Jess wasn't at school the next day. Because of course he wasn't. Mrs. Hockens and the Principal and the student body in general seemed lighter for it, like a party was forthcoming. Lane did catch his name whispered among the gossip herds as she passed them in the hall, but she was adept at tuning them out.

The Stars Hollow menace not attending high school was par for the course at this point, but something about his face the night before was echoing behind her eyelids when she blinked. Pale skin, big red eyes. A mouth that was slightly open during the whole stunted conversation. There was an eeriness about those whispers in the hallway, and a weird feeling at the crosswalk during lunch hour.

After school, Lane kept an eye out for him, but of course Jess had made himself scarce as usual in the town square. Probably he was catching up on sleep above the diner—she knew she herself was going to go down like a rock tonight. Two post-midnight meetups in a row did not do any favors for her cognitive functions.

Lane had passed her English final, praise God, and Mr. Randy had seemed optimistic when she'd asked about her History final today. Things were so much easier than they had been yesterday, she didn't even complain when two people cut in front of her for the vending machine at Doose's.

Whatever was going on with Jess, at least he'd gone back to Luke's last night on better terms with her. And she had Is This It to look forward to after homework. Album-swapping was normal behavior for the two of them; things couldn't be that bad.

But when she opened the door to Kim's Antiques, her mother was standing at the bottom of the stairs, hands folded in front of her. Waiting.

So much for a good day. Lane's heart splashed to her stomach and she let the door hang open, backpack sliding off of one shoulder.

"Mama?"

"Sit." Mrs. Kim gestured to the nearest vintage armchair. The green one.

Lane's eyebrows came together, thoughts racing.

Does she know about Is This It?

She can't, she was snoring through the whole thing.

Then she found out about Coldplay.

Or the English final.

She'd be happy about the English final.

Maybe she's sending me to Korea for the summer again. At least there are bootlegs.

If she was sending me to Korea, the suitcase would be in sight.

How does she know about Coldplay? How does she know about

Is This It?

Maybe she smells Oreos on me.

Don't be stupid.

All I am is stupid! I sneak out! I eat junk food! She knows, and she hates me, and she'll never let me outside again! Stupid!

Stupid loser faker liar—

Swallowing, blinking hard, Lane forced herself to ask, unmoving. "Mama, is everything o—"

"You should sit down." Mrs. Kim all but pushed her into the green armchair.

Lane sat with a thump.

Mrs. Kim stood over her, tone perfectly controlled. Hair perfectly controlled. Hands and arms and general existence perfectly, surreally, controlled. As she spoke, only her fingers moved, slightly pressing against one another, but that was the only sign of emotion she gave.

"Rory is hurt."

Lane's body turned hot and then cold. "Hurt?"

"She was in an accident. She's all right, but she is hurt."

How could someone be all right and hurt at the same time? The chair underneath her felt like it was turning into gelatin. "What kind of accident?"

"Car accident. Last night. Lorelai just called."

Lorelai just called? It had happened last night and Lorelai was just now calling them? Lane's hands braced against the arms of the chair, fingers curling like claws. She felt her heartbeat pick up and then slow back down. It had been a day. Lunch had been eaten. Clothes had been put in the dryer. People were doing things, living lives, and Lorelai was calling to inform them of this at practically dinner time?

Mrs. Kim went on, eyes tracing all over her daughter's face. "It was her car, that…death car the market boy built for her. This is why boys must be screened, must be approved. They are not careful, they are selfish, and when girls are not careful with boys who are not careful, they get hurt."

"But—" Lane ignored the broken record and cut right to the chase. "How did she get hurt, Mama?"

"I told you, car accident. The car accident and the boy."

"Okay." Lane's tongue rolled against her cheek. "Um. But. What part?"

"What?"

"I mean, what part of Rory? A-are we talking broken leg, broken head? Broken nose?"

"Her wrist has been fractured."

Immediately, Lane's own wrists began hurting. "Fractured," she repeated, squinting.

"Yes."

"Is the car okay?"

"What does that matter?"

"It doesn't," Lane agreed, sucking in oxygen. "You're right. Totally irrelevant."

"Good lesson. She trusted that boy, and now she has a fractured wrist." Mrs. Kim threw up a hand.

"Dean?"

"Not the bag boy." Mrs. Kim wrinkled her nose. "The other one."

Lane's throat went dry. The other one. "Jess, you mean Jess?"

