Lorelai, Anna, and Rory are standing in the checkout line. Lorelai flips through a crossword puzzle book. "I hate crossword puzzles. They make me feel stupid."
"Then don't do 'em," Rory suggested.
"Well, but if you don't do them, you're not only stupid, you're also a coward." She flips the page.
"Yeah, because nothing says bravery like doing a crossword puzzle." Anna rolled her eyes.
"Now, you just made it sound silly." She put the book back on the shelf. "Oh, hey, look, a new bag boy." Lorelai pointed at the new worker.
"Oh yeah, that's Marty. He's subbing for Dean while he's out of town." Rory told them.
Anna let out a gasp when he threw a jar making it spin in the air before catching it and putting it on the bag. "Wow, Marty does the jar twirl before putting the salsa in the bag. Impressive, very Cocktail." Lorelai commented.
"Marty's a nice guy," Rory told them.
"Marty's an ambitious snake in the grass." She narrowed her eyes.
"What?" Her daughters looked at her in confusion.
"The jar twirls, the double-bagging, the 'have a nice day, ma'am' after every customer. . .that guy's got an agenda." She crosses her arms over her chest.
"Which is?" Rory asked.
"He's out to take Dean's job!" She stated like it was obvious.
"I don't think so." Rory shook her head.
"There's more than one bag boy job." Anna reminds her.
"Oh, yes, he is. I'm telling you, he wants that position. Dean better hurry back from his grandmother's house or he can kiss his job goodbye." She smacks her lips together.
"They're not going to fire Dean," Rory told her.
"Really, why not?" Lorelai tilts her head.
"Well, for starters, someone stole Taylor's ladder last week and Dean is the only one who can reach the top shelves." She explained how Dean was in the clear of Taylor's witch hunt.
"Huh, interesting." She hums.
"What?" Anna wonders what she was concocting in that brain of hers.
"Just as Marty, aka Eve Harrington, shows up trying to take Dean's job, Taylor's ladder mysteriously disappears, suddenly making Dean invaluable no matter what fancy tricks Lon Chaney Junior over there pulls. Good thinking, Dean, smart thinking, my friend." She nods in approval.
"You need to start napping in the afternoons." Rory put their basket on the counter.
"Hey Taylor, pulling double duty today?" Lorelai nods to their cashier.
"Oh, I like to fill in behind the register now and then. It keeps me in contact with the clientele. Also, it allows me to keep an eye on the 'take a penny' pot here, make sure people aren't pocketing those pennies for their gain but are legitimately using them to make exact change." He rings them up. Anna wondered how stressful it was to be that uptight about everything.
"Oh cool. Mom, Anna, look." Rory showed them the flyer.
"Oh yeah, it's Movie in the Square night again, great." Lorelai reads.
"We'll be there," Anna told Taylor.
"Ah, excellent. There you are." He gave them a coupon.
"What's the movie this year?" She took it and put it in her purse.
"Oh, it's going to be something great." Taylor smiled.
"Really, what?" She took out her wallet.
"A real winner." He was being vague on purpose.
"What's it called?" She pushed.
"Well, show up and be surprised." He was not budging.
"Why don't you tell me what the movie is?" Lorelai gave him the money for their things.
"No." He took it and put it in the register.
"Why not?" She looked at him surprised.
"Because." He made their change.
"Because why? What is the. . .oh no." She gasps when she realizes why he didn't want to tell her.
"There is a line behind you." He gave her the change.
"You chose The Yearling again?" She yelled in outrage.
"It is a fine, wholesome motion picture. A moving story, lovely scenes of nature." He defends the movie.
"You've shown The Yearling the last three years in a row!" She didn't care how good of a movie it was, it didn't deserve to be in the spotlight for three years.
"You know something, I'm getting a little tired of hearing you complain about this every single year." He leaned forward to whisper to her, not wanting to make a scene in front of his customers.
"I'm tired, too. Pick another movie." She demands.
