Disclaimer: All Gilmore Girls content belongs to Amy Sherman-Palladino.
*Warning: This chapter contains depictions/descriptions of depression. Please proceed with caution.*
. . .
"The door itself is worth more than everything we own." Jess gawked at the large mahogany door of the famed Gilmore house.
"Welcome to the realm of the one percent," Ella replied, smirking as they stood hand-in-hand facing the entryway. Beyond it, she could hear the faint sound of classical music and polite chatter. "I don't hate it, though. It's got kind of a Great Gatsby thing going on, don't you think?"
"Maybe. But I think it's more like Dracula."
"Hm," she nodded, lifting her eyes to see the pillars on either side of the door. "Wuthering Heights?"
"Oh yeah," Jess agreed. "That sounds right."
"Get ready, then, Heathcliff," Ella quipped, ringing the doorbell.
Jess scoffed. "Ready as I can be, Catherine."
Not more than a moment later, the door swung aside to reveal a woman in a maid's outfit in the sprawling foyer. Behind the maid, there were groups of well-dressed people, mostly older, milling about with martini glasses in their hands, sugar on the rims. Though she couldn't quite be sure, Ella thought it was Mozart playing from somewhere farther inside, live on a piano. It sounded fine, but she had always preferred Beethoven. The lesser of two evils, she had taken to calling him. Before even stepping beyond the threshold, she could see at least two chandeliers gleaming in the yellowish lights. She tugged Jess along by the hand, stepping up and into the house.
"Good evening," the maid said.
"Hi," Ella said, smiling at the small woman with black hair and dazzling brown eyes. "This is Rory Gilmore's graduation party, right?"
Jess chuckled behind her. They'd gotten a bit lost on the way up to Hartford. The plan had originally been to follow Luke's truck, but he had decided against going at the last minute. He wasn't sure if Lorelai would really want him there. Instead, they had followed the less than legible directions Luke scribbled on one of the diner napkins. Luke rarely remembered street names, using mostly landmarks. The drive would have been easier if it wasn't already near dark by the time the party started.
"Yes, ma'am," the maid answered formally, holding a hand out to Ella. "May I take your bag?"
Furrowing her brows, Ella looked down at her large black purse, the only one she owned, and then back up at the woman. She hadn't been expecting such a question, instead thinking she'd either carry it with her or stumble upon a coat rack somewhere. "Oh, sure. Thank you. That'd be great...sorry. I didn't catch your name?"
The maid looked equally confused as she took Ella's bag from her. "Helen."
"Okay, Helen. I'm Ella," she said, sticking out her hand for Helen to shake, tilting her head in Jess's direction. "That's Jess. We're Rory's friends."
Jess nodded in greeting at Helen, biting back a laugh as the maid shook Ella's hand with a disconcerted expression.
"Enjoy the party," Helen muttered, then turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd behind her.
"I don't think you were supposed to introduce us to the maid," Jess chuckled as Ella led him through the sea of people to the left, revealing a large sitting room with an open bar.
"Who cares what we're supposed to do?" Ella shrugged, stopping in her tracks as she began to search the room for anyone she knew. "Rory used to tell me her mother fired a maid a week. Figured she might need at least one friendly face tonight."
His smile turned warm and his face lost its amusement as he regarded her for a moment. Her hair was back in a low bun, shorter pieces framing her face. She wore a dress bought special from Goodwill for the occasion, a black bodice and a skirt of lavender tulle. On her feet, the same black leather ballet flats she had owned since high school. Somehow, they hadn't begun to fall apart yet. Beauty in her usual, hasty variety. She didn't look exactly comfortable, but she looked like herself, fitting in so well simply because she wasn't putting anything on. He disentangled their fingers and brought his hand to her freckled cheek instead, catching her lips in a kiss.
For a moment, Ella relished in the feeling of the butterflies in her stomach. But then, she remembered the buzz of the socialites around them and the mission at hand: to find Rory and congratulate her. She pulled away from him with a smack! and blushed immediately.
"Jesus, James Dean. Wait until we've got a smaller audience," she snapped, though there was a smirk playing on her mouth. She was glad to only be wearing chapstick. Most of the makeup she was the dark smudge of smoke around her eyes.
Jess only shrugged, nonchalant and smug. "We're the other half, Daria. They don't expect too much from us."