"Yes. Luke's nephew. The slacker." She said it like it was a Latin verb, and an expired one, moldy in her mouth.

The fabric of the armchair was hot under her palms. Lane's foot bounced on the wooden floorboards, four, five, no, off-rhythm. A car accident last night. Last night. Jess and Rory. Jess and Is This It outside her window. White-faced, big jacket, 1 AM, Rory fractured her wrist, Rory wrecked her car, Dean's car—

"Mama, um," Lane swallowed, opened her mouth, swallowed again. "Um, can I—may I call Rory?"

Mrs. Kim didn't hesitate. She didn't even blink. "All right. Ten minutes. Then homework."

"Thank you!"

It was safe to say the tutoring hadn't run long, then. Maybe it hadn't even happened at all. Lane took the phone all the way out to the sidewalk, dialing the Gilmore home and trying to control her breathing. Her wrists still hurt. This had happened when they were seven, too, and Rory had knocked her head against the top of the slide on the playground coming down. Lane had gone home with a headache, just thinking about Rory's red face as Lorelai had led her away to get an ice pack and a popsicle, possibly from the same place.

No answer. Lane dialed again.

Nothing. She tried Rory's cell. Still nothing.

"Come on, pick up, pick up."

She was forced to leave a voicemail.

"Hey, it's Lane. Obviously. I heard about the crash—I mean, the wrist, um. And. Call me when you get this, okay?"

Homework was impossible to do after that bombshell. It took her forty-five more minutes than it usually did. She kept having to re-read everything, erase notes. Mrs. Kim caught her chewing the end of her pencil, tracing nothing-lines all over the margins of her geometry textbook. This was no time for studying. This was a time for solidarity. For bursting through the front door and running straight to Lorelai's. For grabbing Miss Patty by the spangled hand and resurrecting every last detail of the previous night.

Poor Rory. Fractured wrist, yikes. And poor Dean.

Poor Jess.

His face appeared again in her mind's eye when she got up to make tea, and Lane almost felt actual nausea bubbling up. A car accident. That sucked. Scary, messy. Awful.

And Mama Kim hadn't said anything about whether or not the 'slacker' had been injured. The only assurance Lane had that Luke's nephew was in one piece was that she'd physically seen him sixteen hours earlier. Suddenly, the pale complexion and the darting eyes were both making a lot more sense.

When she finally cut through the last of her homework, Lane grabbed her bag. "Mama, I'm gonna go check on Rory."

"She's resting," Mrs. Kim informed her, dusting a table in the front room. "You will see her tonight."

Lane tugged her arm through her jacket sleeve. "Tonight?" she repeated, fingertips stalling on the zipper. "I can go to the Movie Festival?"

"Not the whole thing." Mrs. Kim's mouth drew into a tight line. "Kirk is involved."

Lane nodded. Enough said.

"You must be back by eight. But you may stay long enough to check on her."

Before she left the house, Lane had gone up to her floorboards to retrieve the little faded shoebox in which she kept all her iron-on patches and stickers and fake tattoos. Rory would be wearing a cast, and just as Rory needed cheering, casts needed individuality. They needed decoration. They needed Emily the Strange.

The sun had already set as Lane crossed out into the street. Chairs were being stationed near the gazebo as usual, and a portable concessions stand had been rolled out at the back. Some guy in a paper hat was even spinning cotton candy this year. Neither Gilmore was anywhere in sight, but they'd be there. Rumor had it Lorelai had twisted Taylor's arm hard enough to be allowed to pick the movie, so it might actually be worth pining for when Lane inevitably had to go home early.

Her feet carried her straight to Luke's, without even pausing to think about it. But a big piece of colored paper had been taped to the inside of the door. On it, in massive, messy letters: GONE FISHING!

Like an idiot, Lane tried the door handle anyway. Locked.

Luke's was closed. She couldn't remember a day of her life in which Luke's had ever, ever been closed during business hours. Gone fishing? Was that code for something, or had Luke really, actually taken bait and tackle and gone out to snare live trout? He had to have left town to do it; the fish in Stars Hollow were notorious dieters.

This whole day was starting to feel like something out of Labyrinth. If Luke's was closed, Jess must be inside somewhere.

Lane peered through the glass of the door; there were no signs of life. No sign of Jess. She backed up a few steps, but none of the lights in the apartment upstairs were on either. Maybe Jess wasn't home—maybe he'd found a cave to hide in. The whole community would be after him for this one. One did not simply fracture Rory Gilmore and walk away without glimpses of torches and pitchforks.

