Author's Note: This chapter is a bit shorter than the previous few, but I
wanted to get it up before the new episode this week.
Going to take a moment here to heap praise on Juliana for the lovely BNFD wallpaper she created. Also going to thank Marion for wanting to archive me over at literationline. It's a wonderful site, and I'm honored to be included on it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Gilmore Girls. The chapter titles are Tom Petty's. If it's not recognizable from the show, well, that I own.
**********
Chapter Sixteen: Still Feel So Far Away
August 2005
Rory loved the fact that her summer internship had ended on the first of August. It gave her a few weeks to get things organized for the upcoming semester at Yale. Of course, she'd finished that within a few days, and now her time off just gave her a chance to be delightfully lazy. Rolling over, she tilted her alarm clock toward her and saw that it was a little before ten in the morning. Her mother would be long gone to another busy day at the inn. The Dragonfly was doing very well, and as the season moved into autumn things were only looking up. Rory made the decision to go over there later in the afternoon to lend a hand at the desk or in the kitchen. It was nice to see things finally going well for her mother when they'd been difficult for so long.
With a happy sigh, Rory tumbled out of bed and went to the kitchen for coffee and Pop-Tarts to hold her over until she could make it to Luke's. While she was eating, she noticed the mail from the day before piled on a corner of the kitchen table. It had been late when she and Lorelai had returned from Friday dinner the night before, and neither one of them had felt like going through the pile of envelopes. But now, with nothing else handy to read, Rory pulled the stack to her and rifled through them. They were mostly bills addressed to Lorelai, but there were a couple with Rory's name on them. One was a credit card application form with a ridiculously high interest rate, and the other was a small square envelope with a familiar Boston address in the upper right corner.
It was a letter from her father and Sherry.
It had been ages since she'd really spoken to either of them. Or to Gigi. She must be old enough to talk now. Turning over the envelope, Rory loosened the flap and pulled out a pale purple card embossed with a simple silver heart. The inside of the card was filled with Sherry's precise writing. Rory skimmed the card with half-hearted interest. She was still hurt and angry over the way her father popped in and out of her life during his relationship with Sherry and his seeming cluelessness over the other woman's backhanded antagonism of Lorelai. Still, Rory felt some sense of obligation to read over the letter, to at least acknowledge that it had arrived.
However, her lukewarm reception of the card quickly became burning interest. Three lines into the note the words 'another baby' leapt off the page and stopped Rory's heart. She frantically reread the opening of the letter, knot forming in her stomach, and couldn't believe what she was seeing. Christopher and Sherry, the woman who probably could not have been less excited about giving birth the first time, were having another baby.
Rory stared at the lavender card again and felt the knot in her stomach grow even larger. Blindly, she reached across the table for her cell phone and jabbed at the speed dial. She blinked away the coming tears long enough to press the right key and waited. The phone rang five times before it was picked up on the other end.
"Yeah?" The voice was slurred, sleepy, and definitely not Jess. At least, not unless he'd turned into a female in the last three weeks.
The knot in Rory's stomach tightened and turned to ice. "I'm . . . I need . . . is Jess there?" she asked shakily.
"Yeah," the voice slurred again. Then, to Rory's growing humiliation, there was a rustling of fabric and the distinct squeaking of bedsprings. The owner of the voice was in Jess's bed. The handful of seconds between the female voice over the phone and Jess's meant that he was in the bed with her.
"What?" Jess's voice was raspy.
Rory wanted to hang up. This wasn't making her feel better at all. She didn't know what she'd been thinking, calling Jess like this. Her mental anguish was broken off by his voice again.
"Rory, that you?"
"Yes," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'll just let you go. I shouldn't have called this early."
"Rory, it's okay," Jess insisted, now fully awake. "What's going on?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she asked the question she wasn't sure she wanted the answer to. "Was that Dana?"
"Yeah."
Rory drew a sharp breath. "I didn't realize that the two of you were . . ."
Jess cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Yeah, well . . . I'm sure that's not why you called. Is something wrong? I mean other than . . . this? You sound off."
"It's really not a big deal. I'm sure you have plans with Dana or something."
"She's already getting ready to leave, Rory," Jess said. "She's got to work today."
"Oh." Rory didn't know what else to say. She'd known that Jess and Dana were seeing a lot of each other. Jess was adamant that Dana understood that he still had, and would always have, strong feelings for Rory.
"So, what's wrong?
The tears that Rory had been holding back suddenly spilled over. Between sobs, she managed to gasp out, "My dad's having another baby with Sherry."
"Aw, shit," Jess sighed. "Rory, calm down. Please don't cry."
She only cried harder. She tried to speak but could only make strangled gasping sounds as she continued to sob. Her chest burned with each shaking breath she took in, and eventually her body couldn't keep up with the demand for air to keep crying. Rory began to cough and hyperventilate.
Jess began to panic. "Please, please calm down. You're going to make yourself sick, Rory. It'll be okay. Just put your head down and try to take a deep breath. It will be all right."
Rory did as Jess said, pressing her forehead to her knees and trying to breathe deeply though her nose. It helped a little, as did Jess's continued litany in her ear that everything would be okay.
"Thank you," she said as soon as she was able. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Jess told her. "Just tell me what happened."
"I don't know," Rory said sheepishly. "I got the letter from Sherry . . . she's almost five months pregnant, and they're just now telling me about it. I haven't had more than a 'hi, how are you' conversation with either of them in months. I just got so angry."
