Disclaimer: I still don't own Gilmore Girls. But I bought Jess off of eBay. *wink* It's really amazing what is being auctioned off these days. (The lyrics are from "My Immortal" by Evanescence which I don't own.)
Chapter Two: The Million Dollar Question
You used to captivate
me by your resonating light
But now I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me
Back in simpler times, where Rory's biggest upset was when Luke denied her coffee and her and Jess were happy and both conscious, Rory had a decision to make.
Harvard or Yale.
It was April of her senior year at Chilton and she had received all of her acceptance letters. And were there a lot of them. But only the ones postmarked from New Haven and Boston mattered. It was always between those two, even when Rory hadn't realized it. Her dream had always been Harvard but somewhere in the back of her mind, Yale had been floating around.
It was often that at night, when she wasn't off making out with Jess or reading with him, that Rory would sit at the kitchen table with packets of information about both colleges spread out in front of her. A notebook with pages full of pro and con lists would be sitting in the middle.
Rory would be reading and Lorelai would come bounding in and sit down at the table. She wouldn't say anything but grab a packet herself. She would pretend to read. In reality though, she would actually be staring at Rory with a sad look in her eyes. Then Rory would look up and Lorelai would crack some joke about how poor Rory had to make a decision between two Ivy League schools while others had to choose between what fast food place they wanted to work at. "I wouldn't want to be you!" Lorelai would tease.
It was times like that that made Rory realize that Yale was the place for her. Yale was as good as Harvard and closer to home. Those were the first reasons on most of her "Pro Yale" lists. She wasn't ready to leave Stars Hollow yet. Yale would slowly wean her off the small town and her mother.
But as it turns out, it was Jess who made her choose Yale.
She had been thinking about Yale. Teetering on the brink of choosing it. It wasn't until after she lost her virginity that she actually fell over the edge. She supposed doing a "grownup" thing had led her to make a "grownup" decision.
She had been lying in bed with Jess thinking he was asleep. Her head was resting on his chest and she could hear his heart beat. His arm was wrapped around her and she was tracing lines on it. Right now, everything felt…perfect.
"Are you drawing a picture on my arm?" He asked.
She jumped at the sound of his voice. Thinking he had been asleep and with the silence in the room, she hadn't expected to hear any noise. "It's a pony," she said.
"Oh, boy."
She laughed and snuggled closer in to him, if that was possible. "I've been thinking…" She began.
"About?"
"The future."
"Oh, God. How far into the future?"
She was tempted to say marriage to freak him out but she decided against it. "College."
"Oh." She felt him shift underneath her. They hadn't really discussed what was going to happen but she knew he didn't want her to go to Harvard. He would never say that to her face, wouldn't want to ruin her dream. But he would miss her and let's face it: long distance relationships, even only a state away, almost never worked out.
"I'm going to go Yale." She liked the way that sounded. Yale. She was going to Yale. Hi, I'm a student at Yale. She smiled.
"Really?" He unsuccessfully tried to sound unexcited. "And you made this decision yourself?"
"All by myself. No parent, grandparent, or…guy influenced my decision." That was a lie.
"Good to know." He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "So you'll be staying in Stars Hollow?" He tried to make it a statement but it came out as a question.
"At least until college is over."
"Let's not think that far into the future."
"Okay. Let's think about today. Right now to be more specific." She turned and propped herself up on one arm. She leaned over close to his face. "I love you."
He smiled. She loved his smile; he so rarely did it. "I love you too." He paused. "You know, I was thinking about going to Harvard."
Rory fell back down on the bed, giggling.
"Oh, that hurts. Not taking me seriously," Jess said. "I could get into Harvard."
Rory continued to laugh until Jess shut her up with his lips.
-*-
The problem is, once everything is perfect there is nowhere to go but down. And down it went about a week later.
It was a simple misunderstanding. A wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. And this small thing led to a huge fight.
Okay, let's start at the beginning.
Rory was supposed to meet Jess at the gazebo. They weren't supposed to meet for another fifteen minutes but she was hoping that maybe Jess would get there early too. She had a book with her just in case.
There was a problem though. There was already someone in the gazebo. A rather large someone by the name of Dean. She walked up the stairs. "Hi, Dean."
He looked up. "Hey, Rory." He looked a bit upset.
"Are you okay?" She asked sitting down next to him.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"That was really unconvincing."
"Hold on, let me give it another try." He cleared his throat. "I'm fine."
Rory stared at him. "What's the matter?"
"Okay, still didn't buy it. It's really no big thing." He paused. "Lindsay broke up with me."
Rory should have left right there. She should have said "I'm sorry Dean but there are other fish in the sea." Yeah, it was lame but in the long run it would have saved people from a lot of heartache.
But no.
She was too damn nice and had to sit down and talk to him. And then of course she had to give him a hug. A pity conversation wasn't complete without one of those. They slowly pulled away from each other and their faces were only inches apart.
