CHERRY. [JESS MARIANO]

The Beatles

"You're still going to Yale right?" Jess starts to ask as he leans against one of the many bookcases in Stars Hollow Books.

I pause my search amongst the fiction section and turn to look at him. "This seems like the beginning of a very serious conversation."

He pushed himself off the bookcase and walked closer toward me. "It's just that you applied for a lot of schools, and people sometimes change their mind."

"Well, Yale is still my first choice," I told him as he wrapped his arm around my waist. We both faced the large bookcase as we continued our conversation.

"That's good," he began as he played with the ends of my hair. "It's not that far from here."

I turn my face to look up at him. "How far?"

"22.8 miles," he said accurately.

"How do you know that?" I questioned with a confused look on my face.

"Do you Yahoo?" He asked me hesitantly.

"You looked it up?" I asked him again as my stomach turned all mushy at his sweet gesture.

He shrugs as if it was no big deal that he looked it up. Knowing him, he never used electronics much so he must've planned what to look for. "Yeah," he said.

I give him a small smile. "You looked it up," I repeated, not believing him.

He rolled his eyes at my look of awe. "I just hit a couple buttons on a computer, it's not a big deal," he tried to down play it.

"It is a very big deal since I didn't know you knew how to use a computer," I say teasingly.

"There was nothing on tv and I was bored," he tells me before taking a book off the shelf to avoid my gaze.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a small kiss on the cheek. "You looked it up," I repeat again affectionately.

"But do you have your second choices?" He changed the subject quickly, as he kept his arms around me.

I think for a moment what I would do if I weren't accepted into Yale. Probably cry first. "I think I'd go to Columbia or NYU, since they've both got amazing law programs and they're in New York."

"What happens if you don't get into them?" He asked.

I did not think about that. I mean I just assumed that I would get accepted but I had pretty bad luck most of the time. I mean, I did apply to a load of other school but what happens if I don't get accepted to any of them. Oh god what if the only ones I were accepted to were all the way in the UK.

I mean, I had a good chance that at least one of the schools I applied to would accept me. I had a pretty good GPA and my extracurricular activities were pretty good. But then what if I gave the wrong answer for the questions, or maybe my essay wasn't good enough. There were so many ways this could go wrong.

"Hey," Jess nudges me slightly as he noticed the grim expression in my face. "I'm sure you'll get in, you've got nothing to worry about."

"You don't know that," I say with a frown as I felt myself spiralling into my thoughts. "For all I know they didn't even look at my application."

"Listen, you're gonna get in." He tells me with a reassuring look. "No doubt about it."

I give him a questioning look. "No doubt about it?"

He nods firmly. "No doubt about it." He takes my face gently in his hands and presses a lingering kiss to my lips.

"Not in here," I hear someone say behind us. We both pull apart to see Merritt standing there with his hands on his hips. He casts us an annoyed look.