DISCLAIMER: I don't own this story, but i wrote it. The characters and settings belong to ASP...
Please Read and Review, I'm still very new to fanfiction... I've only been reading it for a week or so, but I'm loving this site!
Rory had always stuck to herself. Apart from her mother and Lane, she didn't really have any friends of her own. She knew that Lane was fantastic and they had been friends forever, but she wasn't naïve. She knew much of the attraction for Lane was Rory's family life. Both girls were the only ones in Kindergarten without fathers, Rory's being absent and Lane's father dead. But for Lane, the Gilmore household had represented everything that the Kim one was lacking. Lane craved Lorelai's loving persona and wished for a life without so many rules. The sheer impossibility was what attracted the girls, and the friendship had stuck.
Lorelai knew this, and it made her heartache when she thought of Rory at Stars Hollow High. Although she knew that she would have loved attending the school, Rory was no her. Rory deserved better, which is why she had been so determined for Rory to be accepted into Chilton.
Chilton was meant to be good for Rory. The opportunities alone that Rory would receive were amazing. But most importantly, the social pool accessible was ideal. At Stars Hollow High, Rory had Lane, and whilst they were best friends, Lorelai knew that if the situation were different, they would not be. She had hoped that Rory would find where she fit in; a group where she truly belonged.
That is what made the situation worse. Lorelai knew that there were other people that Rory could be friends with. She knew that Paris was Rory's competition, but that didn't mean they had to hang out. The ironic thing was that Paris, Madeline and their cronies were the same as the girls who Rory had run from and ignored at Stars Hollow High. This was seen clearly when Lorelai took the group to the Bangles concert. Rory wasn't like those girls, she didn't feel the need to run off and party or drink. Paris, ultimately wasn't interested per se, yet she would follow Madeline wherever she went, whatever she did.
Lorelai thought that Rory knew better. She thought that she had raised her daughter to be better than that. Since when did Rory care what her peers thought of her? It wasn't as if Lorelai wanted her daughter to join high society. She didn't want her going to fancy dinners and balls every weekend. All she wanted was her daughter to have some friends with common interests. She wanted Rory to have true friends.
She worried about her daughter when she thought about friendships. Rory had grown up surrounded by adults, something Lorelai had always thought was a good thing. Now, with Rory aged 16, Lorelai wondered if she had gone wrong. Rory was the most well-adjusted, mature 16-year-old that she had ever met, but she couldn't, whether it be a conscious or unconscious choice, communicate effectively with people her own age. Was it her fault that Rory couldn't maintain friendships?
Lorelai thought back to her own time in high school. She didn't remember having many close female friends in her final years. She had Christopher. But then, she had always had Christopher, from the age of 7 when the Hayden family moved to Hartford, Chris and Lorelai had been inseparable. She tried to remember the names of her other friends, but she couldn't. She tried, but each high school memory was either centred around a moment spent with Chris, or a moment with many people, but with her focus on Chris.
Had Lorelai been "that girl"? The girl who gets herself a boyfriend with whom she becomes best friends with, alienating others who care? Lorelai remembered having friends and being popular, but had she imagined it? If she truly was popular, liked by all, surely she would have remembered something. Leaving school as a teenage mother, if she had close friends, they would have stuck by her. If she had any friends they would have stuck by her. No one did. She didn't remember visits at the hospital, apart from Christopher visiting, or more casual visits at home. She didn't have girl friends come and see her perfect daughter. She had been alone in the large Gilmore home. She realised that she had been like Rory. She didn't have friends going through school. She just had Chris.
What Lorelai hadn't understood at first was why Rory didn't have friends as such. She was a nice, intelligent, beautiful girl. There was no reason for Rory not to be liked, in fact, she was liked. People thought that the young Gilmore girl was sweet, "a treasure" and fantastic, all extremely true. Looking back on her own youth, Lorelai remembered being liked, realising tha being liked was only half the struggle for friendship. Lorelai had been liked and, using her humour and quick wit as a cover, was extremely shy, too much so to be able to effectively form ties.
It was Rory's problem too. Lorelai knew it, although instead of using her giant brain to find comebacks or woo people with her humour, Rory buried herself in books, choosing adventures with Huck Finn over parties and Shakespeare over movies. It was her way of battling her demons, hiding rather than confronting her fear.
She couldn't take the first step and establish a relationship. In her youth at the Independence Inn, many guests were always so surprised to find such an adorable young girl wandering reception. They came to her, asking about her life, her dreams. Rory never had to go to them for a conversation. Lorelai began to think that maybe, just maybe, these experiences set the path of the rest of Rory's life.
She made up for her lack of social interaction with Lorelai. They were best friends. Rory didn't think she needed more. And who was Lorelai to complain. No matter what, she would always know that her daughter was safe.