A Tale from Inside

One- Shot

By: Stargazer-Lillies

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Do you really have to ask? I'm borrowing Jess from Amy Sherman- Palladino… but everything else is MINE! ALL MINE! (Laughs evilly) No but seriously… except for italicized book names… everything really was created by me… oh except for New York… but I've never actually been to New York so it's not like I'm stealing anything… Though how can you steal ideas from a city? Whatever… Enjoy!

A/N: I'm kind of experimenting a lot with the format and organization with the story…so here goes nothing:

I watched him as I sipped my coffee. He was always reading. There was always a book in his back pocket, and it was always a different one as he seemed to finish them at a rapid pace. I had been watching him on the subway for a while now. He rode it at a regular time in the morning with me and I was mesmerized by him. His hair was a thick black mess, and he constantly gelled it back to hide it's frizz.

I caught a glimpse of his eyes once and awhile. They were dark and brooding. He would occasionally look up to glare or just to investigate I noise he had heard. Of course, these were rare occasions for most of the time he seemed to absorb himself into his books. One week, he was reading Jane Austen's Emma. I guy who read Jane Austen, well it was too good to be true…

There was something about him, there was no denying but I wasn't the type of person who went up and talked to strange men on a strange subway in a city I'd only lived in for a couple months. So every morning I'd watch as he got off at his stop still immersed in his novel.

>

I was at the Laundromat, like the poor student I was, when who walked in but Subway guy. No not Jared. He was reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle while carrying a basket full of clothes. I tried not to stare, but I've never been one with good self-control. He loaded his laundry into the washer and started it with some difficulty. He then leaned against a counter and continued to read his book. My eyes drifted over his features. I was truly obsessed. He was truly beautiful. I then realized my clothes were finished drying and took them out. I folded them slowly and carefully, savouring my last glimpses at him, when for no explainable reason, he glanced up and caught me. I smiled nervously, and looked down, cursing myself for being so stupid. Yet, he continued looking, eyes piercing at me… I couldn't decipher his look… was it annoyance, anger, curiosity? Then he spoke. He had the voice of an angel.

"Have I seen you before?" He asked, in a smooth voice, holding his page with his thumb. My lips parted as I formed an answer. I pretended to feign interest…

"Um...Yeah... I guess…" I pretended to think. "I think you ride the subway at the same time as me…" I folded my last shirt, placing it in my laundry basket. He gave me a strange look, and then continued to speak.

"Really?" He asked sardonically, biting the side of his lip, playfully. "You're that girl who's always looking at me…" He trailed off, as I began to feel uncomfortable.

"I'm not… always…looking at you." I said, unsurely. "I just like observing people." He nodded taking this information in, then continued back to his book. I sighed in relief until I heard him speak, eyes not lifting from the pages.

"Do you want to go grab a drink?" He asked tentatively, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. My eyes widened at the thought, and my muscles tightened.

"You sure think highly of yourself" I said, as he let out a small chuckle. "Why Not?" He glanced up at me and my clean basket of clothes and said

"You live near here?"

"Should I be telling you where I live?'' I exclaimed to him, half-jokingly, my mother's cautionary tales about women living alone in the city, sinking in.

"How about you meet me at Joe's bar down the street, in say an hour?" He asked looking at his watch while still managing to concentrate on the book.

"Who are you?" I asked incredulously, as he smirked and set down his book.

"Jess." He said "Jess… Mariano. Who are you?"

"Anna." I said, leaving my last name to his imagination. "And that's not quite what I meant." I walked out of the Laundromat. "See you then"

>

Four hours later and 3 Rum and Cokes later I had invited him into my apartment. I wasn't drunk, and neither was he but we were both a little buzzed.

"This is my home sweet home." I said as we entered my tiny bachelor's apartment. Jess scanned the room.

"Cozy." He said as he picked up a Hummel of a clown my mother had given me for Christmas. He laughed, motioning to it. "This is scary." I laughed with him.

"Are you one of those people with clown phobias?" I asked him, trying not to laugh so hard.

"Yes." He said. "With good reason. You've read It, haven't you?" I was reminded with the mention of a book of his book obsession.

"Ah yes." I said, sighing, "You have a love affair with the written word."

"You read much?" He said, pointing at the towering bookshelf against my wall, filled with books.

"Sure." I said. "But I hardly have any free time." I examined him as he gazed at my collection of guitars hanging on the wall and the keyboard beside the bookshelf.

"Music Fan, eh?" He said, immediately going through my CD collection. "The Clash, Led Zeppelin, ooh Coldplay…" He voiced, approvingly. "You have good taste." I scoffed.

"Of Course"

>

We lay on my bed. I'm not quite sure how we got there, but we both lay there on top of the sheets, fully clothed staring at the ceiling.

"So, are you in school?" He asked, curiously, almost in a daze.

"Yeah" I said, as I shifted on the bed, dangling my feet over the edge.

"Are you going to be a musician?" He referred to the countless musical instruments in my apartment. I chuckled.

"Strangely enough, no." I replied, motioning to the video equipment in the corner. "A Filmmaker."

He turned his head and gave me a surprised look.

"Huh." He said. "You're looking at a future English Professor"

>

"And then I failed Grade 12, and my father who 17 years after abandoning me, decides to see how I turned out shows up and I just couldn't handle it so I left." He revealed a tone of hurt masked in bitterness, and anger.

"My life isn't as nearly as controversial." I shared. "I'm not a native New Yorker as you could've guessed. Nothing has ever happened to me my entire life. And I knew when I was 18 that if I didn't get out of my parents house, nothing ever would." He sighed.

"I've never told this much to a stranger before." He said flatly, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. "The only other person I ever told this much to was Rory."

"Rory?"

>

"Anna?" His voice said my name as if it were holy. I looked at him.

"What is it, Jess?"

"You wanna go skydiving sometime?"

>

As I looked at him sleeping, I reflected on the night's events. He wasn't just a face on the Subway anymore. He wasn't a mysterious figure who drowned himself in books. He was a person with a story and a life. He had been through pain, he had loved and he had suffered. He looked so peaceful, lying there and I knew in an instant what had attracted me to him. His humanity.

The End

A/N: Honest Opinion? REVIEW!