Chapter 3

It was near the end of the morning rush when Rory showed up at the diner; she took a seat at the counter and looked around. She saw a few familiar faces and Luke arguing with Kirk as usual, but no Jess. He must still be upstairs, she thought. She waited for Luke to come back to the counter. Finally Luke walked away from Kirk, frustrated, and threw the order down for Caesar. He turned around and was startled to see Rory.

"Oh Rory. Hi! he stammered turning around, almost knocking over the pot. He put a cup in front of Rory and stood there looking around not sure what to do.

"Hey Luke, do you…" Rory started, after taking a gulp of coffee.

"Have donuts? Yes, I have them. Or pancakes, toast, waffles, whatever you want" Luke interrupted listing off the different breakfast choices he offered.

"Well, I'll take a donut, but that wasn't what I was going to ask. Do you know where Jess is? Is he upstairs?"

"Nope, he left." Luke said handing her the donut.

"Left?" Rory asked choking on her coffee. "Didn't he come back here last night?" She was almost in tears.

Wait, no, sorry. He did come back, I meant he left this morning but he'll be back to help close up."

Rory started to breathe normally again, "Do you know where he went?"

"Nope, he just left, that's Jess for ya." Luke paused and looked at Rory; he wanted to say something but didn't know if he should.

"Is everything okay Luke? You seem nervous about something, what's wrong?

"Nervous? Me? Nope, not nervous at all. "Luke started to wipe the counter down, after a couple moments he stopped. "It's just…" He stopped and walked into the kitchen, a few seconds later he reappeared. "Rory…um…well...you know…I just wanted…well I mean…I think…well…just be careful." He finally managed to say.

Rory smiled, "Don't worry, I've got it all figured out." She finished her coffee and left trying to figure out where Jess would go.

Rory stepped out of the diner and squinted into the sun trying to look at who was in the gazebo in the centre of town. She saw a dark head of hair and was surprised to have found Jess so fast. As she walked towards the gazebo – heart beating fast – she realized it wasn't him. She was both disappointed and relieved at the same time. The same thing happened at Weston's and the bookstore. It took Rory about an hour to check out the town and return to where she started at the diner. She checked in with Luke but Jess had not returned, so she decided to just give up.

Apparently he doesn't want me to find him, she thought. Well if he doesn't want to be found that's just fine with me. He knows where I am if he wants to see me.

When she got home she sat down on the couch and flipped on the TV – determined to keep her mind off of Jess. The TV didn't work, so she started reading, but after 2 pages all she could think about is whether or not Jess would like it. She even tried studying, but even Shakespeare couldn't get Jess out of her mind. Frustrated she finally gave up and allowed her thoughts to consume her.

I can't believe he would do this to me, she thought wanting to slap him. Here it is not even twenty-four hours after he told me he loved me and already he's disappeared. He promised he would try; well disappearing is not what I would consider trying. If this is how he's going to be then I don't want any part of it. If he's just going to blow me off, then he can just go jump in a lake!

A Lake!

Rory say straight up, oh my god, that's it! Why didn't I think of it before? She jumped up and ran out the door.

"I need a cup of coffee." Lorelei said walking into the kitchen. "No make that a pint, no a thermos, oh just give me the whole pot!"

"Bad night?" Sookie asked from the stove.

"Morning." Lorelei corrected, "Worst nightmare come true."

"I thought that was turning into your mother. You didn't become your mother did you?"

"God no. Okay so it wasn't the worst, but it was damn near close." Sookie gave her a puzzled look. "Jess." Lorelei sneered.

"I thought he left yesterday, is his essence haunting you from New York?"

"He didn't leave," Lorelei dropped onto a stool and grabbed some chocolate to go with her coffee. ""He didn't leave and he's back to manipulating my daughter."

"Rory? What is he doing to her?"

"Oh he was brutal. He told her he loved her." Sookie dropped the spoon she was holding, "Oh no there's more." Lorelei continued. "Somehow he has managed to make Rory believe that she loves him too. He's totally using her, and he's going to break her heart just like the last time. Then I'll be forced to hunt him down and pull a Seymour and feed him to my rose bush."

"You have a man-eating rose bush?" Sookie asked with surprise, "You should being it to the INN, we could call it Audrey Three and people would come from far and wide to see it. Then I could design a menu around it with…"She looked at Lorelei and realized she was babbling, "Oh right, not the pint. Anyways, aren't you overreacting just a little bit? I mean maybe they really do love each other."

"Oh no, the little James Dean wannabe is just using my daughter for kicks. He gets off on breaking young girls hearts. He's done it once before and he'll do it again. I can't stop it because he's already gotten to her; he's manipulated her into thinking that she loves him."

"Well, maybe…" Sookie started cautiously, "she does, and maybe he really loves her."

"No, I know guys like him; he'll break her heart, he'll pretend to love her till she falls for him. Then after a couple weeks he'll get bored and move on to the next innocent girl, and the next. He's like a disease."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Ugh. I don't know. I can't really do anything. She thinks she loves him and believes he loves her, so I just have to deal with that and get ready for the day he gets bored with this game and leaves. I just wish I could have stopped it before this happened."

You couldn't have seen it coming. He wasn't supposed to come back at all, and he was supposed to leave once his car was fixed. He was supposed to leave last night."

"Ugh" Lorelei sighed in frustration. "And after all this I have to deal with Michael and his whole list of complaints. Oh what a fun, fun day!"

As she neared the lake Rory slowed down to catch her breath. There he was sitting on the bridge with his legs over the side reading a book. She chastised herself again for not thinking of it earlier, of course he would be here, it was his favourite spot. She caught her breath and slowly walked to the middle of the bridge, forgetting everything she had planned to say. She sat down beside him and he closed his book. Neither of them spoke, they just sat there in silence looking across the lake.

"So?" Rory said finally. They had been sitting there for more than ten minutes without saying a word and she couldn't take it any longer.

"So."

"Have you been here all day?"

"Pretty much."

"Good book?"

"Sure."

"Well…this is a great conversation." Jess just shrugged. "We need to talk Jess; we need to figure this out."

"We did last night, so it's figured out, now there's just the fun stuff." He said with a smile.

"Jess, I'm serious. I'm freaking out here. This morning when you weren't at Luke's I though you left. It hurt Jess, I can't do that. I need to be sure of this; I need to be sure of you."

"What do you want me to do? Do you want me to write a declaration and sign it with my blood? Or I could chain myself to the diner so you'll always know where I am."

"Jess..."

"What more do you want from me? I told you the truth, I love you, I want to be with you. I don't know how else to show you that I mean it. I don't know how to get you to trust me."

"I do trust you. It's just you came back and completely ignored me for two day, then decided to tell me you love me and ran away. The only reason you're still here is because I blocked your car. I'm freaking out here and I need you to reassure me that I'm not going to get hurt here.

"I don't know for sure that won't get hurt…"

"Fine. Goodbye." Rory started to get up.

"Let me finish. I can't promise that you won't get hurt, but I'll sure as hell try to make sure you don't"

"You promise?"

Jess looked Rory in the eye, "I promise." He kissed her and held her close, feeling her body start to loosed up and calm down.

They sat on the bridge in a comfortable silence, enjoying the new found love they had both wanted for so long. Rory finally move, she kissed him once more then got up. "I have to do something. I'll see you later at Luke's."

"Wait, what do you have to do?"

"Just something to make sure this, us, goes right. I'll talk to you later."

As Rory ran off Jess watched in awe of the way she made him feel.

Again sorry it took so long, and isn't that long. It's just getting harder, I know where I want it to go, I just don't know how to get there. Be patient. Reviews welcome!