The All-American Reject
By stella maynard
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it. But the slight rearranging of the timeline is my fault.
Author's Note: Thanks for coming back you guys! Please read my important note at the end. I have questions I would love advice on.
Chapter 5: It Ends Tonight
"I pledge allegiance…"
Jess stared out the window of homeroom. They still had another five languages to go through before anything that might be of interest to him was discussed, so he slumped down in his seat, the only one in the room not standing and droning out the same phrases that for some reason need to be stated every morning for the past twelve years. Brainwashed idiots. Thank God for freedom of speech; it allowed him to protest by sitting. Not that he actually cared either way.
Not long later, his homeroom teacher placed yet another pink slip in front of him. He rolled his eyes and continued thinking about what he had to do that day. Prom tickets were first on his list. If he didn't get them, he was fairly certain Rory would kill him. The Gilmores could be violent, especially when they did not have coffee.
He took the pink paper and folded it into a perfect paper football. He held it in place on his desk with his finger and aimed. Ploink! Chuck Presby swung his head around, glaring, searching for the person who was responsible for the little thump on his head. Jess smirked, before pulling out a novel from his back pocket.
When the bell rang, he pocketed the book and headed to his next class, making sure to shoulder Dean on his way out. Arriving early to English, he slumped down in his usual seat (second row from the window, next to last seat) and picked up where he left off in his story. Lane appeared a minute later and looked around. He nodded at her in acknowledgement. Instead of taking her usual place, she made a beeline for the seat behind him.
Leaning forward, she said, "Hey, Jess. Rory told me to remind you that you need to buy the tickets to prom today. If you don't, the cannibals from State of Fear are going to look like fun-loving preschool students." Jess rolled his eyes. Behind him, Lane continued without hesitation, "Don't roll your eyes. I think she might be exaggerating, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it'll be fun. Think Footloose meets the Ramones' 'Rock 'N' Roll High School.'"
The teacher entered the room and called on Lindsay Lister to come up to the front of the class, where she proceeded to talk about Anthem. Lane scooted lower in her seat and continued.
"Mama Kim is basically expecting a scene out of Carrie, but of course she's never seen the movie or read the book because that would require her to believe that Stephen King is not damned," she declared in a whisper. Jess smirked and threw a glance over his shoulder.
Lane rolled her eyes before settling back in her seat, listening to Lindsay drone on about the power of self.
Jess continued to read until he felt someone poke him with a pencil. He turned and glared at Lane. "What?" he demanded in a whisper.
Her eyes widened behind her glasses and she glanced pointedly at the teacher. Jess turned and saw Ms. Jacobs staring at him. "It's your turn for the presentation, Mr. Mariano. This can't have been a shock to you. Alphabetical order rarely leaves room for an element of surprise. Get up to the front of the class now," she said, her gray hair falling into her eyes. She brushed it aside impatiently.
"Yes, ma'am," Jess replied. "Let me just grab my notes."
He bent down to look through a notebook on the ground for some loose paper, whispering to Lane, "What's the presentation on?"
"Any famous book by an American author," she replied quietly.
Jess smirked, grabbed his math test, picked up his copy of Ellison's Invisible Man that he had been reading earlier, and headed to the front of class.
During lunch, Jess saw the student council had set up a table in the cafeteria to sell tickets. Dana was there, flirting with the vice-president.
Jess paid for his lunch and headed to a quiet corner of the cafeteria where he continued to read while eating. After twenty minutes, he tossed away the leftover apple core and walked to the growing line of students waiting to buy tickets. He continued to read until he found himself in front of Dana, who gave him a bright smile.
"Hey, Jess," she greeted. "Here to buy your prom tickets?"
He rolled his eyes. "No, line fetish, remember?"
Dana's smile tightened. "Of course. How could I forget?" She began flipping through the pages looking for his name, talking at the same time. "Well, the prom's in two weeks and, even though it'll be in the gym, it's gonna be a black tie affair. So you're going to need a tux. No exceptions." She gave him a glare, remembering his sneakers at the Fall Formal.