She rolled her eyes. Before she should retort, though, a woman with heavily styled brown hair and a glittery pantsuit approached them. Thankfully, it didn't take more than a few seconds for Ella to recognize her as Rory's grandmother, Emily Gilmore, who she'd met only once before. Back when Ella was still working at the diner, Rory had brought her grandmother for a tour of the town. Ella remembered how odd the chunky white sneakers looked on Emily's feet, as she had also been wearing a stuffy, expensive skirt set and some Chanel No. 5.
"Ella! How nice to see you!" Emily received them, her voice raspy and pleasant.
Regaining her composure, hoping the flustered roses on her cheeks had cooled, Ella plastered on her best smile. "Good to see you, Mrs. Gilmore. Thanks for inviting us. Your house is incredible."
"Ah, thank you," Emily said gratefully, then looked quizzically at Jess. "And I should hope this is a boyfriend, from that little display I just witnessed."
Ella's face fell at the tight, irritated tone in Emily's voice. Her skin flushed once again in embarrassment. She cleared her throat and grabbed Jess's hand once more. "Yes, this is Jess Mariano."
"Hi," Jess said shortly, extending his free hand to Emily.
"Hello, Jess. I'm Mrs. Gilmore, Rory's grandmother," Emily replied cordially, reciprocating, though the distaste was still very evident in her voice and her face. She turned back to Ella as she broke her handshake with Jess. "How are you? It's been so long. Are you still doing those little doodles?"
Her smile came to look even more forced, but Ella maintained the facade. It was Rory's party. The least she could do was avoid a scuff with the hostess. "Yes. I've only got a year of grad school left. Studio art."
Widening her eyes and nodding along, Emily made a small noise of acknowledgement. "Wonderful! And what comes after grad school for an artist?"
Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella began to search her mind for a careful way to answer the question. The easy thing was to say she had no idea. But then, Ella had heard enough stories about Rory's grandparents not to be entirely honest. "Well, I-"
"Oh, for goodness sake!" Emily exclaimed suddenly, brown doe eyes fixed on something over Ella's shoulder. "I told him a million times to wait to serve the cheese cubes!"
Ella furrowed her brow, glancing behind her.
"I've got to go take care of this," Emily said gravely. "Enjoy yourselves, you two. Make sure to try a Rory."
"Um, pardon-" Ella began, but Emily had already begun her purposeful march back to the head waiter, who was apparently serving the hors devours out of order.
"Try a Rory!" a voice chirped cheerfully in front of them, and Ella jumped a little, turning her head forward once more.
Jess had a scowl on his face, so far unamused by the extravagant fanfare.
A waiter stood with a tray in front of them, a wide grin on his face. He stared at them expectantly for a moment, beaming, before they took the hint and each grabbed a drink from the tray. As they gave begrudging grunts of thanks, the waiter was already off to assault another group of partygoers with his enthusiastic exclamations. The drinks were those Ella had seen in the hands of other guests in the foyer, crusted rim martini glasses filled with pink, perfumy liquid.
"What the hell is this?" she thought aloud, inspecting the drink, swirling it around in the glass. She smelled it, and could only make out something fruity and the strong stench of alcohol.
Jess shrugged, staring down at his own glass inquisitively. "It's a Rory."
She scoffed. "Well, of course. I mean you haven't lived until you've had a drink named after you."
Snorting a laugh, Jess nodded. "I knew they were rich. But I didn't know they lived in an Orwellian nightmare."
"Me neither," Ella said.
"Shall we?" Jess asked, raising his glass.
Heaving a large sigh, Ella clinked her cup against his. "We shall. Please don't let Chris have any input in my eulogy."
"No promises," Jess quipped, before downing a big sip of his drink.
"Jackass."
Taking a sip, Ella almost instantly regretted it. She never thought she would have the opportunity to taste the color pink, but she certainly wasn't enjoying it now that it had come. As a child, her mother had sometimes stuck a bar of soap in her mouth when she let a swear word slip. Obviously, the technique hadn't worked in the long run, but the taste was usually enough to elicit a weeks-long change in vocabulary. The drink instantly brought back the soapy memories. It was not quite Irish Spring, and not quite the orange bars of Dial her mother had eventually become partial to for punishments, but somewhere in-between. Her face twisted into a grimace and she swallowed with great labor.
