TROUVAILLE ... l.danes (REWRITE)

chapter forty-two; the present

JESS IS GONE

two-thousand-and-three

IT'S RAINING, which is surprising for the beginning of summer.

Shelley sits behind the counter in the bookstore. Her bookstore. It's quiet, which isn't unusual, even if she would like to see a few more people here on a daily basis. She sits in the window, head pressed against the glass, watching two raindrops race each other out of the corner of her eye instead of focusing on the open book in her lap. Her eyes slowly flutter shut, eyelashes tickling the top of her cheeks. Beyond her, the rain hits the window and trickles down, down, down.

She could sit here all day and be content.

None of her outside problems can touch her in here. In this bookstore, nothing exists but her and her books. Not Rory and Jess' constant arguing about prom. Not Luke and Jess' constant arguing about school. Not Fran dying and Olive taking over Weston's Bakery. Not Lorelai and Sookie arguing over the Dragonfly Inn. Nothing but her, sitting in her window, listening to the rain drip down the glass.

She doesn't hear the door open.

"Jess is gone."

Her eyes snap open and there is Luke in the doorway. She needs to get a bell. He steps in, takes off his soaked cap to shake the rain out of his hair and puts the cap back on. His flannel is sticking to his lumberjack arms. It looks almost like he ran here without stopping to think, to put on a jacket, to grab an umbrella.

She slams her book shut.

"Jess is gone and I don't think he's coming back."

"What do you mean gone?"

She stands and shoves the book under the counter. When she rounds it, Luke looks up from the rain sticking to his boots. He seems only now to have realized just how soaked through he is.

"Gone."

"When?"

"Last night, this morning. I dunno!" Panic settled in his eyes. They both know why. Jess' father had rocked into town without warning, sat himself in the diner, and spent hours watching his son work without introducing himself. When Jess had found out who the guy was and that Luke had told him to get out and leave them alone, he had been pissed. The one chance to meet his dad and it was blown. Doesn't matter that he left them all those years ago, doesn't even matter that he barely even talked to his son now. All that mattered was that his dad had been here one moment and gone the next and somehow, that was Luke's fault. "I went up there to get some money out of the safe and all his stuff was gone. I didn't know where else to go. He loved this place too."

He did. Sometimes, if he had some free time from the diner or school or Walmart – which was rarely, now that she thinks about it – he would sit on one of the beanbags in the corner of her bookshop, with his own book from his collection, and read for hours. She'd watch him for a bit. Watch him underline his favorite line, scribble thoughts in the corners, chuckle quietly to himself because he'd forget he wasn't alone. Sometimes, Rory would sit with him too, and they'd sit in silence, reading and underlining and at the end of their bookshop date, they'd talk about what they'd read. Next time they came in, they'd have swapped books. Sometimes, Autumn would sit with him too, but she usually didn't read. She'd put her headphones on – sometimes, she would slip them on and off and on again to check that nobody else could hear her music – and watch as Jess read. Sometimes she'd write in her journal. Sometimes, she'd go on the hunt for some athlete's biographies.