Sorry for the wait guys, I've been really completely busy with school and band, but it's fall break, and I got a muse (ahem, season 3), so the first part to the two-part finale is finally here! Now, since Jess doesn't show up after season 6, this is future lit, but who doesn't like anything lit?

Also, I really hope they make a movie…Just saying. And Jess needs to be in it. Enjoy, and please Review.

-socatherine

It came in the mail on a day in May, but he couldn't tell you which one. It was a small envelope, just big enough to fit a letter, and there was no return address. He was on the phone when he opened it, and seeing her handwriting made him alternately cringe and shake, since she had made no contact with him since that horrible day at Truncheon the year before. It was short and sweet and to the point (just like Rory) and it said:

Dear Jess,
I've really made some big mistakes in my life, and you were the only person that got to me. That has to mean something, right? Please come to my graduation, so we can catch up.
Rory

Attached with it was a Yale University ticket, and in the twenty seconds it took to read the note, he became furious. He turned so red Chris asked him how many Warheads he had eaten this time. Jess just walked up the stairs without responding. When he had collected his thoughts enough, he called the only person that he could think of that would know what to do.

Luke picked up the phone in the diner between yelling at Kirk to decide what kind of bread he wanted and grabbing food from Ceaser to give to Babette. "Luke."
"Hey, Luke. It's Jess."
"Jess? What's wrong? Where are you?"
"Relax, Uncle Luke. I'm fine. I just wanted to ask you something important."
"Yeah..."
"Rory just sent me an invitation to her graduation."
"What?"
"I know. What does that mean? And what should I do?"
"Jess, this is big. From what Lorelai told me, Logan wanted to ask Rory to marry him. If Rory is asking you to come to her graduation, that means their relationship is on the fritz, and she needs a rebound. We all know how Rory's rebound turns out for you..."
Jess was speechless. Perfect blonde dick wanted to marry Rory? Was he insane? Rory had places to go and Rory was independent, not like other girls. In fact, she was like no other girl. Even under the fancy clothes and fancy haircut, she was still Rory, the girl he fell in love with when he was 17 years old. The girl he was still in love with after countless heartbreaks and punches in the gut.

He couldn't go.
There was no way he could put himself through that heartbreak again. He couldn't do it.

But then why did he want to do it so badly?
He wanted it bad. He wanted her bad. He wanted 'it' bad. The perfect life that he imagined so many times: Rory in a big house in Philly with two little kids running around him. The boy had a Hemingway book in his hand and the girl had a Rand. He took his son to baseball games and read him him Kerouac books to bed, and let his daughter be a disney princess and listen to the Clash. Rory was a famous overseas correspondent who picked staying at home with him over working and he was a bestselling author with 5 books on the bestselling list and signings all over the country…
He wanted his dreams.

But there was something holding him back, and he didn't know what it was. He remembered the feeling when Rory had told him that she didn't want to run away with him, and how that moment of utter heartbreak had pushed him through to doing something with his life. He remembered the heartbreak when she told him that the only reason she had come to see Truncheon was to cheat on Dickhead with him to get him back, and how that empowered him to write a full-sized novel and finish college. He remembered that with every hateful, with every hurtful thing Rory Gilmore had ever said to him, he had turned it around to be good.

That was what was holding him back.
He had to go, because even if she did break his heart once again, he would become a better person because of it.

He liked adversary, he decided. And if what everyone said was true, "absence makes the heart grow stronger," his heart better be a rock.

He laughed; this was going to be an adventure. Who would believe that sullen Jess Mariano was facing his fears head on instead of turning around and running away? He had really grown up.

Huh.