(happy monday to my fellow east coasters. there's a lot to this one, hope you enjoy! also. not edited. but you probably expected that. love u all tons.) -mags

✧✧✧

IF SOMEONE HAD asked Jess Mariano last week what he'd be doing right now, the last thing he would have expected to say was that he was standing in his uncle's apartment with his future step-father who was standing beside him, shirtless, in tights.

After a rousing discussion about old shoe polish and how full-length mirrors were practically made to 'look at your bottom half', he was ready to kick TJ in the teeth and just say forget it to the whole thing. The two of them still weren't on great terms after the whole bachelor party fight, and whether Luke knew it or not, his presence was settling the tension between them slightly. Jess had no desire to be around TJ alone right now.

Then again, if someone had asked Jess Mariano last week what he'd be doing right now, the last thing he would have expected was to be sharing this moment with Marley Acosta. He also wouldn't have expected to be rendered almost speechless as she barged into Luke's apartment, in a yellow sundress that matched the flowers in her hair perfectly.

Whatever Marley was complaining about as she opened the door was promptly cut off by a startled yelp as she saw TJ in the tights, looking directly at Jess instead. "Am I supposed to look away at a man in tights or not?" she asked him, cheeks tinting pink.

Jess was lucky TJ had an answer ready because he wasn't completely sure if anything would have come out of his mouth. "If you could look at Cary Elwes, you can look at me, sweetheart."

Marley turned to him with a slight scowl on her face. "When you start looking like Cary Elwes, we'll talk about me looking at you."

"Whatever you say," TJ said, walking back toward the bathroom where Luke was. "My boys can breathe in these. That's all I care about."

"Can your boys please breathe away from me?" Luke asked.

As TJ slipped on a shirt and started a one-sided conversation with Luke, Marley called Jess over to where she was. Jess sighed, buttoning up the last button his shirt and raising his brows at her. She handed him a small flower that she had been holding and turned around to reveal a waterfall braid with flowers stuck in all around it.

"That flower fell out and my arms are too short to get it back in the right place," she said. "I just need you to put it in that spot above the braid where it looks like there's something missing."

"I have no idea where you're talking about," he said.

"What? It's right there."

"Where?"

"There!"

Jess huffed at her vague direction. "I think we could give Who's on First a run for their money with this bit."

"Shut up," she chuckled. Her eyes scanned the apartment until they found a small mirror hanging on the wall. Marley walked over to the mirror, motioning for him to follow her. She turned again to have a partial view of the area on her head she was talking about. "It's right there. I don't know how you're not seeing it."

"Are you under the impression that I've been going to Cosmetology school or something?"

Marley turned to him, exasperated. "Holy shit, have you always been this incompetent?"

Jess feigned offense. "I can't believe that you've been this slow to notice. I thought we knew each other, Acosta."

"Shut up," she repeated. Marley grabbed his hand before turning back around toward the mirror and guided it to the area she'd been talking about. She felt the slight pressure of Jess' fingers through her hair. She still felt them as she dropped her hand from atop his. "There," she said, looking at him in the mirror.

She watched as Jess swallowed and quickly removed his hand from her hair. He nodded, grabbing the flower in his other hand. They were silent as Jess struggled to tuck the flower back into her hair, looking even more confused as she offered him a bobby pin to help. She tried to ignore the way that Jess' fingers shook against her head. She tried to ignore the slight shiver she felt run down her back. The second proved to be more difficult than the first.

What the fuck was up with them?

Marley could feel the slightly awkward tension between them settling in and she wanted nothing more than for that feeling to go away. "So," she began, speaking quietly. "That's TJ."

Jess nodded. "That's TJ."

"Does TJ wear tights a lot?"

"God, I hope not."

Marley laughed at his words, glancing at Jess in the mirror once more. She watched as he finished with her hair, smiling at him as he met her gaze. "Can I seriously not convince you to wear them?" she asked.

"You're funny."

Marley turned to TJ and Luke who both looked to be watching the two of them in amusement and awe respectively. "Can you seriously not convince the two of them to wear tights?" she asked TJ.

"I barely convinced him to walk his mother down the aisle," TJ replied as he pointed at Jess. He then looked at Luke. "Trying to convince this guy to do anything is like telling a tree to walk."