"James Bond," he archly replied.
"What? Whatever. Anyway, the dance begins at – Oh. Hmm. That's strange," she broke off, staring at the page.
Jess continued to ignore her until she addressed him directly. "I can't sell you any tickets, Jess. You need to go talk to Principal Merton." She gave him a fake cheery smile. "Good luck!"
He didn't say anything as he turned around and walked out of the cafeteria. Dana watched with a small smirk making its way across her striking features.
Jess pushed the cafeteria doors opening and headed towards the principal's office, completely ignoring the yells of the hallway monitors behind him, demanding his pass. Entering the main administrative office, he went straight to the principal's personal secretary. "I need to see him," he stated.
Mrs. Wilson looked up from her book and waved in the general direction of the door, giving him permission to go ahead.
Tap tap tap. "Come in," called a man's voice from behind the door.
Jess turned the knob and walked in. "I was just trying to buy prom tickets and they told me to go see you."
Principal Merton, who had been rummaging through a file cabinet, looked up. "Well, well. Jess Mariano. What a pleasure. Sit down."
"I'd rather stand."
The principal shrugged and sat himself down behind his desk. "So, the prom, huh? I wouldn't have taken you for someone who'd want to go to prom."
"My girlfriend wants to," Jess explained.
"Well, that's too bad," the older man stated. "The thing is, Mr. Mariano, prom is for graduating seniors only." Jess continued to look at him. The principal reiterated, "You flunked out. Thirty-one days you've been out. Cutoff's twenty. Guess your girlfriend's outta luck."
Jess protested, "Now wait a minute, I'm just a little behind. I can catch up, no sweat. I'm smarter than everyone else here."
"Humble too," muttered the principal under his breath.
Jess ignored him and continued, his voice growing louder, "Haven't you ever heard of warning a guy?"
"You mean the nine warning slips we gave you weren't enough? All the meetings I tried to set up between you and the guidance counselor, between you and me that you blew off, that wasn't warning enough?" demanded Principal Merton, his eyebrows raised. He sighed, "I've no doubt you'd be our valedictorian if you'd only applied yourself. I'm sorry, Jess, but you're not graduating."
At the mention of "valedictorian," Jess's thoughts jumped to Rory. "Fine, I'll take summer school if that's what you want."
"Good, but not good enough. You need to redo the whole year."
"The whole year?" scoffed Jess. "No way."
"Then no diploma."
Jess felt himself beginning to get desperate. "At least let me go to prom, what's the big deal? I've already rented the tux. Besides, it's not for me. I'd rather be at home reading The Great Gatsby than seeing the people who pollute these halls. But my girlfriend wants to go. My girlfriend, Rory Gilmore – remember her? You wrote her a letter of recommendation to get into Chilton," Jess almost pleaded, surprised he had said so much at once. It must've been the desperation.
He could see Principal Merton hesitate ever so slightly, giving him a moment of hope. This hope was dashed when he saw the older man slowly, sadly shake his head. "I am sorry, Mr. Mariano, but we're done here."
Jess glared up at the man in front of him. "I'm not going to miss this place," he spat. He pulled the door open, then slammed it shut as he stalked through the office into the now no longer deserted hallways. He leaned against the wall as his fellow students chattered around him.
Crap.
The diner was in one of its weird lulls, with only the two Gilmore girls as customers. Rory stared at her mother enrapt, eating her burger while Lorelai told the story of her day. Jess, something else clearly on his mind, tried to act normal while listening to Lorelai's ramblings and picking at Rory's fries.
"And then I remembered that we had no food at the house, so I decided to stop at the supermarket and pick up some essentials. The place was packed and I – "
Rory interrupted her mother, "Wait a sec. You went to an actual market to pick up food?" Lorelai nodded. "Like what? We can't cook."