He sighed on the other end of the line. "And I'm sure Dana answering my phone first thing in the morning didn't help any."
"It's not your fault," Rory said quickly. "I mean, the two of you are together . . . you're allowed to . . . do things."
"I'm not apologizing for my actions," Jess said. "I'm just sorry you had to find out that way."
"Oh." She sat quietly at the kitchen table, breaking the remaining Pop- Tart in front of her into ever smaller pieces. "Were you planning on telling me?"
"Don't know. I don't think you're supposed to tell someone you care about that you're sleeping with someone else."
"Not unless you're on a daytime talk show." Rory felt the awkwardness of the conversation replacing her earlier pain. She suddenly didn't know what else to say. "Um, I think I'm going to go."
"You sure?" Jess asked. "You're not keeping me from anything. I don't work 'til later, and I'm all alone here now."
"No, I'm going to go. I'll call you sometime next week since this call was so short and out of the blue."
"You don't have to do that."
"I want to. I'll talk to you later, Jess"
"Okay. Take care of yourself, Rory. It'll be okay."
They hung up at the same time, and Rory realized that neither one of them had said good-bye. That had never happened before. She set down the phone and tried to figure out if it meant anything. When they were together, living in the same town, they often didn't say good-bye to each other. It was sort of understood that they'd be seeing each other again soon. But then again, Jess hadn't said good-bye when he'd left town, and she didn't think she'd ever see him again after that. So the fact that they hadn't said good-bye just now could go either way . . . or it could just mean nothing. Just a stupid slip, a coincidence.
Rory's pondering came to and end when the cursed purple card caught her attention again. She picked it up and reread it against her better judgment. Maybe a second reading would make it easier to take.
"Nope, still pisses me off," she muttered, stuffing it back into its envelope. "And now I have to hide it. If Mom sees it she'll go on some bizarre Anne Heche-ian crazy trip."
Standing quickly, Rory went to her room and hid the letter between her mattress and box-spring. That taken care of, she snagged her bathrobe off the back of the door and resolved herself to trying to believe Jess's promises that everything would be fine. If she tried very hard, she might even be able to believe that all day.
**********
Jess rolled out of bed with a groan that promptly turned into a curse when he tripped over his belt and only just avoided falling on his ass. He kicked the belt away, stumbled into his shoes, ricocheted off the arm of the couch, and smashed his elbow into the door frame of the bathroom before making it to the sink. Rubbing a hand across his face, he looked up into the mirror and sighed at his haggard appearance.
"Gonna be a long damn day," he growled, reaching into the shower and turning the water as hot as it would go.
The water needled into his back as he tipped forward and rested his head against the back wall of the shower. His shoulders were tense, and he rolled them slightly, sighing when the joints popped. Jess had expected today to be rough; the end of the summer season at the Inferno always was, but . . .
"Damn it." Pushing away from the wall, he finished his shower quickly.
Jess wasn't sure if the clothes he pulled on after his shower were clean, but he didn't noticeably smell and was good enough. With a half-hearted wave to the guys in the body shop, Jess made his way to the Inferno. He'd served at least a dozen people before Lee grabbed his shoulder and steered him to the back of the kitchen area.
"What are you doing here, man?" Lee asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm working."
"You're four hours early." The schedule board behind Lee's shoulder confirmed his statement.
"Huh." Jess shrugged. "So I won't take pay until I'm scheduled. Whatever."
Lee watched the smaller man walk back to the order window. "You're getting weirder than Jimmy," he hollered.
Jess flipped Lee off behind his back and went back to work.
An hour after his shift was supposed to have started, Jimmy and Lee physically forced Jess outside to take a break. Jess snarled at the two men and threw himself gloomily into one of the rickety chairs around the battered table that made up the break area. He sat there, staring at the toes of his shoes and feeling guilty. He'd been feeling guilty since he hung up with Rory. He knew he didn't have any reason to feel the way he did; it was perfectly within his rights to move on with someone else. And Rory knew that, claimed she was okay with it. Still, Jess felt uneasy that he had someone else to go to with his problems, but Rory still seemed to only have him to turn to. . . and Jess sort of liked it that way, which made him feel even worse. He sighed and put his head down on the table. A few moments later, the scraping of the chair next to him made him look up.
"You look like crap," Lily commented as she sat down.
"Thank you," Jess responded, "and watch your mouth. Your mom'll have my head on a pole if she hears you talking like that."
Lily snorted. "Right. Like I picked that up from you."
"Just don't, okay?"
"Fine. What's the matter with you, anyway?"
Jess scratched his hands through his hair. "Don't worry about it, Liliput. It's my problem."
"I can't help?" She leaned forward hopefully, eager to be of any assistance to the man she'd come to idolize.
"Not on this one. Sorry." Jess felt his mood plummet even further as Lily's face fell. "Next time. Promise."
"All right," Lily sighed. "May I ask you a question?" When Jess nodded, she blushed and pulled the end of one of her pigtails to her mouth, chewing on it while she thought.
He reached out and took the hair from her mouth. "You can't ask me something if your mouth is full. Besides, you keep doing that and you'll get a hairball." Jess expected an laugh or smile at that, not Lily to blurt out what she did.
"Why do you have to date Dana?" Lily asked in a rush.
Jess was a bit taken aback. "I thought you liked her?"
"I do sometimes, but why do you have to date her? Why can't she just be your friend?"
"I don't have to date her," Jess explained, "but I want to date her."
Lily beat a fist against the table. "Why? Why do you want to?"
