wow.

i wish i were a more eloquent reviewer, giving you feedback and actual words as to why this made me tremble. but i can't, and that's not your fault; oh no, this whole thing was beautiful and painful but so true. you make writing well seem so effortless, and staying true to jess and rory's respective natures easy, and the only way i could sum all of that up into one word would be 'wow.'

so, wow!

i hope you update soon; anything, for that matter. because i'm truly addicted to everything you write.

Your work is beautiful and inspiring. You write like breathing; natural, but sometimes a little painful. I enjoy it.

I love this story. The poem that inspired the piece is well served. I choked up at the end, and I can’t say that for many fics. I thought you painted a vivid picture of Rory as a very lonely person. She’s also a person without a clear sense of purpose, and I thought that in a way that made this a writer’s story about writing, and how easy it is to lose your focus.

I admired the way you assembled the husband’s character from fragments, not unlike the fragments Rory scribbles and hides around the house (“Often, court tires him out, and he claims he needs to recharge, laughing about how he may be a robot. Sometimes, he makes her laugh too.”) I also wanted to mention that you can be very funny when you want to be: “…he makes an important note: Wife dying, tell Craig to buy flowers/She studies him from the frame of the hallway entrance, hating him the way only a wife can…”

This is great work. Thanks for writing it.

i love the idea of rory and jess sneaking/cheating to be with each other. i'm not sure why, but i do.

your stories are depressing, but i like that. i like that they make me cry. i even kind of like that rory and jess didn't end up together.

Iloved how it was just so simple in its words that they sliced right through me, but it was so complex that her pain washed over me. I'm in awe.

Elise, even though I rarely comment/read anymore - I read this, and I think it's achingly beuatiful. You have a gift for pulling at people's heartstrings. This is lovely, darling. Absolutely brilliant. One of your best.

This work inspires the kind of feeling I have upon seeing a shooting star or the Northern Lights: how is it possible for something to be so overwhelmingly beautiful?

"“I don’t know. When you have no life, it’s very hard to have a cause.”" She says this somewhat lightheartedly, but there seems to be a serious layer underneath. There's so much evidence that she feels lost and unimportant later on.

"“I wanted to share it with you.”" She's trying to forge some kind of connection, and for him to reject her like that must be very hurtful.

"Each syllable, a delicate stab to her psyche. She wonders, do you always hurt the one you love?" I wonder, must you always write so beautifully that it makes me cry? (The answer's yes, although in my defence, I only cry from your fics - TSBR, The Faithless, OT.)

"“They have meaning,” she says softly. “They’re pieces of people. Of the author’s minds and ideas and lives. I have books full of real people, even though they’re gone.”" You absolutely nailed it. That's exactly what I think about books, put in a much better way than I could.

"She writes as much as she can. She talks less." I relate this Rory to Ophelia, as they're both slowly losing their voice, and their identity.

"She misses work fiercely, imagining her business suit and briefcase and purpose." What was it about this life with her husband that would make Rory, she who wanted to be the next Christiane Amapour, give all of that up?

"It’s just this one time, added to thousands of others." One pinprick doesn't seem like much, but add up a few pinpricks a day for months on end, and a broken leg would be much better.

"This is where it happens." I like how 'it' is only referred to as 'it', ironically signifying 'it's' magnitude.

"A familiar smirk appears on his face, and the rush of the past makes her shoulder blades tingle." It's almost as if their past is something tangible that she carries around, and weighs everything against: him.

"“Dean.” “That’s not funny.”" Jess may not think so, but it really made me laugh.

"“I suppose if I asked for a name, you wouldn’t be kind and just tell me?”" I love how they don't divulge details about their significant others, as if their relationship doesn't belong in the world of other people. As if they're trying to protect their signifcant others, but more importantly, each other.

"She finds that with him, the words come easily." So simple, and so gorgeous.

"Children don’t even get to play in their front yards, but they’re all too busy at boarding school to complain about the injustice." I love satire.

"Favorite books, the way she takes her coffee, how she smiles with the left side of her mouth. He’s taken back to years ago with a simple flick of her tongue against his." What a lovely way to show what he remembers, things I assume Rory wouldn't find "inconsequential". They show she was important to him.

"He finds that the past tastes like dated cherries, sweet to the point of spoil inside his mouth." This is one of the most effective similes I've ever read. I received such a clear picture of what Jess is feeling, every word meaningful and so, so true.