"Don't I know it," Marley said, grinning at an annoyed Luke. "You look good, boss."

"Get out of my face."

"Seriously. You should wear suits more. You look hot."

"Never call me that, ever again," he grumbled.

"He's nervous," Jess said in an attempt to explain Luke's answers.

Luke scowled at him. "I'm not nervous," he said for what felt like the thirtieth time for today.

Marley's smile grew. "Saying that more won't make it true."

"Don't you two have something to fight about?" Luke asked, checking his tie in the mirror again.

Marley looked at Jess. "Actually, yeah," she said before turning to face him. "Would it have killed you to wear a tie?"

"I would have killed myself with the tie," he replied.

"Yeah, but look how hot your uncle looks," she said. "You could have looked like that."

"Geez, last month it was my hair, now the tie. Can't you just accept me for who I am?"

"The hair's actually growing on me a little."

Jess looked at her in surprise. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's a nice length. You were looking a little like a Monchichi the last time I saw you." Marley heard Luke snort at her words, knowing that he agreed with her.

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm serious," Marley said. "You're cute. Your hair wasn't."

Jess raised his brows. "You think I'm cute?"

Marley didn't seem particularly fazed by what she had said, but she avoided eye contact with him. "No," she said, looking away from him to point at Luke. "I've just been hitting on your uncle and I didn't want you to feel left out."

"What about me?" TJ's voice echoed from the bathroom.

"It's bad practice to hit on someone on their wedding day," Marley responded.  As TJ let out a sound of agreement, she refocused on Luke. "The least you could do is say I look nice too."

Luke sighed but finally seemed to come back to earth from whatever nervous tangent his brain had taken him on. He gave Marley a small smile, a real one that she only got every once and a while. "You look beautiful, Marley." His tone was joking, but Marley knew that there was truth beneath his words.

"Thanks, boss," she said, grinning wide. As Luke shook his head and moved back to the mirror to fix his tie for the third time since she had entered the apartment, Marley turned to face Jess. "Are you seriously not going to wear a tie?"

Jess gave her a look. When her smile didn't falter, Jess rolled his eyes. Marley gasped as he said to his uncle, "We're leaving. See you down there."

"You're going to have to wear a tie at some point in your life," Marley yelled at him as he opened the door and started down the stairs without her.

"You can put me in a tie when I'm dead."

"That can be arranged."

"Threatening my life on the day of my mother's wedding?" he asked, looking back at her as they entered the diner. "That's bold of you."

"What happens when you get married, huh?" she asked, ignoring his previous words. "Are you going to boycott ties then?"

"That implies that I'll ever get married."

"Please," she scoffed. "I know you. You will."

"I'm not so sure about that one," he said.

"You will," she insisted. "You're going to find some cute, quick-witted chick who likes to read, shares your music taste and takes absolutely none of your bullshit and you're going to fall so hard for her that you're not going to be able to see straight." She grinned at him. "She's going to be way too good for you, but she's going to be so awesome that she's not going to care. I swear my life on it."

(Jess would never, ever, say it out loud, but in his opinion, every single thing that Marley had just said fit her description perfectly. Especially the part about her being too good for him.)

Jess looked at her for a second too long, then chuckled under his breath. "You've had a lot of time to think about that," he said. He knew that self-help book Luke had given him was crying inside of his bag.

"I worry about you sometimes," she said, curling a strand of hair behind her ear. "And then I realize things like that and know you're going to be fine."

The way she spoke was so nonchalant, but it made Jess smile. He wanted to say so many things to her in response to that, so many things that he, himself, had thought about, but he kept silent. He just stood there beside her and smiled, looking at the people putting the finishing touches on the wedding outside the diner window. Marley was doing the same, and Jess decided that even if everything went to shit later on, this moment right here was worth the drive up to Connecticut.

He didn't say that to her, though. Instead, he went with, "Luke was right, by the way."

Marley glanced at him. "About what?"

"You look beautiful," he said.

Marley liked the way he said it with no hesitation. Like it wasn't a secret or something he had to think about. It was just a fact. He thought she looked beautiful. She'd heard it from other people; her boyfriends, her friends, her family, but she'd never heard anything like that come out of Jess' mouth. There was something about hearing it from him that made her believe it.