He reached out and covered her smaller hand with his to keep her from smashing the table again. "What 's this all about, Lily?"
The young girl wrenched her hand from under Jess's. "Don't you love Rory anymore?" she demanded to know.
"Oh, god, I do not need this right now," Jess muttered under his breath. He reached for Lily's hand again only to have her bat it away.
"Don't touch me." Tears filled Lily's eyes. "Rory loves you. You know she does. You have to love her back. That's how it works."
"Life isn't that simple, Lil . . ."
She burst into tears. "Yes it is! You just won't let it be!"
Jess pulled Lily to him, not letting her fight him off this time. He pinned her to his side with a strong hug. "Lily, stop it. I don't know what brought this on, but I've had my fill of crying women today. What's the matter with you?"
"I just want everything to be like it was last year," she sobbed. Her tears soaked into the shoulder of Jess's shirt as she finally gave up fighting him and let him try to comfort her.
"Last year?" Jess was confused until the date came screaming into his head. One year ago at this time he'd been at home puking his guts out with nervousness over driving to the airport. "Rory was here last year. Is that what this is about?"
Lily hiccuped. "It was fun when she was here. She was my friend. And you were around more."
Tuning her toward him, Jess looked down at Lily's blotchy face. "Lil, I know this is hard for you to understand, but things can't go back to the way they were last year. Things change . . . there isn't anything that we can do about that."
"I miss her. It's not the same when she writes to me or when I talk to her sometimes when she calls you."
He sighed. "I know. It's not the same for me either." Sitting back in his chair, Jess smiled gently at Lily. "Just so you know, sometimes I wish things could be the way the were, too."
She wiped at her face. "So, you do still love Rory?"
Jess was reluctant to respond, and a blur of movement behind Lily kept him from having to answer.
"Hey," Dana said uneasily as she approached the table. "Am I interrupting?"
"Yes," Lily snapped, glaring icily at the other girl.
"Lily," Jess warned, "don't." He pushed out the chair on his other side and nodded at Dana. "Sit?" he asked her.
She did and leaned over to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. "I thought I'd come by for lunch. I didn't expect you to be on a break so soon."
"I came in a little early," Jess told her.
Lily huffed from his other side. "We were having a conversation," she said snidely.
Dana looked startled by the acid in the little girl's tone. "I can go if you're in the middle of something..."
"No," Jess said quickly. "Lily and I can finish our talk later."
The girl grumbled something under her breath that Jess was sure he didn't want to understand. "I'm going to talk to Jimmy," she huffed and shoved stiffly away from the table.
"She does not like me," Dana observed, watching Lily disappear into the back of the Inferno.
"Not today, no," Jess agreed.
"Did I do something?"
"No, I did." Jess sighed and then tried to shake his depression off. "You said you came for lunch. What can I go get you?" He made a move to stand up, but Dana pulled him back down.
"I'm not that hungry," she said. "Talk to me instead."
He eyed her skeptically. "Ah...it's a nice day," he stated lamely.
She rolled her eyes at him. "Dork. Tell me why Rory called this morning?"
Jess stiffened and pulled his forearm from Dana's still clutching fingers. He may have become more comfortable with talking about certain areas of his and Rory's relationship with Dana, but that comfort didn't extend to the content of their phone calls. Those were still special to him . . . almost sacred.
"It's not any thing you have to worry about," he said shortly to Dana, his eyes narrowing to indicate that the subject was closed.
Dana held up her hands in surrender. "Fine, fine. You don't have to tell me. I just thought she sounded upset, and I just wanted you to tell her I'm sorry if my answering the phone this morning made it worse."
"I don't think it made it worse, but I'll tell her."
"Jess, come on! It had to make it worse. If I called up the man I was in love with and another woman answered the phone it would definitely make me feel worse. Even if I wasn't upset to begin with it would make me feel worse."
He shook his head, "Rory's not still in love with me. We're just friends now."
"Bullshit," Dana snorted. "She's still in love with you, and you're still in love with her." Jess started to contradict her, but she cut him off. "It's okay, you know. "I've never thought you were in love with me. So even if I might consider myself sort of in love with you . . . well, that's just something I have to deal with."
Jess found himself staring over at Dana, eyes wide and mouth hanging slightly open. He knew that she was more emotionally involved in things than he was, but it had never occurred to him that she had fallen in love with him. "Um . . . that's . . . I do care about you, Dana," he finally managed to get out.
"I know you do. Just not quite the way I want you to."
"It's complicated."
"So you've said before. You don't have to try to explain it to me again. I'm pretty happy with the way things are right now. If I weren't, I wouldn't stick around."
"I just want to make sure that you aren't going to hang around and expect my feelings to suddenly change, because I can't promise that that will ever happen," Jess told her.
Dana shrugged. "Whatever happens is going to happen, right? And if I ever get tired of hanging around, I'll go. You don't have to worry about that."
"Just so were on the same page," he said.
She laughed. "Well, maybe not the same page, but facing pages at least." Looking down at her watch, Dana stood up. "I should get back to work."
Jess stood up as well. "Yeah, me too." He dipped down and kissed the bridge of her nose. "I'll call you tomorrow."
"Okay." Reaching up, Dana affectionately caressed Jess's cheek before turning and leaving.
He watched her disappear down the boardwalk before turning himself and heading back to the aptly named interior of the Inferno, his head spinning with all the new complications that one afternoon had presented to him.
