Inbetween Days (Jess Mariano x Reader)

Chapter 13

I wake up in the mornin'

Put on my face

The one that's gonna get me'

Through another day

Doesn't really matter

How I feel inside

This life is like a game sometimes

 He was back, and I felt sick. Sick because ever since he left me alone on the bridge, he was different. Colder, quieter. Something was wrong, and whenever I asked him he shrugged it off and acted like I was imagining things. We didn't talk about books anymore. We didn't really talk about anything. We laid on my bed in the silence of the summer heat and listened to CDs we'd both heard before. I couldn't get through to him. It was Lane, in the end, who told me the reason for Jess' despondency. Rory had gone to Washington for the summer. I had never been so happy to hear anything in my life. This was it. This summer I would finally get him to see me.

I'm not proud of it, you'll have to forgive me. The way I went about it makes me look back and cringe. My first step was to go to my mom and ask if I could bleach my hair. She looked giddy, and asked if I planned on growing it out, too. I told her I'd think about it, a bold-faced lie. Next, I took a pair of scissors, opened my closet, pulled out my already too-short miniskirts and trimmed two inches off of each of them. I went to the beauty store with Lane by my side and picked out the perfect brown lipstick. And lastly, to my utmost shame, dear reader, I read On the Road cover to cover.

But it was a good thing I did, I guess, because finally luring me into the crackpot world of Kerouac was the only effort on my part that gained any notice. Jess looked alive for the first time in three weeks when I told him I'd finally suffered through it.

"You're kidding. You better not be messing with me, Louise." 'Thelma and Louise' had been our last topic of conversation, so Louise was my nickname du jour.

"I can feel myself becoming more insufferable by the minute." I quipped, and he looked like he was about to hug me, but he didn't. Damn. So close.

I convinced myself these changes were temporary, and toward a good end. I told myself it was only to get his initial attention, that I didn't even know who I wanted to be for myself yet, anyway, so what could it hurt? It was just like wearing a dress. It wouldn't make me any different. Right?

Wrong. It was a mess from there. Every female character he admired, every girl I saw him stare at, every woman of punk rock he praised, I found myself altering little by little to fit their mold. I considered piercings, even though I'd always been fine with how I looked. I started eating less at dinner, realizing I was at least a dress size bigger than most of the girls he would look at, though I was more than a healthy weight. I risked fishnets and satin slips under my mom-approved jeans and sweaters, and by the end of June I was a very different girl in the mirror.

But it was working, God was it working. I'd catch him staring, I'd see him sneak looks at my legs or breasts or ass over his copy of Punk Planet when he thought I was looking away. Our banter got dangerously flirtatious, until one day we were in an alleyway behind the square after dark. Lane had needed an alibi for band practice, so as far as our mothers were concerned, we were at the movies. But Jess had had this idea, that the Beats really went out and *found* their inspiration, and even though there was no trouble to really be found in Stars Hollow on a Thursday night, he and I were seated on top of an AC unit, reading pieces of 'Howl' and 'You Get So Alone Sometimes That it Just Makes Sense'.

That was when it happened. I was tucked under his denim jacket, rather than putting my cable knit sweater back on over my black and purple slip. I thought it was a good sign, he wanted to see me. I was doing my best to pick out the filthiest lines that old creep Bukowski had to offer, and it worked. I felt him shift closer, but I didn't stop him, I kept reading. Warm lips made cautious contact with my neck. I tilted my head to the other side to give him more room. Only the smallest intake of breath interrupted my reading, let him know I enjoyed it. So he kissed again. My collarbone. My shoulder. I finished the poem and looked up. It was mostly dark, but his brown eyes were wide under the glow of a distant streetlamp. I wanted to reach for him, kiss him properly, put my hands through his gelled dark curls, but I didn't. I was too smart for that, and too patient. He needed to suffer a little longer. He needed to yearn for me like I had for him, or none of this would work.