For the first time ever, it occurred to her that she had absolutely no way of reaching him if he wasn't in the diner. Or in her sightline. Luke's number was on the fridge at home; he was one of the few people Mrs. Kim had listed in town as an approved Safety Number in case of an emergency, right up there with Reverend Nichols. But she'd never once found a need to try that number, not for Luke, not for Jess, not for anything. If she went home now and called the diner, her mom would want the reason why.

Well, thought Lane, at least I know he's not horribly maimed or anything. That would have made sharing Parachutes pretty difficult. And if he'd ever bothered to write out his will and testament in the event of his untimely (and possibly Luke-Danes-enforced) demise, she doubted he'd bequeath any of his CDs to her. Probably he'd be buried with them, along with several cans of whatever he put in his hair to make it do what it did.

Turning her Emily the Strange sticker in between her fingers, Lane headed for the concessions stand. If she snuck a Twix bar now, she'd have plenty of time to get rid of the chocolate on her breath before going home.

As she was browsing, she heard Babette chattering away to Morey on their way into the square. Crowds had begun to form, everyone getting ready for the big show.

Lorelai's voice was easy to pick out of any crowd. "You know, picking a movie that will appeal to a large group of people is hard!"

Lane spun around. "Rory!"

Sookie was closest to her, but Rory was there, walking in between her mother and some guy that looked vaguely like Brad Pitt in leather. He had her chin—Christopher.

Table that for another time. Lane's eyes flew right to the bright blue encasing her best friend's arm. Rory looked the same as ever, perfect hair, sweet smile, excellent clothing choices—but there were huge bags under her eyes, and she kept glancing around as if she were being hunted. Actually, she just looked like Lane on Sunday afternoons.

"We'll get seats!" called Christopher as Lane rushed to his daughter's side.

Lane smiled in greeting, mostly because Rory was smiling. "Oh my god! Lemme see!"

Rory held out the cast, lips pursed. Lane took one look at the fiberglass and the phantom pain switched from both wrists to just the left one.

"Oh, that sucks, that so sucks. Does it hurt?"

Rory inhaled softly—it wasn't an in-pain inhale, more like the kind you made when you were sick of everything. "Only when I remember how I got it."

Lane's chest twanged, looking her friend up and down. For a moment, a mini tornado spun up inside her, vehemently protective and slightly violet-colored. How could the car have crashed like that? How could Jess have gotten her into this mess? What exactly had gone on last night to lead to a cast and a post-midnight return of Is This It? They were supposed to have been studying. They were supposed to have been at the diner, or Rory's, or anywhere that wasn't in a moving vehicle, and now it was almost twenty-four hours later and Luke was gone fishing, Jess was M.I.A., and Rory was wearing plaster.

But looking into those round blue eyes, Lane felt the tornado spin away. Rory was hurt. Far be it from Lane to make the pain worse by turning the violet on her, painting the whole situation even more groan-worthy than it was.

Instead, she held up the Emily sticker. "Okay. Well, here. Angry girl for an angry arm."

"Oh, cool! Thank you," chortled Rory, grinning as Lane applied the sticker.

"You're welcome." Lane mimicked the chortle, staring down hard at Emily's cartoony little face, trying to press gently. If Rory couldn't talk to her about it, she couldn't talk to anyone, especially since Lorelai already knew everything by default. And this was something she surely needed to talk about; it was all over her countenance. "So…tell me what happened."

She was right. Rory started venting right away, and some of the faux-pressure in Lane's own wrist began to ease. "Oh, Lane, it was—horrible, I've never been involved in anything so horrible in my life!"

Lane kept in step with her, walking her to her seat. "But what happened?"

Rory spread her uninjured arm. "An animal ran out into the road, and—we swerved, and we hit a pole, and my car—my beautiful car—" Her voice caught.

"How bad?" Lane's mouth drifted open, shoulders tensing up.

"Bad."

"Have you talked to Dean?" Lane pointed at her, eyebrows up.

"No, he gets home tomorrow." Rory's gaze drifted to the street, the other moviegoers, the pedestrians. Flicking from one building and business and oversized jacket to the next.

"What are you gonna say?" Lane stared at the ground as they walked, watching the grass and the asphalt slide by underneath them. What could be said?