Jess saw her cheeks tint pink. "Thanks," she said, way more quietly than she had been planning. Her eyes were glued to the window. "You look nice, too." Marley then added, "Tie or no tie."

And Jess knew he couldn't not smile at that.

✧

LIZ AND TJ'S wedding was one of the more interesting events that Marley had been to. Granted, she hadn't ever been to a wedding before (she'd be the flower girl in her Aunt Kimberly's wedding, but she was way too young to remember that), so she wasn't sure if every wedding was like this, but all-in-all it was nice.

Everything except for the song that the minister sang for them as he entered. Marley had gotten lightheaded trying to keep in her laughter at the sight, and having Luke, Lorelai and Jess all on the brink of losing it didn't help her cause either.

Now the evening had come and Marley sat beside Jess eating dinner, eating as many helpings of mashed potatoes as her stomach would allow. However, she was way more engaged with the person sitting on the other side of Jess, who had been talking about his time in prison for the last fifteen minutes. Jess looked as though he would have rather been anywhere but there.

"So, did you meet people in prison?" Marley asked. "Was it like a Shawshank thing where you met your best friend there?"

"I did, actually," the man said. "Met him while doing laundry for six hundred guys. I used to trade him fabric softener for cigarettes. It's not a bad deal when you think about it."

Jess' unenthused response was taken over by Marley's question. "You still smoke?"

"Not anymore," he said. "My pops got diagnosed with lung cancer last year and I went cold turkey."

Marley smiled at him, reaching over Jess to tap him on the arm. "Good for you," she said. "I'm trying to get this guy to quit, but I think he smokes more now that I'm not there to harass him for it."

"It's a nasty habit," said the man. He looked at both of them. "I need another turkey leg. You guys want anything?"

"I'm good, thanks though," Marley replied, something she thought was a lot nicer than Jess' lack of response. When the man walked away, Marley frowned at him. "You're a dick when you're miserable."

"It's not my fault the guy wouldn't take the hint that I didn't want to hear about his time in prison."

"You could still be nicer."

"I could."

Marley kicked his leg softly. "Then do it." Jess repressed a smile but said nothing as he grabbed his water glass and took a sip.

The wedding party looked beautiful at night. There were lights everywhere, flowers all over, and even though Kirk was DJ-ing, he was playing music that helped make the scene. She'd never considered the town square to be the place for a wedding, but it looked nice. It actually made her like her town a little bit more.

"I quit, you know," Jess said, taking her out of her thoughts. When Marley looked at him in confusion, he continued. "Smoking. I quit."

"You did?" she asked.

"Acosta, I haven't smoked since you yelled at me for it the night I crashed Rory's car."

Marley's eyes widened. "Seriously?" She shook her head in disbelief. "Why?"

Jess shrugged. "Rory didn't like it," he said. Quietly, he added, "And it was obvious that you didn't either."

She looked away for a moment, eyes back on the dance floor as the words hung between them. She'd noticed he hadn't smelt of smoke for a while, but she never thought that she was one of the reasons for it. A smile pulled at her lips as she glanced at him. "I didn't yell at you," she said.

She heard him scoff from beside her. "I'm pretty sure you did."

"Well, then you must have deserved it."

"I was an angel. I couldn't have deserved it."

Marley snorted at that but smiled nonetheless. She'd been doing a lot of that tonight. It was a welcome change from the fights that the previous days had to offer. She honestly wasn't expecting to be having as good of a time as she was.

She wasn't expecting Jess to be having nearly as good of a time as he was (good might have been an overstatement, but he wasn't as dejected as Marley had imagined he'd be). She knew that her being beside him was probably a key factor in the situation, but she liked to think that there was a little bit of him that was happy to be here.

Kirk's voice came over the crowd as the music he had been playing faded out. "Hope ye took much pleasure in Kajagoogoo," he said. Marley noticed that the shoulder pads he was wearing were crooked and she chuckled. "Methinks Oingo Boingo willst soon makest an appearance."

"We're leaving before that happens," Jess muttered to her, resulting in another soft kick from Marley.

"But first, clear the floor for our happy couple...est," Kirk finished, pausing slightly before playing the next song.

