parallel lines
jess mariano x reader
part 2 | part 3
warnings: just a little angst and unrequited love idk (not proofread; english is not my first language)
wc: 1.8k
rory gilmore always comes first.
from the moment i was born to today, seventeen years later, this has been the silent mantra guiding everyone's routine here in Stars Hollow. not that any of us would ever get out of our ways to flatter her, but everyone knew that if the small town had a shining star, a golden kid, it was her. there was no dispute or debate regarding it; that was a fact accepted by neighbors, teachers, classmates and every other living being in this side of Connecticut. water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and rory gilmore is first in everything she decides to participate in.
that's why it was no surprise to me that, as soon as she came back from washington, my fling with jess started to go downhill.
"hey," he greets me as i take a seat at the counter.
"can we talk?" my tone comes a little harsher than i intended, but i would be lying if i said the whole situation didn't infuriate me a little.
"i'm working."
"please, you didn't even close the book."
"i lost my notepad and now i am writing down the customers' orders in the margins."
"jess."
"jeez, what's with you today?" the roughness in his voice made me want to counter his response with an equally sharp one, but i held my tongue and just followed him upstairs.
as soon as he closed the door behind us, the words left my mouth before i could rephrase my frustration— "what's the deal between you and rory?"
i should have taken a picture of the face he made. eyebrows furrowed and raised at the same time, eyes narrowed but still a little wide in shock. perfect contradiction, just like him.
"excuse me?"
"that girl came to the salon today and seemed dedicated to make me feel like i was in a Stephen King book." that stupid little grin on her face, the cynical look when she tried to downplay my intelligence almost got me wanting to act very, very different from the usual courtesy i always showed every customer.
"so you're a King fan, wow," he said dryly, and it got me rolling my eyes and huffing at how he persistently avoided the subject. "there is nothing between me and rory."
"then why is she treating me like i broke into her house and stole her favorite book?" maybe what infuriated me the most, but i would never say it out loud, was that she already had a handful of books, yet still chose to be greedy enough and add another one to her personal collection.
"who knows what goes through her mind. besides, why are you acting like this? why do you care that much?" that stupid amused curl of his lips combined with the small crease on his brow gave me conflicted feelings.
"hold your horses, yankee." i'm afraid my eyes will just start rolling on their own now, since the movement seems to come so naturally. "don't go thinking i care about you, i just want to know if i will have to deal with the bride of frankenstein shooting me glares and possibly daggers from across the room."
the mocking of dean forester seemed to lighten up the mood, and i couldn't remember getting so close to jess, but my hips were suddenly reminded of the surprisingly great sensation of his cold palms on the fabric of my jeans.
"you don't have to worry about anyone bothering us." and then his lips were on mine, lukewarm and a little chapped, and suddenly the frustration from earlier felt far, far away.
jess mariano was like this most of the time: a mix of snark, charm and frustration which you had trouble deciding whether it would be worth it to dedicate your time to him. he was smart, there surely was a wonderful brain inside that thick head of his, and eventually, when our faces weren't plastered to each other, i got glimpses of it.
we talked about books, films and music, and when his pretentious and slightly obnoxious side flared up at the mention of my taste for more popular media, he was always ready to quiet the potential annoyance that could come from me. our mouths would collide, and then nothing else mattered—in the backseat of his beat-up car, on his uncle's couch, in my bedroom, against a tree at the town square; it never really mattered.
"i just can't believe you actually like it," jess whispered the words against my skin, his lips still so close to mine i could also feel his breathing. i shifted under him, getting more comfortable against the worn-out leather covering the backseat.
"it's no literary must, but it has its charm." we didn't usually talk after we started making out, but i didn't find it in me to mind it. "you should give it a try some day."
"already have, that's how i know it sucks." his mouth was on mine again, but there was a new reason to why i couldn't think straight.
"when did you read it?" i asked, and he seemed a little annoyed that i broke the kiss once more, his lips immediately chasing mine again.