We, Rory had talked about a we. Meaning she and Jess. In the car—the totaled car. The bad car. The car Dean had spent months building exclusively for his girlfriend, an adolescent sign of undying affection. He'd tested it himself. He'd been covered in oil for the better part of a year. He'd been so proud, so pleased to gift it to Rory; he'd talked about almost nothing else when he'd met Lane in the halls last semester.

And Jess Mariano, the guy who always seemed to be there when Dean was not, the kid who stole the baseballs and the picnic baskets and the bracelets—Jess had been in that car. Jess had helped total it.

"I don't know," Rory mumbled, meeting her gaze. Shaking her head. At first, she seemed so much calmer than Lane would have been, but there was something in the corners of her mouth. Something frayed. She was so not calm about this.

"He's gonna freak." Lane grimaced.

"I know."

"And Jess?" Lane's eyes flicked between Rory's.

But Rory shook her head again, sucking in. "Not since last night."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

As they approached the other side of the square, Lane realized she was chewing her own bottom lip pretty severely. Her symbolic wrist-pain was fading, but she couldn't seem to get her chest to unwind. It was all too much to process. Rory had a fracture. Her Dean-car was fractured, too, in some as-yet-undisclosed way. The ever-mysterious Christopher was saving seats, Jess had admitted to stealing her Strokes CD and had returned it all in one breath, and now he was wisely lying low because the fractures were, in however small or large a way, directly related to him.

That must have been some tutoring session.

"Everyone is so upset right now," Rory went on. "And my dad's in town, and—something happened between Mom and Luke, and she won't tell me what."

Gone fishing. More strawberry syrup all over the whopping big All-Screwed-Up sundae that had been concocted overnight.

Rory heaved out again. "I don't know. It—they just need…time to cool off, and…then everything will be fine. Everyone just needs time." She paused, turning an almost-smile, a very unconvincing one, onto her friend. "Maybe I'll try to call him tomorrow."

Lane grunted. Whether she meant calling Luke or calling Jess, either way, a Kumbaya session was vastly unlikely. "Tomorrow. Oh, yeah, that's plenty of time, no one will still be mad then."

Rory grinned, successfully cheered. "Sarcasm does not become you."

Lane grinned back. "Maybe not, but it does sustain me."

"I'm gonna go see if Luke's back before the movie starts," Rory decided suddenly, jabbing a thumb toward the diner.

"He's not."

Rory stopped walking. "How do you know?"

Lane stopped with her, releasing her lower lip. "I saw the sign a little bit ago. Still gone—"

"—gone fishing," Rory finished, sighing. "I wish Mom would just explain, she's always so buttoned-up when she and Luke have a thing."

"Well, matters of the heart are hard to un-button." Lane shrugged. "Or so I've been told."

"I'll just—see." Rory swallowed, already moving backward, moving in the direction of Luke's.

"Good luck."

Lane watched her go, waving. She tried not to stare, trying not to be too obviously invested in the results of the search. She knew Luke wouldn't be back yet, and so did Rory. There was no madly-ugly pickup truck parked anywhere in the vicinity, and Luke never went fishing without that truck. Rory was going to see Jess. Maybe he'd spot her from the window upstairs and open the door for her.

Or maybe he was still operating on self-preservation instincts and would keep his distance.

Regardless, it wasn't her business. If Jess was going full hermit, he wouldn't want an audience, and if Rory was this desperate to salvage things, she'd want to do so in privacy. Lane could fade. She was the queen of fading.

It was as she was paying a dollar for the Twix bar at concessions that she received the final topping on the sundae.

"Aw, none for me, sugar, thanks," Babette's voice carried easily from three feet away, declining a hot chocolate her husband was trying to pass to her. "Hey, ya seen Patty anywhere? I gotta heap of a lot to pass on if she ever gets here; East Side Tillie's got nothin' on me tonight. Ha!"

"Too bad about the wheels," Morey whistled.

"Yeah, well, too bad's not all it is," Babette muttered. "I tell ya, if I ever get my hands on that gorgeous little so-and-so, wreckin' our poor lil Rory and her car to boot—'course, I don't s'pose none of us'll ever get the chance now, oh hey, Jenny—Jenny! C'mere!"

Jenny Fulford, on her way to her seat with her kids in tow, paused beside the blonde and the jazz enthusiast, eyebrows quirked. Her two-year-old was dragging at one hand, and her four-year-old was trying to eat the other.

Babette ignored the children, not so much as a smooch or a 'babydoll' between them. She really had something to tell, then. "Have ya heard the latest?" she demanded.