Jess noticed the nostalgic sort of smile that Marley was wearing as the music got louder. Frankly, he wouldn't have expected his mother to like anything by Sam Phillips, but Marley seemed to think it was a good choice. There had to be some merit in that.

"My mom's obsessed with this song," she told him quietly. "She blasts it in the car all the time."

"This isn't really a blown speakers kind of song," he responded.

"Try telling her that."

"I'll pass."

Marley snickered, biting the inside of her cheek afterward. Her eyes remained on Liz and TJ dancing in the middle of the floor, though she could feel Jess looking at her every now and then. Her lips pulled upward at the sight. "They look happy," she said.

Jess sighed. He wasn't annoyed or upset, nor did he feel the same happiness that everyone else seemed to share. Acceptance was more accurate. Acceptance for whatever this was.

"Yeah," he replied. He couldn't stop himself from adding, "For now."

"You never know." Marley glanced at Jess. "You could be calling TJ 'daddy' for the rest of your life."

"Enough."

"You two can go on father-son hunting trips and wear tights together."

"You think I can get our friend to commit another crime and get you to shut up?"

A short laugh left Marley and she shrugged. "Honestly, maybe," she said. "He sounded like he missed prison, so I'd say anything goes given the right price."

"I've got twenty bucks and a whole bunch of books."

"That might just be enough."

Jess grinned at her before his eyes moved to Kirk who was speaking into the microphone once more, telling the guests that Liz and TJ would like them to join them in their 'modest wriggles'. They watched as couples began making their way toward the dance floor. Jess' stomach churned as he watched Marley turn to him out of the corner of his eye.

"Dance with me," she said, a small smile on her face.

Jess didn't look at her. "I can't waltz."

"Neither can I," she said. Jess hated how gentle her voice was. It made him want to give in. He couldn't dance with her. Not here. Not now. "C'mon, Mariano."

"It's really not my thing."

"Seriously?"

There was a tight-lipped smile on his face. "Seriously."

"Luke and Lorelai are dancing."

"Luke is trying to date Lorelai."

Marley rolled her eyes. "Luke's been trying to date Lorelai since she moved here."

"Acosta, I'm not dancing with you," he chuckled.

"Because you're not trying to date me?" she asked, leaning her chin on her hand and narrowing her eyes at him.

It took everything in Jess' body for him to meet her gaze. "Because I'm not trying to date you."

"That makes no sense."

"It doesn't have to."

Marley scowled, going silent for a minute. He thought he'd made her upset until she said, "Please?"

Jess laughed, shaking his head at her. "Okay, let's do it."

Marley widened her eyes and beamed at him. "Really?"

"No."

"Fuck you," she sighed, slumping back into her chair. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine. Be lame. But you owe me a dance."

Jess nodded, bringing his glass of water to his lips once more. "Whatever you say."

She'd forget about it in three days, tops. Jess, on the other hand, knew he'd never.

✧

FOR THE FIRST and only time in her life, Marley Acosta was refusing to get out of Jess Mariano's car.

Marley's logic was that if she didn't get out of his car, he wouldn't be able to go back to New York. The details that backed up her claim were that one, Jess didn't want Marley anywhere near his apartment in the city, and two, she had her second to last week of school on Monday, and she knew Jess wouldn't let her miss it.

Unfortunately, Marley did not factor in Jess' willingness to let her stay. Neither of them knew when they were going to see the other again, and they both knew phone calls did only so much. She didn't think Jess had taken those feelings into account.

When Oingo Boingo had started playing, the two of them had taken off and walked back to Luke's apartment, where they had stayed for the rest of the night. They listened to some of Luke's old CD's ("God, his music taste is almost as bad as yours was," Jess had said quietly as they flicked through his collection), stolen some food from the diner, and Marley had help Jess pack the things he'd brought with him.

They only left the apartment when Luke had returned. Luke looked at the two of them in confusion as he entered to see Jess packing up his things and Marley sitting in his armchair, legs hanging over the sides.

"The hell are you two doing up here in the dark?" he asked.

"Making out," Marley answered at the same time Jess said, "Nothing."

"Speaking of," she continued, raising her brows at Luke. "How'd go with Lorelai? Did you finally ask her out?"

Luke tried to look stern but there was a smile creeping up on his face that said differently. "I did," he said.