**********
The following Thursday, Jess picked up the phone in Jimmy and Sasha's kitchen and dialed Rory's number. She had yet to call him back, and he was a little concerned about her after her last call. But he didn't want to assault her with another emotional call right away, so he handed the phone over to Lily while it was still ringing and went back to rinsing the dinner dishes. A small smile graced his lips when Lily chirped hello and began to bounce around the kitchen behind him, chattering about going back to school and the books she'd been reading lately. Tuning out the giggles and excited talking going on, Jess finished the dishes and carefully stacked them away. However, when he turned around he immediately wished he'd been paying more attention to what Lily had been saying.
". . . kind of weird, and she's not as nice or smart as you are. She doesn't even know that there are three Bronte sisters."
"Lily!" Jess snapped. He gestured for the phone with a scowl on his face.
"Jess is doing that angry eyebrow thing. I have to go." Lily snarled and kicked out at Jess when he tried to take the phone from her. "Bye, Rory. I'll write you a letter and tell you all kinds of other stuff." With another angry grumble, she finally handed the handset over to Jess.
"Hey," he said into the phone.
Rory was laughing. "Hi. That was a fun little talk I just had."
"I'm sure. Lily's marking the anniversary of your visit by lashing out at everything in my life that she thinks is taking your place."
"And Dana fits that description quite well in her eyes. I can't say I don't agree with her," Rory said.
Jess sighed and dropped his chin to his chest. This was going to be another emotional call but not in the way he expected. "Dana isn't taking your place, Rory. She doesn't even come close to taking your place."
"Really? That's not what it sounded like the other morning."
"Ah, jeez. It isn't like that."
"So you're not sleeping with her?" Rory asked.
"Well, yeah, but it's not replacing you."
She huffed and swallowed. "What is it then?"
"Rory . . ."
"No, tell me. I really want to know."
Turning one of the kitchen chairs around, Jess straddled it and rested his forehead on the back of the chair. "I'm lonely, Rory. That' s what it is. I'm lonely, and Dana helps to fill the void a little bit."
"And you have to have sex with her for that?" Tears were starting to put a crack in Rory's voice.
"I don't have to, but I . . . I missed it, I guess," Jess admitted.
A wild, high-pitched, sarcastic laugh ripped across the phone line. "Missed it?! You missed it?"
His anger flared in proportion to Rory's hysteria. "Don't get like this! You can't tell me that you don't miss it too! Miss having someone to lean against when you walk down the street, the way another person's warmth makes you feel on a rainy afternoon, the way someone's skin feels under your hands or how their arms feel around your back . . ."
"Of course I do!" Rory gulped back a few sobs and, with her voice still shaking, asked, "Do you think about me when you're in bed with her?"
"No," Jess responded quickly. "No, that wouldn't be fair to Dana or you or me."
Her breath came in sharp bursts of static. "Thank you for your honesty," she finally choked out.
"I don't love her if that's any consolation," he told Rory quietly.
"Yeah . . . not really." Rory sighed. "Maybe it will later, but right now it's a little hard to hear that you can be that close with someone and not love them. Makes me wonder how you feel about me."
Jess felt his eyes welling up, and there was nothing he could do about it. "You don't ever have to wonder about that. I'll always love you."
"That would be easier to believe if I didn't know you were curling up with someone else at night," Rory snapped.
Jess chose not to respond to that. He felt it had already been talked to death between them. "I think it would be easier for both of us if you would even consider dating another person. It's not like you have to fall in love and marry the guy, but at least go out and live that part of your life."
"I hate it when you say that. You have no idea how hard this is for me!" Rory insisted.
"It's just as hard for me! I pulled myself together and did it though. It wasn't easy . . . shit, I went to Jimmy for advice about it. But I did it, and it's not perfect, but it's better than sitting at home by the phone all the time."
"Jess, I'm not like you. I can't just go out and do that."
"You won't even try, Rory. It's been a year; it's really time to let go a little, or . . ." Jess stopped himself, an ultimatum on the tip of his tongue. He really didn't want have to resort to that, to cutting her off if she couldn't accept the way things were.
"Or what?" she asked.
He scrambled for an answer that wasn't the harsh choice he'd thought of a moment before. "Or you're going to drive us both crazy and farther apart."
"I . . . I . . . I don't know if I can. But I'll try," she said softly. "I will try."
"Good," Jess said just as quietly.
"I'm going to hang up now. Good bye, Jess."
"I'll talk to you later. Bye." He clicked off the phone and gently put it away.
On the other end of the line, Rory hung up just as gently and wiped tears from her cheeks. She'd thought that her father having another child would be the hardest news she would have to face for a while, but she was wrong. Hearing that Jess had a new girlfriend, one that was sharing his life and his bed, made her heart ache. It also hurt whenever he urged her to move on to someone else. She knew that it was ridiculous to sit at home alone every night, but if she didn't date it made it easier to believe that one day Jess would come back to her. If she were to date someone new it would be like admitting that her romantic relationship with Jess was really over. That was the last thing she wanted to do . . . but Jess was right. If she kept trying to hold onto him, it was only going to push him away. Sighing, she looked over at the clock. It wasn't quite nine o'clock yet.
Rory picked up the phone and dialed. "Hi, Grandma. I hope I'm not calling too late, but I was wondering if you still had that phone number? The one for your friend's grandson. I think I'd like to give him a call."
**********
Author's Note the Second: I'm thinking this story will cap out at about twenty chapters, so be on the look out for things to be wrapping up, with a few twists of course. Things are crazy around here with the planning of a 60th birthday party for my dad, so time for writing is limited right now. Be patient and leave a review. They really are great motivators.