Jenny shook her head.

Babette lowered her voice, and Lane shifted, leaning toward the little group. Word traveled fast around here, and it was her sworn duty to remain up-to-date if those words included Rory Gilmore. Gossip would always get out of hand in Stars Hollow, but not for her best friend. Not while Lane still had working ears.

"Jess is gone."

The Twix bar tumbled into the grass.

Before Jenny could ask for clarification, Babette was giving it.

"Last night, not long after everything, Luke takes the kid and he sticks him on a bus and he ships him on back to his Ma. Right on back to the big city."

"What, just like that?" Jenny gasped.

"He wanted to go; word is he hopped in with just the clothes on his back and off he went."

"Gone for good? Really?"

"That's what I heard. Hey, ya see Patty, send her my way!"

Gone for good. Lane turned around and walked to Kim's Antiques, leaving her candy bar on the ground. She stared at nothing, she bumped into innocent bystanders. She wasn't even conscious of the first step taken; all she knew was that suddenly, she was home. She was mechanically buttoning her jacket, she was inside the store, she was shutting the door, she was pausing on the stairs when her mother walked in from the kitchen.

"How was she?"

"Who?" Lane blinked.

Mama Kim's eyebrows knit. "What do you mean, who? Rory, was she there?" She scoffed and didn't wait for the answer. "Of course she was there, out after an injury, out in a cast, with a fractured wrist! No regard for her own well-being, probably out buying sugar, staying up late—"

"She was there," Lane mumbled. "She was—good, she was fine."

Mrs. Kim took a step toward the bottom of the stairs. "What's wrong with you?"

"What?"

"Sick, you look sick. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"You eat chocolate?"

"No."

"You eat popcorn?"

"No."

"Oh." Mrs. Kim looked her up and down. She lifted a finger, shaking it slightly, already kitchen-bound. "You're pale. I'll get the thermometer."

"I'm fine, Mama, I swear."

"Don't swear."

"Really. Please." Lane sucked in a breath. "I'm okay. I promise, I'm not sick, I didn't—I didn't have any sugar, I just—I saw Rory, she's good, I'm good, I…I'm tired. So, um. I'm gonna start getting ready for bed."

"I see." Mrs. Kim hesitated, licking her lips. "I'll bring you your tea."

"No thank you, u-um." Lane blinked, suddenly realizing with horror there was an actual lump swelling up in her throat. "I'm not very—I don't need it. Tonight."

Her mother stared at her. Awful, agonizingly-slow seconds went by. Sounds of the festival raged on outside. For a few heartbeats, Lane stood halfway up the stairs, desperately willing her breathing to slow, and Mrs. Kim stood at the bottom, hard and concerned and never blinking.

Then: "All right. Goodnight, Lane."

"Goodnight."

Lane turned and fled to her room.

Maybe it was the shock of Rory got hurt still jangling around inside her skull. Maybe it was the thought of Dean's face when he came home from his grandmother's to find his girlfriend in a cast, post-crash of their love mobile. Maybe that was why she sat, unmoving, on the edge of her bed and stared at the window, blinking too much behind her glasses. Or maybe it was the sharpness with which her mother had asked if she'd eaten chocolate. Or it was post-finals stress leaking out of her tear ducts.

Jess is gone.

Maybe it was all of those things combined, and Babette's news had just opened the floodgates. Lane took off her glasses and let them fall onto the comforter, swiping angrily at her eyes.

Hours ago, he'd been right there. Right outside her room. If she opened the window now, she might still be able to smell essence of black lung where he'd been sitting. Not one word about the accident, or Rory's arm, didn't he think she'd want to know about the arm? About the animal and the swerve and the pole?

Luke's waiting, he'd said. Waiting to stick him on a bus and ship him back to his Ma, apparently. And he hadn't told her.

Of course he didn't tell you, a nasty little voice in her head said. You're Rory's best friend, what was he going to say? 'Sorry I almost killed her? Sorry, I have go, I'm late to being gone for good, here's your album I lied about?'

Friends don't do stuff like that to each other.

You keep things from Rory. He kept things from you. What's the problem?

It doesn't matter now, he's

gone.

Dean's gonna freak.

Poor Rory.

Luke just stuck him on a bus? Gone fishing?

She said he

wanted to go.

He didn't have to tell you anything.