"last week when you brought it up."
god, no.
the reason why i let myself get closer to jess was because he was not born or brought up in Stars Hollow. he came from New York, away from all the weird yet indisputable logic which guided our lives. he was spontaneous, not afraid to go against established norms and so clever, not like almost every people around here who just conformed and let the system be. he was unpredictable, new, but that's all i ever allowed him to be—a novelty.
now my stomach twisted, and, before i could control it, so did my heart. he read an entire novel only because i brought it up during one of our brief conversations, and suddenly his lips felt warmer and his hands seemed to just fit on my lower back and my nape, like puzzle pieces clicking together. it felt like a light had been cast upon his figure, together with a bright halo that now surrounded him.
i tried to shut it all down, ignore the bubbles in my stomach which now emerged every time his skin kissed mine. since i couldn't, i tried to convince myself the world around us wasn't happening. i tried to turn a blind eye to how rory was always staring at us from afar, even when her boyfriend was right by her side, and how she always sought interactions with jess, even if most of them were just arguments. worst of all, i tried to ignore the way jess would look at rory for a second longer, or how he seemed to long for every single one of those messy contacts with her.
as it so often happens with the things you try to pay no mind to, they blow up when you least expect.
jess and rory have been bickering the whole night, finding each other at every chance they got during another one of this town's stupid events, a 24-hour dance marathon. dragging both dean and i to their twisted dynamic, the tension between the four of us grew by the second, but especially between dean and rory. as much as i began to loathe her for her recent actions and to empathize with dean, that outburst we all witnessed a few hours into the marathon was... cruel, not to mention that he did it in front of everyone.
now rory cried with her mother, dean was out, and jess and i sat by each other's side. the air was thick with everything rory's now ex-boyfriend had just said, and not because his words were heavy or harsh, but because they were true. even if kirk was celebrating his so desired win over lorelai, the silence between jess and I was almost deafening, and a part of me struggled to find a reason why.
from that day in luke's apartment, i knew whatever we had going on was never going to be a real relationship. rory's obvious jealousy and jess's not-so-subtle desire to provoke her every chance he got were only two of the numerous factors which gave away the chemistry between them. it was only common-sense that he was using me and our fling to get to her, and i was happy to play along, because to me he was no more than a cute novelty. until he wasn't.
"what a jerk," his voice cuts through my thoughts. i nodded, and only then i allowed myself to avert my gaze from my feet to his eyes.
"he was kinda right, though," i replied, shrugging one shoulder. he looked at me like i had just spoken a foreign language, and my eyebrows furrowed slightly. "i mean, she's obviously into you, and... it's not like you and i were ever a real thing."
it stung, but it was maybe the realest thing i could say right now, as much as I wanted to believe otherwise. he read a book i talked about and was gentle at times, and maybe my heart fluttered whenever his fingers laced mine and our skins warmed each other until our bodies hit a perfect temperature together when pressed against one another. which could mean nothing—which meant nothing.
it was then i noticed jess was silent, which—considering he rarely ever shut up when he didn't agree with something—meant he knew what i said was true.
"go after her," i added, noticing rory was gone too. "it's okay." it surprised me how collected my voice sounded, a stark contrast to the growing whirlwind of emotions inside me. what actually impressed me, however, was the vision of something else behind his hazel irises—i couldn't figure it out, too deep, too hidden, but it felt like this whole situation was getting to him as well.
he stared at me for a while longer, and for a split second, it felt like he was giving me the same longing and prolonged stare he gave rory. in that moment, i felt like he was really seeing me for the very first time, and that he was well-aware of it too. a part of me quietly hoped he would dismiss the five words which just left my mouth and stay there, sitting where he was, looking into my eyes just like that.
but he didn't.
his irises drifted from mine, and when his legs pulled him up and started walking across the now empty court, so did his body. then, as he walked away from me without once turning around or looking back, i realized not even jess was immune to this town's brainwashing rules and expectations, and now that he was no longer a novelty, i could see very clearly that he was walking within the lines that guided everyone's existence in here.
rory gilmore always comes first.
