𝒜merican 𝐻oney

When this alignment, there's a sense of complete unity and oneness. It's not just a coming together; it's a merging of two souls. They function as if they were one entity, almost like the idea that two bodies share one soul. Whenever it happens, absolute oneness is felt: unity, not union... Two persons utterly disappear into each other; there is not even a small, thin screen dividing them. There is no division at all.

Cosette Cosgrove never quite blended in, but she didn't demand attention either. She was the kind of girl you noticed twice—once for the way she carried herself, and again when you realized you couldn't pin her down. There were too many contradictions. She'd drink diet soda with a glass straw but eat fries out of a crumpled McDonald's bag. She wore a Cartier Love ring her father had given her on one hand and chipped black nail paint on the other. Her leather boots were always scuffed, the soles worn thin, but the silk scarf she tied around her bag was vintage Burberry, knotted with the kind of precision that made it look accidental. 

Her world was made up of small, deliberate details. Her favorite pen was a Montblanc fountain she stole from her dad before he left, the ink always smudged across her notes because she refused to let it dry. She never carried a proper wallet, just an old Dior coin purse stuffed with cash, a fake ID, and the kind of receipts that felt too important to throw away—tickets from an old show in Hartford, a crumpled slip from a boutique in New Haven, the label peeled off a bottle of wine she wasn't supposed to drink. She chewed her gum aggressively, the pink bubble bursting against her teeth, and she always smelled faintly of her mother's YSL Opium because Kate Cosgrove kept the bottle on the bathroom counter, and Cosette couldn't bring herself to buy her own.

She loved collecting things—things with no purpose, no place. Matchbooks from restaurants she'd never been to. Polaroids of strangers she found at thrift stores. Strands of ribbon she tied around her wrist until they frayed into nothing. Her bedside table was a graveyard for melted candles and nearly empty perfume bottles, each smelling slightly different but still hers.

At the lake, Cosette Cosgrove sat on the hood of her pale green Mercedes, a car that somehow felt both timeless and too cool for Stars Hollow. She'd bought it secondhand from a man in Hartford who smoked cigars and threw in a pack of Camel Blues with the keys. The stereo barely worked, and the leather seats stuck to her legs in the summer, but she liked it that way. Tonight, she let the doors hang open, the soft crackle of Garden State's soundtrack spilling into the humid air. Frou Frou's Let Go was playing, and though no one seemed to notice, it matched the night perfectly.

She held a cigarette between her fingers, the ash curling dangerously close to her knuckles before she finally flicked it into the dirt. Her friends were gathered around, someone tossing rocks into the water, someone else fiddling with a cheap Nokia phone that barely had reception. Theo handed her a plastic cup of something that tasted vaguely like peach schnapps, and she took a sip before setting it down on the hood next to her flip phone and a tube of Lancôme Juicy Tube lip gloss in Peach Nectar.

Her tank top was a white Hanes she and her mother had cut into a crop, the hem fraying just above her navel. She'd paired it with low-rise Levi's and her old Adidas Superstars, the rubber toes scuffed from years of being dragged through gravel and grass. Her gold chain caught the moonlight when she leaned back, propping herself up on her elbows, and her dark hair was tied back with a black scrunchie she always kept on her wrist. She smelled faintly of Gap Heaven, the perfume she spritzed on every morning without thinking.

Her bag—one of those nylon Prada totes that seemed to be everywhere lately—was slumped against the windshield, half unzipped. Inside, there was a pack of Marlboro Lights, a spiral notebook from CVS filled with her handwriting (half poems, half grocery lists), and an ancient Discman with a cracked lid. The CD inside was Fiona Apple's When the Pawn..., and the cover, with its blurry text and muted colors, peeked out from her mess of stuff.

Her notebook was open beside her, filled with tiny, looping script. She'd scrawled a note to herself earlier: Buy black eyeliner. Look up that David Bowie song. Call Dad? She tapped her pen against the page absentmindedly, her mind somewhere between the music, the laughter, and the stillness of the lake at night.