"A lot of hard work and careful planning goes into those nights. You never help plan, you never volunteer, you have never once been a ticket ripper as long as I have been involved in that function. Personally, missy, if you can't participate with a smile and a hug, then you shouldn't participate at all." He explained how she didn't have a right to complain.
She looked ashamed for a second before doubling down. "I shouldn't, but I am. Pick another movie."
"No!" He stood firm.
"Taylor, there are millions of great movies out there. Any one of them would be better than The Yearling for the fourth time." She emphasized the fourth time.
"Fine, you do it!" He gave in.
"What?" She leaned back, not believing Taylor was giving up power.
"You pick the movie." He clarified.
"Seriously?" Her eyes widened in shock.
"I've had it. You have such strong opinions about everything, you go out and try to find a movie that everybody will enjoy. It's all yours. I relinquished my movie picking crown to you." He took off his invisible crown and tossed it at her before he left his register.
"There's a line," Anna yelled at his retreating form.
"He relinquished his crown." Lorelai moves down the line.
"I heard." Rory nods.
"I got his crown." She grabs their bags.
"And it looks great on you." Her daughters smiled at how excited she was.
"Cool, this is gonna be fun! Let's go home and make popcorn and pick which movie we're gonna show." She pulled them towards the door.
"Oh, we get to help," Anna was getting excited too.
"Of course." She nods.
"Oh, and can I borrow the crown?" Rory asked.
"I don't know, honey. We'll have to see." Lorelai opens the door for them.
Jess and Anna were walking around before they had to go to school. "So, are you ready for the history test today?" She asked.
"How do you know I have a test?" He turns to her sharply.
"Lane told me that she does. That is the class she shares with you." She explained.
"Yeah, I'm ready." He nods.
"That's good. I know you hate school but I promise you'll be happy to have that diploma." After seeing his failed report card from last quarter, they argued a lot and came to a compromise that he would try harder to be at least a C student.
"I know, I'm going to look so pretty in that gown." He bats his eyelashes. She giggles, leaning her head on his shoulder.
Lorelai, Anna, and Rory are sitting at the counter in Lukes going through a list of movies."If we take off Fletch and Urban Cowboy, we still have seventy-five possibilities."
"How are we gonna pick just one?" Rory looked at their two-page list.
"I don't know. Maybe we should do a movie marathon. You know, just show one movie after the other for three days and charge everyone a fortune, gauge 'em of bottled water, and have those disgusting porta-potties. It'd be like our own Woodstock." She pointed the pen at them.
"Where would we get all the drugs?" Anna questioned.
Taylor walks into the diner. "Ah, good, there you are. I have something for you."
"What?" Lorelai asked.
"This." He drops a large binder on the counter.
"Geez." She flinched at the sound.
"Now, when you get through this and make your decision, the number of the man you need to contact is on the first page." He taps the binder.
"What man? What is this?" She stares at it.
"That is the list of titles that are available for you to pick from for the movie night." He pointed at the dreadful thing.
"The list of titles? I'm sorry, can't we just pick whatever movie we want?" Lorelai looks back and forth between him and the binder.
"You're not serious?" He leaned against the counter.
"Not often, but just there, yeah, I had some serious going." She looked through her list.
"My dear girl, movies are expensive and we get fabulous deals with this particular place. They have a wide selection and they're very friendly and since it all goes to charity, they agree to give us anything on that list for free." He pulled back the curtain to show her how this event worked.
"So we have to pick a movie off this list?" Lorelai felt like she had to be getting pranked.
"Oh, it's fun. They put the movie title over here and a brief description of the storyline over here and believe me, there are some excellent movies on that list. Really, top-notch." He opened it and showed them.
"Arctic Flight, a man with a plane flies charter to Alaska, hired by a bear hunter who turns out to be Russian spy, a love story develops with a pilot and school teachers, Eskimos do a tribal dance." She looked up at him in disbelief after reading the summary of the first movie. "You made this up."
"Don't I wish? Okay, well, I can't wait to see what you come up with. Bye girls." He waved as he walked out of the diner.
"Bye." She pouts.
"Killer Shark. Shark fisherman on the ocean, Mexican cantina with tequila and Mariachi music, has a good scene of catching and cleaning sharks." Anna read the summary of one that caught her eye.
