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Don't Panic – Chapter 9
"Would you rather bathe in a vat of fluffernutter or chocolate syrup?" I giggled as I scooped a large spoonful of ice cream out of the container and into my mouth.
"Chocolate syrup. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?" He asked as he ate his own ice cream.
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Just don't tell my mother that. She thought it was a cardinal sin for that movie to be remade. She swore to excommunicate me if I ever saw it," my stomach churned, Jess didn't know the details of the fight-to-end-all-fights. Excommunication was a good way to describe it, but I wasn't describing I was talking about a children's movie. I attempted to pick up where I had stopped myself."But – I well, anyways, Nine Stories or Franny and Zooey?"
"Franny and Zooey." He said slowly as he started to put away his ice cream. He looked at me a little funny, trying to find the right words. It wasn't an entirely new experience watching Jess grasp for the right words and phrases from his extensive vocabulary to make a point but it was eerie none the less. He tended to fluctuate rabidly between monosyllabic and snappy so catching a moment in between was rare.
"Good choice." I stated awkwardly, I fidgeted with my spoon a little. He looked over at me from his kitchenette and grinned. I continued the game to break the silence. "New York or Philadelphia?"
Everything that was happening was so incredibly, to use my Mom's word, surreal. Sitting cross legged on Jess' couch in Jess' apartment wearing my old sweatpants and tee-shirt without any makeup, talking mindlessly about everything and nothing; this is the future I pictured for us as teenagers. A dream temporarily realized.
"New York is a cooler city." He said as he climbed back on to the couch with me. "But Philly doesn't suck. Well my life in Philly doesn't suck. Job, cash, life, future, book, you." He smiled, he was trying to be silly with his last comment but I felt like I was going to throw up.
He had a life, a purpose, a direction - Jess; where-ever-whenever-whatever-Jess had everything I had ever hoped for him. He had all the things that would have kept us together and I was on the other side; my life falling apart beneath me with no real firm ground to stand on. Running away from people I loved to find myself, making mistakes, falling a part. The tables had literally turned, I was now keeping things from me, I wasn't good enough for him. I was doing to him all the things he did to me that I hated him for.
"I dropped out of Yale." I blurted out. "I stole a boat. I lived with my Grandparent's. I joined the frickin' DAR."
"You stole a boat?" He looked at me dumbstruck. I knew that he was grappling to figure out how this related to the cutesy games we were playing. There was a disconnect between my train of though and the situation we were in but that didn't stop me from talking.
"I stole a boat, spent a night in Jail, worked 200 hours of community service and then some friend of a friend of a sister of a cousin of an accquantice of a classmate has it so that you can read the whole story if you just search 'Rory Gilmore Sex Boat.' I thought Paris was kidding but I Googled it." I was loosing my cool again. Moments ago we were laughing and joking, talking about movies and music and junk food and all of the sudden I was exploding with things I wanted to keep quiet.
He was snickering, "Rory Gilmore Sex Boat?"
"So not the point Jess. I had 200 hours of community service which I only finished last week. God – I slept with Dean." That got his attention; he stopped laughing and immediately looked up at me.
"Didn't he get married?" He asked seriously.
"Yes." I snapped. A rush of indecipherable emotions ran through my veins, moving so quickly and recklessly it was too difficult to begin to analyze them, so I didn't try. I just let them engulf me.
"Did he get divorced or something?" He ran his hand through his hair.
"Or something." I crossed my arms around my waist, I was acting from somewhere between arrogance and self protection. Not physically but Jess I was revealing a lot and it just felt safer to have my arms wrapped around me tight.
"You didn't – while he was married – did you?" He managed to spit the words out.
"What makes you think you have the right to be mad about this?" I was on the defensive.
"Rory – what the hell!" He was fidgeting now. He was rummaging through his pockets for something. He was searching for a cigarette.
"You left Jess. You left. And then you come back and you were all 'I love you lets run away together.' God and then you left – again." I was starting to pick out emotions I was feeling; pain, embarrassment, anger.
"Because you said no!" he snapped back, he had found a cigarette and was now smoking it mercilessly.
"Do you honestly think that in any scenario – any scenario at all, what you said and how you said it could have possible been construed as positive and constructive?" I glared at him through the smoke that covered his face.
I hit a nerve. "I'm sorry it wasn't a perfect fairy tale expression of love but at least I meant it. I screwed up Rory – I was 19 and love was a new thing for me. I felt it, I loved you, I thought you loved me, but I fell on my face. It made me get my act together Rory, I had to drop the whole Holden Caulfeild thing and grow up. And I did – so in that light it was positive and constructive." He paused almost pensively. "Did he tell you he loved you?" He said through pursed lips, his cigarette hanging out of his mouth dangerously.
"Don't talk about Dean; you have no idea what you're talking about." I muttered.
"I'm sorry Rory but did you miss the part where he was married!"
"He was 19 Jess! He made a mistake!" I cringed slightly; I hated how familiar this feeling of spiraling downward had become.
"So sleeping with his ex was the way to rectify that?" He was on his second cigarette. His first one had ended up ground into his floor.
"When did you become Dr. Phil! Last time I checked Dean wasn't the one with emotional problems." I was fighting dirty, but I couldn't resist that satisfied gnawing feeling in my chest every time I struck a never.
"Tell me Rory, did he take of his ring or did you? Whose name did he call? Did he call you afterwards? When did he break up with Lindsay?" Third cigarette.
