Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the WB, Amy Sherman-Palladino or her and her husbands creation Gilmore Girls.

Spoiler Warning(s): Nothing specific in this chapter but it's a post Recipes and Raincoats.

Rated: R for language

I Think of Ice Cubes
Chapter Three: Literary references

It's not like I expect him to come running into my arms like something out of a cheesed out soap opera, my fantasies usually are more reality based anyway. However watching him standing there looking like he might topple over, half of me likes to think it's because of me. The other is being logical and/or cynical, thinking that it's all from working. Todd's mix tape has run out and it keeps clicking every few seconds. Jess reaches out and stops the tape mid click, his eyes staying on his hand traveling the floor touching my feet hanging off the edge of his mattress. They look empty I hold back the reflex to shiver his eyes are so cold.

I'm sorry I came, do, do you want me to go?

I start to get up picking my shoes off the floor laying his book back where I found it. I get up from his bed knocking his red notebook out of its precarious hiding spot under his stack of pillows. It slides to the floor landing with a muffled slap. I... I'm sorry. I start for the door.

He says. You don't have to go, I... I don't want you to go

I say putting my hands in my pockets. Finding that awkward, I wrap my arms around my middle instead.

How did you find me? He asks walking to his bed kneeling down and starting to straighten his stacks of books. Picking an empty pillowcase off the floor and starting to shove all the clothes lying around his bed into it. He's trying to make this place better for me?

I say watching him make quick work of his mess.

Thought so.

You don't have to do that. He drops the pillowcase pointedly on the floor, dropping down onto his mattress his eyes down cast.

Did you not want people to know?

Know what?
His eyes come up sharp feeling like ice on my skin.

I don't know. Where you are, what you're doing.

Where I am, what I'm doing?

I wish his eyes weren't so angry.

Repeating a thing doesn't improve it. I say. He chuckles at that.

So did you come here just to scrutinize my living situation, see what you'd be missing, huh Rory?

I yelp. I'm holding back.

You've said that to me too many times for it to mean much now.

I wanna tell you to stop feeling sorry for your self, but I really don't think it's my place.

You're right It's not.

Shut up Jess. Stop acting like Bender or whatever iconic misunderstood miscreant you're channeling today.

And who are you today, Claire, Rebecca, Daisy, La Rouse, are you Princess Anne cause I won't be your God damn Joe Bradley, or are you Cathy because I'm no Heathcliff, or am I your Adam Trask.

Personally I always saw you as more of a Cal.

What not good enough to be Aron?

Aron was a fake immature brat. Cal was just ignored, desperate, hormonal and in love with the wrong girl.

Is that supposed to mean something to me?

I don't know Jess!

What are you doing here Rory? Answer me that, or if you can't, I'll say good night.

You're talking like some 19th century pioneer Jess, this is New York City 2004.

Glad you know the location and the date you'd pass a sobriety test just on those two but you didn't answer my question.

I wanted to see.

To see what?

To see you, to see things from a different point of view. I don't know, to see.

So what? You thought you'd come down here have a cup of coffee, maybe a pastry and things would magically be -- poof -- okay?

Not even in the slightest, and you pretty much did the same thing to me three months ago, remember? Or did you block it out because you can't handle rejection...? I seem to recall another time you couldn't handle rejection and ended up pummeling... God I can't do this!

Do what Rory?

I wave back and forth between us. I turn to the door thinking please stop me, stop me, stop me, stop. me.

If you want me to stop you I will, but if you don't Good-bye.
Haven't you ever imagined seeing me again?I turn around to face him.

His eyes staring right into mine making me want to close them.

This isn't how I pictured this happening.

Me neither. He looks out the window at a guy using the fire escape as an alternate staircase, his feet making the metal grates and ladder scrape, squeak and shake. Wanted to be as reckless as him maybe, did that before though and it didn't get me shit.

Can we just speak plainly here, be civil?

Just like that Rory, I don't know.



Five point two seconds ago you were ready to beat it out of here, now you're trying to call a truce? Rory, I will be plain, so fuckin' plain. You're making my head spin, what the hell do you want!?

I'm sorry, Okay?! Unconsciously throwing my shoes at his head, he ducks in time.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so Damn sorry!