"Where Are Your Children? Hip music and singing about kids getting into trouble, sneaking booze into clubs, stealing cars, fights between girls, romance starts then the guy goes into the Navy." Lorelai read another.
"Sudden Danger, mom dies of gas asphyxiation, son blamed, good kiss scene." Rory read a summary of another.
"Suspense, ice skater falls in love with hired help. Well, at least now I know how Snow Dogs got made." Lorelai sighed.
"I doubt this will be as good as Snow Dogs." Anna shook her head.
Luke walks into the diner. "Hey. Listen, have you seen Jess?"
"He went upstairs." She told him.
"Oh, great, thanks." He walks up to the apartment.
A few minutes later Jess came down. "Come on, I'll treat you to ice cream." He nods to Anna.
"Sure, nothing good is happening here." She looked down at the sad binder one last time before getting up to follow him out.
Lorelai is sitting at the kitchen table going through the binder of movie titles as Rory and Anna walk in from school.
"Marshmallow?" She held up two.
"Thank you." They each took one.
"Okay, I have now finished going through every single one of these movies. I've read them, reviewed their merits, and I'm proud to announce that I have chosen our movie. How does The Yearling sound to you?" She slammed the binder shut.
"Perfect." They put their marshmallows on skewers and turn on a burner to roast them.
"And buh-bye." She threw the binder on the floor.
There's a knock at the front door. "Oh, that must be Pauline Kale rising from the dead." She stood up.
"Tell her hey." They pulled out their golden marshmallows. Anna turns off the burner. They go into Rory's room to start their homework.
They were confused when there was a knock on the door. "Rory, it's Luke. Can I come in for a minute?"
"It's your room" Anna nods for her sister to get it.
Rory sighed, getting up from the bed to open the door. "Hey, what's up?
"Not much. Can I . . ." He pointed inside.
"Uh, yeah, come on in." She moved so he could come inside.
"Oh hey, Anna." He looked surprised to see her there.
"Hey, Luke." She wonders why he seems nervous.
"So, I see you're studying." He looked at the books they had on the bed. They nodded, waiting for him to say why he was there. "That's good. Studying is very, very good. What you're doing right there with the books, very good."
"Thank you." Rory sat down at her desk.
He took a seat at the foot of the bed. "Okay, look, I wanted to ask you a favor. Oh. Uh. I was wondering if you could tutor Jess. I would ask you, Anna, but I need him to study." He looked back at the other teen in the room.
"I get it." Anna nods. Luke walks in on them fooling around on the couch enough to know they wouldn't study.
"Why does he need a tutor?" Rory asks.
"He's not doing too well in school. The principal said he's not gonna let him move on unless something changes. I was wondering if you could help." He explains.
"What?" Anna was shocked that Jess lied that he was going to classes.
"That doesn't make any sense, he's smart enough to pass any subject." Rory saw the complicated books he read.
"I don't think it's his lack of smarts, more like his lack of proximity to the actual classes that's the problem." Luke knew he was smart, just not motivated.
"Okay, what subject does he need help in?" Rory asked.
"I'd say all of them, probably," Luke said, seeing as he wasn't going to any of his classes. "Look, I don't expect you to work miracles and it doesn't have to be a full-time everyday thing. If you could just get him through a couple of his next tests, maybe make the school see that he can do it, that would probably help out a lot."
"Sure." She nods.
"Great, tonight?" He asked.
"Tonight." She didn't think it would be that soon.
"I really appreciate this. Ah, okay, you should get back to your studying, otherwise, you're completely useless to me." He stood up to walk into the kitchen, closing the door on the way out.
"Are you okay?" She looked at her sister's hurt face. "I can go out and tell him no if you are uncomfortable."
"No, it's not that. I can't believe Jess is failing." She thought of all the lies he told over the past few months.
