𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗗𝗚𝗘 (JESS MARIANO)

26

after weeks of people talking teagans ear off about jess, trying to make her feel better, she was getting fed up.

sick of hearing everything and anything being said about the mariano boy and lorelai's complaints on anyone's food that isn't luke's, she was almost at her wits end.

she had decided to go for a walk to clear her head and escape the continued lecture from her foster parents, listening to them repeat the same things over and over like; 'i never trusted him' and 'you should never have got in that car with him, we taught you better.'

she thought it was pretty ironic they told her that they 'taught' her, she'd only been in their lives for three years and spent a good part of them thinking she was a burden to anna and cal.

she rounded the corner and she spotted a familiar chevrolet parked outside luke's and went to the window to see if the man she had been missing was back in town, when he saw her, he nodded his head signalling that she could come in.

"hey." she greeted. "i've been missing my job for awhile."

"yeah, i just had to get out of here." he shrugged, setting down a mug, already knowing that she'd want coffee.

"i get that." teagan sat for a moment, flicking her eyes around the room, debating on whether to ask what she had been wanting to know for awhile. "so, have you talked to him?"

"oh, no, i talked to his mom, though. he got home okay."

teagan nodded, silently. "did he take his stuff?"

"no, i'm gonna send it."

they sat for a few moments in an awkward silence, teagan unsure of how to make the situation better for the man who had blamed himself.

"luke." teagan called to him.

"yeah?"

"it wasn't his fault."

"i know it wasn't."

"i just wanted to make sure." teagan nodded again, slightly relieved that someone in the town didn't put all the blame on the teen.

"oh, i think he left this for you." luke broke teagan out of her thoughts as he grabbed something from the shelf under the counter.

"who?" teagan furrowed her brows, looking between luke and what looked like a book.

"jess." he held it out to her in one hand, patiently waited for her to take it so he could turn back to the coffee.

"jess did what?"

"left this for you."

"for me?"

"yes."

"he left something?" teagan pointed towards his hand. "for me?" she turned her pointer finger towards herself.

"would you just take it?" luke's face scrunched into annoyance as his patience ran out.

teagan grabbed the item from his hand and studied what it was.

it was a book.

she read the tattered cover of 'the old man and the sea' by ernest hemingway and smiled to herself as she remembered the day of the picnic festival when she promised to read hemingway's 'painful' writing.

teagan hummed in content as she flicked through the pages, noticing notes scattered around the margins and lines, she reached the front page to the small, square note that slight stuck out at the edge.

'you gotta keep your promise on hemingway, Tea. i told you, he only has nice things to say about you.

Danes'