I'm looking right at him, my eyes must be huge because his mouth is hanging open in total shock. I realize I'm crying after a second, tasting tears on my lips and the salty run off from my nose.

I messed up okay, you have no idea how much I messed up Jess, and you, you, you're the only person I know who might have a inkling of what that feels like!

I back up against his front door, feeling it out with my hands I slump down to the floor letting my legs lie as they will. I don't wipe at the tears. It feels like I sit there for a minute or two just breathing and letting my eyes glaze over.

The only one? He says from his mattress. My eyes unglaze, he's now shoeless and barefoot. What about your mom?

Yeah... things are kind of strained right now with us. I chuckle at that, wiping the back of my hand under my nose.

That bad huh?

That bad.

Stole something bad or cheated someone bad? I can't believe he's being this sympathetic.

Last time I stole I was six, it was my first chapter book. Mom wouldn't let me have it so I stole it from the library, this was before they had those magnetic strips for security. But to answer the question, both in equal amounts.

If you say it was Matilda I won't be surprised.

Actually it was Anne of Green Gables.

Are we still being plain, because I'd like to reinstate it if we could?

I really don't know how to tell him this, just a couple of months ago he told me he loved me.

You know how when you're a kid and you're mom or whatever won't let you stay up and watch the end of some movie they're playing on TV or she won't let you watch late night talk shows. So one night you sneak out into the living room, keep the volume super low and don't turn on any lights. And it feels so good to get away with it, to just finally watch Letterman and not understand a single word he's saying, or finally get to see the end of Towering Inferno. But not even ten minutes go by when she walks in and starts reaming you out and telling you how wrong you were.

Is this a metaphor for something else?

I slept with Dean.

I'm looking down as I say this but I can hear his audible guffaw, and the sound of his hand thumping his chest. You Jane me Tarzan. I can't look at him, I just can't. So I keep looking at the front of my shirt, my fingers playing with the hem, I flex my toes in and out listening to his silence and then a string of muffled curses.

Say them out loud, you have every right. I finally say to my chest. Mom's right mine are bigger than hers.

What the fuck? He gets up from his mattress walking to the windows opening one and stepping out onto the fire escape. I watch him lean over the edge of the cast iron railing, his back rounding out the ridges of his spine visible through his t-shirt. He picks up an empty beer bottle handling it gently then like a firecracker exploding in March he throws it down into the street, the crash of glass breaking is so loud it makes me jump. The sound of a surprised pedestrian yells up from the street, Jess yelling back down at them.

You're on the other side mother fucker!

The person yells.

Same to you sweetheart. Jess spits back, his accent coming on thick with aggression.

Someone from across the street starts banging away on a real piano, some jazz rift Rhapsody in Blue. Iclose my eyes to the music listening to all their mistakes.

I didn't hear him come back in but he's kneeling in front of me holding a clump of Pizza Hut napkins.

Taking the napkins

I hate him.

I know. Do you hate me too?

I don't know yet. He says through clenched teeth.

You're right. He says sitting directly in front of me on the floor. He's close enough for me to reach out and touch him, but I don't.

I wipe my under my eyes with a couple of his napkins.

I know what that feels like. He won't look me in the eye.

Thought you might. I wait a beat, It hurts to say it to you. I admit.

He asks.

Because it's you, you're like this, this person that I now think... I think I should have gone away with you. If I had taken you up I wouldn't have messed up so much, my mother could still be in a room with me without us blowing up at each other, I wouldn't have corrupted a marriage, destroyed a perfectly good friendship. You could still look me in the eye.

You would have ruined one of those or altered it anyway if you came with me.

What do you mean?

I shouldn't have ask you to come with me Rory. It was irrational,
thoughtless and fucking selfish of me.

I guess you were right. He still won't look me in the eye.



You did change.

He smiles at that shows a few teeth.

You have too, got violent, throw projectiles. He laughs laying my tennis shoes between us.

I threw those at you? I look from him to my Jack Purcells.

You did.

God I'm sorry.

I can also see your underwear. His mouth set in a frown melting into a wide mischievous smile. I look down noting that my legs are splayed wide enough for him to see the slip of cloth between my legs.

Laugh it up Mariano.

Close your legs Gilmore. I toss a used napkin at his forehead trying to make him look me in the eye.

Sometimes I think it should have been you. finally his eyes meet mine half way.

I always thought that.