The Question of a Lifetime {EDITING}

1||Questioning

Before a long procession of listening to names of young adults (some older-older some younger), watching them cross the stage to get their degrees, and listening to more speeches from Yale's Dean of Admissions to Yale's graduated Valedictorian and Salutatorians, a celebration was a requirement. According to Grandma Gilmore, in honor of the single granddaughter of their only daughter who graduated with Honors at the Gilmore alma mater.

The 680-occupant room that Emily Gilmore reserved, on Yale campus, glittered with many guests celebrating Rory's graduation. There were friends (both business and Stars Hollow fellows), family (including the Haydens), women from the D.A.R., and Yale alumni families (LDB members). It was just too many people. Too many for Rory's current anxiety.

Rory hadn't been feeling all that well that evening, nor the days before—after taking her last final. She brushed it off as stress with everything that comes with the last month, of the last year, of college.

Even after everything slowed down for the seniors, she was mentally freaking out. The nausea didn't help either. She played it as a stress-inflicted bug from moving out of her college apartment and moving into the real world, but even then, she knew this was too much of a reaction to be a possibility.

Her apartment has been packed up to a couple duffle bags of clothes and shoes and necessities prior to finals and this party. She should in no way be stressed out or freaked out. It just didn't make sense. The sickness she has been feeling has lasted for weeks now.

Still suffering through it, Rory put on her practiced society smile—one that took countless Friday Night dinners and Lorelai-guided-training in the mirror to perfect. This, this was all because her grandparents put together a grand gathering and she didn't want to disappoint by not showing up, this is practically her party. Rory hated disappointing people, there was no helping that.

In attempt to settle her stomach, Rory had plucked a champagne flute from the waiter that swooped around the shimmering crowd and swallowed it, but the bug wouldn't go away. Her stomach rolled in refute to the sparkling drink, so she excused herself from a conversation with a few D.A.R. members to go to the bathroom. They, in turn, easily dismissed her to discuss the upcoming event that Twinkie Bullrush, a new lady joined through marriage of an older Mr. Simmons, was taking charge of. Apparently, everything she decided on was tacky.

Mother of the graduate always kept eyes on her only daughter as she manned the room as a well-versed hostess that she no doubt picked up from Emily Gilmore.

Christopher had found Lorelai and asked her a question while following her line of sight to his daughter. Lorelai didn't answer him, she all but ditched him with her drink as she followed Rory to the women's room. A few eyes had caught her sudden movement and begun to ask questions among themselves.

At the thrash of the door and the steeled click of the bathroom door closing, Lorelai heard retching from one of the stalls of the empty bathroom (that she checked by looking under each door). When she found her daughter's feet, she knocked on the locked stall door.

"Rory, sweets, are you in there?" Lorelai asks.

There was no other sound than gasping breaths, groaning, and dry heaving. There was a pause, large intakes of breaths, and a flush before Lorelai got a response. Lorelai hoped and prayed that her daughter wasn't in a condition that she thought she was. At least Emily withheld fruit from the menu.

"Yeah mom, I'm here." Rory leaned back against the stall wall; the cold soothed the heat flash she was sitting through. She closed her eyes, thoughts flying to Logan who was across the Atlantic. His parents had the audacity to show up on his "behalf".

"Are you okay? Because that doesn't sound pretty." Lorelai tried to make the situation light. Rory appreciated the effort, but it wasn't what she wanted right now. What she wanted was out of reach.