by: Jessica
The lampposts outside her window flickered and died away as night moved into
early morning.
She had tossed and turned in bed until she finally gave up and rose.
A week had passed since he had walked away from her.
But it felt like only yesterday.
He had walked out of her life without even saying goodbye.
The silence hurt more than anything else.
She had searched for clues that might tell her why, but she found nothing.
So she drew the conclusion that he didn't want her.
As she lay alone at night she twisted and turned her memories of them together
and she came up with a truth that satisfied her bleeding heart.
It had been just a game to him.
He had come into her life so determined to break her and steal her away from Dean.
He had never been in love with her.
She made him the bad guy in the story because it was easier than actually feeling the
pain of a broken heart.
She let her anger consume her for days.
She never let it show, so she suffered in silence.
She stayed away from all their familiar places for days afterwards and she refused to speak his name. She threw herself into the work of erasing him from her heart.
But as the days passed she knew that he would forever be branded into her heart.
So she settled with trying to live with her scares and she prayed to God to have mercy on her.
She had never been much of a believer but she prayed for release anyways.
It felt like she couldn't breathe without him.
But she never let on how she felt.
She moved slowly, trying not to feel her broken heart and the shame of giving herself totally to someone that didn't want her.
Her mother pleaded to her in every way possible to open up to someone.
But she couldn't.
So they settled with the silence that these days lay between them.
And they both prayed that time would eventually heal her heart.
He had been wrong from the start.
She had known this but she had fallen anyways.
He walked into her life at time when everything was perfect.
Her life was finally perfect and he ruined everything just by entering it.
She didn't know it then but she felt something moving as he walked into her room that night some months ago.
There was something about him that drew her closer.
His eyes whispered of pain that lay behind him and anger that threaten to consume him.
It had awakened her curiosity and her need to help.
As their meetings became friendlier she became more and more fascinated with him. He challenged her in ways that no one else had done before.
She woke every day hoping she might see him but when she did she was afraid.
She believed that he might see through her and see the heart that beat so fast whenever he was close. So she hid behind fancy words.
When he showed his interest in her by challenging Dean in everyway possible hope sprung alive inside of her.
And she hated herself for actually wanting to be more than friends.
She had no right to feel anything for the new guy in town.
So she went into battle and tried to fight it.
But it was like trying to fight a coming storm.
Then the night came when everything came to an end.
She had come there to be his tutor, nothing else. At least that was what she told herself.
But that night turned out like neither of them had planned.
She had come there wanting to prove to herself that he meant nothing to her.
That she didn't want anything else than friends. But she didn't expect that that night would change everything.
She had gotten in that car willingly. That was something she tried to convince everyone of afterwards. But they didn't see it that way. All they could see was the wrecked car and the broken arm. She had been scared, that was something she would admit. But he had saved her.
He had sat with her until the ambulance had come. He had even held her hand while his face twisted and turned in pain. As the doors of the ambulance closed she knew that everything had come to an end.
The next morning he was gone.
The blame was his and he carried the burden alone.
He left Stars Hollow carrying the blame of her broken arm.
She had tried to convince them of the truth but they chose to be blind.
She told herself that she had to forget him and for a while she did.
She threw herself in the arms of Dean, her boyfriend,
and tried to forget about a boy named Jess.
But time did nothing to erase him from her heart and when the opportunity came to see him she took it.
She told herself that it was just a friend visiting another friend but being with him there in the New York City only left her wanting more.
When she arrived back home in Stars Hollow she vowed never to think about him again.
And she almost made it.
Then the day of the wedding came.
When she saw him standing there, under that tree, something inside of her came alive and she rushed to his side.
She had never known that she could feel so alive.
Her hands screamed out to touch him but she was afraid of moving so she just stood there.
But when he said he was moving back she couldn't hold it back anymore.
And for a brief second she opened her heart to him and she kissed him.
It was a kiss that seemed to move both heaven and earth.
Afterwards, when she stood there with her lips bruised by his kiss, reality hit her and she fled.
She ran all the way to Washington.
For months she tried to forget about him and the kissed they shared.
She refused to see the truth of it all; that she was in love with him.
