Luke yelled.

"Rory we need to talk." Jess barged into her room.

"Go away." she replied, her nose in a book.

"No talk to me." he repeated pulling the book out of her hands.

"Hey."

"Now you know how i felt last night when you took my head phones."

"Don't compare me to you." she growled.

"Look i don't want to talk to you either!" Jess yelled.

"Fine then don't!" Rory screamed back. "Go find your girlfriend and make out some more."

"Stop being so dramactic! You're acting like a b..."

"A what Jess just say it."

"a Bitch ok. Are you happy?" he told her looking down at his feet. "Rory i didn't mean that...."

"Yes you did. Get out! Get out of my room. Get out of my house. Just get out!" she stated softly.

"Rory." he could tell she was about to cry again.

"Please." she sounded defeated.

"I'll see you around." he sighed before leaving.

Chapter 3: 3's a crowd... so is 2

For once Rory was actually glad to be going to school on a Monday morning. It had been almost a week since she talked to Jess and Dean was beginning to smuther her. He called her every hour on the hour and when she didn't answer he left at least 5 messages. She sat in her chemistry class listening to Paris go on and on about lab safty. A knock came at the door and a women that Rory recognized from the guidence office came in. "Mr. Dillon. We have a new student for your class." The women entered followed by a tall boy with blonde hair.

"Oh my god. This isn't happening." Rory slamed her head on her lab table as the boy walked over and hand the teacher a slip of paper.

"Tristan is it? There an empty seat for you at the lab table behind Miss. Gilmore." he pointed her out and she lifted her head slowly, as Tristan made his way to his seat.

"Miss me Mary?" he questioned as he passed her.

***********************************************************
The final bell rang and Rory got out of class as fast as she could. She had been avoiding Tristan all day, which didn't work very well considering he was in almost all her classes. "So." a voice came from behind her as she was grabbing her books from her locker. "Rory Gilmore. My how you've changed."

"Oh my god. You used my real name! Am i hearing things?"

"So how's that boyfriend of yours. Don was it?" he asked.

"Dean she corrected." slaming her locker.

"How is he?"

"None of your business." she snapped as she began to walk away.

"What's wrong? Having some trouble with Don?"

"Dean!" she corrected again as she exited the school. "You know usually when people walk away from you it mean they don't want to talk."

"Really?" Tristan questioned pretending to be surprised

"Rory!" a voice called from the parking lot and she glance around looking for the source.

"Who's that?" Tristan asked as Rory's eyes landed on Jess.

"Oh great." she sighed. "What do you want Jess?"

"Just let me talk to you OK?" he pleaded.

Rory looked over a Tristan, the only way to get rid of him would be to go with Jess and she would much rather be with Jess.

"Where you going Mary?" Tristan asked as she walked toward Jess. "Don't i get a good bye?"

"Bye."

"I'll see you tomarrow." he grinned with a wink and she rolled her eyes.

"Who's that?" Jess questioned.

"Satin." she replied climbing into Luke's pick up truck.

"Like him that much huh?" They turned out he the school and onto the road

"Bout as much as i like you."

There was a long silence. Rory stared out the window at the passing cars fo 20 minutes before Jess said anything."Rory I came to say i'm sorry."

"Jess."

"Dont' talk just let me get this out before i chicken out."

"YOU chicken out?"

"It's been known to happen."

"Fine talk."

"OK I'm sorry Rory. I'm sorry that i went out with Shane and that i tried make you jealous. I'm sorry that i didn't wait for you. I'm sorry i didn't get to say good bye to you before Washington. I'm sorry i was so mean and that i called you .... you know. I was soo mad, but i though about everything today and i just want you to be happy. So if you want to be with Dean then be with Dean, but I just want you to know that i REALLY like you." Rory looked down at her lap. "and if you ever decided that you like me... I broke you with Shane." She look up at him in surprise.

"For m...e" she asked and Jess nodded.

"I'll see you later maybe." he sighed as they stopped at her house and he looked away from her.

"Jess." he turned to face her and was greeted by her lips. It was a short kiss, but it was just as good, if not better, then the one at Sookie's wedding. "Thank you. I just need a day or two to think and set things strait.

"What the hell is going on here!?"

"Dean!" Rory practically screamed.