Anna was in her room, reading Blu's Hanging By Lois-Ann Yamanaka. She planned to read Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, but she wasn't in the mood to see Jess's neat tiny handwriting in the margins. She heard tapping on her window. She got up thinking it was the bird who was smart enough to know she was the one who filled up the feeder. She opened the window to shoo him away when she saw Jess standing there. "Aren't you supposed to be studying, you filthy liar?"
"Okay, I deserve that one. We are taking an ice cream break. I know this angry girl that loves ice cream, so I figured I asked her to join." He yelled up to her.
"She is too angry for ice cream." She glares down at him.
"Too angry for ice cream?" He scoffs playfully before taking a more sincere tone. "That serious… I'm sorry. I was tired of talking about school. I want to feel like I'm with my girl, not my mom."
Anna's face is soft. She realized she was nagging him a lot. "Next time say that, don't lie to avoid a fight."
"Deal!" He yelled. "Now, come on. I got to study tonight and you're taking up a lot of time."
"I'll be down." She rolled her eyes.
Jess, Anna, and Rory are each eating an ice cream cone in the car. "Admit it, it's always better in a cone." Jess looked at Rory in the backseat.
"It's always better in a cone." She nods.
"Putting ice cream in a dish, eating it with a spoon?" Jess scoffed. Anna looked between the two of them feeling left out of the conversation.
"What is wrong with people?" Rory laughed.
"Hold the wheel." Jess to Anna.
"What?" She asked.
"I'm dripping here, hold the wheel." He licked the cone.
"This is why I said we should have eaten there." Anna sighs.
"It's too late now, take the wheel." He nods to it.
"Jess." She scolds.
"I'm letting go." He took his hands off of it.
"Stop!" She had to take off her seat belt to launch forward to grab the wheel. "Take it back. Okay, you are taking this wheel back and when you do, I'm going to kill you. I'm just letting you know now."
"I appreciate the warning." He smirks.
"Jess!" Rory yelled from the backseat.
"Okay, I got it. Geez, you guys look pale. Are you okay?" He put his hands back on the steering wheel.
"I agree with Anna, there will be death, and it's going to be painful." Rory let out a breath of relief.
"You're not gonna kill me. Think how dull your life would be without me." He smiled at Anna. She huffed in response.
"Serious question?" Rory piped up.
"Okay." He nods.
"You know you're smarter than most everybody at your school. It takes you like five minutes to finish a book. You read everything, you remember everything, you could ace those classes easily. Why don't you? You don't need a tutor. It's crazy that they're talking about holding you back." Rory had asked what she had been wondering since Luke asked her to tutor him.
"Whatever." He scoffs.
"You can do anything you want, you can be anything you want." Rory insisted.
"Rory, you're talking to a brick wall." Anna knew bringing this up would make Jess shut down or blow up because they had this conversation many times before.
"Is it like a cool thing?" Rory leaned forward as much as her seatbelt would let her.
"I could care less about being cool." He hated how everyone thought he was trying to fit into some bad boy image.
"Well, inform me, please." She asks.
"I'm never going to college, why waste the time in high school?" He answered with a question.
"And why aren't you going to college?" Rory asked.
"Please." He let out a bitter laugh.
"What? Please what, why is it so crazy?" Rory squints at him.
"Ask my mother, she could give you a couple of reasons. Oh, and I'm sure Principal Mertin can chime in with a few good ones. In fact, ask your mother. She doesn't know me all that well but I'm sure she could improvise a few things." His words got more bitter as he went along.
"She didn't ask for other people's opinions. She asked for yours. Why do you think college isn't an option for you?" Anna rephrases the question.
"Why do we have to have this conversation over and over?" He huffs. Rory leaned back feeling like she stepped on a landmine.
"Because you never finish the conversation!" She yelled in frustration.
"I don't know what I want to do, so why would I waste money on college. And, college costs so much that I would be in debt for how long? Who knows, maybe my whole life." He reasoned.
"Okay, fuck college, you still need a high school diploma or a GED to get into a trade school or to get your application looked at from a lot of companies." She reasoned with him.
"I'll live where I live, I'll work when I need money, and I'll see where I end up. If you don't want to be by my side through that, that's your problem." He put an end to the discussion.
