The Twists and Turns of Life

A/N: Thank you for all of the reviews. To all of you who are wondering when the 'TRORYness' is going to come in, please be patient as everything works itself out. It'll come. I promise that.

Disclaimer: I only own Maggie. I also borrowed Jess' infamous line "I'm leaving" from an episode, but you'll have to forgive for not remembering which one.

Chapter 15: Hanging Up

She finally spotted him in the library, sitting at a table that was in the back corner, his head turned down towards the book. She fought to resist the urge to take the book from him and smack him senseless with it. "Jess?"

He looked up suddenly then back down as he closed his book and grabbed his jacket from its place on the floor. "I'm leaving."

"Way to state the obvious," she retorted, blocking his way.

He clenched his jaw as he repeatedly tried to get passed her without touching her. "Rory," he stated firmly.

"No. I'm not moving until you listen to me."

He didn't say anything, but took it as a sign to go on when he took a couple steps back and looked at her expectantly.

"Okay," she said to herself. "I know that you're mad at me for saying all those things about your friend, but that doesn't mean it isn't true."

He rolled his eyes and tried to get past her, but stopped when her hands placed themselves on his chest. He shut his eyes and hung his head. This was why he didn't want to touch her. It always seemed to make him forget things, do things he normally wouldn't do.

She brought one of her hands up to gently pull through his hair. "Please don't be mad at me."

He sighed inaudibly and dropped his book and jacket on the floor, bringing his arms around her waist. "I'm not," he replied softly as he kissed the tip of her nose.

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"We wish you were here. We miss you."

Rory sighed. "I miss you guys, too, dad."

"Then come back," Chris stated.

Rory shut her eyes. "We've been over this."

"Yes, but maybe not enough. You're still out there."

"I'm not coming back, at least not any time soon."

There was a long pause, before Chris finally responded. "Okay, I'll let it go…for now. Bye, sweetheart."

"Bye, dad."

"Wait, before you hang up, can I ask you to do a favor?"

"Sure. What?"

"Talk to Jess about what he said to your mom at the party. She's been mopping around the house for a few days now, thoroughly upset about it."

"What he said," Rory repeated, confused.

"Yeah. I mean, I'm not expecting him to get onto his hands and knees and beg for her to forgive him, 'cause honestly, he doesn't seem like the type, but he should at least have some kind of restraint when it comes to talking to adults."

"Um, yeah, sure, I'll talk to him."

"Okay. Bye. Give Maggie a kiss for me, alright."

"Alright. Bye." Rory hung up the phone and looked out the window, wondering what Jess could have said that would make her mom so angry.

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"Hey." Jess placed an arm on Rory's waist and kissed her forehead.

"Hey," she replied absentmindedly.

He pulled back slightly to look at her. "What's wrong?"

"Huh?" She looked up at him and a look crossed her face as if she had just noticed he was there.

He scrunched his eyebrows together. "I said, 'What's wrong?'" He paused a second then lifted the back of his hand to her forehead. "Are you alright?"

She shut her eyes momentarily and nodded. "Yeah. Although, I do have to talk to you about something."

"What?" Jess replied while sitting on the edge of her bed, his hands now in hers.

"Did you say something to my mom at that party? I just got a call from my dad and he said that she's pretty bummed, supposedly over what you said."

He sighed. "She said something about me brainwashing you so I just said the first thing that came to mind."

She glanced down at him, almost hesitantly. "What?"

"I think I said that it wasn't my fault that you didn't want her in your life anymore."

Her eyes widened and she dropped his hands. "You said what?"

"Look, Rory," he started while standing up again, "she pissed me off and I usually don't get a chance to think about the things that come out of my mouth before they do."

She shut her eyes and brought her hands to her face. "So you told her that I didn't want her in my life anymore? You couldn't have thought of anything else to say?"

His temper started to flare as well. "Rory, she was yelling at me for no reason in front of all these people. What was I supposed to do? Just walk away?"

"Yes! Since when do you care what people think of you, Jess?! You should have just walked away or screamed something like 'Shut the hell up!'! That probably would have been better!"

"Rory," he started, reaching his hand out to hers, wanting her to calm down.

She jerked her hand away from his. "Get out."

"What?" he asked, reaching for her hand once more.

She took a few more steps back "Get out," she said as calmly as she could.

His jaw clenched as he stood there a few extra seconds then turned to head out the door.

Rory waited for the door to slam shut before she sunk to the floor with her head in her hands.

………………………………

Rory didn't talk to Jess for three days after their fight. He was getting frustrated, but didn't know what to do. Even though it was against his normal actions, he called her. She hung up on him. All five times he called.

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"Hello?"

Jess hesitated, not really wanting to do what he was going to do. "Hi. Is Lorelai there?"

"Yes, she is. May I ask who's calling?"

He hesitated again, having already experienced his fair share of being hung up on. "Jess." There was a drawn out silence on the other side of the line and Jess was about to give up when he finally heard Chris respond.

"Just a moment."

Jess heard the phone being set down and footsteps, then mumbled conversation in the background before the phone was picked up again.

"Hello?"

Here goes nothing. "Lorelai? This is Jess."

He heard her scoff. Apparently Chris didn't tell her who it was she going to talk to. "And to what do I owe this pleasure to?" was her sarcastic response.

He repressed the urge to roll his eyes. "I was just calling to apologize…for what I said to you."

There was another pause. He was beginning to hate those. "Why?"

He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it strangely, as if Lorelai could see his expression. He pulled it back. "What do you mean 'why'? I was calling to apologize so I'm apologizing."

"Rory made you call, didn't she?"

He sighed. He briefly forgot that the aforementioned girl wasn't even talking to him to be able to force him to make the call. "No. She isn't even talking to me."

Another pause. "Why isn't she talking to you?"

"She got pissed when she heard what I said to you."

"Ah…" came her response, then another pause. Jess was ready to scream. "She won't talk to you so you had no other choice than to 'apologize'," she stated with an eye roll and the infamous air quotes with her hands, "so that you two can make up and you can go back to being the brooding man you think you are. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but those are not very honorable intentions, so it is to my satisfaction to tell you that I don't accept your apology. Bye." Without waiting for a response, she hung up.

Jess stared at the phone again. It was one thing to have his girlfriend hang up on him, but her mother? That was just sad. He dialed their number again.

"Hello?" came the now chipper voice of Lorelai.

"Look, lady," he started in a fake niceness, "I wanted to apologize, so I'm gonna do it. I'm sorry. There, happy? Probably not, but I don't care. I said I was going to apologize, so I did. You don't have to accept, but I don't care. I don't care. Bye." He hung up the phone with a smirk on his face. Maybe hanging up on people wasn't such a bad thing after all.

………………………………

She placed the phone back in the cradle with a heavy sigh. "Come on, Rory," she muttered to herself, "you can do this." She picked up the phone and dialed the number that was imprinted into her mind.

"Hello?"

Her breath hitched. She was tempted to hang up. She had heard his voice; that was all that she wanted.

"Hello?" the voice asked once more.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She heard the person sigh then was met with the dial tone. She put the phone down and shook her hands, trying to calm down. She picked up the phone again and hit 'redial'.

"Hello?"

She took a deep breath and gripped the phone a little tighter. "Tristan? It's Rory."

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A/N: Well, that's it for this chapter. Tell me what you think.