Sugar and Spice: Everything Changes
By Misha
Disclaimer and Notes in Chapter One.
Chapter Fourteen: Different Futures
"How's Dean?" Christa asked Rory on Monday when she arrived in Stars Hollow to spend the night with Rory. She'd talked to her sister briefly over the phone, but this was the first time she'd seen her since the disastrous Friday night dinner.
"He's ok," Rory told her, "or at least I think he is. We haven't really talked about what happened on Friday."
"Grandpa was out of line." Christa said quietly.
"Mom thinks he acted the way he did because he was projecting what happened to her onto me and he was worried about my future." Rory confided.
Christa considered it and thought that their mom was probably right. Dean was handsome and he adored Rory and the sight of Rory in love probably scared their grandparents and made them remember what had happened the last time they'd had to deal with a teenager in love.
"What would you do if you got pregnant?" Rory asked her suddenly.
"Get married." Christa answered instantly. "But I have no intention of being a teen mother."
"Neither did Mom," Rory pointed out.
"Yeah but you can't get pregnant if you don't have sex." Christa said with a shrug. "It's probably the biggest reason why I'm still a virgin."
However, it wasn't the only reason. While the fear of getting pregnant and repeating her mother's life definitely held her back, there was also the fact that until she'd come to Connecticut, she'd never met anyone she cared about enough to want to have sex. Now she had a different problem. Now she wasn't sure which boy she cared about more…
"Do you want to have sex?" Rory asked curiously.
"Yeah," Christa admitted. "I think about it a lot." Sometimes, when she was with Colin or Tristan, it was all she could think about and she honestly didn't know if her resolve would last until the end of the summer, let alone the end of high school. "What about you?"
"I'm definitely not ready." Rory told her. "I don't think I will be for a long time. I mean, I love Dean, so much, and I do think about it, but, I don't feel ready."
"I understand." Christa assured her. "It's a personal decision. Only you will know when you're ready."
"What did you do this weekend?" Rory asked, changing the subject.
"Saturday night my friend Juliet had a party," Christa told her, "So I went to that and I ended up staying the night. Then last night, Tristan and I went to a movie."
She and Colin had gone to Juliet's party together and Colin had ended up crashing there as well, something that Christa decided to keep to herself. She loved Rory, but she was pretty sure Rory wouldn't approve plus she might tell their mom, who'd tell their dad and well… Christa was positive that the new, stricter Christopher would not be ok with her sharing a bed with a guy she was dating, even if they weren't having sex.
The next day, Christa had dragged herself home by noon, had a quick nap and then had gone over to Tristan's. His parents were out of town, so after the movie they'd gone back to his place and made out until he finally brought her home just in time for curfew. While Straub and Francine weren't really enforcing it, she knew that one-on-one dates made them more nervous than parties, so she had decided to follow the rules and be home on time.
"Do Tristan and Colin know about each other?" Rory asked her.
"Yes." Christa answered, though it wasn't the entire truth. Tristan knew about Colin, of course, but she'd never mentioned Tristan by name to Colin. He never actually asked about the other guys she saw, just like she never asked about the other girls he went out with. "We're all on the same page, Rory. Not everyone needs a commitment."
"Are you still seeing other guys too?" Rory pressed.
Christa shrugged. "Occasionally. There's this guy, Robert, who I go out with sometimes. I'm going out with him tomorrow night actually."
There was a political dinner in Hartford and Senator Brewster was making Robert attend and he needed a date, so he'd asked her. Actually, that was pretty much how it went with Robert. They rarely went anywhere just the two of them, instead he often asked her to accompany him to some command performance. It was one of the reasons Christa didn't take him seriously as a suitor, which was ok, because she didn't want serious. Besides, he was fun and charming and she didn't mind helping him out.
"There have been a few others," Christa added, "But really you can only date so many people at the time. Even casually." She grinned at Rory. "Especially when you have a greedy twin sister who keeps demanding your time."
"Hey, I shared a womb with you for 8 and a half months," Rory reminded her, "That gives me a better on claim than any guy."
"Duly noted," Christa assured her, "Besides, I love my twin time."
"Me too." Rory said softly. "I don't want to give it up. I hate that you're moving away."
"I'll come back as often as I can." Christa assured her. "It's a two how drive and Straub and Francine have assured me that they're house is open to me whenever I want, so I was thinking I'll come down at least one weekend a month and if you ever need me for anything, I can just hop in my car."
"But we won't be going to school together." Rory whined.
Christa resisted the urge to sigh. She was sick of having this conversation with Rory. She understood why Rory was upset, but at the same time, the past semester had been an aberration, living in separate cities was their normal.
"We were only in a couple classes together and you hated my PDA in the hallway." Christa reminded her. "Besides, think about how much easier Paris will be on you without me around to antagonize her."
"I don't think Paris will ever go easy on me," Rory said, rolling her eyes. "Won't you miss Chilton at all?"
"I'll miss making out with Tristan in the hallway," Christa joked, "and I'll miss see you every day. But Chilton? It's just another school. It's not like I haven't switched schools before."