Jess was already uttering a harsh cough as she finally managed to get the stuff down. "Are we sure they didn't bring us all here to poison us?"
"Anything's possible," she replied, shaking her head at the taste. "Can we find a plant to dump these in?"
"I think it'd be wise," Jess said, eyes immediately scanning the room.
He tossed a glance in her direction, then pointed subtly to a ficus in the corner by the sliding glass door. Meandering through the crowd of people, Ella did her best to look inconspicuous. She stood guard, blocking the view of Jess, as he drained his own drink into the plant and then took hers from where she held it out to him behind her back. After a few moments more of indecision, they placed their empty glasses on the mantelpiece and fled the scene of the crime into the dining room, where other groups were milling about.
"We might've just murdered that plant, Stevens," Jess said as they finally came to a stop, lingering in the doorway between the foyer and the dining room.
"Well, death is a part of life," Ella said dryly, still frowning at the taste in her mouth. "But if it does die, I'll probably be the prime suspect. Maybe second to Lorelai. Mrs. Gilmore didn't like me when she met me the first time, and it doesn't seem like much has changed."
"Why would she invite you, then?"
"Because Lane's on tour and I'm pretty sure I'm the only other Stars Hollow friend she knows about," Ella explained. It wasn't hard to gather why her presence had been requested, with a formal invitation in the mail weeks earlier.
"Huh."
"Can't betray Emily Post, can she?" Ella said flippantly.
Jess smirked. "No, I think that'd get her twenty to life."
Ella laughed, just as she finally spotted Rory approaching them from the opposite side of the dining room, with Logan in tow and Lorelai following behind. Rory looked radiant, hair curled perfectly and blue dress free of a single wrinkle. It reminded Ella of a dress Rory had worn to a school dance with Dean years earlier, the one she and Lane had squealed so loudly and girlishly over when Rory told them. The dress had been made by Lorelai, though. Ella didn't doubt the dress Rory now wore cost more than the mansion door. She felt her stomach flip over when she caught herself in her thoughts. Ella knew she didn't need to resent anyone's wealth. She knew it truly didn't make anyone any happier. But sometimes, she stopped the train too late and she'd already turned a bit green with envy.
"Guys! You made it! I'm so glad to see you!" Rory exclaimed happily. She hugged them both, then linked her arm with Logan's.
"Yeah, we wouldn't miss it," Ella said. "We couldn't find a scuba suit to buy you, though. Sorry."
Smiling amiably, Rory gave a dismissive shake of her head, playing along. "That's okay. I'm sure I'll still be able to snag my Mrs. Robinson without one. Listen, Logan and I were on our way to find my grandpa, but I'll try and catch up with you guys later. Is that okay?"
Ella nodded. "Of course. Go have fun, Thelma."
The grin on Rory's face grew, her teeth straight and white. "Thanks, Louise."
Then, both of them were gone, Logan biding both Jess and Ella thin, compulsory goodbyes. Lorelai hung back a moment though, greeting the two of them. Her blue eyes were distracted and her voice was slightly frantic, but her usual warmth was ever-present.
"My dad's been hiding from the party all night," Lorelai explained. "My mother's appointed us to seek."
"Ah. I've had to do that more than once," Ella said, giving Jess a playful nudge.
He rolled his eyes and flushed at her teasing. "I'm not a big party guy. Sue me."
"As if you have any fortune worth chasing," Ella shot back, then turned her full attention to Lorelai. "So, how does it feel to be the mother of a soon-to-be Yale graduate?"
"Honestly, sweetie?" Lorelai said, her eyes shining with pride. "Pretty damn good."
"I'm glad," Ella said.
"Hey, how did Adam's go today?" Lorelai asked, taking another sip of her gin. "Did Father of the Year show up?"
Ella's face fell and Jess cast her a glance. The two hours between the high school graduation and Rory's party had been spent alternating between getting ready and hyperventilating. Maybe she hadn't previously realized how unlikely she'd thought Jake's showing up would be. His presence caught her off guard, trudging up old feelings which left the bitter taste of bourbon in her mouth. She didn't know why she'd said what she had, when normally she could keep her mind and her mouth pretty well separated. Usually, her quips were calculated and deliberate. But Jake bringing up her mother right away after not speaking with Ella for so long? Saying she'd be disappointed in Ella's choices? A burning rage Ella hadn't known in years had flared up inside of her, and all her powers of restraint had short circuited. She'd said the first, most searing, most jarring, most hurtful thing she could think of.