Going to take a moment here to heap praise on Juliana for the lovely BNFD wallpaper she created. Also going to thank Marion for wanting to archive me over at literationline. It's a wonderful site, and I'm honored to be included on it.
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Gilmore Girls. The chapter titles are Tom Petty's. If it's not recognizable from the show, well, that I own.
**********
Chapter Sixteen: Still Feel So Far Away
August 2005
Rory loved the fact that her summer internship had ended on the first of August. It gave her a few weeks to get things organized for the upcoming semester at Yale. Of course, she'd finished that within a few days, and now her time off just gave her a chance to be delightfully lazy. Rolling over, she tilted her alarm clock toward her and saw that it was a little before ten in the morning. Her mother would be long gone to another busy day at the inn. The Dragonfly was doing very well, and as the season moved into autumn things were only looking up. Rory made the decision to go over there later in the afternoon to lend a hand at the desk or in the kitchen. It was nice to see things finally going well for her mother when they'd been difficult for so long.
With a happy sigh, Rory tumbled out of bed and went to the kitchen for coffee and Pop-Tarts to hold her over until she could make it to Luke's. While she was eating, she noticed the mail from the day before piled on a corner of the kitchen table. It had been late when she and Lorelai had returned from Friday dinner the night before, and neither one of them had felt like going through the pile of envelopes. But now, with nothing else handy to read, Rory pulled the stack to her and rifled through them. They were mostly bills addressed to Lorelai, but there were a couple with Rory's name on them. One was a credit card application form with a ridiculously high interest rate, and the other was a small square envelope with a familiar Boston address in the upper right corner.
It was a letter from her father and Sherry.
It had been ages since she'd really spoken to either of them. Or to Gigi. She must be old enough to talk now. Turning over the envelope, Rory loosened the flap and pulled out a pale purple card embossed with a simple silver heart. The inside of the card was filled with Sherry's precise writing. Rory skimmed the card with half-hearted interest. She was still hurt and angry over the way her father popped in and out of her life during his relationship with Sherry and his seeming cluelessness over the other woman's backhanded antagonism of Lorelai. Still, Rory felt some sense of obligation to read over the letter, to at least acknowledge that it had arrived.
However, her lukewarm reception of the card quickly became burning interest. Three lines into the note the words 'another baby' leapt off the page and stopped Rory's heart. She frantically reread the opening of the letter, knot forming in her stomach, and couldn't believe what she was seeing. Christopher and Sherry, the woman who probably could not have been less excited about giving birth the first time, were having another baby.
Rory stared at the lavender card again and felt the knot in her stomach grow even larger. Blindly, she reached across the table for her cell phone and jabbed at the speed dial. She blinked away the coming tears long enough to press the right key and waited. The phone rang five times before it was picked up on the other end.
"Yeah?" The voice was slurred, sleepy, and definitely not Jess. At least, not unless he'd turned into a female in the last three weeks.
The knot in Rory's stomach tightened and turned to ice. "I'm . . . I need . . . is Jess there?" she asked shakily.
"Yeah," the voice slurred again. Then, to Rory's growing humiliation, there was a rustling of fabric and the distinct squeaking of bedsprings. The owner of the voice was in Jess's bed. The handful of seconds between the female voice over the phone and Jess's meant that he was in the bed with her.
"What?" Jess's voice was raspy.
Rory wanted to hang up. This wasn't making her feel better at all. She didn't know what she'd been thinking, calling Jess like this. Her mental anguish was broken off by his voice again.
"Rory, that you?"
"Yes," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'll just let you go. I shouldn't have called this early."
"Rory, it's okay," Jess insisted, now fully awake. "What's going on?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she asked the question she wasn't sure she wanted the answer to. "Was that Dana?"
"Yeah."
Rory drew a sharp breath. "I didn't realize that the two of you were . . ."
Jess cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Yeah, well . . . I'm sure that's not why you called. Is something wrong? I mean other than . . . this? You sound off."
"It's really not a big deal. I'm sure you have plans with Dana or something."
"She's already getting ready to leave, Rory," Jess said. "She's got to work today."
"Oh." Rory didn't know what else to say. She'd known that Jess and Dana were seeing a lot of each other. Jess was adamant that Dana understood that he still had, and would always have, strong feelings for Rory.
"So, what's wrong?
The tears that Rory had been holding back suddenly spilled over. Between sobs, she managed to gasp out, "My dad's having another baby with Sherry."
"Aw, shit," Jess sighed. "Rory, calm down. Please don't cry."
She only cried harder. She tried to speak but could only make strangled gasping sounds as she continued to sob. Her chest burned with each shaking breath she took in, and eventually her body couldn't keep up with the demand for air to keep crying. Rory began to cough and hyperventilate.
Jess began to panic. "Please, please calm down. You're going to make yourself sick, Rory. It'll be okay. Just put your head down and try to take a deep breath. It will be all right."
Rory did as Jess said, pressing her forehead to her knees and trying to breathe deeply though her nose. It helped a little, as did Jess's continued litany in her ear that everything would be okay.
"Thank you," she said as soon as she was able. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Jess told her. "Just tell me what happened."
"I don't know," Rory said sheepishly. "I got the letter from Sherry . . . she's almost five months pregnant, and they're just now telling me about it. I haven't had more than a 'hi, how are you' conversation with either of them in months. I just got so angry."
He sighed on the other end of the line. "And I'm sure Dana answering my phone first thing in the morning didn't help any."