Lorelai gasped, holding her hand to her chest. "Loin fruit, I'm hurt. I'll have you know it takes serious skill to get a Pop-Tarttoasted just right." Rory rolled her eyes, an action her mother ignored. "Anyway, as I was saying, it was packed. There were hardly any carts, but I spotted one lonely, slightly crippled, cart by the entrance. I had almost reached it when this lady rushed to it from I don't know where and takes it from me. So I'm standing there, shocked, and I cross my arms and glare at her. I think she felt the hatred I was shooting at her because she turned to look at me and said, 'Wow. You're absolutely gorgeous.'"
"Aw, Mom, was she cute?" giggled Rory.
"I think she might've said it to make me forget that she literally just stole the only free cart from me right under my nose. But seriously, what am I supposed to say to that? 'Thanks, but you're not my type'?"
"What did you say?" asked Jess, slightly distracted from his own problems.
Lorelai grinned. "I said, 'Well, I've been proposed to three times and I still have never been married. Why don't we give it a shot?' She got scared after that and ran away, leaving me the cart."
Jess smirked while his girlfriend laughed. After a moment, Rory thought over her mother's story. "But, Mom, you haven't been proposed to three times. Just Dad and Max."
Lorelai finished her cup of coffee and gave Jess her puppy dog eyes. "Nope. Three is right," she explained as Jess filled up her cup. "Your dad sorta proposed when he found out I was pregnant. It was more of an I-guess-we-should-get-hitched kind of thing. Real romantic, your father, kid. Then Luke, about two years ago. And then Max and we all know how that ended up."
The two teenagers stared at her as she drank her coffee. Rory got her voice back first. "What!? Luke?!" she yelped.
At the sound of her scream, Luke ran out of the storage room where he was doing inventory and into the diner. "What?! What's wrong?" he panted.
Jess turned to his uncle. "What did Nicole say about this? How did I not know you asked Lorelai to marry you?" he demanded.
Confused, Luke turned towards Lorelai who waved at him with a smile on her face from behind her coffee cup. "I never asked you to marry me."
"Yes, you did," she insisted. "It was right before Rory's sixteenth birthday. I was in the diner waiting for Rory to come and I told you that you would have to entertain me until she arrived. Then you popped the question."
The description obviously rang a bell as Luke shook his head. "And I told you I was just looking for something to shut you up," he argued.
"Psh, details," Lorelai said, literally waving away his argument with her hand. "Besides, diner man, I know you wanted me to say yes."
With a roll of his eyes and a readjustment of his baseball cap, Luke muttered, "Jeez. I'm going back to the storage room." He turned to his nephew. "Let me know if I'm actually needed out here."
Jess nodded with a smirk, noticing the red creeping up his uncle's neck.
Lorelai drained the last of her coffee and placed her money on the counter. "It still counts," she stated. "I'm heading back to the Inn. I'll see you back at the house, babe. Bye, Jess," she threw over her shoulder, heading out the door.
Rory smiled at her boyfriend. "I should probably go, too. I told Lane I'd stop by for the band's final practice before their gig tonight. Speaking of which, will you be off by seven? Remember, we promised we'd help set up. I've got the cymbals."
He nodded. Rory beamed at him and leaned over to give him a quick kiss. "Great, I'll see you here around then." And with that she skipped out of her seat and left.
Jess watched her go, his dark mood quickly returning.
"You guys are going to be awesome," Rory exclaimed. "What do you think, Jess?"
Jess, who'd been leaning against the wall as the band set up in Kyle's living room, nodded. "You look like a band to me."
"All right," Dave congratulated his fellow musicians. "Now the only thing keeping us from fortune and fame is our lack of a name."
"I made my suggestion," reminded Brian.
"Dude, we already nixed the Harry Potters," groaned Zach.
"Why?"
"Because it's stupid, man."