"Her delicate steps are swallowed up by the large hall." I love all these images of Rory being engulfed by something much larger than her.

"Her muscles relax as an easy smile takes form." She does love her husband, although he makes it hard, sometimes.

"“I had no idea we were measuring the intellectual level of my appetizer.”" Love Jess. Love their banter.

"She keeps him warm." He "[lets] her win". All symbols of how they have a symbiotic relationship, one based on give and take.

"She likes that with him, she never feels completely overwhelmed." You don't quote this part of "Near Perigord" but it's my favourite and it reminds the most of R/J: "She who could never live save through one person, She who could never speak save to one person."

"‘Believing we should meet with lips and hands.’" I love how this poem is interwoven throughout Rory's relationships with both Jess and Brian.

"God, she feels so there." When she's with Jess, she's not so invisible. He keeps her in the present.

"They’re not appearing as often as they used to." She doesn't think he notices, but he does. He keeps them.

"“I think I love you,” she mumbles into his hair." We studied Mary Oliver's poems in English, and there's a section of her poem "Poppies" that reminds me of this (although in the poem, she's talking about death):

'of course

loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light

is an invitation

to happiness,

and that happiness,

when it's done right,

is a kind of holiness,

palpable and redemptive'

(I just get a similar feeling from both, one of intense happiness)

"She is studying Rory hard, trying to figure out why she is so different, so special." It must be difficult and very painful to wonder why she isn't good enough. I don't think that's the problem here, though. Rory and Jess just have this connection, that time and involvement with other people can't quite erase.

"Her eyes plead with him to reconsider. Please, she wants to say. Please, let me disappear with you instead of by myself." Heartwrenchingly sad, and I'm crying again.

"She is too busy watching the color drain from the room, leaving a stark scene behind." I'm completely flabbergasted at how accurately you captured her emotions: empty, lifeless.

"“No. Rory, don’t do this.”" He says he doesn't love her, but he cares so much about her. In everything he says and does.

"She quickly blinks, needing to see her husband and the way he looks at her. He sees her." Yes, there is something still there. Yes, he loves her. Yes, there can be a happy ending.

Not for Rory and Jess, though. There's always something in the way. This is a perfect way of describing them: "And the great wheels in heaven Bore us together … surging and apart …" And "In the Twilight" is eerily close to perfection.

Wow. That was amazing. I'm surprised you don't have a thousand reviews, because it really was utterly amazing. The characters were brilliantly portrayed, especially Rory's. The way she slips poems into crevices, the poems themselves- everything aspect of this story contributed to the overall effect. It truly was wonderfully written. Great story!

Hey,

I have read a lot of your stories, but I think that this has to be my favorite. It's one of my favorite stories I have readon fanfiction so far; it's so sad, though balanced off well with the few moments of heartbreaking happiness you managed to write in here and there. I thought that the darkness and the poem held up the story. It was beautiful and amazingly written, of course.

Bye, smile :-)

Wow. You are a fantastically special writer. Even when I read truly sad stories, I never burst into tears but you, my dear, are an exception. Just as I started reading from (I know someone has already quoted this, but gosh, it needs to be quoted again) :

They pass each other in the hall like perfect strangers. She does not look up from her book; her husband is preoccupied with his thoughts about the upcoming trial. It is not until he is several steps away that he turns back to look at her. Something faint tugs at his heartstrings, a mix of guilt and loneliness. He reaches into his pocket to touch the scraps of paper he has been collecting around the house. They’re not appearing as often as they used to.

My heart constricted. The way you give character to Rory's husband is fantastic, you seem to tease us tiny snippets of information. Sadness just completely washed over me when I found that he did notice all those notes that Rory left around the house, to save herself from disappearing.

“Love, and I love and love you,

And hate your mind, not you, your soul, your hands.”

I also really loved this line. I must utter this word again, even in the face of seeming redundant: wow.

Hey hey!

Another review! I reviewed at b-m-g but you can never hear a compliment enough I say! Loved it!

omg its so good. this is the best rory/jess story i've read. cant wait until the next update! please let rory and jess end up together! :-)

Oh, god, why do you always make me cry?

"She is too busy watching the color drain from the room, leaving a stark scene behind."

I had to reread that, I was so amazed. I love that line. Thank you for, yet again, writing Jess and Rory in a way I don't think I ever could.