Marley grinned, getting up from the chair to cheer. "You don't know how long I've been waiting for this," she said, wrapping her arms around Luke. She looked at Jess. "You're going to have an aunt!"

Luke sighed at her comment. "It's a good thing you're going to college because you're exhausting me."

"You're going to miss me," she said. "Lane's not going to be able to handle your shit alone."

"She'll get by."

"But she won't be me," Marley said, pointing a finger at him.

Luke gave her a smile. "Nobody could ever be you, Marley."

That made Marley break out into a grin that was wider than Luke had ever seen. She bowed her head and chuckled to herself, then looked back at Jess. "I'll wait for you downstairs," she told him. Jess made a noise of affirmation as she walked to the door. "Night, Luke. Glad you're getting laid."

Luke shouted something unintelligible as she shut the door behind her, and Marley laughed to herself as she walked down the stairs and sat at the counter, waiting for Jess to come down.

And now they were in Marley's driveway, not ready to say goodbye just yet. They knew they had to. Jess had a job in the morning and Marley was working that afternoon. The car was silent. The words Jess had wanted to say all night were caught in his throat.

"I have something for you inside," Marley said suddenly. "I meant to give it to you a while ago, but I kept putting it off." Jess nodded, watching as she opened the car door. Before she shut it, she smiled at him. "Don't leave before I'm back."

As if she even had to tell him.

He got out of his car as she ran into her house, using the key that they kept under the gnome on their front step. Jess leaned back on the hood of his car, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. He could do this. He could talk about this with her. He could.

This was Marley, for fuck's sake. She knew more about him that anyone else in his life. He could talk to her about whatever the hell he was feeling and she'd understand. She would. She had understood everything else.

Jess was so wrapped up in his own mind that he barely noticed the sound of a car pulling up to the house. He did, however, notice the slam of a car door behind him. He nearly jumped at the sound.

Jess spun around to face Will Conover, looking as annoyed as he had the first night he'd met him. Of all the times he could have come, he had to arrive right now. Jess wanted to die.

"Is Marley here?" Will asked. Jess wanted to cringe at how forced his polite tone was.

"Yeah," Jess answered. "She's inside. Had to grab something for me."

A beat. Will nodded slowly, seeming to size Jess up. "You been with her all weekend?"

Jess nodded in the same way that he had. "Yeah."

"All weekend?"

"As I much as we could, yeah."

"You go to that wedding in town?"

"My mother's wedding? Yup."

"As her date?"

Jess looked at him, exasperated. "Geez, Columbo, why so many questions?"

"I just want to know what you want with her," he said. "I think as her boyfriend I deserve to know that."

"What do I want with her?" Jess asked. "She's my friend--"

"Do you think I'm fucking stupid?" Will asked, eyes blazing now. Any resolve he had before was gone. "I saw the way you were looking at her. The way you treat her. What, are you in love with her or some shit?"

"What part of 'she's my friend' did you not understand?"

"You're her friend who drives up from fucking New York to eat pizza with her? You're her friend who takes her to his mother's wedding? You're her friend who she can't stop fucking talking about?"

Jess gave him a malice-filled smile. "It's not my fault that I give your girlfriend something to talk about," he said. "That sounds like your problem, not mine."

"Whatever, man," Will scoffed. He began walking closer to Jess. "One day she's going to see you for what you really are and I can't wait to tell her that I told her so."

"Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"You're a fucking high-school dropout whose biggest accomplishment is somehow getting Marley Acosta to pity him enough to be friends," he spat. "But you know what? It's not going to matter. Because she's going to go off to Penn and you're going nowhere. She's going to realize that there are so many better options that you in this world and she's going to forget that you ever existed. Because you're nothing. You're never going to be anything."

Jess clenched his jaw, but forced himself to not react. No. You're not going to give him that satisfaction. Jess looked at him with a smirk. "Wow," he drew out. "You sure put a lot of time into analyzing me. You sure that you're not the one who's in love with me?"

"Whatever," Will said. "You can tell Marley that we're done. You can have her. She's not worth all the shit that comes with her."

"I'd shut up now if I were you," Jess said.

Will laughed in his face. "Oh, so now we're getting defensive? God, you really are in love with her, aren't you?" He laughed again, bumping Jess on the shoulder with his fist. "Whatever man. She's not my problem anymore."

