A/N: This is my first Lit fic. It may be cliché, but it has its exceptional things just out of my twisted mind.
Dedication: To my lovely beta, Rave, I love you girl, you are just wonderful! To my girlfriends Lena (just because I found you) and Sassy (because we share our Milo love). And Heather my 2nd Beta.
Pairing: Literati
Spoilers: everything on the show until now, before season 5, happened; and a couple of things in Season 5...
Rating: R (just to free my imagination) but PG for now...
Disclaimer: I just can't own anything! I'm too far away from hollywood!
Feedback: yes please, let me tell you what do you think!
Summary: Because sharing your life makes it so much better. The difficult part is to learn how to share, and how to get there.
Always in my mind
Chapter 3.- On my own
Every time he wakes up, he likes to admire his life. The changes, the years that passed. His life. Not his mother, not his father, not his uncle, not Hers or anybody else, His. After his experience in Stars Hollow, and Venice beach, he came back to New York. He needed to take a grip, and gain his life back.
Away from his mom, who shipped him to Little-no-where-ville, because she couldn't deal with him. Because he couldn't deal with her, with the broken family. Away from his dad, and his new family, because he left them and forgave himself and allowed himself to start over. Away from Luke, who had to much faith in him, and it broke his heart to let him down.
He didn't know who he was anymore. Who was Jess Mariano, screw up? Genius misunderstood? Youth and rebel? All of the above? Well he was back in the city to understand all his life, to let go of the grudge, and the angry Jess. He wanted to be someone, to have his life in his own hands, and not be influenced by others mistakes and life experience. He wanted to live on his own, by his own rules and to experience his own experiences and make his own mistakes. Ok his dad left him, his problem, his mom shipped him, her thing, and Luke believed in him? Rory believed in him? Maybe there is something to believe in to. So he decided to explore the possibility of success.
And here he was, a published author, a critic for The Rolling Stone, and an owner of a coffee shop, his project, his dream place, just his, his achievement, on his own, by his own merits.
How he got here? Well, because he worked hard, and started believing in himself, and because of her. When he came back to the city after Venice Beach, he landed a job as a delivery boy, lived in a dump with some guys, he worked hard and studied to get his GED. Then he decided he wanted more, not because he had to, but because he wanted. He loved to read, he was voracious for reading material, so he signed up for some classes at NYU, literature and writing. There he met John Scott, an english teacher, and he became his tutor. Encouraging him to write and express himself and put his anger and life experiences in paper. And it became his therapy, his life saviour. Writing was cathartic, inspirational, the more he wrote the more he wanted to write, the more ideas he got. After emptying lots of notebooks, he bought a computer, an ibook, and adapted himself to 21st century. The entries of his diary became short stories and then a novel.
The novel was just an experiment, or a project maybe, to put all his life in a book, all his experiences in an idea. He wanted to put all his anger in the past so he thought a book was a good way, it was closure. And after two years of working on it, while attending classes, now looking for a degree in writing and working part time in an old used books store, it was finished and ready to see the world.
He showed it to his mentor, who loved it, and recommended to him to send it to a couple of publishers and arranged him an interview with his own. With the years, John and Jess became friends. Jess trusted John with his life, projects and dreams. In fact he trusted himself, and allowed himself to dream and make projects, to think of the future.
On the side, John got Jess a job as a freelance writer for The Rolling Stone Magazine, nothing big but it was a great opportunity for him. He had full creativity. He wrote a column reviewing CDs, books, movies, as a New York insider. This helped him with his music and book collection, got him into clubs, concerts and restaurants. But above all, got him more economic independence, so he got a place on his own, just a small studio in the village, near the bookstore, nothing fancy but his first bachelor pad.
After a lot of come and go, corrections and rewriting, publishing his style he became a published author. His book about misunderstood youth, about failure, dreams, faith and life itself became a best seller right away. At the same time, the owner of the bookstore where he worked decided to retire and sell his business. Jess who loved that place decided to buy it with his book money and transform it in Dodger's Bookstore. Irony played tricks with him, because the bookstore had an apartment above it, and Jess decided to move there, with an infinite amount of jokes on Luke's behalf.
And a year after that, this was his life, and he was very proud of it, enjoying every second of it. The bookstore, the magazine, working on his new book, his degree in creative writing. With no regrets but one. Her. But he thought that all his experiences made him the man he was today, so maybe it wasn't a regret, but a what if, an unfinished business, a nostalgic memory.