Chapter 11: Thus, With A Kiss I Die
My hear to you I Len'
You held it, you broke it
You shattered it to piece
And none of it matter in The End
That time to talk came shortly after Rory realized her true feelings for Jess. She walked slowly up the stairs to her mother's room. She was dreading this conversation. It would change absolutely everything for them. Rory would admit she'd had sex with Jess, cheated on her boyfriend, and fallen in love her mother's boyfriend's nephew. This could only end badly.
"Mom?" Rory peeked into the room.
"What?"
"Can we talk?"
"'Bout what?"
"Everything."
"Of course." Lorelai ushered her into the room and the two sat talking for a while before Rory finally had to tell her mother the hardest part.
"I... I love him, Mom."
"You thought you loved Dean, too."
"But I do love Jess. I know, it seems weird, and I'm not just thinking this because we've had sex, I... really think I do, Mom."
"Explain it to me. Tell me how your in love."Lorelai said mockingly.
"I don't know. When Dean and I... did it, all I could think about was Jess. And I couldn't concentrate on anything until I told him. And then, well everything happened. I owe so much to him."
"Rory, you owe him nothing."
"Yes I do, Mom! There is so much more you don't know!" Rory stood up crying. "I tried to kill my self! If Jess hadn't showed up with my notebook, you would've have found me bleeding to death on the kitchen floor! But he knew what I had done, and after literally just meeting me, he made me promise that I wouldn't every again! And to talk to him if I wanted to. That night... I snuck out and we went to the bridge, because I wanted to do it again, because of 'poor Dean'. Then at the hotel, when things happened, I cut my self when I was in the bathroom. That's why he got mad at me! Since then I hadn't. I've been so much happier since Jess came into my life. And my first time. He made it perfect. Absolutely perfect. Dean would've ruined it if that had been my first time! But since I told Jess about that, since all this crap happened... 19 times, Mom!"
"You.. no... you couldn't have. No, your lying..."
"Look!" Rory thrusted her exposed wrists in her mother's face. Lorelai's jaw hit the floor as she saw ugly red scars marring her daughters arms.
"Why couldn't you talk to me?"
"Because! You were the problem!"
"You don't like the way things work here, you tell me! You don't try to kill yourself!"
"You just don't get it, do you?" Rory had tears running down her face. She needed him. She didn't care how mad at her he was, she needed him. She ran, as hard as her feet would pound the pavement. And she didn't stop running until she reached him.
Jess wasn't sure what had happened. One minute he was smoking his cigarette, the next he was holding a sobbing Rory in the middle of a down pour. Somehow, they ended up in his room. When thought finally came back to him, he removed him self from her sobbing mass.
"Why are you here, Rory?" He asked coldly and bitterly.
"I needed to see you, to talk to you, to touch you. I just need you, Jess."
"So you can use me again?"
"No. I never meant to use you! You didn't even hear me out that day! You asshole! If you listened to me that day befoe jumping the gun, you would've heard me say that the whole time I was thinking I was with you! That afterwards I threw up, because I was disgusted, with Dean, the situation, but mostly myself! Then, I... cut myself, and I felt like I betrayed you! Because we weren't together! But I still felt like I cheated on you, because my body was yours! You don't get it! I LOVE YOU, JESS! And I had this notion in my head that you loved me... that that first time, you told me you did. I guess I really was dreaming, becuase you obviously don't. I guess I was so upset earlier I forgot about your little girlfriend, the blonde! It was a mistake to come to you! Maybe you were right. Good-bye Jess!" Rory stormed out, again, in tears.
The ran was falling heavily. It was kind of hard to see, hard to hear. But she heard him. She heard his voice reach out to her. She heard his words and his confession and his soul in those words.
"Rory, I do. I do love you!" She stopped dead in her tracks at his words. She knew he hadn't said those words since his grandfather died, hence why she was so sure she'd been dreaming. She slowly turned to him.
"Then why were you with her?"
"Why were you with him?"
"Because I was before you. I couldn't break up with him!"
"And I needed to forget you!"
"Jess... I, I love you." They were within inches of each other. Jess closed the space completely, in the middle of the heavy down pour.
I..." he swallowed hard. This was hard for him. "love you, too. Rory, these last few weeks have been hell."
"I know. I did it... did you?"
"Yeah. How many?"
"19. You?"
"27. Luke contributed a bit, too, so, don't feel too bad."
"Wasn't planning on it, Dodger." Rory smiled and teased him lightly. "So, are you gonna kiss me anytime soon?" Jess happily obliged and kissed her in such a passionate kiss, that the world faded to them. They heard, saw, felt nothing but each other.Even as they started to cross the street, nothing but them existed.
Dean was driving, fiddling with his radio. A normal person, who knew how to drive, would have been watching the road, seeing as how bad the rain was. But Dean being the oaf he was, wasn't. He didn't see anything in the road, not until his breaks couldn't grip the ground quick enough. His truck skidded across the slick street and slammed into two solid things. A sickening crunch and two screams echoed through the horrendous rain. White as a ghost, he quickly exited the car. Two bodies laid a few feet from his car. The bodies, of Rory Gilmore and Jess Mariano.
When Luke ran out to the street, he almost had a heart attack. Rory and Jess were lying on the the ground. Jess had obviously registered the screeching tires first, and shielded Rory. However, when the car hit, they were sent flying a few feet, and landed with Jess still shielding her.
Both were taken to ICU. Lorelai fainted when she was told her daughter was in a car accident. The way they'd left things wasn't right. She couldn't have been gone.
Luke hated the way he and Jess were never as close as they could've been.
The right side of Jess' body had been almost completely shattered. Fragmants of his shattered bones punctured his lungs and heart. Rory's spine was severly damaged from landing the way she did, also she had major head trauma. Both had surgeries preformed, but neither recovered very well.
They died within minutes of each other.
Luke and Lorelai's relationship was forever strained from that point on. Both silently resented each other for their loved one's death. But in the end, they realized it was no one's fault, and learned to cope together. Lorelai died 4 years after Rory's death, in child birth. Luke raised their daughter, Jessica Leigh, until he died when she was 20.
Dean was sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter on two accounts, and was sentenced without parol.
The citizen's of Stars Hollow, never fully understood what happened. Some say that Dean had seen them, and that he wanted to hit them, and did so intentionally. Other's say the two jumped in front of his vehicle. Some say they died together as some act of god. Other's say their injuries just caused simaliar times of death. Some say Luke and Lorelai stayed together for the memory of Rory and Jess. Other's say they stayed together as they were able to help one another cope. Almost everyone agreed that Jessi was the only reason Luke survived as long as he did. That he'd been dieing of a broken heart since they placed her in his arms and told him he'd lost his wife.
No matter how anything happened, it was fitting that after their bodies were simitainously placed in the ground, next to one another, the rain stopped and the gray sky cleared enough for two beams of light to shine on their graves. Every year on the date of their death, it rained a soft mist. The world went on, Stars Hollow returned to its once happy self shortly after each death, and everyone moved on.
As a young woman once said, "Life happens, and the world smiles. Life ends, and the world cries. What it did while Life happened is up to you." Rory lived her life to its fullest toward the end. Jess lived his life day to day. Neither regretted it, not even their final thoughts.
"I'm sorry if I couldn't save you, Rory. I love you."
"I'm sorry I couldn't live for you, Jesse. I love you."
Fin
Tis the end folks. Not very long, but, as I started writing, the ending fit perfectly. I've had that ending set since the beginning, so. I'm sad to say my story is over. Hopefully, when I start my next one, once I'm inspired again, you'll all love it as much as you did this one. I cannot express how much I'm going to miss writing this.