Jess didn't say anything. He just watched Will carefully. He had more to say. He just didn't know when it was coming.

"But just so we both know," he finally continued. There was a smile on his face that was so vile it made Jess uncomfortable. "I got that shit while it was tight."

Red. It was all Jess saw. Red, red, red.

It was like Jess' eyes had Dolly Zoom-ed on Will and the sound had cut from his world. It was like he was functioning on automatic. He didn't have control of his body.

And his body made him sock Will Conover so hard that the skin on his second knuckle split open.

Will fell to the ground with a yelp, clutching the left side of his face. Jess didn't even give him a second to get up. He immediately went at him with his other fist, this one less impactful, but just as angry. Will let out another sound and Jess chuckled mirthlessly.

"You really like to hear yourself talk, huh?" he said. Will attempted to lift himself up from the grass with an expression that could scare anyone. Jess pushed him back down. "Keep talking about her like that, see what happens."

Will was finally able to get up, and he went for Jess with what could only be described as a roar. His left fist blew past Jess as he dodged it, and Jess was able to land another hit on Will's left cheek. Another cry. Jess rolled his eyes. What a baby.

Before Will could go after Jess again, Jess heard somebody yell his name. Marley. Fuck.

Will stopped in his tracks, looking at his girlfriend (well, now ex-girlfriend) as she yelled again. "Will! Both of you! Enough!"

"He threw the first punch!" Will cried as Marley slowly made her way toward them.

"I don't give a shit who started it!" Marley said. "Just stop. Fucking stop."

"Acosta--"

Marley glared at Jess. She'd glared at him a lot since they had met, but there was never actually any anger beneath it. Not until now. Jess' heart fell to his stomach.

"Jess," she hissed. There was ice in her tone. "Shut up."

Jess obeyed.

"Thank God," Will said. "Can you tell this asshole to--"

"Will," Marley said. Will stopped talking. He looked at her in confusion, unsure of why she was so angry with him. "You need to leave."

"What?" he seethed. "I need to leave? What about this motherfu--"

"I said leave." Her tone left no room for argument and it honest to God rattled Will's bones. He'd never seen her this angry. "Get away from me."

Will scoffed, clenching his fists at his side. He spat blood on the grass before glaring at Marley, then at Jess. "You two deserve each other."

And with that, he left, clutching the side of his face.

Marley and Jess didn't speak for a long while after Will had gone. Jess didn't want to speak until spoken to in fear of messing things up even further, and Marley was so livid that it took her a couple of minutes to fully compose her thoughts into something that was a functioning sentence.

Whatever Jess pictured this night turning into was certainly not going to be happening tonight.

Marley's voice was quiet yet firm when she finally spoke to him. "What the fuck is your problem?"

Jess furrowed his brows. "What?"

"What the fuck is your problem?" she asked, much, much louder this time. Jess was taken back by the volume of her voice. "The one thing I ask! The one thing I've ever legitimately asked of you, you can't even follow!"

"Marley, slow down--"

"No! I'm not going to slow down!" There was no humor in her laugh as she shook her head. "I was okay with the Ryan thing. I really was. You didn't know how I felt about fighting, so that wasn't your fault. But I told you! I told you that if you pulled that shit again, I wasn't going to be okay with it!"

"Marley," Jess began carefully, "you should have heard the things he was saying. He was talking about you, and I--"

"Jess," she said, matching his tone, "I genuinely could give less of a shit what Will was saying about me."

"What?"

"This isn't about him!" she shouted, already feeling herself getting choked up. "I don't care who started it. I understand that whatever he was saying must have been bad for you to react like that, I truly do. What I care about is how you reacted." Marley shook her head, looking away from him. "I told you that I didn't want you fighting my battles anymore. You said, 'fuck Marley's opinion, I'm just going to fight'. I don't need you to fight my battles."

Jess was quiet. Deadly silent. The eye had been keeping them safe from the storm for way too long. The wind was starting to blow.

"You don't need me to fight your battles?" Jess asked. His eyes were narrowed as he looked at her. "Then who the fuck is going to? Because you certainly aren't."

Marley gaped at him. "Excuse me?"