"It's not your fault," Rory said quickly. "I mean, the two of you are together . . . you're allowed to . . . do things."
"I'm not apologizing for my actions," Jess said. "I'm just sorry you had to find out that way."
"Oh." She sat quietly at the kitchen table, breaking the remaining Pop- Tart in front of her into ever smaller pieces. "Were you planning on telling me?"
"Don't know. I don't think you're supposed to tell someone you care about that you're sleeping with someone else."
"Not unless you're on a daytime talk show." Rory felt the awkwardness of the conversation replacing her earlier pain. She suddenly didn't know what else to say. "Um, I think I'm going to go."
"You sure?" Jess asked. "You're not keeping me from anything. I don't work 'til later, and I'm all alone here now."
"No, I'm going to go. I'll call you sometime next week since this call was so short and out of the blue."
"You don't have to do that."
"I want to. I'll talk to you later, Jess"
"Okay. Take care of yourself, Rory. It'll be okay."
They hung up at the same time, and Rory realized that neither one of them had said good-bye. That had never happened before. She set down the phone and tried to figure out if it meant anything. When they were together, living in the same town, they often didn't say good-bye to each other. It was sort of understood that they'd be seeing each other again soon. But then again, Jess hadn't said good-bye when he'd left town, and she didn't think she'd ever see him again after that. So the fact that they hadn't said good-bye just now could go either way . . . or it could just mean nothing. Just a stupid slip, a coincidence.
Rory's pondering came to and end when the cursed purple card caught her attention again. She picked it up and reread it against her better judgment. Maybe a second reading would make it easier to take.
"Nope, still pisses me off," she muttered, stuffing it back into its envelope. "And now I have to hide it. If Mom sees it she'll go on some bizarre Anne Heche-ian crazy trip."
Standing quickly, Rory went to her room and hid the letter between her mattress and box-spring. That taken care of, she snagged her bathrobe off the back of the door and resolved herself to trying to believe Jess's promises that everything would be fine. If she tried very hard, she might even be able to believe that all day.
**********
Jess rolled out of bed with a groan that promptly turned into a curse when he tripped over his belt and only just avoided falling on his ass. He kicked the belt away, stumbled into his shoes, ricocheted off the arm of the couch, and smashed his elbow into the door frame of the bathroom before making it to the sink. Rubbing a hand across his face, he looked up into the mirror and sighed at his haggard appearance.
"Gonna be a long damn day," he growled, reaching into the shower and turning the water as hot as it would go.
The water needled into his back as he tipped forward and rested his head against the back wall of the shower. His shoulders were tense, and he rolled them slightly, sighing when the joints popped. Jess had expected today to be rough; the end of the summer season at the Inferno always was, but . . .
"Damn it." Pushing away from the wall, he finished his shower quickly.
Jess wasn't sure if the clothes he pulled on after his shower were clean, but he didn't noticeably smell and was good enough. With a half-hearted wave to the guys in the body shop, Jess made his way to the Inferno. He'd served at least a dozen people before Lee grabbed his shoulder and steered him to the back of the kitchen area.
"What are you doing here, man?" Lee asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm working."
"You're four hours early." The schedule board behind Lee's shoulder confirmed his statement.
"Huh." Jess shrugged. "So I won't take pay until I'm scheduled. Whatever."
Lee watched the smaller man walk back to the order window. "You're getting weirder than Jimmy," he hollered.
Jess flipped Lee off behind his back and went back to work.
An hour after his shift was supposed to have started, Jimmy and Lee physically forced Jess outside to take a break. Jess snarled at the two men and threw himself gloomily into one of the rickety chairs around the battered table that made up the break area. He sat there, staring at the toes of his shoes and feeling guilty. He'd been feeling guilty since he hung up with Rory. He knew he didn't have any reason to feel the way he did; it was perfectly within his rights to move on with someone else. And Rory knew that, claimed she was okay with it. Still, Jess felt uneasy that he had someone else to go to with his problems, but Rory still seemed to only have him to turn to. . . and Jess sort of liked it that way, which made him feel even worse. He sighed and put his head down on the table. A few moments later, the scraping of the chair next to him made him look up.
"You look like crap," Lily commented as she sat down.
"Thank you," Jess responded, "and watch your mouth. Your mom'll have my head on a pole if she hears you talking like that."
Lily snorted. "Right. Like I picked that up from you."
"Just don't, okay?"
"Fine. What's the matter with you, anyway?"
Jess scratched his hands through his hair. "Don't worry about it, Liliput. It's my problem."
"I can't help?" She leaned forward hopefully, eager to be of any assistance to the man she'd come to idolize.
"Not on this one. Sorry." Jess felt his mood plummet even further as Lily's face fell. "Next time. Promise."
"All right," Lily sighed. "May I ask you a question?" When Jess nodded, she blushed and pulled the end of one of her pigtails to her mouth, chewing on it while she thought.
He reached out and took the hair from her mouth. "You can't ask me something if your mouth is full. Besides, you keep doing that and you'll get a hairball." Jess expected an laugh or smile at that, not Lily to blurt out what she did.
"Why do you have to date Dana?" Lily asked in a rush.
Jess was a bit taken aback. "I thought you liked her?"
"I do sometimes, but why do you have to date her? Why can't she just be your friend?"
"I don't have to date her," Jess explained, "but I want to date her."
Lily beat a fist against the table. "Why? Why do you want to?"
He reached out and covered her smaller hand with his to keep her from smashing the table again. "What 's this all about, Lily?"