"That he did," Ella said shortly, looking down at her flats and wishing she still had a drink in her hand. Well, any drink but the pink monstrosity they were serving on the silver platters.
Lorelai scrunched up her nose knowingly. "Didn't go so well, huh?"
"You remember that part in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly when Clint Eastwood blows up the bridge?" Ella asked.
"Yeah?" Lorelai replied.
"Well, it was pretty much like that," Ella said. "Except, neither of us were trying to build a bridge."
Lorelai hummed in sympathy, then pulled Ella in for another short hug. "I'm sorry, sweetie."
"It's alright," Ella shrugged. "There's about a hundred miles of distance between us on a regular day, so at least I don't need to worry about any repeat occurrences in the near future."
"Lorelai! Hi!" A reedy voice piped up from behind them, and Lorelai turned to see a small blonde woman and an even smaller brunette man nearing.
Lorelai's eyes widened slightly. "Hi, Paris. Good to see you. Have you met Ella and Jess yet? They're Rory's friends from Stars Hollow."
Paris. The name rang a bell in Ella's head immediately. She finally got to put a face to the person Rory had complained and gushed about for years. The ultimate frenemy. In a way, Ella already admired Paris, though their paths had never managed to cross. Ella looked up at Jess, mouthing the name to him again. He raised his eyebrows, but then a thick shadow of recognition crossed his face, and a smirk tugged at his lips.
"I've gotta go find my dad, but I'll be sure to catch up with you later," Lorelai said, taking her leave sheepishly but gratefully.
"I'll find you," Paris said, nodding curtly at Lorelai as she walked away. Then, she turned back to Ella and Jess, immediately sizing them up. She stuck out her hand. "Paris Geller. I believe Rory's mentioned you once or twice."
Ella accepted the handshake first, smiling. "Ella Stevens. Pleasure to finally meet you."
"Firm handshake," Paris commented, with just a hint of admiration.
"Thank you for noticing." Ella matched Paris's strong gaze until their palms broke apart.
"Hi. I'm Jess," Jess said as he himself shook Paris's hand.
For a moment, Ella had to fight a smirk at Jess's stand-offish shyness. Sometimes, he was so adorable she almost couldn't handle it.
"And, this is Doyle," Paris said, motioning to the man in the suit next to her. "My other half."
After having finally finished exchanging their greetings, Paris glanced down at the photo on the t-shirt Jess wore. Ella saw immediately after he got dressed that he was wearing almost the exact the same outfit she'd found him in at Truncheon's open house one year earlier. The blazer, the black and white t-shirt. Even the low-rise converse knock-offs. Only, now, he'd ditched the jeans for actual slacks, and a slightly better quality belt. She wondered at how much had changed in twelve months' time.
"Interesting shirt. Joseph Szabo, huh?" Paris asked.
Jess hummed in confirmation.
"I always liked 'Priscilla,'" Ella said, eyes flicking between Jess's shirt and Paris.
"Personally, I think it's a little derivative," Paris said, arching a brow. "You guys are into photography, then?"
"Sort of. I'm an artist. Jess is a writer," Ella explained.
"Ah," Paris said, giving Jess a pointed look. "You looked like an author. Let me guess...Kerouac fanatic?"
Ella couldn't hold back her laughter.
Jess didn't let Paris's accuracy shake his cool facade, though. "You could say that. He's at the top of the list."
"Along with?" Paris asked.
"Bukowski, Hemingway, Salinger," Jess replied easily.
Paris scoffed, shaking her head. "What a surprise. God forbid one of you beatnik guys reads Jane Austen."
"Hey! I've read Jane Austen," Jess retorted, more insistent.
A wide smirk blossomed on Ella's face as Paris and Jess continued squabbling over their preferences. Jess got even more heated, and Ella more amused, as Paris insulted the beats and eventually brought up poetry. It was already the highlight of the party.
"It seems she's met a worthy opponent," Doyle told Ella, watching his girlfriend argue.
Ella nodded proudly, humming in agreement.
. . .