"How is that any of your business?" I demanded, desperately itching from something to do with my hands.
"Did he tell you he loved you? What did your mother have to say? How did the town react Rory? I seriously can't believe you slept with him." I sighed exasperatedly.
"Why because it wasn't you? Because you wanted to and I didn't let you? Because you screwed up? Because it's your fault I slept with him?" I was trying to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted an even playing field. He wasn't going to win.
"Try – because I loved the fact that you weren't that type of girl."
"You're right! I wasn't!" I was screaming.
"Then what happened Rory? Because something happened." Fourth cigarette.
"Are you kidding me? Like you don't know Jess." I was seething, incredulous, I was ready to cry. Was he really that clueless?
"I don't know Rory. I'm sorry but I'm not psychic, I can't read you're mind."
"You." I shouted. I got up off the couch and stood up in front of where he was sitting. I pushed him a little bit, challenging him almost. "You. You. You. You."
"Me! You're gonna try and pawn that off on me?" He coughed, startled by my outburst. He spat his words with as much aggression as he could but he didn't move. My palm pressed up against his shoulder in a mock attempt to keep him still. He was glowering at me. "Is it my fault you stole the boat? What about leaving you're mom – what about that?"
"I slept with him the week after you should up." I was trying to even out my breathing, but I couldn't regulate my breathing. My chest was rising and falling heavily and there was nothing I could do about it. So I stood there, straddling him, staring down at him as I tried to regain a sense of consciousness. He was looking up at me expectantly, waiting for me too continue my thoughts. My reasoning behind blaming him. His brown his just impatiently watching my blue ones for answers.
That's when I kissed him.
My lips met his and he exhaled slightly; smoke lingered in the small space between our lips as he nipped at my bottom lip. He pulled me on to his lap and the kiss continued slowly. Nervously. My hand moved from its place on his shoulder to somewhere in his hair. I shivered as the kiss picked up pace. Teeth clashed, breath was caught, names were uttered, whispered, moaned.
This kiss was different then the ones we had shared as teenagers. He wasn't holding back and I wasn't denying the feelings that were taking over me. Everything in the kiss was tainted, the motives, the implications, the taste. I was sure that the cigarette in his hand would taste exactly the same as his mouth. I chided myself for thinking about picking up smoking just to taste that anytime I wanted.
I scooted closer to him, body pressed against his, and he moved his lips down my neck, kissing, biting before coming to an abrupt stop. I made a noise somewhere between a hiss and a moan when I realized he wasn't going to continue. He looked up at me and sighed, "Rory what are we doing?"
"We were kissing." I muttered darkly, as I shifted slightly in his lap, hoping to frustrate him enough to cure me of my own frustrations. "And now we aren't, but that's your fault so…" I moved a little closer to him, trying to get him to stop hesitating and kiss me again.
"Thank you Captain Obvious. I meant – why were we kissing." He took a drag from his cigarette, being carefully not to blow any smoke in my face. He was running his fingers up and down my thigh with his free hand anxiously. He didn't like to be still when he was in an uncomfortable situation.
"Because it seemed like a good idea in my head?" I answered halfheartedly as I inched my lips dangerously close to his throat. "Because I wanted to." I said more definitively against his neck, lips brushing softly against his skin. "I really, really wanted too."
"Rory." He choked as he dropped the cigarette on the floor again and stomped it out. He pressed his hands against my shoulders, forcing me to sit up and look at him. "Could you please stop?"
"Why?" I pouted childishly.
"I'm not going to be Dean 2.0." His fingers were nervously running up and down my arms, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind. The fine hairs on my arms were sticking straight up, and I was shivering slightly. "I don't want to be a mistake, OK?"
"What are you talking about?" I managed to ask.
"You said you slept with Dean because I showed up – if that's true - isn't it possible that you only kissed me because of you're break up with Logan?" He asked softly, trying not to hurt me.
"It's possible." I conceded, "But isn't it also possible that I just wanted to kiss you?"
"You aren't the type of girl to just kiss some random Joe-Schmo, you are Rory Gilmore serial monogamist, Rory Gilmore 'if-you-can't-commit-find-some-one-else', you aren't a Sex in the City Girl, you're not Paris Hilton, you aren't some random whatsername, ok?" He was obviously having a tough time with this sharing and talking thing, he looked tense, like he was loosing a fight.
"Well we're lucky you aren't Joe Schmo, aren't we?" I had done serious twice already tonight; I had done angry and sad, I wasn't in the mood to continue on with that.
"Then what am I Rory?" He asked pained expression still on his face.
"You're Jess." I giggled, he raised an eyebrow disapprovingly. "I don't know, I don't know where we are. I know that after you showed up I thought about you more then I should have. I know that after you showed up I got my act together and went back home. I know that after you showed up everything fell apart with Logan."
"I said what am I too you, not what are we." He mumbled, not looking at me.
"You're my ex-boyfriend, you're my favorite author, you're an amazing friend for letting me stay after I tore into you're past, and you're giving me goose bumps and making it so I can't think." My voice got softer as I spoke and I averted my gaze to my lap, trying to avoid his eyes. After a couple of minutes of lingering silence he pressed his forehead against mine, making me look him in the eye.
"Do you want to figure this out?" He asked earnestly. "Us, you, me – that kiss."
"Nope." I giggled and tried my hardest not to grin as he kissed me and called me names like brat, and princess, and spoiled.
"Things will be different now." He said between kisses.
"Yeah, well, they better be."