When you do stuff like this, it makes me feel sad, for several reasons. First, is that I miss these crazy kids sometimes, despite my watching the show with one eye open or no longer perusing for hours on end. I miss the excitement and just loving the attraction and every time you write something like this that makes me feel again, I am reminded of it. Second, what you write about them is often tragic, but it's often just so true. True that they have a tragic ending, but true that were they to be presented in a situation like this, this, I'm convinced, is exactly how it'd really go.

Jess is always Rory's excuse for leaving her perfectly planned road. What she wants and what she knows she should have for herself are very different things. Here she is in a no longer exciting, albeit comfortable, but stale marriage. And Jess swoops in again. And he was always so exciting. And maybe she did love him, but that kind of love was never enough for her because she needed the kind that would be her and some guy years from now living together in stability. This is what they'd do: Rush in the excitment, welcome it, embrace it, love it, only to find it still not working, still only temporary, still not enough. I love that the attraction is still there, something time and space could never attempt to break, but it's one more reminder of their inability to every get it together... together.

Well, I planned on reviewing this yesterday but there was some sort of server error. But today, I can apparently give a successful review. So, here I am! And I'm shocked that nobody else has gotten to this yet. Last night at 11:30 pm, I was having a minor breakdown after reading this and my mom thought something was seriously wrong with me.

This fanfiction is so incredibly unique. It amazes me how you can take a storyline that is seemingly so simple and perfect and twist it around into something the reader would never expect. Going into this, I read that beginning part where it is explained that Rory is unhappy in her marraige, and then she meets with Jess again, etc. I figured it was going to be another one of those stories where they fall in love and she gets divorced, and so on. But then, you throw in the wrench...rather, the wrenchES! And so many! Jess has a girlfriend, he doesn't love Rory, Jess' girlfriend knows (sort of) about Jess and Rory, then the scene at the end with her husband.

This story reminded me very much of...oh, something fleeting, I guess. I can't really put my finger on it, because I don't know exactly what emotion I am feeling (or did last night). This story is such an amalgam of sadness and loneliness with relief and hope that I don't think there is quite the word for it. This story was exceptionally written. I really wish that my mind could work in this sort of way. You really ought to write for a literary magazine of some sort. I don't think I could tell the difference between this story and something published. It was...beautifully poignant. And I absolutely adored the avant-garde ending. Would that be the right word? I guess so. I loved how it wasn't so depressing that all of the tears the reader cries are sad. It was...hopeful, as though Rory's faith was still lingering there, as though she saw an end to her isolation in sight. As if there were methods to the madness of other people.

I really liked that Rory and Jess didn't end up together in this story too. There was such a twist to it, the way he pushes her aside...it almost seemed, in some kind of backwards way, symbolic of season two/beginning of season three.

And the character of Rory's husband...I think he is my favorite. I loved how you shaped Rory in this story - incredibly in character, yet formed differently through artistic license - a writer of sorts that wants to publish something, sort of brushed aside by her husband because he doesn't think that the words mean anything, or doesn't regonize her sincerity. But her husband...Rory really does love him, and he really does love her.

*And my favorite thing about this story was that you showed in such a beautiful, simple, and utterly heartbreaking way, how as Rory turned away from her husband and fell into love with Jess again, that her husband realized how much he loved Rory and how much he might have hurt her.*

I had to star that because I thought it was important that you know how great that transition was.

-

"They pass each other in the hall like perfect strangers. She does not look up from her book; her husband is preoccupied with his thoughts about the upcoming trial. It is not until he is several steps away that he turns back to look at her. Something faint tugs at his heartstrings, a mix of guilt and loneliness. He reaches into his pocket to touch the scraps of paper he has been collecting around the house. They’re not appearing as often as they used to.

“Rory,” he says.

She almost stumbles from the surprise of hearing the sound of his voice. Shutting her book, she looks over her shoulder.

He gives her a private smile. “You look nice today.”

Her eyes widen but she does not return the gesture. She opens her mouth to respond but finds it hard to breathe let alone speak. By the time the tingling leaves her, he has walked away, back to work in his office.

-

One of my favorite parts among others - the part where she doesn't tell Jess her husband's name, when she meets his girlfriend, the first time she says she thinks that she's falling in love with him, and the part where she tells Jess she wants to go to a motel with him (happy and sad at the same time, I thought). Oh, and the very end. That was the bestest part.

I would quote them all, but my fingers are starting to hurt.

I think you're an amazing writer and I loved this story. It was so original and unlike anything I've ever read on this site. So...refreshing. It reads like...hell, it *IS* real literature.

Beautiful job. I loved it.

-molly-