Hey everybody I updated finally! I really think I should stop promising to update soon since I don't seem to be able to keep my word for it. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry if this new chapter seems a bit…blah, but I had a lack of inspiration…again.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except, oh yes my friends, I now am the proud owner of the Gilmore Girls dvd special edition, of season 1, 2 AND 3 combined woohoo!
Chapter Eleven
Rory smiles contently as she traces circles on Jess' bare chest. She loves the feeling of lying next to him, all tangled up in the sheets. He kisses her hair.
"I'm so glad you came back." Rory says softly.
Jess smiles. "Yeah, me too."
She looks up to him, and gives him a soft kiss on the lips. "Never leave me again." She whispers.
"I won't. I love you so much."
"I love you too." She sits up, followed by Jess, and they kiss passionately.
"Rory?" He asks as they break apart. Rory nods. "Will you marry me?"
"Yes." Rory says with a grin, as if she'd been expecting the question. And they kiss again, lying back down on the bed.
Rory wakes up with a start. She feels the spot next to her on her bed. Empty. She sighs disappointed. It was just a dream, as it had been all the times before. She glances at the clock. Almost time to get up, so no point of trying to go back to sleep. She gets up and goes to the kitchen, where she starts making a pot of coffee.
"Hmm, do I smell coffee?" Lorelai asks as she enters the kitchen. She looks at Rory and sees the sad expression on her face. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." She answers, a little too quickly.
"You sure? Because you have the expression of a baby who's lollypop just got stolen. Tell me."
Rory sighs. "It's nothing, really. Just a bad dream, that's all."
Lorelai nods knowingly. "Uhuh, about Jess right?"
"No!" Rory says defensively. "Why would you automatically assume that?"
"Honey, it's okay to be upset about Jess, you know that right? You don't have to hide your feelings from me or something."
"I know." Rory says as she sits down at the table and pours her and her mother a cup of coffee. "It's just…I want to be over him. I don't want to feel this horrible all the time. And these dreams that I keep having aren't exactly helping that."
Lorelai sits down next to her daughter and gently strokes her hair. "Hey, it's been what, a week and a half since he left? It takes time to get over it. Ignoring it is probably only gonna make it worse." She takes a deep breath before continuing. "Maybe you should try calling him…getting stuff off your chest. Things are so left in the open right now."
"Mom, I told you, I don't want to do that! It's only gonna make me look weak and pathetic."
"Okay, ix-nay on the calling. How 'bout a letter? Or maybe a flying pie, like the ones in Garfield. Or a fruit basket with a note that says "You leave, me sad, please come back.""
Rory smiles weakly. "I'll think about it, okay?" She says, knowing she won't do it anyway.
"Hey mom, are we going to the grandparents tonight?" Rory calls while she emerges from her room.
"Oh, no, we're sick." Lorelai says, not looking up from reading Cosmo.
Rory sighs as she flops down next to her. "Mom, I'm mad at them too you know, but we sort of have to go, it was all part of the Chilton-deal-thing."
Lorelai puts away her magazine and focuses on Rory. "Rory, I really, really cannot go to dinner tonight. What they pulled at Yale was inexcusable! Besides, I don't think they were completely surprised when I called to cancel. They knew they had it coming."
"You called?"
"Uhuh."
"Meaning you actually spoke to Grandma and told her personally we weren't coming to dinner." Rory asks sceptically.
"Not so much told her personally, as I left a message. But hey! At least I called! I could've also just said nothing and just not show up. Who knows, maybe I even lied to you just now about calling. Maybe I didn't call." Lorelai muses.
"You know what, I have homework to finish!" Rory dismisses Lorelai's comments, and goes back to her room. She picks up the book she has to read for school and lies down on her bed. She opens up at the first page, and right away sees the small notes written in the margins. Oh that's right, this is one of Jess' books. Rory feels the tears stinging behind her eyes, and blinks furiously to make them go away.
This wasn't fair, he was gone for almost two weeks now and she was still bursting out in tears every time something that reminded her of him came along. Which was often.
She didn't even get to explain the situation to him because he'd left so abruptly. Suddenly her mother's words about writing him pop into her head. She knows she promised herself not to contact him, but she just had to set things straight, and let him do with the information what he wanted.
So she sits down at her desk, and takes her notebook and pen out.
"Rory, wanna go to Luke's?" Lorelai asks upon entering Rory's room, just as Rory finishes writing the address she asked Luke for earlier on the envelope. "Hey watcha doin'?"
Rory looks up, tears still in her eyes. "Oh, nothing."
Lorelai walks over to Rory. "Honey, what's wrong?" Her eye falls on the letter in Rory's hands. "Did you write him?"
Rory nods. "I don't know if I'm even going to send it, I just –" Rory pauses.
"You want him to come back, don't you?" Lorelai asks knowingly.
"No, I, yes, maybe I mean…" Rory sighs. "I love him…But just, the way he left…I'm just mad at him. I don't want to just forgive him and all's well in the world again! I mean, that is if he'll even come back. Ever."