"Besides, there's already a band with a really similar name – Harry and the Potters. We don't want to seem like we're copying them. We play rock, not wizard rock," Lane consoled a slightly upset Brian.
"And there's also another band called Draco and the Malfoys," added Rory, somewhat irrelevantly.
Jess rolled his eyes.
"I still say," began Zach, "Follow Them to the Edge of the Desert is memorable and classy."
Brian protested, "I run out of breath every time I say it."
"You've got asthma. You run out of breath every time you open your mouth," argued Zach hotly.
"He's right, man," Dave agreed. "We can't pick our name around your respiratory illnesses."
Brian remained unbothered by his bandmates. "Still, even without an inhaler, Follow Them to the Edge of the Desert is too long. And don't say that our fans will shorten it to FTTTEOTD once we're famous," he snapped at Zach, seeing him about to interrupt. "That saves about two little syllables. It's like people saying FB instead of Facebook. It still takes the same amount of effort," he finished, quickly pulling out his inhaler.
Dave turned to Rory and Jess. "Do you guys have any suggestions?"
"Oh, we wouldn't dare," she replied, tugging on Jess's hand, pulling him towards the kitchen. She called to the still nameless, arguing band, "We'll be back when you guys go on."
As the couple walked away, they heard something about slashing windmills, Milli Vanilli, and miniature date palms. Entering the kitchen, they saw Kyle and Marshall storing snow globes under the sink. "Need any help stashing the valuables, Kyle?" Rory asked.
"Nope, we're good. We only have a couple Hummels left to hide," he answered smiling. "Hey! Careful, Marshall. Boy with a Toothache is Mom's favorite."
As Kyle ran off, Rory pulled Jess over to the table where all the chips were left. She opened one of the bags and held it out to him. "Want one?" she offered.
Jess shook his head. Rory shrugged before plunging her hand into the bag. "I'm going to fill up before these chips become a toilet."
"Thanks for the visual."
Rory unconcernedly munched on her Lays, shooting an occasional confused glance at Jess who was seated on a chair, staring off into space. Slowly, the house began to fill up, people were chatting, others were standing against the wall, not knowing what they were supposed to do next.
"I'm going to go see how Lane's doing," Rory announced, finally putting down the nearly empty bag of chips as Jess nodded absentmindedly.
Moments later, a cheer went up through the house. The yelling got louder as high school boys chanted, "Keg! Keg!" heading to the kitchen. Jess barely heard Kyle telling Marshall to find the swim towels over Rick's continuous exclamation of "Twenty-one! Whooo!"
Jess went in search of his girlfriend. He found her, as promised, with the band. She was holding a thermos and talking with Brian. As he approached, Young Chui asked Lane, "How about you, Lane? You need water or anything?"
Dave tensed and interrupted, "Uh, Young Chui, you should probably stay away from the band area. We got a lot of cords and stuff, and I don't want you to get electrocuted and die."
The young Asian boy looked taken aback and stammered, "O-okay. I'll go save you a good seat for when you have a break, Lane."
Lane waved at him and continued to practice the band's songs without actually hitting her drums. Jess walked over to Rory who was watching the evening unfold. "Why are we here so early? There's almost nobody here."
"We're with the band. We're the roadies and the sound crew, and I'm advising Lane on makeup and I'm the keeper of Brian's sandwich and thermos," she replied, waving said thermos in the air. "We're very busy and important backstage people."
"We're dork-early," he dryly stated.
Rory sighed and nudged him playfully. "Come on, get into the spirit of things. Hello, Cleveland!"
Smirking, Jess moved away to another room. "Guess I can wander a bit," he said.
She smiled. "Good. Go schmooze, gloomy."
He glared at her before going back to the kitchen, where he was met with an amusing sight. Four guys were standing around the keg, staring at it.
"Hey. What's up with you guys?"
"Stupid keg," Kyle grunted.
"It's not working," Marshall whined.
"Well, where's the tap?" Jess asked.
Kyle looked at him. "The what?"
