Please, please, please don't hate me after reading this chapter…
You can't tell me you aren't the least bit curious as to why Matt and Chris seemed to dislike Rory so much, and what Jess has been up to – what made him start to write the book?
I promise there'll only be a few chapters before we go back to present time and Rory's waiting outside the closed door.
I wasn't sure about the time here, but one year most probably passed between Logan's graduation (which happened a few episodes after Rory went to see Jess) and Rory's graduation. So I added some time for things like planning a wedding and writing a book, and I think I mentioned somewhere that it's summer, so that made it two years all in all.
Almost 2 years earlier
She left. He can't believe it. This was not what was supposed to happen. She was not supposed to leave. Jess watches the door that had closed behind her. He can't believe she's really gone. She's gone and she's never coming back. She left to be with Logan. "I love him" she'd said. He'd always feared this day would come. He'd always feared it, but to be honest, he never really thought it would come.
He and Rory; they had a bond. They had something special. They had love. Why couldn't she see that? He sinks down on the stool he'd sat at before. Before, minutes ago, when Rory was sitting next to him.
"If you want to you can tell him we did something". Pathetic! He is pathetic! Did he really think he could mess with this guy's head the same way he messed with Dean's? Wasn't that why he had said it? He doesn't know, maybe he had just wanted to give her something, to comfort her; she had looked like she needed to be comforted.
He rests his elbows on his knees and sinks his head into his hands and starts sobbing. It's too late. It's all too late. She loves her boyfriend. She loves her rich, snobby, Porsche-driving boyfriend. No, she loves her rich, snobby, Porsche-driving, cheating boyfriend.
She must be hurting so much right now. She loves that guy and he cheated on her! He stands up and clenches his fists, tears streaming down his face. Never in his life has he wanted to punch someone as badly as he does now. How could he do that to her?
How could he not see what he had? He had the most wonderful girl in the world and he cheated on her. He cheated on her and still she didn't want to leave him. They had kissed but she had pulled back, she couldn't cheat on that guy. The guy that cheated on her.
They had kissed. He had felt her soft lips on his for a few seconds before she pulled back. For a few seconds he had been happy. He had been so happy he thought his heart would burst. He had thought that this was finally the right time for them to be together.
He reaches his hand out towards a shelf and grabs a handful of books and throws them on the floor. It was all useless! Everything he had become, everything he had made for himself – it was useless! She still didn't want to be with him.
He swipes his arm across the shelf next to him, causing even more books to crash towards the floor. He kicks the books around with his foot. Books. Of course he had to share that with her. The one thing he used to escape when real life became too much to handle – of course that one thing had to be so closely connected to her.
Every time he scrabbled some words down in the margin of a book he had thought of what she would say about it. He had imagined what she would be saying years ahead when they were happily married and his books was also her books. When she would come home one day after a hard day at work, pull out a book from the bookshelf, start reading and see the thoughts and remarks he had scrabbled down years ago, during that horrible time they were apart.
Now that wouldn't happen. That future belonged to someone else, someone who didn't deserve it.
He bends down and picks up her copy of his book that had fell on floor when they kissed. He raises his arm to throw it away, but something's stopping him. This is her book. This is the book she's been holding and reading. He presses the book close to his chest, closes his eyes and tries to imagine the expressions that had flittered across her face as she read the words he wrote. All of the frustration and anger he felt earlier leaves his body while he stands there. Sobbing, lost in his thoughts.
Why was it that she couldn't see they belonged together? Hadn't she felt it too, hadn't she felt how the world seemed to have to changed into this wonderful place only because they were in the same room? Hadn't she felt the love, the hope and the anticipation hanging in the air?
What was really the point of living? What was the point of having a life if he couldn't share it with her? For the first time in his life he can understand Liz' desperate search for the great love, for that one person that makes it all worthwhile. Rory was his great love, she was the one person that made it all worthwhile, and she had left.