Moving Forward

"I've been thinking about coming over and staying in the apartment for a while, if that's OK. I've been stuck with my novel for too long and I thought a change of air would do me good. Do you mind?"

"Well…"

Jess knew there was something going on, he noticed at the wedding. Rory and Lorelai had seemed distracted and slow at quipping back. And then Luke had got all jumpy when he visited Doula last week and had pushed for their good-bye dinner taking place out of town instead of the diner. "Luke, what's going on? You can tell me, I'm a big boy now. I promise I won't be starting a fight with whoever Rory is dating now. I don't mind."

"No, it's not that. It's just that she is living in the apartment now."

"Oh. I thought she was moving to Queens" Jess stopped there. He wanted to make it at least a bit hard on Luke. He wasn't going to hand him the easy way out.

"Yeah, well… It's the book. Yeah, she's taking the book really seriously. Yeah, that's it. And she's back to helping Andrew in the bookstore and giving a hand at the diner once in a while so she can save some money and have time to focus on the book entirely. So, yeah. The book."

"OK… Are you sure you have no corpses in the apartment? You sound very secretive, uncle Luke" Jess used his tried-and-tested banter tone in an attempt to dismiss the whole thing as unimportant, but he admitted to himself that it was all sounding a bit off.

"Give me a second, I'm going upstairs. Too much audience here."

Yep. Really, really off.

"Listen, I'll tell you this just once, and let me finish before saying anything, because I won't repeat it. Whatever it is you've been trying to sell me about not having feelings for Rory, I'm not buying. I created that whole line of business, let me remind you."

"But…"

"No buts, I'm not finished" Jess heard his uncle exhale deeply on the other side. "Jeez, I know this is going to haunt me forever, but I have to say it. OK. Jess: I truly believe you are the best man Rory could hope to have in her life. I'm proud of the person you have become. I might not always have thought like that, but I stand corrected. I know you will make a special woman very happy one day. But as much as it pains me, that woman won't be Rory. I have to ask you to stop harboring hope on that regard now, because it's not going to happen. And even if it did, I don't think she'd deserve you, but it's not going to happen anyway, so, please, can you promise me to try and move forward, starting now? I really want to see someone love you as I know you would love them back."

Words got stuck in Jess' throat, and at the first attempt of a reply his voice came out a bit too high. "Don't worry, Luke. I know that ship sailed long ago."

"Good, because it's not coming back. I know you will pass on my offering, but if you ever need to talk, I'm here always, and always on your side."

"You don't need to worry, but thanks for your words. They mean… a lot. Dinner in New York next time?"

"Sure, Jess. That will be great."

He heard his uncle's phone disconnect on the other side and it sounded like dreams shuttering. He had done it. He had done it again, exactly like the last time. He felt like the saddest superhero of all time, his superpowers being kicking back people on the right track only to be ignored in return. How had he allowed that to happen again? Somehow he knew that there must have been a very decisive decision on Rory's love life for his uncle to be so categorical about it, something Luke didn't approve of – something blonde and dick-ey, to be sure.

He poured himself a glass of Scotch and rummaged in his drawer, looking for an old pack of cigarettes. He lit one, opened the window to the street and sat down in the window sill while the sounds of the city washed over him. No, he was not destroyed. He couldn't be, because he hadn't lost anything. He had never had it. He had had a dream, though, a fantasy – a really tenacious one that refused to be surpassed by real life facts time and again. But the problem was not that he had given up life in exchange of a fleeting dream. It was not that – he was no hopeless romantic, and certainly not dumb. It was just that nothing better had come up. Perhaps it was wired in his writer genes, if there was such a thing, but he was good at swallowing hard truths, and the truth was that he had known an elevated kind of love once, and it just hadn't happened to him again. He had never felt the need to brush those feelings aside by replacing them with new live images or with a shinier fancy. And anyway, he didn't think he could use someone up like that, like a mere replacement. Why had she stuck with him for so long? He had considered this many times. She wasn't the smartest, or the prettiest, or the most talented. Was it because it was unfinished business? He considered, without a hint of self-pity or fear, if he was truly lame. But, much as he tried, and even if the facts were there (she had objectively no traits that would justify such adoration; she was, after all, just as imperfect as himself), he still believed his heart had always been in the right place. It was not right for them to be apart, it was as simple as that. He knew, he had always known, that a world without Rory and him together was a slightly worse world. But that was just his humble opinion – she didn't know. She didn't believe that. And she had a right not to and that didn't make her any lesser human being. It was just the way it was.

Jess refilled his glass and raised it. "May you live a long, happy life filled with love, Rory Gilmore. I wish it from the bottom of my heart."

And just like that, he let her go. This time for good.