"It's a keg. It's sealed," Jess explained. "You have to hook up a tap and pump the beer out."
Kyle turned to his cousin and accused, "I told you that thing in the bag did something."
Rick pulled the tap out of the bag and shrugged, "No instructions."
Not bothering to hide the roll of his eyes, Jess pushed two of the guys out of the way and attached the tap to the keg, grumbling a disbelieving, "Jeez." He handed the pump to Marshall. "Here, start pumping."
The boy grinned. "All right. To Jess!" he proclaimed lifting the pump in the air.
The others soon began to exclaim "To Jess" as well.
"Yeah. Me and Springsteen, the working man's hero," he muttered, leaving them to their pumping.
As he made his way back to the living room, where Rory was nervously announcing the still nameless band, he saw Dean coming through the front door. Holding his hand was that girl Lindsay from his English class. She looked slightly uncomfortable but was smiling awkwardly at the tall boy at her side.
Jess decided to ignore the couple, not really in the mood to pick a fight. However, when Rory made her way over to him thirty minutes later, she had a completely different idea.
"Come on, let's go say hi," she suggested, tugging lightly on his arm. "And be nice. Remember, Dean and I are friends again."
He grunted in response.
Rory walked up a little shyly to Dean and Lindsay. "Hey, guys," she greeted. They responded in kind. Feeling the awkward silence, she continued, gesturing towards the living room, "So, Lindsay, what do you think of Lane's band?"
"I like 'em. But I don't really know any of the songs they've been playing," she answered.
Dean explained. "She's not a music freak like you."
"Well, we can't all be freaks," Rory nodded sagely. "What kind of music do you like?"
Looking slightly flustered, Lindsay replied, "I don't know…uh, Michelle Branch, Matchbox 20."
"Jeez," Jess scoffed, rolling his eyes and looking away.
Rory nudged him lightly with her elbow, still trying to be polite. "I like them, too. I mean, I like all kinds of things."
Lindsay turned to Jess. "You used to go to our school."
"He still goes," Rory corrected her.
"Really?" sneered Dean. "Haven't seen you around much lately."
"What are you, the attendance monitor? Going to put me in detention?" Jess demanded.
"Jess!" Rory admonished.
"Whatever. I'm going to see what's holding this line up."
As Jess walked away, he heard Rory defend him. (She sighed, "He's not feeling well.") He realized he had no desire to be around these people anymore and decided to find a little quiet. Climbing the stairs, the noise began to fade away. The second floor was empty and he went into one of the bedrooms and shut the door, sitting in the darkness.
A while later, he heard a light knock on the door and Rory cautiously stuck her head in. "There you are," she stated. "Young Chui said he saw you going up here."
Turning back to the window, Jess replied, "Just got tired of everything down there."
Walking towards him, she asked with a slightly worried tone, "Are we allowed to be up here? Kyle was kinda discouraging it."
"When you have a party, you get what you get," he shrugged.
"Yeah, I guess." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "Sad boy, what's wrong? You were looking forward to this party."
Jess always found denial to be a useful strategy. Why abandon something that had worked so well in the past? "Nothing."
Rory sat on his lap and stroked his hair, her eyes shining. "Something did. Come on, tell me."
Jess replied by kissing her lightly.
"You're not tired to me, are you?" she teased.
His arms tightened around her as he kissed her again. She pulled away for a second. "That's a pretty good answer, I guess."
He guided her to a standing position, his lips never leaving hers. He slowly led her towards the bed, then gently lowered her down. His kisses became more intense. He ran his hands lightly up her sides, under her jacket, as she ran her fingers through his hair, holding him tightly to her. He forgot about his day when he kissed her; he was completely in the moment.
Slowly, he positioned himself above her on the bed and his lips began to place feather light kisses on her face and the crook of her neck. She responded, sighing in pleasure. As her hands ran up and down his back, he returned to kissing her lips, urgently now. With his right arm pinned beneath her, holding him up, his left hand trailed down to her hips. Her shirt had risen slightly, allowing his hand to caress the smooth, previously covered, skin. His hand drifted slowly to her belt.