"How the hell are you going to fight your battles if you can't handle the conflict that started them in the first place?" Jess hated the look on her face but he kept going. "You're so terrified of disappointing everybody that you even remotely care about that you don't even acknowledge that there's ever an issue."

"T-That's not true--" she stammered.

"Jesus Christ, Marley, know your fuckin' audience," he muttered, wiping a hand down his face. "Do you think that I haven't noticed that about you? I know you! I know you better than anybody else!"

"Yeah?" she challenged. "Get off your high horse, because newsflash asshole, I know you too! The only fucking reason you fight my battles is because deep down, you know that your problems are so deep and built into you that you can't even fight them. You think that fighting for someone who isn't yourself makes you a decent person?" She laughed in his face. "It doesn't. It just makes them feel like shit because they have to clean up another one of your messes."

Jess didn't let her see how hurt he was by that. He didn't have time to. He was too mad. "Cleaning up my messes?" he asked. "That's rich."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You let every guy that you're with walk all over you because you're scared of the mess that'll follow," Jess said. Everything about Marley changed in that moment. Her face, her posture- everything. She remained silent as Jess continued. "What are you afraid of? That you'll lose another shitty boyfriend? That he's going to leave?"

"Shut up," she ground out.

Jess wasn't done. "How do you go about picking your boyfriends, anyway?" he asked. "Do you seek out the biggest asshole you can find and immediately fixate on him?"

"No," Marley stated through gritted teeth. "Because if I did that, I would have found a way to date you."

They were throwing bomb after bomb at each other and with every hit they got stung. Neither of them liked saying these things to each other, but as their insults began to escalate, so did the anger within. They'd fought before, (holy shit, had they fought), but it had never gotten to this height. They knew that someone was going to fall soon. It was only a matter of when.

Jess rounded on her after a moment of silence. He there was no reaction to her previous comment though it hurt, especially now. Marley was taken back by the realization written across his face. She furrowed her brow and braced for impact.

"It's not even your fault," he said, almost too quiet for her to hear. "You're into assholes because you don't know how to be loved by a decent guy." He shook his head. He didn't see Marley's breath get caught in her throat. They were getting close to the ledge now. "Trying to make it work with these types of guys aren't going to bring him back, Marley." Closer.

Jess looked at her. "God, your dad really fucked you up, huh?" Push. And Marley fell hard.

Jess immediately snapped out of the rage he was in as Marley's face completely wrecked itself. She cupped her hand over her mouth as she looked at him with more disgust than anyone he'd ever seen in his goddamn life. She began backing away from him, ignoring the way he paled as he'd realized how what he'd said truly affected her.

"Leave," she managed to get out.

Jess ran toward her, reaching out to her. "Marley--"

She slapped his hand away. "Just fucking go, Jess," she said. "Get the fuck out of my sight."

"I didn't mean--" Jess' voice was desperate but Marley didn't care.

"Get away from me!" she yelled, clamping her hand over her mouth as soon as the words were out. She looked at him once more, eyes filled with tears, heartbroken in every sense of the word. "Please," she whispered.

Jess watched helplessly as she backed away from him. He dropped his hand. Marley ran up her porch steps, slamming the door behind her. She didn't look back.

Jess stayed in her driveway for five minutes, replaying the last five in his head. How did things escalate that quickly? How did he fuck up that bad? How could he have fucked up that bad? He wanted nothing more than to knock on Marley's door and hopefully wait for her to open up. He should have waited for her and apologized for the words he didn't mean. He should have told her what he really felt. He should have.

But he didn't.

Jess Mariano instead got into his car, slammed his fist on his steering wheel, and let himself cry. He didn't sob, nor did he wail, but Jess let a couple of tears fall as he backed out of the Acosta's driveway and drove away. Past the crew taking down his mother's wedding party, past his uncle's diner, past Gypsy's and Miss Patty's, past every fucking thing in this town that reminded him of the two people he held closest to him, both of which couldn't stand him.

Jess stopped at a gas station off of the interstate on his way to Yale. He bought a pack of Marlboros for five bucks and brought them back to his car.

He lit one up as he got back on the highway.

He'd smoke the rest on the ride back from Yale, alone.

✧✧✧

author's note: yeah. i'm sorry.

love u all tons.
-mags