Previously in "I am the Tower Around Which You Orbited: She's empty and so beautiful"

"Lorelai's going to hate you forever now," Luke said, taking a seat next to me.

"She wasn't too far away to begin with."

We sat in silence, with the exception of the television, which Luke turned off after about five minutes.

"At least you were safe," he sighed under his breath as he stood up and went downstairs, leaving me to my thoughts.

Chapter Twenty: Triumph of a Heart

Lorelai had overreacted. She admitted to it, and Rory said she had been PMSing. That made me smile. However, Lorelai was still wary of our actions. We pretty much could not have a moment alone. Lorelai was not our only problem. There was something else gnawing away at Rory, and I couldn't get close enough to understand. She had been avoiding me somewhat.

Thoughts of Rory ran through my head as the final bell rang and I was free from school. Free from detention, at long last, and I wouldn't have to see Aerin or Dean or that creepy blonde Lindsay or whatever.

I rushed out of there as quickly as possible and over to Luke's, where I trudged up the stairs and into the apartment. Falling back on the bed, I wondered what was going through Rory's head at that moment.

And all a guy could do was wonder.

It was four o'clock and I was still sitting in the apartment wondering what was going on with Rory. I could just go downstairs and expect her to be there, right? Or I could go over to her house? Or… I could just call her.

I dialed the familiar number and listened intently as the tone on the other side rang once… twice… three times. Then, a familiar female voice came on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Rory?"

"Oh, hi Jess," she seemed to immediately put her guard up.

"Are you okay?"

"I am fine. Perfectly fine. I'm just a little busy is all."

"With…"

"Finals. They are approaching rapidly after all." I sighed slowly, quietly. So, was this why Rory had been avoiding me this week?

"I just… haven't heard from you in a few days. I was just checking in."

"That's very sweet of you Jess, but I have to go right now. Bye." The other end of the phone clicked off and I slowly put down my phone. Something still seemed wrong.

"Hey Jess, could you come down and help me please?" Luke asked from behind the window. I rolled my eyes and swung the door open, ready to work.

As the crowd was dying down, I saw Rory and Lane walk by the diner, talking rapidly, most likely about music. Lane seemed to say goodbye and left Rory's side, making her way to her Korean home. Rory turned her head and looked in at me, then turned and left. I was very confused, and needed clarification, so I threw the door open and went after her.

"Rory! Rory, wait!" I called, running up to her, but she quickened her pace. "Rory, what's going on here?" I asked when I caught up to her.

"Nothing Jess… I just, I have to go." I touched her shoulder lightly and she seemed to cringe.

"What's happening? Please, talk to me," I asked her, seeming desperate.

"I have work to do Jess, so, just let me go home. I'm really busy lately," she said, still walking.

"You weren't too busy to hang out with Lane," I pointed out. She just huffed and walked away quickly. I stood on the curb, shaking my head.

She had been avoiding me then.

I couldn't go back to the diner, so I continued walking, in a different direction. I walked by the school where I saw a puff of smoke rising from a dark figure on the steps.

"Jess," she said in a deep, crackling drawl.

"Hi Aerin."

"Want a smoke? I mean, I don't usually offer cigarettes to guys I don't like, but…" I took up her offer and sat next to her.

"I don't understand women." Aerin laughed quietly and threw her cigarette to the ground and smushed it out before taking a fresh one out of her box and sticking it into her mouth.

"Women like her don't understand you," Aerin said darkly, pulling her sleeves over her fingers. She was wearing her baggy stockings and a skirt that she had to constantly pull up with her hoodie that seemed to be equal to her mass.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that just because you two have common ground doesn't mean either of you understand the good girl dating a bad boy concept. You're used to dating whores and she's used to dating, well, Dean." At first I was taken aback by how much Aerin, this small, pathetic pyromaniac could observe, and then I was insulted because she was, well, insulting me.

"How do you know so much about this?"

"I'm an observer," she said quietly, taking a drag on her now lit cigarette.

"Indeed you are."

"She's going to get hurt in this relationship, and you know it," Aerin sighed after a somewhat awkward silence.

"I don't want to hurt her."

"Yet, you will eventually. It's the tragic tale of this kind of love."

"I guess so. Hopefully, however, the heartbreak will happen some time in the very distant future."

"Not if she keeps avoiding you."

"How do you… oh, right, you're an observer."

"Yeah," she said, chuckling slightly, and coughing on the smoke.

"Are we… being…. friendly?" I asked her, genuinely wanting to know. She just raised her eyebrows and took a drag on her cig.

"Hardly. We could never be friendly people towards each other. We're opposite sex versions of each other."

"So, you usually date manwhores?" She laughed aloud at this and I couldn't help but smile.

"You've got wit, I'll give you that"

"It's all part of the mystique. Chicks go crazy for it." She stopped laughing and looked me in the eye.

"Yeah… they do," she said plainly, making a statement. I looked at her eyes – they were deep and black, like pools of tar – those eyes spoke volumes.

"I love Rory," I said quickly and Aerin tore her eyes away, taking another drag.

"Love is so overrated," she said simply and stood up. "That may be why she's avoiding you."

"You are so incredibly creepy," I said. She smiled, her canines glinting in the streetlamp light.

"And this isn't the only time I'll ever hear it," she said warningly. "See you later Mariano." She flicked the already down-to-its-embers cigarette butt in my direction and walked off. I took one last drag on my cigarette and drove it into the ground.

The strangest part of that conversation wasn't that Aerin was actually speaking in full, coherent sentences, but that I had somewhat opened up to her. She was this girl that wanted to destroy the relationship Rory and I had, right?

But, maybe she didn't need any help in destroying our relationship. Maybe we were doing it all on our own. I really wanted to know why Rory was avoiding me, as it clearly wasn't just finals. She had some unknown score to settle with me. Did it have something to do with Lorelai's explosion at me? Did it have something to do with Dean? Was it something I did?

Was it because we had had sex?

As Aerin's figure disappeared into the night, I sat on my high school's steps, taking in everything that had happened over the last year.

Then came the thought that hit me hardest - what if Rory didn't actually love me and she had just said it in the moment?

She wouldn't have sex with a guy she didn't love, right? Right? She's smart, sensible Rory Gilmore. She would never have sex with a guy she didn't love.

But what if she had? And what if that was the reason she was avoiding me – she was unable to face me with her true feelings for me.

I sighed and stood up to go back to Luke's. When I entered, I didn't care that Luke was yelling in my ear about cigarette breath. I just went to my bed, flopped down, and slept for a few hours.

THE END of chapter twenty

sorry about the lack of updates for a while, I was swamped with work for the past few weeks and I couldn't work on any fanfic! But, I'm on break now, and there will be much updateyness for a while! Yay1 Thanks for all the happy birthdays, too. Its nice to have some people say that, even if its late.