"Jess, wait…Jess, wait," she mumbled against his lips. He ignored her, his hand trying to figure out how to undo the buckle. Spooked, Rory pushed him and jumped away from the bed. Jess groaned in frustration, running his fingers through his hair.
"Not here, not now," she exclaimed, startled.
"Fine," he stated, cutting her off.
Pushing her hair back behind her ears, she stepped towards him. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing's wrong with me. You wanted to stop, we stopped."
Her voice started to rise with panic. "Someone could've walked through that door," she said, pointing.
"And Santa Claus could've slid down the chimney, whatever."
"You didn't seriously think it was going to happen like this, did you?"
He collapsed back into the chair he had been occupying earlier, dropping his head into his hands. "I don't know what I think anymore," he said softly, more emotion slipping into his voice than he intended.
She took another step towards him. "Jess," she whispered in concern.
He couldn't take it anymore. All the disappointment he felt in himself, the betrayal, the panic, came rushing back. "Rory, stop, just stop!" he snapped, his voice cracking. The room was dark, making it impossible for her to see the expression, the desperation, in his usually reserved eyes. "I did not invite you up here! You came up on your own."
His face may have been hidden in the shadows, but the moonlight allowed him to clearly see the tears streaming down her face.
Fuck.
"I don't know what I did," she sobbed, her hands running over her hair, before turning to run out of the room.
Jess sighed. "You didn't do anything," he whispered, but she was no longer in the room. He saw her hair whip around the door. "Shit."
He got up and ran towards the door, calling, "Rory!"
Running down the stairs, he saw her almost literally crying on Dean's shoulder. He tried to slow his descent, the apology that had been ready on his lips forgotten.
He threw a contemptuous glance at Rory and glared at Dean. "Figures," he muttered, hurt, turning his back on them.
He heard Rory yell, "Dean, no!" a moment before he was jumped on from behind and he crashed to the ground. As he quickly twisted to get his arm around Dean's neck, chants of "Fight! Fight! Fight!" instantly arose from the crowd they drew. Pulling himself off the ground, Jess charged the much taller boy, causing the two to fall through the swinging door and unfortunately onto Dave and Young Chui who landed in a sprawl on the ground.
Dean pushed Jess off, swinging his right fist towards his opponent's head. Jess swerved, but Dean ran into him immediately after, propelling Jess through the still closed front door. CRACK! Pushing himself off the lawn, Jess threw himself at Dean, who grunted in pain but brought the shorter boy to the ground with him. Wrestling on the ground, throwing as many punches as he received, Jess ignored Rory's pleas to stop and the attempts of his classmates to pull the two boys apart.
Finally, Dean's friend Todd launched himself at Jess, who currently had the advantage and was pummeling Dean, and pinned him to the ground. Somebody else came to help hold him back as he tried to get back to the fight. Dean was being kept back by Kyle and, though the look in his eyes was near murderous, he didn't attempt to rush at Jess again.
Jess wiped the blood from his lip as flashing lights appeared on the scene, Rory still yelling frantically, "Guys, stop it!"
"Let go of me!" Jess spat at Todd who hadn't released the clenched fist he had on Jess's shirt, twisting out of his hold.
"Cops," whispered Marshall.
A crash was heard inside the house. Kyle blanched. "Boy with a Toothache," he whispered.
A police man calmly walked towards the crowd. "Okay, dump your cups and go home," he called.
Rory took an uncertain step towards her boyfriend. "Jess…" she trailed off.
He looked at her, his clothes ripped, blood dripping down his face, his eyes emotionless, closed off. He knew she didn't understand what was going on, why he acted like he did. Her turmoil was evident in her blue eyes, bright with anxiety. But he said nothing. He simply turned and walked away from her, away from it all.