Cicadas were buzzing loudly in Ella's ears as she landed hard on the wood floor of Luke's apartment. She let out a whoosh of air when her back hit the floor, groaning and muttering confused curses under her breath as she rubbed at her eyes. Getting her bearings, she propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. She could barely make out Luke's disheveled silhouette, snoring loudly on the old brown couch, in the darkness of the room. He'd already been asleep by the time they got back from Rory's party, with a note on the kitchen table insisting they take the double bed. Taking in a deep, frustrated breath, Ella got up from the floor and was surprised when she saw the mattress entirely empty, save for the rumpled sheets and comforter. She had been in the midst of a dreamless sleep when she'd rolled off the bed. It was the first time she had done something of the like since she was a little kid. But it made more sense without Jess's frame there to block her from turning over too far. He may have been the lighter sleeper, but he didn't move around nearly as much as Ella did when he finally shut his eyes for the night.
With furrowed brows, Ella padded silently over to see the tiny bathroom empty and dark, the door ajar. She didn't see him at the kitchen table either, and his shoes were sitting by the door where he'd left them earlier. His watch and his wallet sat on the nightstand. Though she did her best to swallow it down, an awful, familiar panic began to rise in her throat. Her rational mind knew there was no way Jess had been snatched out of bed in the middle of the night without she or Luke noticing, and there was no way he could've been kidnapped in a place like Stars Hollow, no matter how zany the residents sometimes were. But, still, anything was possible.
Her thoughts wandered dangerously as she descended the rickety stairs into the diner. It, too, was empty. She even checked the kitchen, the stockroom, and the bathroom. Jess was nowhere to be found. Could he have left? In the middle of the night? It wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility, especially if one took his past into consideration. But as she made her way through the unlocked front door, she found her station wagon parked outside, the chipped, dark blue paint visible in the soft light of the half moon. The bus station? But why would he have gone without his shoes, without his wallet, without his watch? Without her.
She swallowed harshly, grimacing at the fear swirling in her stomach. Eyes roaming over the town, she racked her brain. But then she cast her gaze over to a beaten dirt path, to the right of the high school, and she felt just a touch less frantic. She crossed her arms over her t-shirt and hurried down toward it. The night air was welcome against her legs, mostly bare in her soft pajama shorts. As she rounded the corner below one of the town's few streetlights, she let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding in. His form was hunched over, sitting on the bridge above the lake. Always the bridge, she thought to herself, and would have smirked if she wasn't feeling so shaken. She neared him, her steps sounding dully on the bridge. She could see Jess's bare feet, below the cuffs of his plaid pajama bottoms, dangling just over the water. The lake rippled, the bluish-white moonlight reflecting against the water and shining on Jess's face. His jaw was set tensely. She could see the silver chain around his neck glinting where it peeked out from beneath his worn t-shirt.
Shaking her head, Ella took the seat beside him without waiting for an acknowledgement. She knew he would've heard her coming. He didn't startle when her arm brushed against his. She looked down, her toes, painted purple, swinging underneath her as she hung her legs off the bridge.
"You'll get an infection walking around without shoes," she said, finally breaking the silence.
Jess uttered a low, half-hearted chuckle. "Not in Stars Hollow."
She let a nostalgic smirk cross her face for only a moment before she turned her head to him. "Jesus, Jess. Leave a note next time."
He ran a hand over his mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't think I'd wake you."
"You didn't," she said. "I fell off the bed."
"She's beauty and she's grace," Jess teased, though his heart wasn't hardly in it.
"It's true."
"Are you okay?" he asked, voice laced with concern as he finally met her eyes. He looked tired, eyes red-rimmed. She wondered vaguely if he'd been crying.
Ella nodded. "Yeah, cutie. Just a bruise or two. I'm fine. Are you?"
Jess shrugged and looked away from her again. He couldn't make out the trees across the water in the darkness. It must have been the middle of the night, two or three in the morning; the darkest hours before the dawn would break. "Couldn't sleep."
She nodded again, and was almost certain he'd had a nightmare. But it must have been exceptionally bad to have him retreating to the lake in the middle of the night, so she didn't ask. She only pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and watched the water again, waiting.
There was a long pause before he spoke. "Elle?"
"Hm?"
"How do you..." he stopped to sigh, running a hand over his mouth once more.