A couple of weeks before, Rory had had a dream about Dean. It had been short and all she could remember when she woke up was that they had been kissing. The dream had stirred up old feelings in her and she had no idea what they meant. She was afraid that she still might have feelings for him. But now right here, Dean was in front of her looking at her lips and she was feeling nothing. Her mind was on someone else.
She started pulling farther away from Dean when she saw him. What a nice ironic twist. Something Rory had been wishing for only minutes earlier had now become something that made her heart drop.
Jess was early.
Rory jumped away from Dean and ran down the steps. Jess had already turned around and had begun walking away.
"Wait, Jess!" She called out as she fell in step beside him. "Jess, come on! It's not what you think!"
"Oh, it's not?" He asked.
"Please, let me explain."
"No need to. I got it."
"Jess, come on. Would you stop walking?" She ran in front of him and put her arms out in front on her. He walked into her hands and then stopped. "Jess."
"What?"
"It's not what you think. Me and Dean… He was just upset and…"
"And you climbed into his lap," Jess interrupted.
"What? No. No, that is not it. It was just a hug."
"Your faces looked pretty close." Jess pushed past Rory and continued walking.
Rory turned. "Would you stay still?" She ran after him once again and stopped in front of him. "Okay, I need to you stop moving and listen to me. Nothing happened. It was just a stupid pity hug."
"What I saw was not just a hug."
"Yes, it was! Why are you acting like this?"
"Because my girlfriend was just getting very friendly with her ex. It's just that…"
"What?"
"What's to stop you from kissing Dean?"
It was like a knife to the heart. What kind of question that? "What's stopping me? You! You, my boyfriend! How could you ask me that?"
"You cheated on him with me."
"Yeah, because I liked you and now I'm with you!"
"How do I know you won't leave me for Dean? You did it to him."
Rory was starting to really angry. How could he think she would do that to him? "First, Dean broke up with me. Second, you're supposed to trust me. We're supposed to love and trust each other!"
"Rory, I…"
"Wait. How do I know you won't cheat on me?"
"What?"
"I mean, you're the hoodlum here. The town rebel. Aren't you supposed to play girls?"
"Unfair! You're supposed to…" He stopped.
"Trust you?"
Jess was silent.
"I never cheated on you with Dean. I would never do that to you. But, whatever. I'll see you later, Jess." And suddenly she was the one walking away from him.
Those were her last words to him. The last time she saw him conscious. What a great moment they shared. Saying I love you probably would have been better.
That night she sat on the couch staring at the phone and attempting to use her non-existent telepathic ability to make Jess call.
He didn't.
Several times she turned the phone on and then just as quickly, off. Then she would dial the number before hanging up. This went on for a couple of hours with each time her getting farther in the call. She eventually let it ring once before giving up for good.
One of her biggest regrets in life was not making that phone call. Would talking to him have made any difference? Or would he have cut school to go to Hartford and have gotten hit anyway? Maybe this was all predestined to happen as a punishment for some wrong doing in another life. Or maybe fate was just really screwed up and put Jess in the wrong place at the wrong time. She would never know.
-*-
Rory was outside when the phone call came.
It was the day after the fight and the bus had dropped her off about ten minutes ago. She was sitting on the bench with the book On the Road in her lap. Usually, she would be on her way to Luke's but Jess was there. She wasn't sure what she was going to say to him when she saw him so instead, she decided to read and clear her mind.
But that plan wasn't working so well. Her mind kept wandering back to him and she couldn't concentrate on the words. After reading a paragraph, she found that she didn't remember anything. She had been on the same page for the entire ten minutes.
A great distraction then came in the form of her ringing cell phone.
"Hello," Rory said answering her phone.
"Hey, hun."
"Hi, Mom."
"How was school today? Are you drowning in homework?"
There was something wrong. Rory could hear it in her voice. A trace of urgency.
"Mom, what's wrong?"
"I'm at the hospital."
Rory tensed at the word. It brought memories of her grandfather lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by machines. For some reason, she could never associate the healing and happiness of birth with the word. To her, it was a synonym for pain and sadness.
"Why are you at the hospital?" Rory asked trying unsuccessfully to hide her panic.
"I'm here with Luke. We're both fine. Jess…"
A sharp pain went through Rory at his name. "Jess?"
"He had an accident."
All of her breath left her body.
"Ror, are you still there?"
"What happened?" She asked in a small voice.
"I don't know all the details."
"What do you know?"
"There was a car…" Lorelai began.
"He was in a car accident?"
"He was hit by a car."
An image of a bruised and broken Jess lying in a road flashed through Rory's mind. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
"How bad is it?"
"He's in surgery right now."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"It's bad," Lorelai said in a quiet voice.
"I'm coming down."
"Sweetie, I don't think that's a good idea."
"I'm coming down," Rory repeated.
There was silence. Then, "Okay. Maybe you should." She paused. "I have the jeep."
"I'll take the bus." Rory hung up without saying goodbye.
Her stomach began to knot and a wave of nausea swept over her. The last thing she had eaten was the mysterious looking lunch meat from the Chilton Cafeteria. It had tasted terrible going down and would taste a hundred times worse coming back up.
