Do You See Her Face? (A Jess Mariano Fanfiction)

Catherine, Heathcliff, and Shangri-la

Disclaimer: All Gilmore Girls content belongs to Amy Sherman-Palladino.

.   .   .

She looked like a dream in her sundress. Late August light bathed the crowds at the summer festival, and Ella practically glimmered when Jess spotted her from across the square. It made him feel like an idiot thinking the way he was, but she had an effect on him which he'd previously only read about in books. He wasn't sure exactly when the tipping point had been, when he'd truly fallen in love with her, passed the point of no return. But he had. And he was. He loved a girl who didn't believe in love, who wasn't into dating, who didn't feel the same. It had never been so complicated before, and he'd never been so completely screwed. There were moments, times when his heart nearly burst from the hope. When she laughed at one of his wiseass remarks, or ran her fingertips over the notes he'd left in the margins of her poetry books, or let her eyes linger on him for just a second too long. But each time, she would brush it off, act like nothing had happened. And he'd be forced to wonder if he'd imagined the electricity passing between them.

Slowly, over the course of the summer, he was beginning to come to terms with it. Maybe they could just be friends, coworkers. Maybe all he needed was to make out with Shane until his lips were swollen and his mind was blank and his memory would be wiped clean of all the times Ella had made him feel deeper than he ever had before. Besides, he had never fallen in love before, had never uttered the three fateful words in all his seventeen years. A small part of him believed he could snap out of it easily.

He took his eyes back from her form, concentrating on the girl in front of him. The girl who wanted him and nothing more. Who meant nothing but ease and pleasure. Sliding his hands down in her back pockets, Jess closed his eyes and placed kisses down Shane's neck, the bark of the tree they leaned on rough against his back.

. . .

"She's back with a vengeance!" Ella exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Rory in a gleeful embrace.

They stood together near a flower stand, the fragrant display adding sweetness to the air. Despite the barber shop quartet droning on in the background, Ella felt her spirits lift at the sight of Rory Gilmore, her confidant missing in action over the summer at an internship in Washington. In the back of her mind, Ella couldn't help reminding herself that soon, she would have to deal with the constant separation. Rory would be off at Harvard, Lane would be touring with her band (hopefully), and Ella would be stuck. As she always had been. She'd have to fill Rory in on how the college applications were going later.

Rory laughed happily, pulling away from Ella and holding her at an arm's length. "Yes, and with all the hot DC gossip."

"I'm intrigued," Ella said, raising an eyebrow.

From behind them, Lorelai beamed, her own face painted with joy, her daughter back in town. Ella loved that about summer. It had a special kind of magic no other season could manage, positivity radiating from everyone, dampened only by the occasional rainy day.

"Alright, let's go find Lane, and we are in for a movie night of epic proportions!" Lorelai announced, strolling around the square with the two teens in tow.

Before they departed completely, however, Rory followed Ella's distracted gaze to the old oak where Jess stood, eating his girlfriend's face.

"Oh, God!" Rory exclaimed, scrunching up her face in disgust.

Ella blushed, Rory having noticed her staring. She hadn't meant to. But seeing the two of them together, considering the many fights with Shane the summer had brought, gave her a feeling of irritated uneasiness. Like a car crash she couldn't look away from. Morbid interest feeding morbid interest in a vicious, voyeuristic cycle.