Telling Rory

Jess' apartment was ten blocks away from where she used to live. She wondered what life could have been like if she had met him there some day, if she could have stopped everything from turning out the way it did. But, in a way, she had a hunch it had not been so bad, after all.

The apartment was in the top floor of an old two-storey building. It had high ceilings and big windows, and it was remodeled as an open space, which made it feel bigger than it was. It kept some old industrial elements like metal beams, and was minimally decorated except for the wooden bookshelves all over. One of them served as a separating wall for the main bedroom.

"Wow. It's beautiful. I love it. It suits you."

Jess was glowing. She could tell he was proud of what he had achieved and she was proud for him. "I'm glad you like it. The lease it's not bad since I refurbished it and they agreed to a long term contract. I did most of the stuff myself with Luke's help – there was no way he would allow me to hire anyone, or I afford it. Shall I give you the tour?" She nodded and he grabbed her hand. "This is the kitchen that gave me this scar." He pointed his hand. "I was stubborn and thought I could rip the old cabinets off with Bob the Builder tools. I learnt the lesson the hard way."

"Poor you." She kissed his hand.

"So… yeah, that's the couch that hit my balls, poor me, huh?"

She punched him in the arm. "As if I was going to fall for that one."

"Oh, but you will." He winked at her but he was just teasing her, she could tell he had no intention of finishing the tour. "That's my beloved faucet. You turn the hot water from the right tap because I'm an idiot." She was loving the Mariano way of giving tours, and she was loving picturing him in DIY mode, getting angry at inanimate objects. "Hey, come see the bathroom, I put all those fucking tiles myself. And the hot water is turned the wrong way as well here, in all faucets really, just so you know. I figured it would make everything cohesive, since I had messed up already."

"Makes sense."

"That's my writing table full of my embarrassing clutter."

She made a gesture as if asking if she could check it out and he nodded. It was an old wooden desk, one that she could picture being sold at Kim's Antiques. It had what were probably writers manuscripts all over. They were all scribbled in the margins, as he would do back in the day with any book. She smiled. He had found a way to do what he was best at. "I can really picture you here." She looked around the living room, trying to appraise quickly if a second desk could fit. She felt him grab her face and kiss her, and he was smiling when they parted. "What about the bookshelves?"

"I had them all made by this really cool old carpenter across the street. Turned out he's a poet in his spare time so we now edit James Carpenter's poems in exchange of my beautiful wooden shelves, and the ones in the office."

"No way! And his pen name is James Carpenter?"

"It's actually his fucking real name. He's such a character. And he's not half bad at poetry, I'm telling you, but Chris is the one that's in charge of that, I really suck at it, so who knows. Perhaps I just love my shelves too much." He moved to the window. His attention shifted quickly. She wondered if, on top of having been a gifted kid, he had been hyperactive as well. "If you look out that window there's the shared garden. The tenants downstairs are this cool quiet gay couple, they're chill, but it's a sort of tacit agreement that I don't use the garden but keep the use of the terrace for myself. I'll show you later." He opened a door to a very messy guest room. "That's were I keep the corpses and where the guys stay when they come over." He closed the door and turned around the separating wall. "And that's my bed."

It had fluffy pillows and a cream duvet with a brown throw on top. It looked really cozy. "It's a cool bed."

"Shhh… can you hear it?"

"What?"

"It says come, Rory, come." She punched him again, and he kissed her quickly on the lips. "So, do you want to wrap yourself up and head out? There's this place nearby that has a very nice heated beer garden, we could go there to talk."

He took her hand. "So there is going to be talking, then?"

"Not if we don't get out."

"Tell me again why we don't stay inside?"

"I swear it's warmer out, you'll see."

It actually was, and since it was early there was no one. It was the perfect place for talking. They ordered some decaf coffee and pie, and cozied up together under a blanket, sitting side by side.

"So, why don't you have a go today?"

She really wanted to, so she was quick to oblige. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You don't beat around the bushes, do you?" he rubbed her hand nervously. "I messed up. The day of Kyle's party I went to buy the tickets for prom and they told me I was not graduating. Like I passed the exams and everything but I had missed too many classes and they wouldn't even let me buy the tickets. Luke had told me that if I didn't graduate I would have to leave. And then my dad showed up, and I thought perhaps I could crash there because I had literally nowhere to go." She could tell he was having a really bad time. "I… was a chicken. I didn't want to tell you that I had fucked up because I knew you were the only person in the world that supported me and I didn't want to fail you, I couldn't stand it. It's not because I thought you wouldn't have understood, you know? It's just that I thought I would never forgive myself if I failed you. Turns out I failed you anyway and then I couldn't forgive myself all the same." She rubbed his hand and kissed him on the cheek. "Well, yeah. And then I was cocky, you know? I thought I was being like a literary character in one of the beat novels we used to read, and that I would, you know, get out of there and get better to be worthy of you, and that you would understand and that we would find each other eventually, because, to me, we were like the characters of the most amazing novel ever, you truly were my heroine. I really thought it would be like that. If I had thought for a moment that any of this would happen I would have done differently. But turns out that we didn't, and you don't even need to feel bad about anything that happened later between us because I was the one that messed up forever. I'm very sorry, Ror. You don't know how much I've missed you."