"I know how you feel, hon, I really do. And yes, he will come back. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in a week, but eventually. In the mean time, all you can do is try to move on."
Rory smiles wryly, and hugs her mother. "Thanks mom."
Jess sits on the couch, reading a book and The Clash blasting through the room. Liz enters, and right away turns off the music. "Hey Jess." She says, while taking off her coat.
Jess doesn't look up. "Finally decided to drop by?"
"Yeah sorry 'bout that, the party ran a little late, so I stayed at Frank's place coz I figured it was too late to go back." Frank, yet another boyfriend of Liz's.
"Whatever."
Liz goes through the mail. "You have mail." She says, holding up two envelopes.
"Huh." Jess still doesn't look up from his book.
"Don't you want to see it?"
"Nope."
Liz looks at the envelopes. "One is just commercial, and the other… From Stars Hallow."
Jess' head shoots up.
"Hm, maybe it's from Luke." Liz says. She turns the envelope over and looks at the returning address. "Rory Gilmore." Liz looks at Jess who quickly gets up. "Do you know who that is?"
Without answering Jess grabs the envelope from Liz's hands and goes over to his room, slamming the door behind him. He drops on his bed and looks at the address in Rory's neat handwriting.
How did she get his address? She probably got it from Luke.
He carefully opens the envelope and takes out a letter, right away noticing the tear stains on it. With shaking hands and a rapidly beating heart he starts reading.
Dear Jess,
Over the past two weeks I've been wondering why you just left like that.
You told me Liz wanted you to come back, so maybe you just really wanted to go back to New York. And maybe us fighting gave you an excuse to go. I don't know.
What I can't understand is why you thought I still loved Dean.
I don't.
And I'm definitely not going to get back together with him like you probably think.
You have to understand that Dean was in my life for 2 years, and I care about him, but that's all. I have no feelings for him whatsoever. After the Dance Marathon we decided to be friends. He's very happy with his new girlfriend Lindsay.
I guess me telling you this isn't going to make you come back, because I obviously don't mean as much to you as you do to me, if you were willing to give it up as easily as you did.
You're an idiot for making stupid assumptions and leaving. Maybe you are really just that dumb to think that after all we went through together I still wanted Dean. I mean I slept with you. That meant a whole lot to me, and it was really special for me. You were my first.
But maybe you just needed an excuse to get away from me…
At first, I wanted to go after you, to make you see it was a mistake to leave. But I decided not to. I didn't want to be the one to have to chase after you when I hadn't done anything wrong. Maybe I should have, or should have at least called. But then again, you could have done the same. I can only hope to hear from you again.
I guess you could say this letter is also a way of chasing after you, but it's not. I just wanted to explain the way I feel to you, so that you at least know the truth, and do with it what you want.
So whether I never see you again or not, I'm just going to have to let it go and get over you.
I love you.
Rory.
Jess runs a shaky hand through his hair, as he rereads the letter a few more times.
He feels like a fucking asshole. How could he even have suspected something to be going on between Rory and Dean?
She loved him. He repeated that to himself a few more times. She loved him, and he left to New York over one stupid fight.
He read the letter again, looking closely at her shaky handwriting, and the dried up teardrops on the paper. She'd obviously been crying while writing this letter. He hated himself for doing this to Rory. He made her cry. It was all his fault. He was the one who made paranoid assumptions, he was the one who kept accusing her of still loving Dean, he was the one who ran off to New York, thinking she'd be better off without him.
He stands up and starts pacing through the room. He had to do something about this. He had to fix it. He looks around, grabs his duffel bag and randomly starts packing the stuff he brought with him.
He enters the living room, and sees his mother asleep on the couch with a bottle of beer in her hand. Figures. After a week of trying to be motherly, Liz had fallen back into her old habits, started drinking again, and picking fights with him again. He didn't really care. He looks outside the window. It was dark already. How long had he been in there?
He quickly writes a note saying he's going back to Stars Hallow, leaves it on the counter, and stalks out of the apartment.
Finally around midnight, the bus from New York stopped at Stars Hallow. Jess gets off, and walks towards the diner. He looks around, taking in the familiar streets. As he walks up to Luke's, he sees the lights upstairs are still on. He hesitates. Should he go to Luke first, or right away go to Rory? He glances at his watch. She might still be awake, it's only 12:13.
He weighs his options, and decides to go to Luke first, thinking it's better to encounter Rory in the morning.
He walks up to the door, and knocks, hoping Luke'll hear him upstairs. Much to his surprise he sees Luke emerging from the kitchen.
Luke walks to the door, but stops dead in his tracks upon seeing him, a shocked expression on his face. After a few seconds, he walks up to the door and unlocks it, letting Jess in. "What the hell are you doing here?" Luke demands right away.
"Hello to you too."
Luke sees the duffel bag Jess caries. "Ah jeez. Let me guess, ya want to come back?"
Jess shrugs.
"Does this by any chance have anything to do with Rory? Coz if it does, you'd better be sure about yourself before seeing her, because you hurt her a lot, Jess!"
Jess looks down. "I know. And I'm sure. I want to stay."
