what coincidence is this? I didn't post because I thought it was forced to relate these things, I'm hyperfixated. Maybe it's a foreign meme, but for me, I'm Brazilian, it's the first time I've read the scene this way...
Rough English translation:
Jess doesn't tell Rory the same version later. But it wasn't a lie either. Not totally.
He hadn't fought with Dean, and that she didn't want to believe. So the only thing he can tell her is a version of the facts that is close to the truth: he didn't fight or get hit by anyone important and the only thing she needed to know is that he wasn't as terrible a person as she thought once he saw him arriving late and with a black eye.
If no one can believe the truth, is it so negative to create another narrative that, after all, performs the same?
Excellent point. I've always concluded that he intentionally made up something she wouldn't believe, so far outside the realm of his reality that it was as if he said he got kicked in the eye by a wandering leprechaun or something. In other words: I'm telling you a ridiculously silly story instead of admitting an embarrassing truth. Are you okay with that? And her "believing him" was saying: Yeah, I'm okay with that.