She knew, she knew very well. She started crying and she felt Jess squeeze her hand, but he didn't kiss her, because he was crying too. She hugged him and they both cried silently on each other's shoulder. After a while they separated and Jess gave her a shy smile.

"And why did you run? When you came back?"

"Because everyone told me how you had moved on and then I realized I had fucked up. And I was in a pretty bad place then."

She hesitated for a moment. "So, why did you tell me that you loved me?"

"Because you confronted me and it was the only thing on my mind all the time so I just blurted it out."

"And why did you drove away?"

"Because it didn't matter that I loved you. I still was a mess and you had moved on. I needed to get my shit together."

"And when you came to Yale? You had your shit together, then?"

He huffed. "Well… Please don't laugh. It's not that I was much better personally, but I was pretty desperate about having lost you. Like, I drove away and then had time to think about it and realized how final my mess-up had been. Then I went to Stars Hollow for Liz's wedding and I sort of made my peace with the part of me that was angry at my mom, and Luke and I fixed things and I… got some self-help books." She couldn't believe what Jess Mariano was confessing. "Learn to love and stuff like that, and I read them all and made the exercises and everything, and then went to visit you and threw everything I had read out the window and made a fool of myself at Yale. I still thought I knew better. I'm quite cocky, you know."

"I'm speechless." She couldn't believe what Jess Mariano was confessing. She really admired him.

"I'm not surprised."

"I… would have said yes. If you had been… less explosive about everything, or if you had explained yourself, I would have probably come."

"I saw you with Dean and I was reckless. I still think it was better that you didn't, though. I hadn't learnt my lesson yet."

"But in Philadelphia…"

He looked sad. "Yeah. I think we would have been fine then. At least concerning me. Do you hate me?"

She looked up and shook her head. "I think I understand everything. And I think you were right all along, Jess. I sort of saw us like novel characters, too, but I made myself forget about it because it hurt too much. And I don't think it was only you who needed to go through everything. Like, I won't say you didn't fuck up regarding me, because you did, but I see it in the light of everything that has happened recently, and I don't think I could have understood and be here without having gone though the same. Like I don't think there could have been real forgiveness without understanding, does that make sense?"

"Yeah… I hadn't really thought about it that way."

"For the book… I've revised everything. In my past. And at first I avoided you like the plague. Can you imagine? Like a sorted Logan pretty quickly, even with the baby stuff, but kept avoiding going back to your chapter. And then… it doesn't matter."

He grabbed her face and made her look at him. "There's nothing you can tell me that would be bad, even if it hurts. Please tell me."

"But it's not bad… it's just hard. To talk about it." She breathed. "I had a talk with my mom, when figuring out stuff. She kept on telling me she had spoilt me for having set the example of having Luke always in her life and going from man to man and not realizing that Luke was it for her all along, and that thank god that I wasn't like her. I had just told her that I didn't want to be with Logan. And then she rang Luke and he was with you. I went to bed and started thinking about us, about how amazing you were about the book and how you always got me and how… good you looked and… I masturbated." She was really embarrassed but she went on. She realized that she had never been so outspoken about her true feelings in her life, not without having to adjust her discourse for the other person, and she felt good. It was an awakening. "I hadn't done it since you left. I was a bit traumatized after that time because when I came I started crying and I was awful for a really long time, and it took me a lot to bottle up those feelings. I really wanted to, though, when you told me you loved me, or when you came to my grandparents', but I didn't because I knew that, if I did, I would open the pandora box. Anyway I did the day Luke visited you, and sure, just like the last time, as soon as I came I started crying and it all flooded out and I realized what you meant for me and, well, that's a bit of the reason for the meltdown in the library. Well, and because you looked hot and were amazing with Doula. And I knew you were with someone and I'm pregnant and that's the moment I decided I would let you go, because I wish you all the happiness in the world. You deserve it. I wouldn't want to harm you in any way… like I did with the rest. You deserve to be happy. I still think about it that way, you know?"

Jess seemed amazed. He started stroking her face as if he couldn't believe Rory was real, and then kissed her, softly at first, but then passionately, unable to repress a moan. She kissed him back, wishing that their stars could finally align. She wondered if their feelings would have time to be rekindled as renewed, whole people.

"Tell me, Ror. Tell me what you think about when you masturbate, so I can do it to you."

She felt her core beating. He was stroking her neck and planting light kisses all over her face. "I… I'm always split between rough fantasies and gentle ones." She couldn't believe she had said that out loud. He grabbed her waist strongly.

"Me too… it's always the same. I want it all. And… I couldn't masturbate thinking about you, either. I would always be destroyed afterwards." She couldn't believe it. Her inside was on fire. "Did you think about me, Ror, when… we were together?" He was looking at her with lust. She thought she couldn't take it.

"Yeah… I was really afraid you would be able to tell. But I always thought… you would be the first."

He placed his forehead on hers."And… are you ready now?"

She was scared. She was burning. She was ready. "Yes."