The young girl wrenched her hand from under Jess's. "Don't you love Rory anymore?" she demanded to know.
"Oh, god, I do not need this right now," Jess muttered under his breath. He reached for Lily's hand again only to have her bat it away.
"Don't touch me." Tears filled Lily's eyes. "Rory loves you. You know she does. You have to love her back. That's how it works."
"Life isn't that simple, Lil . . ."
She burst into tears. "Yes it is! You just won't let it be!"
Jess pulled Lily to him, not letting her fight him off this time. He pinned her to his side with a strong hug. "Lily, stop it. I don't know what brought this on, but I've had my fill of crying women today. What's the matter with you?"
"I just want everything to be like it was last year," she sobbed. Her tears soaked into the shoulder of Jess's shirt as she finally gave up fighting him and let him try to comfort her.
"Last year?" Jess was confused until the date came screaming into his head. One year ago at this time he'd been at home puking his guts out with nervousness over driving to the airport. "Rory was here last year. Is that what this is about?"
Lily hiccuped. "It was fun when she was here. She was my friend. And you were around more."
Tuning her toward him, Jess looked down at Lily's blotchy face. "Lil, I know this is hard for you to understand, but things can't go back to the way they were last year. Things change . . . there isn't anything that we can do about that."
"I miss her. It's not the same when she writes to me or when I talk to her sometimes when she calls you."
He sighed. "I know. It's not the same for me either." Sitting back in his chair, Jess smiled gently at Lily. "Just so you know, sometimes I wish things could be the way the were, too."
She wiped at her face. "So, you do still love Rory?"
Jess was reluctant to respond, and a blur of movement behind Lily kept him from having to answer.
"Hey," Dana said uneasily as she approached the table. "Am I interrupting?"
"Yes," Lily snapped, glaring icily at the other girl.
"Lily," Jess warned, "don't." He pushed out the chair on his other side and nodded at Dana. "Sit?" he asked her.
She did and leaned over to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. "I thought I'd come by for lunch. I didn't expect you to be on a break so soon."
"I came in a little early," Jess told her.
Lily huffed from his other side. "We were having a conversation," she said snidely.
Dana looked startled by the acid in the little girl's tone. "I can go if you're in the middle of something..."
"No," Jess said quickly. "Lily and I can finish our talk later."
The girl grumbled something under her breath that Jess was sure he didn't want to understand. "I'm going to talk to Jimmy," she huffed and shoved stiffly away from the table.
"She does not like me," Dana observed, watching Lily disappear into the back of the Inferno.
"Not today, no," Jess agreed.
"Did I do something?"
"No, I did." Jess sighed and then tried to shake his depression off. "You said you came for lunch. What can I go get you?" He made a move to stand up, but Dana pulled him back down.
"I'm not that hungry," she said. "Talk to me instead."
He eyed her skeptically. "Ah...it's a nice day," he stated lamely.
She rolled her eyes at him. "Dork. Tell me why Rory called this morning?"
Jess stiffened and pulled his forearm from Dana's still clutching fingers. He may have become more comfortable with talking about certain areas of his and Rory's relationship with Dana, but that comfort didn't extend to the content of their phone calls. Those were still special to him . . . almost sacred.
"It's not any thing you have to worry about," he said shortly to Dana, his eyes narrowing to indicate that the subject was closed.
Dana held up her hands in surrender. "Fine, fine. You don't have to tell me. I just thought she sounded upset, and I just wanted you to tell her I'm sorry if my answering the phone this morning made it worse."
"I don't think it made it worse, but I'll tell her."
"Jess, come on! It had to make it worse. If I called up the man I was in love with and another woman answered the phone it would definitely make me feel worse. Even if I wasn't upset to begin with it would make me feel worse."
He shook his head, "Rory's not still in love with me. We're just friends now."
"Bullshit," Dana snorted. "She's still in love with you, and you're still in love with her." Jess started to contradict her, but she cut him off. "It's okay, you know. "I've never thought you were in love with me. So even if I might consider myself sort of in love with you . . . well, that's just something I have to deal with."
Jess found himself staring over at Dana, eyes wide and mouth hanging slightly open. He knew that she was more emotionally involved in things than he was, but it had never occurred to him that she had fallen in love with him. "Um . . . that's . . . I do care about you, Dana," he finally managed to get out.
"I know you do. Just not quite the way I want you to."
"It's complicated."
"So you've said before. You don't have to try to explain it to me again. I'm pretty happy with the way things are right now. If I weren't, I wouldn't stick around."
"I just want to make sure that you aren't going to hang around and expect my feelings to suddenly change, because I can't promise that that will ever happen," Jess told her.
Dana shrugged. "Whatever happens is going to happen, right? And if I ever get tired of hanging around, I'll go. You don't have to worry about that."
"Just so were on the same page," he said.
She laughed. "Well, maybe not the same page, but facing pages at least." Looking down at her watch, Dana stood up. "I should get back to work."
Jess stood up as well. "Yeah, me too." He dipped down and kissed the bridge of her nose. "I'll call you tomorrow."
"Okay." Reaching up, Dana affectionately caressed Jess's cheek before turning and leaving.
He watched her disappear down the boardwalk before turning himself and heading back to the aptly named interior of the Inferno, his head spinning with all the new complications that one afternoon had presented to him.