But he hadn't had to bring her he Strokes CD, either. He'd braved the hellfire rain from Mrs. Kim to climb that stupid tree, crouch on her stupid roof, tap on her stupid window, and return her property. If she'd been in his shoes, what would she have said? How could she even have begun?

It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. He's gone. Get over it. It's all done now.

Lane laid back on her readily-made bed, sniffing. Rory had to be right. With time, everything would be fine.

Luke would come back from fishing. Christopher would bring much juicier, much less painful gossip to town, instead of the kind that was currently making Lane feel like fire ants were gnawing off every skin cell she possessed. Rory's cast would come off, Mrs. Kim would stop mentioning the car accident as a big life lesson for little baby Kim, and even Dean might eventually come around, now that the object of his nightmares was back in New York. Everything would go back to the way it had been seven months ago. No more Jess. No more problems.

No more Jess. No more CD drops. No more crooked smirks. No more Coldplay, no more free fries. No more music debates. No more leg tripping me in the middle of class. No more bloody Chuck Presbys. No—

Lane rolled off the bed and marched to her dresser. Pajamas. Brush teeth. Get moving. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was go to bed—rest—stop thinking.

With time, everything would be fine. And the fastest way to get time moving past today, tonight, all of it, was to climb under the covers and sleep. Sleep until tomorrow came.

It was raining in New York.

Jess had been home a full day, and it hadn't stopped raining since he'd woken up in Manhattan. It was the worst kind of rain—tiny, petty, drizzles. Just enough to soak everything real slow. But even soaked, the city was beautiful. Alive with people and energy and possibilities, stuffed with sound. Nobody said hello or stopped walking for anything. Nobody stared at you or whispered about you or put on a carnival or a dance number or a hay ride. Nobody knew anybody else's business, exactly how it should be.

He hadn't seen Liz since the night he'd arrived. The apartment was the same—messy, smelly. Burnt casserole in the fridge. A few carved figurines were perched on the mantle that was otherwise never used, and some guy's massive flannel shirt was hanging over the back of the torn sofa. Other than that, it was like time had stopped.

His second night back, ignoring the drizzle, he'd hiked up his jacket collar, grabbed Slaughterhouse-Five, and taken the subway to Washington Square Park. There was at least one bench mostly shielded from the wet, under a tree, and luckily nobody had yet claimed it on a day like today.

No matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the words on the page, Jess kept leaving the bench. He was sitting on it one minute, and the next, he would blink and be back in Rory's car.

Faded upholstery beneath him, headlights shining in front of him, sleepy little Stars Hollow all around.

She'd lingered on him with those insane blue eyes and told him to turn right and nothing in his life had ever been so easy.

He blinked again, knees getting drenched, and narrowed his gaze at Vonnegut's next paragraph. The metal beneath him was cold, the park was nigh-empty. A taxi zoomed by somewhere behind him, past the iron fence, and he left the bench.

It had to have been a possum, because it was too big to be a cat and too small to be a dog, and he remembered stripes. The car had spun, the wheel had hurt in his hands, and with the most cartoonish crunch, they knocked into a pole and spun once, stopping too slowly.

He could still hear Rory's groan. He could still feel his leg jammed up against the bottom of the steering wheel. He'd flicked the engine off with shaking hands and tumbled out of the driver's seat, shoes slapping onto the quiet street, wrenching open the passenger door before he'd even taken the next breath.

Blink. Bench. Vonnegut.

'Billy thought hard about the effect the quartet had had on him, and then found an association with an experience he had had long ago. He did not travel in time to the experience. He remembered it shimm—'

Rory had cried out when he'd taken her arm. The sound went right through his chest and his head had swung up. Breathing like a locomotive, seeking out the nearest stupid payphone, too many steps away.

"Is it broken?"

"No—" Rory had winced, sucking in, lip trembling. "No, I—I don't know, it, it hurts—isn't—isn't it supposed to not hurt if it's broken? Because of—um—just, of the adrenaline or something? I read that somewhere, I don't remember, why can't I remember, I remember everything I read. Right now, I—I can remember Jabberwocky in its entirety, but I can't remember where I read—where I—oh my god, my car, oh…no. No, the window—"

"Wait there."

"Oh my god," she'd muttered as he'd jogged toward the payphone. "Oh my god…"

Blinking harder, Jess shifted on the bench, jaw working. He had to consciously unclench his teeth. Slaughterhouse-Five was suffering needlessly; gripped in one hand at the top of the page. Start the next paragraph over. Ignore the crackhead staggering past on the path, don't make eye contact.