Luke glares at his nephew, trying to see if he's being honest, and then sighs. "Fine, but if you get Rory hurt I, along with pretty much the rest of the town, will make sure to kill you!"
Jess nods. "Good to know."
"Now go upstairs and unpack before I change my mind." Luke says dismissing Jess.
Jess walks to the stairs, and Luke looks at his retreating back, shaking his head disbelief of his own stupidity. "I must be crazy." He mumbles to himself.
Jess looks around the apartment. Nothing has changed. All his stuff – except for what he took with him- is still in place. He thinks of his small, messy room in New York, with, apart from one poster on the concrete wall, nothing that represents him. Suddenly he realizes, this, Luke's apartment, Stars Hallow, is home. He sighs, and drops his bag on his tidied bed.
He lies down, and suddenly gets worried about what he'll do when he sees Rory. Even though he had the whole bus ride here to think about it, he hadn't really. Should he just greet her casually, or wait how she reacts upon seeing him…maybe he should've thought this through…Oh well, he still has all night to worry about this. He won't be able to sleep anyway.
The next morning, after getting the courage to finally leave the diner, Jess is on his way to Rory's. When he's about halfway there, he stops dead in his tracks, staring straight into the eyes of none other than Rory. She stares right back, in total shock.
Dozens of emotion surge through her body. Shock, anger, love, relief, fear. She doesn't know what to do, or what to say, or how to act. So she just walks on, pushing right passed him.
"Rory." He says, turning around and following her back towards the diner. "Rory!" He still gets no response. "Rory, would you just stop!"
She just keeps on walking. "Rory I love you, just talk to me." He pleads.
Rory stops right away. She turns on her heel and stares at Jess. "What?" She asks carefully. "You love me?"
"Well yeah, why are you so shocked, I said it before." He says with a slight frown.
"Uh, no you didn't. You told me you're in love with me, which is completely different. Being in love is temporarily, but loving somebody is real." She rambles, still trying to process the fact that Jess is actually standing there.
"Oh…but then that's what I meant the other time."
"Then why'd you keep saying I still love Dean?"
"Because…Because I love you so much I'm afraid of losing you."
"What? That doesn't make any sense."
"It's just…when I was younger, everything –and everyone- I cared about, or got attached to, went away. And I could never really trust anyone, because when I did it was always thrown back into my face. So I just kept making these scenarios up in my head where you wanted to leave me or something. I'm just not used to being able to just trust someone, or love someone…"
Rory looks at him in shock. Not only does she now understand why he was so paranoid all the time, but now she also sees why he's the way he is. He's afraid of getting too close to people, so he just puts up and attitude.
She shakes her head. She knew she wanted to give in, and kiss him, and love him, but she didn't want to give in this easily.
He takes a step closer. "Just…give me another chance."
Rory takes a step back to remain in the same distance apart. "No. No, it's too late."
Jess frowns. "What do you mean? Why?"
"If it took a letter from me for you to come back, it's – No."
"But I didn't know."
"Yeah well you should've known! You should've trusted me enough to know I wasn't lying to you!" And with that Rory turns around and stalks off, not heading towards Luke's like she was going to but going straight on to Lane's.
Jess sighs. He'd hoped she'd forgive him. But then what could he have expected, he left without a word or a good reason to…
"Hey Rory!" Lane greets Rory when she opens the door of her room. They go into the room and sit down on the bed. "You don't look so good, what's wrong?" Lane says upon seeing Rory's distressed face.
Rory frowns. "Jess is back."
"What?" Lane exclaims, and slaps her hand on her mouth when she hears how loud she was. "Quick, to the closet!" She says dramatically, and they sit down into the closet, where Lane puts on some music and turns on her disco lamps. "Okay, again I say, what? Jess is back?" Rory nods. "What did he say? What did you say?" Lane asks eagerly.
"Well first he said he loved me, and he explained why he left…sort of…and then he asked for a second chance and I said no."
Lane makes big eyes at her best friend. "You said no? As in, no, nu-uh, not a chance, nada, nope, nix? I thought you wanted Jess back!"
"Well I did – I do! But what he did was so stupid, and he hurt me really bad, and I…" She trails off.
"You don't want to be that girl that forgives the guy they love whenever they say "Sorry, won't happen again" only to be hurt again. Right?" Lane finishes for Rory.
"Right."
"But I don't think…"
"What?"
"I just think he really is sorry. I mean, I think he was just hurt in thinking you still loved Dean."
"So you're saying I should forgive him."
"I'm saying you should hear him out. I mean, you love him don't you?"
"Yes."
"Well then, away with you! Talk to him."
Rory takes a deep breath. "You're right I guess. Yeah, you are right. I should talk to him, yeah, totally…thanks." She hugs Lane, and steps out of the closet.
A/N: Okay, I'm stopping here, mostly because my inspiration and ideas are running low (for now). So hope you enjoyed it and don't think it was a completely sucky chapter. I've been sorta out of it. Wasn't really into ma grooooove…or whatever…So yeah, please review, we all know I love them reviews!