Post 3.21:

Jess lives with Jimmy and Sasha now. He sleeps on the couch and keeps to himself. He only has what is in his bag, so he doesn't take up much room and he doesn't have enough clothing to make the mess that he made at Luke's in season 2.

I imagine he wouldn't want to stick around the house that much, having had to convince Jimmy into letting him stay. He doesn't feel incredibly welcome, really. So, instead he spends his day walking around the area and discovering the places that he would rather spend his free time.

These places include:

1. A remote corner of a beach, one that is more rocky and less hospitable to families on vacation or sunbathers that like to gawk.

2. The boardwalk shops where he can find weird little books and albums to buy along with other odds and ends.

3. A local library, one that has a great collection of classics as well as local books that is part of a larger network of libraries that make it easy to get whatever book you'd like to read... in 3-5 business days.

He also, I would imagine, get a job at a WalMart with the recommendation from his old WalMart positions.

So, there we have it. He wakes up early, gets himself some food, reads until he has to work, works, eats, chooses one of his 3 places, and then comes home once he's sure that everyone else will be asleep, finally able to make his way through the sea of dogs without making them howl. Doesn't make friends, but meets some interesting people.

I imagine that he's a lot like Matilda at this point, reading everything he can get his hands on.

Eventually Sasha, Jimmy's partner, would take notice of the fact that he doesn't interact much with people. Let's say that it's about a month into Jess's not-seen-and-not-heard routine and Sasha finally confronts Jimmy about maybe being Jess's friend. Sure, he shouldn't try and insert himself as Jess's dad, but he should do something!

Cue Sasha trapping Jess into the first family dinner complete with her daughter talking about what she's doing at summer camp and feeding the cats bits of ham underneath the table. There is a totally not rehearsed moment where Sasha cues Jimmy to talk about the few things that he needs done around the food stand. Like, for instance, the fact that the whole shack needs to be repainted. It'd take too long to do on his own and he can't spare the workers to do it because the summer is just so busy and... oh, Jess! You could do it, couldn't you?

Jess borrows some of Jimmy's clothes to paint, making him look the least New York that he has ever looked in his entire life. He gets a tan too, standing on the beach all day long. Jimmy starts getting Jess to do more stuff to help, like fixing drawers and doors and shelves and such. They start to bond. In the meantime, Sasha also gets him to help her around the house so that he can get even more experience being a handyman. She convinces him to take some payment.

Along the way, Jess meets a small group of people that is headed by a girl, all of which skateboard and surf in their free time. None of them are huge scholars, all sort of slacker-types. He has a tentative friendship with them, though they never make plans.

The one girl, the leader, starts hanging around the library more often. They speak to each other and though they make no plans, they know that they will find each other at the library.

One day, he ends up helping her correct her paper. He beefs it up to get her an A- instead of a C+, like she would have gotten on her own. To repay him, she buys him a CD. He doesn't like the songs much, but he keeps it anyway.

He only acknowledges this agreement to meet every other day at 3 once, when he says that he'll be gone a few days. He has to go get his car.

In Connecticut.

Post 4.12 & 13:

Jess quits his job at Walmart and gets a job at the library, his only coworkers being above the age of 60. He has a lot of free time at this new job, allowing him to hang out with his friend, let's call her Ivy. (Yes, this is the Ivy from Windward Circle)

Ivy does her homework there and everyone she hangs out with does too. People start using Jess as a resource, something that he is convinced to charge for as these Californians don't have his taste in music. After word gets out, he makes a few hundred dollars a week from all of the college students in the area, doing the paper correcting only during work at the library when nothing else needs to be done. No one minds as he is pretty efficient anyway.

We also get a good Jess birthday right around now. He has a little party with Sasha, Jimmy, his younger step-sister (Lily), and Ivy. Sasha invited Ivy against Jimmy's guidance. It goes well and they eat cake. Jess doesn't particularly like strawberry cake, but he eats it because Sasha and Lily made it for him.

He got an iPod for his birthday.

That night, he walks Ivy home. They almost kiss.

He can't.

She asks him, "is it that girl? The one that you went back for?"

It is.

And he announces his move to NYC the very next day.

He's back in New York by the end of the week, and another week later he is staying in the apartment that Luke found him in.

Post 4.20 and 21:

Jess, now completely heartbroken over the rejected proposal to run away, packs up his car and leaves NYC. He decides to travel, to get his bearings on his own and experience America the way that only an angsty boy like him can.

He lives off his savings from working at WalMart, Luke's, Jimmy's shack, Sasha's small payments, the library, and his paper correcting business. Though he doesn't live in California, he does talk to Ivy through email every once in a while. She asks if he would be okay to give out his email as people still ask for him in the library. He corrects papers over email and makes money that way.

After about 5 months, he settles in an East-ish college town, let's say Kent, Ohio (as that is one of the only states that requires no classes before taking the GED test). He gets his GED in 2005 at the age of 21. He extends his editing abilities to the Kent State students. The end of the school year comes around and he continues to travel the country.

He finishes his first draft of his book around now.

Traveling, traveling, traveling. He sticks to the East coast now, from Florida to Maine. Once he finally finishes his book, he happens to be in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to be exact.

While in town, he submits his paper to a Philly editor, signing a month-by-month lease in the meantime.

He receives the edits and settles into a small cafe to read them. They are... not fantastic, to say the least. The only person to notice his quiet irritation is the young barista who has a crush on him and is glad whenever he comes in.

Maybe an hour into marking up his editor's edits, Jess mutters something like "idiot". This happens at the same time that one of the Truncheon books founders makes a simple mistake. Were you talking to me? No, I was talking to this editor. Blah, blah, blah, Jess submits to an editor that the Truncheon guy suggests (an in-house editor).

Jess works as part-time handyman to get a discount on his editing with the Truncheon people and builds a relationship with the guys. He's hired as an actual employee once there's an opening and they eventually publish his book.

Jess gets copies and he sends a few to his family in California. He then travels up the east coast (Penn, NY, RI, Conn) until he lands in Stars Hollow, "begging people to stock his books" along the way.

Post 6.08:

Jess is sad again, but he buries himself in his work.

Rory is put out of his mind for now.

Post 6.18:

He decides that he can't hold his breath for Rory anymore.