She began to feel anxious and started wishing for a car. Any car. She wanted to go to the hospital now. When was the next bus? Mentally going through the bus schedule and then checking her watch, she found that she had about forty-five minutes to wait. Forty-five minutes of thinking of Jess, the last time she had talked to him, and how sorry she felt.
A distraction is what she needed. Looking down, she found that her book was still on her lap. Reading. Of course. It would get her mind off of…
Alright, don't think his name. She opened the book and started flipping through the pages. On the Road was one of her favorite books even though in the beginning she had disliked it. She stopped on a random page and her eyes landed on the reason this was book was dear to her. It was his handwriting squeezed up in the right margin.
I love you, Rory.
This was the book Jess had used to tell her how he felt. After she had seen it, he had said the words out loud. Rory didn't even question saying it back. She knew how she felt. And usually reading those words made her feel so incredibly happy but today they instead brought another wave of nausea.
Quickly, she turned to another page and tried to read. But the words seemed foreign to her. Last time she checked, this book was in English. Her efforts to concentrate proved to be futile and for the first time ever, she couldn't read.
She shut the book in frustration and had an urge to throw it but instead put it in her backpack. There was enough time to go home and change but somehow she doubted that she could make it all the way there. Staying here was easier.
Slowly, the time ticked by. She stared into space.
-*-
Ever get that dizzy feeling when you stand up too fast or go someplace crowded and overwhelming? That's how Rory felt sitting in the hospital room. Her head felt light and she thought that perhaps she was no longer in her body. Can you have an out of body experience while awake? Maybe she was having one of those.
She may have been floating around but at the same time she was trapped in a cheesy soap opera cliché. Sitting there next to Jess with her hand on his, she half expected her mother to come rushing to announce that she was having an affair with Taylor and that Rory was actually adopted. It would fit in perfectly with how surreal this all felt.
It hurt to see him like this. He looked weak and helpless, two characteristics never used before to describe him. Cuts and bruises covered his once flawless face. Those would eventually fade with time.
The next twenty-four hours were crucial. The doctor had said that there was little chance of Jess waking up and that he probably wouldn't survive the night. Although, how often did Jess listen to authority?
Rory remembered once seeing a special on The Learning Channel about comas. She hadn't paid much attention because she had been reading at the time. It had never occurred to her that she would ever have to deal with a comatose person. She did remember though that talking to the person was supposed to be helpful.
Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth but she still needed to say it. It would make her feel better, at least a little bit, and who knows? Maybe he could hear her.
She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. For everything. I know you wouldn't cheat on me, I was just angry that you thought I would do that to you. How could you think I would…" She stopped. Don't get angry, she ordered herself.
Oh, what did it matter what she said. He could hear her? What a joke. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and let go of his hand. She left his room and ran into her mother.
"How you holding up, sweetie?" Lorelai asked, putting her hand on Rory's shoulder.
"I'm fine. Never been better," Rory replied.
"No you're not."
"You're right, I'm not. I'm hungry. I'm going to go get something to eat."
"Hun, come sit down and talk to me."
"After, I get some food." Rory turned around and walked down the hall. She went around the corner and walked over to the snack machine. Standing in front of it, she realized she didn't have any money. It didn't matter. Her appetite had long since disappeared; she just needed to be alone.
Her eyes landed on the chair next to the machine. Sitting down, she put her hands in her face. Then the tears came.
-*-
A month had passed and things were mostly normal if Rory's daily hospital visits and inability to read weren't counted. And then there was the town. It felt strange walking around Stars Hollow now. The town looked at her as if any second she would break down and cry. She hated the pity. But the thing she hated most was how no one ever talked about what had happened. It was like Jess had never existed. Alright, so things weren't so normal.
"Mom?" Rory called out coming out of her room.
"Living room!" Lorelai shouted.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm watching Jeopardy."
"Why?"
"Because it makes me feel smart."
"How exactly?" Rory asked sitting down. She turned toward the television. "The contestants are ten years old."
"Now you're catching on."
"Can I talk to you for a second?"
Lorelai muted the television and turned toward her daughter. "What did you want to talk about?"
"College."
"Oh, the million dollar question. Harvard or Yale."
"Yeah. I think… I've decided on Harvard."
"Oh, well of course. It is your dream school." Lorelai was happy for her daughter but at the same time she felt a pang of sadness. Next year, Rory would be living in another state. "And Boston is a great city. Oh, you know what's in Boston?"
"Paul Revere's house?"
"Well, yeah that. But here, let me give you a hint: Everybody will know you're name there."
"I did not base my decision on the fact that Cheers is located in Boston."
"Well, of course not. You based it on the fact the Harvard is an excellent school and you'll get a wonderful education there. Cheers is just a fun bonus."
Rory rolled her eyes. She was going to miss her mom. But staying in Stars Hollow was not an option. Everywhere she went she was reminded of Jess.
She would be happy at Harvard. And her education there would be as good as the one she would have gotten at Yale, her original choice. No one needed to know that she had actually wanted to go there. Only Jess knew and it wasn't like he was going to tell anyone.