She was sure that the private school that the Haydens had found for her in Boston would be perfectly fine. It would be like Chilton and all the other schools she had been to. It would be full of bored rich brats looking for excitement and it would be a mix of crazy over-achievers and defiant slackers.
"Don't you worry that will affect your college chances?" Rory asked her. "Moving around so much?"
Christa shrugged. "Not really. After all, it's not my fault." Ok, well, one of the times it had been, but switching schools regularly hadn't hurt Logan or Colin or the others. "Besides, I'll be applying to Princeton and Yale and the Hayden and Gilmore names will help."
"And Harvard." Rory reminded her. "I want us to go to Harvard together."
"I'll apply to Harvard." Christa promised, though she was less sure about her chances without the family name to back her up.
Besides, Harvard was Rory's dream, not Christa's. All of her friends were going Yale and they'd promised to introduce her to the party scene there, plus the Gilmores would love it. Which was both a pro and a con, if Christa was honest, but right now Yale was looking pretty good. Then, there was Princeton and fulfilling Straub's dream for Christopher, which was less appealing, but part of her felt like she should.
So, if Christa was honest, her thoughts of college centered on Yale and Princeton, not Harvard. But she didn't want to tell Rory that though; there was plenty of time later to dash her sister's dream of them going to college together.
"I'm never coming back from South Korea." Lane moaned later that evening. She'd come over to hang out with Rory and Christa and had spent most of the afternoon complaining about her upcoming trip to South Korea and the fact that she was convinced her parents were sending her there permanently.
"I know people with private jets, we can always smuggle you back into the country." Christa offered.
Lane and Rory both looked at her.
"Who do you know that has a private jet?" Rory questioned. She knew a lot of rich people, but she didn't think she knew anyone with their own plane.
Christa shrugged. "A few people. Colin's dad, Logan's dad and my friend Robert's dad. I think some of my other friends' parents have them as well. Technically they're all company planes, except for Senator Brewster's."
"Senator Brewster?" Rory repeated. How did Christa know Senator Brewster? "You know Senator Brewster?"
"He's Robert's father," Christa said patiently, "I've met him a few times. I'm going to one of his speech's tomorrow as Robert's date."
It was just another reminder of how different Christa's life was from Rory's. She founded so blasé about the whole thing, but Rory thought it sounded amazing. She would have so many questions for Senator Brewster, she'd want to pick his brain about Washington and his viewpoints on certain policies.
"Political pull is good," Lane pointed out, "You can petition to rescue me from South Korea if it comes to that."
"I'm sure that your mom isn't sending you to South Korea forever," Rory pointed out. "I'm sure there's a good explanation for everything."
"Yeah, that she's decided I'm too American," Lane said glumly, "So she's going to remove me from temptation."
"Nah," Christa told her, "I know your mom, there's no way she's sending you away forever. That would mean you were outside her sphere of influence."
"Ooh," Lane said, "Good point. You're right. She'd never let me live away from her. So I should only worry if it looks like she's coming with me."
"Now that you're less paranoid, are you excited about your trip?" Rory asked her, glad that Christa had been able to calm Lane down.
Lane made a face. "Not really. It'll be like being with my mother all the time with no chance to escape. Two months of no fast food, no music, no good television. Just lots of prayer."
"Sounds like torture." Christa said with a shudder. "Maybe you will need that petition, keep us posted." She laid back on Rory's bed. "What are your plans for the summer, Rory?"
"Well, helping Mom with the wedding." Rory reminded her. "And I'm going to do all three summer sessions." That would take her to the beginning of August, the wedding and the beginning of the new school year.
"Of course you are," Christa said with an eye-roll.
"Extra credit is important." Rory told her disapprovingly. "I'm also going to do some volunteer work. Paris is right, I really need to start approving my college application."
She had been horrified to realize how unprepared she was. She'd been so focused on having good grades that she hadn't thought about anything else. She wasn't well-rounded and she needed to be if she was going to go to Harvard.
"The words 'Paris is right' should never be spoken," Christa told her, "seriously, it's summer; you should be relaxing and having a good time."
"What are your plans?" Lane asked Christa.
"Three more weeks of summer semester and then I'm done and I'm not doing any others." Christa said, sending Rory a dirty look, "and then freedom and a lot of parties. Plus Martha's Vineyard, a quick trip back to California with Straub and Francine, and then Dad and I are going somewhere, we haven't decided yet."
Rory frowned. Christa's summer sounded very full and very fun, but it didn't sound productive. "Aren't you worried about your college application at all?"
Christa shrugged. "Not really. I've got two more years of high school, that's plenty of time to figure it out."
What went unspoken was that, unlike Rory, Christa was perfectly happy to get by on money and connections. Rory knew that Christa's grades were decent and that, more importantly, her sister socialized with the rich and powerful. It wasn't the way Rory would do things, but she understood that her sister didn't have any concerns about getting into a good school.
However, Rory couldn't help remember their early conversation and the way Christa had referenced Yale and Princeton. Rory didn't want that. She wanted Christa to go to Harvard with her. She wanted to spend her college years with her sister and make up for all the time they'd been apart.
She silently resolved to try and get Christa to start taking the college application process seriously so that she could get into Harvard, even if she didn't have family connections there.