"How do I what?" she asked gently.
"How do you do it?" he blurted out, unable to find a way to phrase the question better. His fatigue seemed to be clouding his verbal skills, which were never the best to begin with. "I mean...you just seem so okay with everything. You have it all together. You don't believe in fate, or God, or anything. But you just...keep going."
"I don't have it all together, Jess," she said.
"No, but you do," Jess continued quietly, staring down at the small movements of the water. "I mean, maybe you don't have your entire life figured out. But you know who you are. You don't care what anyone thinks. You don't believe in anything but you. And nothing shakes you, y'know?"
Tilting her head at him, she searched for an answer. He'd caught her off guard again. Smacking her lips together, she furrowed her brows and began undoing the french braid in her hair as she spoke. Partially because it felt too tight all of a sudden, and partially to have an outlet for the nervous energy in her hands.
"Things shake me. But...I don't know, Mariano. I think at some point I just sort of...accepted them. I can't change what happened to my mom, I can't change my dad, I can't change much. I can only solve the problems I can solve, and there's not many."
He nodded, biting down hard on his bottom lip. "I guess you're right."
Heaving a sigh, she finished shaking the braid out of her long hair, and laid back against the bridge. Above, the sky was so blue it was almost pitch black. Stars shone brightly against the backdrop, numerous without the light pollution of a city like Philadelphia. She felt a sudden pang of homesickness, unlike anything she had experienced since moving away. There weren't many things she missed about the small town in which she grew up, but the view of the night sky was one of them.
"But doesn't it ever...bother you?" Jess asked, still unsure himself of exactly what he was trying to say.
"Sort of. Sometimes," Ella said, gaze focusing on the little dipper. She felt her muscles relax, and the ache in her back quieted down a bit. She knew she would be a bit sore in the morning. "When I was a kid, I used to go out with my big brother in the summer and catch fireflies. And then we would try to find constellations, though I'm pretty sure all we knew was Orion's belt."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," she echoed wistfully. "I loved the stars...In third grade, I knew this girl whose uncle worked at NASA. And for her birthday, her parents bought her a star and named it after her. I had no idea you could do that. And I begged my parents for like...fucking months to get a star. I didn't even want to name it after me. I wanted to make up a name for it, but still...have it be mine. But...we barely had money for groceries...let alone a star. And I was pissed about it for a while. But, then, eventually, we learned about how the light of the stars we see is hundreds of years old."
"Pretty good for a public school," Jess interjected.
Ella giggled. "I agree. But, after I learned it, I didn't give a fuck about naming a star anymore. Because any star I would've named was dead already."
"So, you were a nihilist even as an eight-year-old?" he asked, glancing back at her. Her blonde hair was swept over her shoulder, eyes glittering greenish, skin dewy and pale.
"Pretty much," she said. "But it's like that, I guess. I can't bring a star back to life, so why worry about it dying? Even after my mom...I tried for a while to get over it. I tried to...solve it. I thought if I just got over it, it would be done, and I wouldn't have to think about it ever again. My dad wasn't helping, and Adam was a wreck. He stayed with Julie for a few weeks after she died, actually. He said he couldn't stand being around my dad and I."
"Because you were fighting?" Jess asked.
Ella shook her head softly, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "No, actually. We were drinking."
"What?" Jess turned his body to face her, sitting cross-legged at her side.
"Yeah, we were sitting around the kitchen table drinking. Pretty much all the time. Noah was off with his friends, doing whatever he was doing to get by. So, I didn't want to leave my dad alone. We would just drink all night, whenever I wasn't at school...Sometimes, I would cry afterwards, when I was alone or when the hangover hit. But never in front of him. And I thought it would get better, but it wasn't helping," she explained, stopping briefly to take a deep breath of the fresh summer air. "Eventually, I...I would sleep through entire weekends, night and day, just to pass the time. I didn't eat much, but I wasn't really hungry. I just slept and slept. I remember...being so tired. I didn't see anyone...not even Lane and Rory those first few weeks. I started smoking, too. I kept up with schoolwork and everything...I don't really know why. Maybe it was just a force of habit...the one constant thing. Nothing seemed important, though. Without her there, I mean."