When the ambulance had driven off and the cops had taken down all the information they could, Jess had remained in the middle of the road. He'd stayed there beside the car, staring at the pole. Staring at the Doose's Market sign, crumpled and brand-new nearby. Thing was an eyesore anyway.

Eventually, he'd wound up at the lake. Looking down into the water, breathing in nicotine and trying not to vomit.

"Turn right," she'd said.

"As you wish," he'd said back.

Then it had all gone to Hell, as per usual.

Legs hanging over the ripples, smoke billowing out in front of him, Jess had felt his eyes stinging and exhaled harder to shift his body's focus. Keep it all back.

Every human being walking the Stars Hollow streets saw him as the Grim Reaper. Merten knew he wasn't going to make it. Taylor called him a menace. Lorelai, his mother, his uncle, everyone knew what he was and where he was headed. Everything he touched got wrecked, and that included Dean's rusty, four-wheeled promise ring. And Rory's arm. Broken, sprained, fractured, whatever, the car hadn't done that, Jess had.

And by morning everyone would know it. He couldn't get through a day at his old school without getting punched. He couldn't get through a week without making Liz cry. He couldn't pass a single class voluntarily in the third grade; it was only after his mother dated the dean that he'd made it to high school at all. Every friend he'd ever had in Manhattan disappeared within a week. When Liz's boyfriends stole her jewelry or her credit card or broke her furniture or Jess's nose or left in the middle of the night, it wasn't their fault, it couldn't possibly be their fault. It was all his.

No matter what he did or where he went or who he was with or what he tried, Jess was a screw-up.

He'd just wanted ice cream. He'd just wanted Rory. Just for one night, just for the present-tense. And he'd had ice cream and Rory, for the brightest five minutes in history he'd had them, and when it was over, she was in the ER and he was on the bridge, wondering how deep a hick lake had to be until you hit full submersion.

Luke's thick, hard footsteps had stormed the castle and slapped against the bridge's rotting planks.

Jess had turned his head to keep his uncle from seeing the stinging. He plucked the Marlboro out of his mouth and exhaled again, waiting. Luke was angry. Luke was moving slow and breathing fast and even his feet, even in the corners of Jess's eyes, looked harassed. Every right to be angry. Rory was hurt.

Rory was hurt and Jess had called the ambulance and Jess had talked to the cops and Jess had waited for the tow. Jess had stared into the red and blue lights and he'd given his name to the police and he'd watched until Rory was safely on the gurney, safely on her way out, before he'd even moved a foot.

But nobody saw any of that. They saw the car and the arm and the guy whose hands had been at the wheel of it all, and they were right.

Luke hadn't spoken. Just waited.

Jess said it to the lake. "I made sure she was okay."

"I know you did."

Luke's voice had been so soft, Jess almost turned to see if it was really him up there. His uncle had sat down beside him, looked the other way, and gone totally silent. They had stayed that way for the better half of an hour.

If he hadn't known any better, Jess would have said Luke was genuine when he'd replied. He would have said Luke meant it. That making sure Rory was okay was not only believable, it was expected of him. A given.

"I'm goin' home." Not a request.

Luke had taken one long, deep breath and let it out just as slowly. Then he'd glanced at Jess. "You sure you want this?"

No argument. No accusations. Just are you sure?

"I'll take the next bus." Turning his head even further, Jess had nodded and flicked the cigarette into the water. "Gotta…make a quick stop first."

He blinked again, back in Washington Square Park, back in the rain and the muck and the noise.

No way he would be able to finish this book out here. Or complete a thought. Not at this rate. He shoved the book in his back pocket, then thought better of it and went to store it in his jacket. Something poky pressed against his knuckles. Stuffing Vonnegut further in, he fished around for a second to unearth the thing that was getting in the way.

It was a pen cap. Lane's pen cap.

Kim's Antiques was a bit of a hike this time when it came to making yet another last-minute exchange of goods. She probably wouldn't miss it. (She probably wouldn't miss him.) Jess blinked again and again, faster, but he didn't leave the park this time. He stared down at the purple-blue cap and the raindrops starting to coat it between his forefinger and thumb.

Exhausted, even from sitting for an hour not reading, hungry, and just damp enough to be annoyed, Jess tucked the cap back in and flicked his hood up, heading for the nearest diner. It wouldn't matter how longed he stayed. No one would be waiting up when he got home.