**********
The following Thursday, Jess picked up the phone in Jimmy and Sasha's kitchen and dialed Rory's number. She had yet to call him back, and he was a little concerned about her after her last call. But he didn't want to assault her with another emotional call right away, so he handed the phone over to Lily while it was still ringing and went back to rinsing the dinner dishes. A small smile graced his lips when Lily chirped hello and began to bounce around the kitchen behind him, chattering about going back to school and the books she'd been reading lately. Tuning out the giggles and excited talking going on, Jess finished the dishes and carefully stacked them away. However, when he turned around he immediately wished he'd been paying more attention to what Lily had been saying.
". . . kind of weird, and she's not as nice or smart as you are. She doesn't even know that there are three Bronte sisters."
"Lily!" Jess snapped. He gestured for the phone with a scowl on his face.
"Jess is doing that angry eyebrow thing. I have to go." Lily snarled and kicked out at Jess when he tried to take the phone from her. "Bye, Rory. I'll write you a letter and tell you all kinds of other stuff." With another angry grumble, she finally handed the handset over to Jess.
"Hey," he said into the phone.
Rory was laughing. "Hi. That was a fun little talk I just had."
"I'm sure. Lily's marking the anniversary of your visit by lashing out at everything in my life that she thinks is taking your place."
"And Dana fits that description quite well in her eyes. I can't say I don't agree with her," Rory said.
Jess sighed and dropped his chin to his chest. This was going to be another emotional call but not in the way he expected. "Dana isn't taking your place, Rory. She doesn't even come close to taking your place."
"Really? That's not what it sounded like the other morning."
"Ah, jeez. It isn't like that."
"So you're not sleeping with her?" Rory asked.
"Well, yeah, but it's not replacing you."
She huffed and swallowed. "What is it then?"
"Rory . . ."
"No, tell me. I really want to know."
Turning one of the kitchen chairs around, Jess straddled it and rested his forehead on the back of the chair. "I'm lonely, Rory. That' s what it is. I'm lonely, and Dana helps to fill the void a little bit."
"And you have to have sex with her for that?" Tears were starting to put a crack in Rory's voice.
"I don't have to, but I . . . I missed it, I guess," Jess admitted.
A wild, high-pitched, sarcastic laugh ripped across the phone line. "Missed it?! You missed it?"
His anger flared in proportion to Rory's hysteria. "Don't get like this! You can't tell me that you don't miss it too! Miss having someone to lean against when you walk down the street, the way another person's warmth makes you feel on a rainy afternoon, the way someone's skin feels under your hands or how their arms feel around your back . . ."
"Of course I do!" Rory gulped back a few sobs and, with her voice still shaking, asked, "Do you think about me when you're in bed with her?"
"No," Jess responded quickly. "No, that wouldn't be fair to Dana or you or me."
Her breath came in sharp bursts of static. "Thank you for your honesty," she finally choked out.
"I don't love her if that's any consolation," he told Rory quietly.
"Yeah . . . not really." Rory sighed. "Maybe it will later, but right now it's a little hard to hear that you can be that close with someone and not love them. Makes me wonder how you feel about me."
Jess felt his eyes welling up, and there was nothing he could do about it. "You don't ever have to wonder about that. I'll always love you."
"That would be easier to believe if I didn't know you were curling up with someone else at night," Rory snapped.
Jess chose not to respond to that. He felt it had already been talked to death between them. "I think it would be easier for both of us if you would even consider dating another person. It's not like you have to fall in love and marry the guy, but at least go out and live that part of your life."
"I hate it when you say that. You have no idea how hard this is for me!" Rory insisted.
"It's just as hard for me! I pulled myself together and did it though. It wasn't easy . . . shit, I went to Jimmy for advice about it. But I did it, and it's not perfect, but it's better than sitting at home by the phone all the time."
"Jess, I'm not like you. I can't just go out and do that."
"You won't even try, Rory. It's been a year; it's really time to let go a little, or . . ." Jess stopped himself, an ultimatum on the tip of his tongue. He really didn't want have to resort to that, to cutting her off if she couldn't accept the way things were.
"Or what?" she asked.
He scrambled for an answer that wasn't the harsh choice he'd thought of a moment before. "Or you're going to drive us both crazy and farther apart."
"I . . . I . . . I don't know if I can. But I'll try," she said softly. "I will try."
"Good," Jess said just as quietly.
"I'm going to hang up now. Good bye, Jess."
"I'll talk to you later. Bye." He clicked off the phone and gently put it away.
On the other end of the line, Rory hung up just as gently and wiped tears from her cheeks. She'd thought that her father having another child would be the hardest news she would have to face for a while, but she was wrong. Hearing that Jess had a new girlfriend, one that was sharing his life and his bed, made her heart ache. It also hurt whenever he urged her to move on to someone else. She knew that it was ridiculous to sit at home alone every night, but if she didn't date it made it easier to believe that one day Jess would come back to her. If she were to date someone new it would be like admitting that her romantic relationship with Jess was really over. That was the last thing she wanted to do . . . but Jess was right. If she kept trying to hold onto him, it was only going to push him away. Sighing, she looked over at the clock. It wasn't quite nine o'clock yet.
Rory picked up the phone and dialed. "Hi, Grandma. I hope I'm not calling too late, but I was wondering if you still had that phone number? The one for your friend's grandson. I think I'd like to give him a call."
**********
Author's Note the Second: I'm thinking this story will cap out at about twenty chapters, so be on the look out for things to be wrapping up, with a few twists of course. Things are crazy around here with the planning of a 60th birthday party for my dad, so time for writing is limited right now. Be patient and leave a review. They really are great motivators.