Eyebrows raised, Jess listened. He had never heard her talk so much about the immediate period of time after her mother's death. Not even he knew the details. And it shocked him the way she spoke. She wasn't crying. She was barely pausing or stuttering at all. She told him matter-of-factly, detached.
She shrugged. "But that only lasted a few weeks. I managed to go to school, but my dad pretty much just stopped going to work. Even after the leave they gave him. He lost his job, but he wouldn't even try looking for another one. He was just too...he couldn't do anything. So, I stopped drinking. I didn't pick up any alcohol again until that night I stole his tequila. And I got a job at Luke's, to get us some extra money. And Luke threw in leftovers whenever he could. I didn't think about her really...not for a long time. There were other problems to worry about, I guess. So, I just...got up and kept going. That's the way it's always been for me, I guess. She was dead, and we needed money."
"Jesus," he muttered.
"Things shake me, Jess. But I've always been good at just sort of...getting on with it...not thinking about it," she said, voice slightly strained but clear. "I still don't think about her most of the time. Not in a real way. Maybe that's why I got so fucking angry when my dad brought her up today. He's just so...I don't know. Maybe he wishes I kept drinking with him...that I never got a job or got up from the kitchen table. Maybe he would have an easier time looking at himself now."
Jess hummed in acknowledgment, giving a small nod of his head. He cast a careful glance her way. "Are you mad at your mom?"
She averted her eyes from him and found Polaris, the brightest amongst all the other dots of light. "I don't know."
"It's okay to be mad at her," he said.
"I know," she replied softly. "I've had enough school counselors tell me that to know it. But...honestly...sometimes I feel like...if I think about it too hard...I'll go back. I'll feel like I did then. I'll be like I was then. And I don't see the point of going back there."
"Okay," he said quietly, then finally came to lay beside her. He shivered slightly as his back touched the bridge, though the air was warm.
Then, after a moment, she asked: "Are you worried about Doula?"
He didn't answer. He only took one of her hands in his own, as they both gazed up at the sea of stars above, and squeezed it once. Hard, though nowhere near hard enough to hurt. She nodded knowingly, and didn't ask anything more. A breeze blew past them, and she rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. She felt her eyes threatening to flutter shut once or twice, but she willed them to stay open. Not only for the view they were enjoying.
"That was some party, huh?" Jess asked, breaking the silence. His tone was lighter than it had been since they had arrived in Stars Hollow. They'd talked about the party a little bit in the car on the way home, Jess driving. But Ella had already begun to doze during the ride, exhausted from the long day.
She snorted a laugh. "Fuck, I don't know which I liked less: Emily Gilmore seeing us make out or drinking that battery acid."
"I don't know. I think her calling your art 'doodles' is also in the running," Jess added.
She smirked. "No, she can call them whatever she wants. I'd never trust the taste of someone who thinks it's appropriate to put a chandelier in a bathroom, anyway."
Jess laughed heartily. "Agreed."
"I'm glad you made a new friend, though," Ella said.
Furrowing his brows, Jess tore his eyes away from the stars to look at her. "Who?"
"Paris," Ella replied, as though it were obvious.
"Ah," Jess said, nodding. "I don't know if I'd call her a friend, but it was fun to listen to her accuse me of sacrilege when I said Bukowski was better than Elizabeth Bishop."
"Well, she was right," Ella said, bumping his shoulder playfully with her own. "She was cute, too."
"You think so?" he asked.
"I think if you and Doyle didn't exist, she and I would make for the most powerful couple on the East Coast," she teased.
Jess snorted a laugh. "You could handle that level of intensity?"
"Please," she mocked, rolling her eyes. "I live with you."
Jess gasped, feigning astonishment as he brought his free hand over his heart. "Cruel woman."
"I think you'll survive," she replied, smiling.
"I'm not so sure," Jess said, continuing his bit.
Rolling her eyes, Ella disentangled their fingers, got up on an elbow, and looked down at him. She could see the shadow of stubble on his cheeks and the faint crinkles at the corners of his eyes as he smirked at her. Leaning in, she pressed a sweet kiss to his lips, lingering as he ran a hand through her hair. When she came up for air, she noticed again how sleepy he looked.
"You feel any better?" she asked.
He licked his lips. "I'm getting there."
Only after one more long kiss did Jess agree to return to bed, walking hand-in-hand with her in the dead of night, back to Luke's.
. . .
Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!