Jess Mariano moved like he wasn't entirely there, like his body showed up but his mind stayed somewhere else. He walked the uneven sidewalks of Stars Hollow with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, his eyes flicking over the town like he was cataloging its flaws. He had the kind of face that made people look twice—not because he was handsome, though he was, but because he wore his disinterest like armor. His hair was always a little too messy, his jeans frayed at the hem, his sneakers scuffed in a way that suggested he didn't care what anyone thought. Except he did. He just wouldn't let them see it.

At first glance, there wasn't much to him: a beat-up leather jacket he never took off, a book shoved carelessly into his back pocket, and a pack of Camel Blues tucked into the sleeve of his hoodie. But if you looked closer, there were cracks in the armor—small details that hinted at something sharper, something darker. The way he chewed on the corner of his thumb when he thought no one was looking. The way he circled words in his books with a pen that was always running out of ink. The way he smoked his cigarettes to the filter, like he was daring them to burn him.

His room above the diner was a testament to his restlessness. The walls were bare except for a single crooked poster of Taxi Driver tacked up with Scotch tape. His bed was unmade, the sheets rumpled like he couldn't be bothered to straighten them out. On the nightstand sat a stack of CDs—The Strokes, The Pixies, Nirvana—all marked with faint fingerprints from being handled too much. A portable CD player with a crack in the lid lay beside them, its batteries dead. There were books everywhere, piled on the floor, shoved under the bed, stacked on the windowsill. Kerouac, Bukowski, Vonnegut—authors who matched the way he saw the world: messy, cynical, and just a little bit romantic.

Jess didn't collect things; he hoarded them. Ticket stubs from movies he barely remembered, matchbooks from diners he'd passed through on road trips, a silver Zippo lighter with someone else's initials engraved on the side. He had a drawer full of loose change, receipts, and scraps of paper with phone numbers written in smudged ink. He told himself they didn't mean anything, but he couldn't bring himself to throw them away.

He wasn't trying to be difficult, but somehow, he always was. He didn't talk just to fill the silence, didn't smile just to put people at ease. When he laughed, it was quick and sharp, like a spark that burned out too fast. He had a way of making people feel like he was two steps ahead of them, like he'd figured out the punchline before they even realized there was a joke. 

He liked small moments, the kind most people missed. The way cigarette smoke curled in the air on a cold morning. The sound of a page turning in a quiet room. The first sip of coffee that was still too hot. He lived for those fleeting seconds, the ones that felt real in a world that didn't.

Jess Mariano didn't belong in Stars Hollow, but he stayed anyway. Not because he wanted to, but because leaving was harder than pretending he didn't care. And for now, pretending was enough.

𝓒osette 𝓒osgrove

Stars Hollow's Outsider. 16. Vintage shop girl. Cigarettes and Rum. Irish Goodbyes.

Mikey Madison

𝓙ess 𝓜ariano

Stars Hollow's Problem. 17. Worn-out paperbacks. Cold coffee. Busted CD player. Cigarettes lit halfway through. 

Milo Ventimiglia

𝓐lso 𝓢tarring

𝓔van 𝓛owman

The next Scorsese. 17. Old Hollywood on VHS. Tangled headphones. Coffee that's always gone cold and later mixed with brandy.

Waylon Felipe

𝓣heo 𝓜arks

Town Crier. 16. Faded film rolls. Scratched lenses. Forgotten popcorn crumbs. Songs on repeat. 12 subscriptions.

Timothée Chalamet

𝓛ila 𝓐sher

Wildest Heart. Gold hoop earrings. Scarves. Bark, her shihtzu. Paint pallets. 

As Described

author's note wrote the synopsis (and first chapter) while drinking several mimosas back-to-back on my fourteen hour flight. made the graphics while watching the big bang theory and procrastinating writing my philosophy paper. hope this is good! hope i finish this instead of abandoning it!