So instead she hid away in the big city of Washington, far away from his presence.
But the ghost of him kept haunting her all through summer.
She tried to put pen to paper and tell him what she couldn't do face-to-face.
But it ended in nothing.
So she remained quiet and prayed that the months that had passed would eventually erase him from her mind.
But how wrong she was.
When she finally came home he was the first one she looked for.
Not Dean.
Jess.
She wasn't prepared that he might actually have moved on. So when she saw him kissing another girl something inside of her broke. She had been foolish enough to believe that he might actually have missed her. She believed that he had felt something also.
A part of her felt ashamed for actually feeling anything.
So she raised her shields and went back to the life she clung to so desperately.
Days flew by and she tried to go back to what her world once was.
But he had altered it.
When Dean kissed her she tried so much to feel the same kind of thunder she had once felt.
But something was missing and it kept haunting her.
When she finally came face to face with Jess that night in the store jealousy took the better part of her.
She was so afraid to show her heart so she hid behind anger.
Instead of maybe opening the door for him, she closed it.
She had tasted something when she kissed him, something she now feared.
When she walked away from the store that night she told herself that she was rid of
his ghost. But how wrong she was.
His face kept haunting her in her dreams and his presence still lingered
in every corner of the town. She wore her head held high as she passed him on the street and she said to herself that she wouldn't break down first. He was out her life forever this time, or at least that was what she thought.
But she was weak.
There were moments, brief moments, when she found herself crumbling and she longed for him. She found herself wanting the life he had given her.
But she had chosen to let it go and that was something she had to live with.
As the days passed her choice eventually left her bitter and angry so when the day of the dance came her heart was filled with anger towards him, the boy she couldn't have.
But most of all she was angry with herself for wanting another life than the
one she had chosen. When they finally came face-to-face on that dance floor she let all her anger out on him and she had no idea why. She told herself that she had a right to be angry with him. She told herself that her intention was pure.
She had never expected that her life, the life she had so carefully built and maintained, would come crashing down on her that night.
But it did.
She had been hurt before. Life had given her scares, many of them.
But never like that. Of all the people in the world she had never expected that Dean would hurt her like he did. She believed that he would stand by her side in
whatever battle she chose to enter.
He had been her first love and to her he would be her last. She had thought it
might last forever. It didn't.
He saw something, something inside of her that he had ignored for so long and he brought it out and held it up towards the light. And he broke her heart.
But it was a pain that she deserved and she took the pain gladly.
Of all the things he said that night the truth hurt her the most.
His words echoed through that hall and found its way inside of the walls she had built high and strong around her heart.
They left her feeling ashamed and weak.
So she fled.
She fled out into the night and prayed that dark eventually would swallow the memories of that evening.
But he came after her.
Jess found her on the bridge, the place she ran to when the world got too much to bear.
And he told her a truth she had dreamed of but never dared to believe that actually might come through.
That night, on that bridge, her walls came undone and she opened her heart fully to a love she had tried so long to ignore.
As she stood by her window, months later, she tried to shut her heart once again to all the memories that threatened to break her into millions of tiny pieces.
But all the memories still lived inside of her and kept eating at her core, causing her to slowly but surely fall apart.
Sometimes, if she just closed her eyes, she could still taste him.
She had given herself totally that night.
She had wanted it as much he did.
When he touched her that night she knew that she couldn't hold back anymore.
So she had surrendered and given herself to him.
She had been foolish.
She saw that now and was ashamed.
He was gone now and she had to live with the fact that she had given herself totally to someone that didn't really want her.
In her heart she had believed that this time it would last forever.
She had never dared to call it love. For her it was something else, something she feared of naming, afraid if she spoke out loud it would fade like everything else in her life.
So instead she clung to the precious moments she got with him and
hoped that he felt the same.
When he had kissed her, that night after the dance, she had seen something in his eyes that she swore was love.
But as she stood there now she began to doubt all the things she had felt and all the things he had said to her. She was so determined to not break.
She told herself that it was over and she had to move on.
It was just a matter of time.
He wasn't coming back this time.
All she had to do now was to pick up the pieces of her broken heart and move on with her life.
She had to let go.
Maybe then she would be okay.
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