Ok, I wasn't even planning to publish this. Just one of those random analogies that popped into my mind while I was in the shower and had to be put to paper. (Or Word).
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Sometimes Rory thinks about her life so clearly that she can physically see it drawn out behind her, like a black road measured across a white map page.
Her road started for North, straight and narrow and focused: first through her time at Stars Hollow, to Chilton, and onto Yale. To bigger and better things maybe.
Over time though other roads have crisscrossed through the map to push against hers.
Dean: another road to the North, running along her straight path comfortably that she could depend on when need be. But then his road had stopped: looping round and round in the same circle. Content perhaps but not going anywhere.
So she went on alone.
Logan's path was different: coming to run alongside hers to the North for a time (though with more twists and turns). They seemed so in synch, two college students destined for greatness. Going up.
His path though, veered off. He turned to the West: to a life of sun and sophistication and socialising.
He'd invited her to come and she'd considered, thought about moulding his path with hers and following his direction.
But she didn't.
Then there was Jess who had intercepted her path more than any of the others put together.
At first it had been a crash: a path speeding south – to 'wherever' to do 'whatever' as he would say. They had collided headlong, melding together in a way Rory's path has never melded before. For the short while it hadn't been her road but theirs: The RoryandJess path, straining against each other from the beginning. Town Princess and The Hoodlum. Valedictorian and High School Drop Out.
So it had only ever been a meeting place. He'd gone his way and she'd gone hers.
She'd thought that had been it.
But it hadn't because his path wasn't as predestined as people believed. It had cut over hers again and again, jagged and directionless.
"Rory, stop!"
"I love you."
"It's what I want – it's what you want too!"
"You know we're supposed to be together!"
But she'd stayed focused, kept climbing up, and only ever staying with those who ran alongside her: never to mesh. Not again.
Only then her path had come to a crashing halt, not looping like Deans or even scrawling like Jess's: just stopped in a mess of indecision and crossroads.
And so their paths had crossed yet again but this time his was the straight one. Slicing across her dead-end pool of possibilities.
The irony of it: that his path was heading up now while she stopped and went nowhere.
It wasn't the same as her previous path (Jess was too much of a rebel for her organized directions). It was a diagonal arrow, maybe speeding to the North East of her metaphorical page: still that risk. But it was straight and strong and it had got her moving.
Perhaps she should have taken the chance then: to follow him.
Only there was how battered and crumbled her path had been after they'd broken the first time: she didn't want to risk that experience again. Better to stay safe.
Then there was still Logan's path; the temptation to veer the other way with him.
So she'd chosen neither and carried on North.
It's not until now, that the map changes.
For the first time her path actually alters direction, curving off, as two roads meld together at last.
Finally RoryandJess in perfect parallel. Only Geometry is wrong, because some parallel lines do meet.+
Rory Gilmore's path has never changed before.
But as she gazes down at the silver banded ring before her...she realises its time it did.
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I'm not sure about this piece: it is a lot rougher than what I usually write but I hope someone out there enjoyed it. And if you did...REVIEW!