She didn't follow him.
Soundtrack:
"It Ends Tonight" by The All-American Rejects; "Totally Fucked" by the cast of Spring Awakening (listen to the first few lines, can't you just imagine Jess feeling that way? Though probably not with such a chipper melody); "Night Drive" by The All-American Rejects; and "Run" by Snow PatrolReferences: State of Fear by Michael Crichton; Footloose; "Rock and Roll High School" by the Ramones; Anthem by Ayn Rand; Carrie by Stephen King and the movie based on the book; Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison; James Bond; The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Pop-Tarts; Harry and the Potters; Draco and the Malfoys; wizard rock; Facebook; Lays potato chips; Bruce Springsteen; Milli Vanilli; Hummels; Michelle Branch; Matchbox 20; and possibly many, many more.
Thanks to: Curley-Q (x3), Literati and naley forever (x2), hollowgirl22, dtng4ever, watergurl123, CuriousCaker, Maigu (x3), kaypgirl (x2), Coco x, JessRoryYunaTidusforever (x2), allycat1186, Kassandra27, and FindMeBroken.
Important Author's Note: Hi, guys! I'm finally back with a longer than usual chapter (nearly 13 pages – gasp!) to make up for how much I suck. And I realize I suck at writing action scenes, I'm more of a descriptive feelings person. In any case, I refer you to the episode of the third season entitled "Keg! Max!" for what I was basically going for. So I also realized immediately after posting the last chapter that I've been a forgetful jerk who hasn't thanked reviewers. So as you can see, above I thanked everybody for Chapters 2-4 with the number in parentheses indicating more than one review. From now on, I'll thank everybody each chapter, but if you have any specific questions or comments I'll reply through that fun little button.
Secondly, on the topic of reviews, a couple of people mentioned what they want to happen (which I totally encourage!) and it made me realize my summary might be a bit misleading. This is more of a long-term fic, spanning more than one season (I won't specify how many - if you haven't guessed already - so as not to ruin the surprise!). Do you guys think I should change it? Add something to it? Write "Follows Season 3 to Season X"? Let me know!
Thirdly, I'd also appreciate if you guys would all let me know if my writing gets to cheesy. I'm a fan of clichés; I feel they are clichés for a reason. But, while I know this story is not totally original (especially since, as anyone who has read my other stuff would know, I like to take things that originally happened and retell it from somebody else's point of view, with whatever changes I see fit), I'd like it to at least have its moments, even if it's just in supporting characters. So, what I'm asking is from you is to let me know if this story gets too sugary or overdone so I can work on it. Nobody reads the chapters other than me before I update so I'd love some feedback. Merci.
Finally, I made a playlist of the songs for this story. The link is in my profile (let me know if it works – I had serious troubles!) and I'll add songs as I update.
Now, the important stuff has ended, and I just feel like talking. Feel free to leave me now or stick around and get to know me a bit better. 'Tis up to you. So, I just thought I'd like to let you know that I try to insert a bit of myself into most of these characters. I'm trying to stay true to all the characters but insert situations I find myself in. I attempt to limit that with Jess and Rory, because I feel that if I don't, and my personality changes, I might have some difficulties later in the story. I'm most like Lorelai I believe (the quiz I took on Facebook agrees). I like writing her quirkiness (which is why Rory may appear more…unique here than on the show) and use many of the situations I have experienced. For example, the "buggage" dilemma, the Gushers personalities, and a part of the woman in the supermarket story all happened to me. And I personally love throwing out pop culture references. I insert them into almost all my papers. I hope my professors have a sense of humor, because otherwise they may not appreciate my Spider-Man references or my analysis of world politics as represented in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl.
Anyway, that's the tidbit about me for this chappie. I'll let you go ahead and review now (hint, hint). I won't make any promises about updating because I probably won't be able to keep it…and that makes me really sad. But I will update eventually, no worries! Love you lots!