Inbetween Days (Jess Mariano x Reader)

Chapter 5

You were depressed, you were really messed up

You know I understand

But why did you not talk to me?

Why didn't you help me prepare for the nightmare?

You took a vacation into oblivion

You were so low and I felt like I didn't know you

Christmas vacation, you took a vacation from me, oh-oh-oh

Winter in Star Hollow was always magical, if you could avoid the cheesy Christmas carols, that is. Lane had practically saved my life by systematically lending me CDs so I could make a mix of music that was actually decent. One thing that always seemed to cheer up local residents was the annual snowman building competition. Having no desire to freeze my fingers off for the sake of a few quarters, I watched from a table at Luke's. Some jerk was taking a Dremel to his Dickensian snow sculpture and I rolled my eyes. I tore my eyes from the square at the sound of pouring coffee in my immediate vicinity.

"Some people are just stupid about these things. I mean, what could possibly be the point of showing off like that? It's just a waste of electricity. He's probably ruining perfectly good tools, too." Luke always found a way to make something seem inane, wasteful, malicious, or all three at once. It was one of my favorite qualities in him, aside from his underlying need to protect people, which I understood a little too well and tried not to take advantage of.

"Some people just seem to exist to suck the joy out of other peoples' lives."

"Aren't you a little young to be this cynical?"

"Hey, I'm eighty in dog years." Luke shook his head and went back behind the counter.

After dark, when the square was all lit up and covered in snow, was the one time I actually felt like the world was mine for the taking. Wrapped in my black felt coat and earmuffs, trying not to regret my choice of tights for the day and thanking whoever invented leg warmers, I made my way around town aimlessly. I hadn't technically snuck out, I had simply neglected to tell anyone I was leaving. I would absolutely get yelled at later. But for now, Fairytale of New York was blasting in my ears, snow was crunching under my boots, and the people of Stars Hollow had retreated into their snug abodes, making me feel like a lone poet, shut out of the local boarding house, seeking her muse and a warm place to spend the night. It was dumb, but I was kind of drunk on the feeling. As I passed by the payphone in the square, it rang out into the darkness. Smiling to myself, I picked it up.

"Someday you have to tell me how you got this number," I said into the receiver.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you." Lane's voice was so low it could barely be considered a whisper. "Parents again?"

"I'd rather not, if that's okay."

"Totally. Not why I called anyway."

"Yeah?"

"Lorelai's putting on a dinner."

"A dinner? She's not cooking, is she?"

"Oh, no way. It's like a theme dinner that was supposed to go on at the inn but it got cancelled and they have all this food. They're inviting people over to the inn. You don't have to stay the night, but maybe my mom can convince your mom to let you come?"

"If Mrs. Kim can convince her, sure. Sounds like fun."

"Okay, I'll tell Rory to tell Lorelai."

"Cool. Hey, how come you didn't just call my house or catch me in person?"

"Oh, hectic day at the Kim house. Lots of Lorelai coming up in conversation and the blender broke when we tried using that weird new bread to make meatless meatballs. Not a day to approach Mrs. Kim."

"How your mother survives on that diet is beyond me."

"It's beyond all of us. So I'll see you there?"

"If I have anything to say about it, sure."

"Okay. I'll make phones mysteriously ring along your path again later."

"Can't wait. Bye."

"Bye."

I hung up the payphone and shuffled back home through the snow. Maybe then no one would even notice I left, and my odds of being allowed out would be better.

The Bracebridge dinner was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. Jackson Belleville, who I learned from Lane was Sookie's boyfriend, was dressed up in a ridiculous orange suit and feathered hat, while his moody cousin painfully botched some "Old English" introductions to the courses. To save face with Lane, as a kind of thank you for getting me invited, I bowed my head when Mrs. Kim inquired after everyone's mealtime prayer. It was chaotic and perfect and completely Stars Hollow. After dinner, which was shockingly accurate and insanely delicious - I got to try dishes I'd only ever read about before - Lorelai announced that everyone would get a ride in a horse drawn sleigh. Despite the fact that I was a little shy around horses, I was excited anyway. I went back to the coat room to get my stuff, but my gloves, scarf, and earmuffs, which I had stashed on the metal rack above the coat hooks, were nowhere to be found. The French concierge, Michel, was of very little help, and it took me ten minutes to discover that someone had put them in the lost and found basket after they'd fallen to the floor. Sufficiently dressed for the weather, I emerged to find only two carriages left, a blonde woman who I didn't recognize waiting in one of them for her required second rider. After looking around helplessly for a few seconds, I inched closer.

"Are you waiting for somebody?" she asked.

"I guess not." It was stupid of me to think it, but he'd had a habit of showing up everywhere until recently.

"Hop in! We can be lonely together," she joked.

Smiling wryly, I climbed in beside her. I let her have the fur blanket and moved to the far edge of the bench seat, wrapping my arms around myself and turning on the CD player that lived in my coat pocket in winter. It picked up where I left it, as it sometimes remembered to do:

You were handsome

You were pretty

Queen of New York City

When the band finished playing

They howled out for more

Sinatra was swinging

All the drunks they were singing

We kissed on a corner

Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir

Were singing Galway Bay

And the bells were ringing out

For Christmas day

As we drove through the square, I soaked in the darkened wonderland again from this new perspective, my companion and I ignoring each other as thoroughly as possible, lost in our own thoughts. As we circled around the gazebo in the center of town, I heard laughter through the music and looked up to see the last sleigh just passing the freshly built snowmen (and snow-women) Rory Gilmore was sitting in it, bright blue eyes shining with laughter and her round cheeks pink from the cold as she pointed to her own creation. Next to her on the bench was the very person I had been hoping to see sooner. 

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Song at the beginning is Christmas Vacation by Descendents, and the one in the middle is Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

These feel so short but I'm doing my best. I think.