YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN, KID » GILMORE GIRLS

SEVEN ➵ I DIDN'T CHOOSE THIS TOWN

""All things great are wound up
with all things little.""—
LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY,
"ANNE OF GREEN GABLES"

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Avonlea didn't chose Hartford. She had these little daydreams every now and then that she actually grew up sort of like Rory and Lorelai—her and her mom in a small town away from the social responsibilities that came with living with the Gilmores. Because she knew that she couldn't change the past, she did dream about getting out for college and maybe never looking back. But where would she go?

She grew up privileged, she knew that and she was grateful, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Rory had a more colorful upbringing than she had.

Up until she started high school, there was no time for friends, there was no time for fun. She had to study all of the time so that she had no reason beyond a doubt to believe she would make it into Chilton. Any form of a "minus" next to any of her grades, even an A, and her mother would make her see a tutor.

Her mother even used to erase her handwritten book reports if her handwriting wasn't pretty enough for her liking.

"You have to continue the Gilmore legacy, Avonlea. There is no slacking around here."

And so she did everything her mother told her to do, for the sake of the Gilmore legacy, one she would never actually inherit herself.

She wondered sometimes about who her father was, where he was, and if he was happy. She wanted to know what parts of herself came from him, or if everything she is now was drilled into her by her mother. What it would be like to be anything but a psuedo-Gilmore.

And all that wondering brought her onto a bus for the first time in her entire life, all the way to a town called Stars Hollow.

If Rory was going to go golfing with Richard and spend a day in her town, she thought maybe she would spend a day in hers. See what was so good about the town Rachel used to say, "Lorelai left her life behind for."

When she got off the bus, she was in a shopping part of the town. Across the street from the stop was a white gazebo in the center, and straight ahead from her was a diner, a local market, and a few other oddly specific shops.

The diner looked the most promising, especially because she had heard Rory and Lorelai talk about a Luke a few times. This must have been his place.

But then again, Avonlea knew better than to assume that there was only one Luke is Stars Hollow, despite the size of it.

Nonetheless, her feet started moving towards the diner. There were a few people sitting at the tables along the windows when she walked inside. There were green walls, red chairs, and two people standing behind the counter, which had barstools on the customer side of it.

The two standing behind the counter were dressed similarly, the older man with a denim button up and a backwards cap. He seemed like he had on a permanent frown, and wondered into the back where she presumed the kitchen was before she made it to a barstool to sit. If that was the Luke she's heard Lorelai and Rory talk about, the way they imitated him to have a gruffy voice was starting to make sense.

That left the younger one behind the counter. He had been staring at her since she walked in, the sound of the bell above the door chiming pulling him out of his own daydreams. The boy, who originally was leaning his chin on his hand, his elbow holding his head up, stood up quickly with a slightly opened mouth and wide eyes.