"You could do more." Rory butted in.
"Oh, here come the pompoms." Jess sighs.
"No, no pompoms, just me saying you could do more." Rory shook her head.
"So, Courtney, what about you?" He looked back at Rory.
Anna had calm rage brewing inside her. She didn't hear the rest of their conversation. She hated how he ended every argument. He would find a way to turn it on her. He made it sound like she was the bad guy, who wanted to change him. What she hated the most was that he always got in her head. He made her question herself. She knew who he was when she started dating him. She knew he didn't have any concrete plans or care about school. Maybe it was on her to accept him for who he was or leave him.
"Shit." Jess jerks the car when a cat runs on the road. Anna let out a scream as she flew forward. She uses her arm to brace herself as she was slammed into the glove department before the airbag slammed her back. She cursed herself for not putting her seatbelt back on as her arm throbbed.
Anna was in the hospital room getting her arm wrapped by a doctor with Rory next to her. Lorelai storms into the room. "Anna, Rory, good. Are you okay?" She looked them both over.
"I'm fine," Rory answered.
"Please tell her that I'm fine." Anna looks to the doctor.
"She's fine." He answered for her.
"Well, then, what's with the wrapping?" She pointed at her arm. "If she's fine, there'd be no wrapping. There's no wrapping if she's fine."
"Her arm hit the dashboard. She sustained a minor hairline fracture to her wrist." He explains the situation.
"So she broke her wrist?" Lorelai asked.
"No, it's just a fracture." Anna corrected.
"Honey, let George Clooney talk here, okay?" She pats her back before looking at the doctor.
"It's a tiny fracture, absolutely nothing serious. I'm gonna put a cast on it. She'll wear it for a couple of weeks, that's it." He told her.
"A cast?" Lorelai gasps.
"Mom, it's not a big deal. I'll live." Anna sighed.
"And that's it, just the wrist, everything else is fine?" She didn't even glance at her daughter, keeping her gaze on the doctor not wanting to miss any information.
"She seems perfectly healthy." He said, making the siblings sigh at his wording.
"She seems healthy? Did you check everything out?" Lorelai narrowed her eyes.
"Well, we checked almost everything that could've been affected, yes." The Doctor made his second mistake.
"Almost everything?" She was about to question what kind of hospital this was.
"Miss Gilmore, I assure you, we were very thorough." He reassured her.
"I'm sure you were, I just would like some extra thoroughness. Uh, anything that could've possibly, in any scenario, affected this body, I want it checked out." She wraps an arm around Anna.
"I'll run a few more x-rays if that'll make you feel better." He offers.
"It will, thank you." She smiles.
"And then we'll put the cast on her, so it's gonna be a little while before she's out of here." He told her.
"I can wait." She smiled.
"Okay. Anna, I'll be right back. You sit still for a minute, okay?" He patted her knee. She nods that she understood. He walked out.
"Aw." Lorelai hugged her girls in relief.
"I'm sorry about your car, Rory." Anna apologized.
"Oh, nobody cares about the car." She waved her hands to say not to worry about it. "Jess made sure that he called the ambulance and that we were okay before he even talked to the police and..." She knew her mom already had it in her head that the teen was at fault.
"Let's just hear about the details later, okay? I just want you guys to relax now." She rubs their shoulders.
"You're not mad?" Anna was surprised.
"No, I'm not mad. So they brought you in the ambulance?" She asked.
"Yeah, and Rory got to ride with me." She smiles at her sister who had on a big smile of her own.
"Did they use the siren?" Lorelai was happy they weren't traumatized.
"Yeah. I wasn't sure if they would because I wasn't dying or anything but they did." Anna nods like a little kid getting to ride on a firetruck.
"I hope Taylor was in bed already." Lorelai wanted payback for the movie picking.
"It was after nine so there's a good chance he was." Rory snickers at her mom's pettiness.
"Nice." She nods in satisfaction.
The doctor returns. "Okay, Anna, I'm gonna have the nurse take you down for an x-ray now."
"Oh, can I go with her?" Lorelai asked.
"I'm sorry, you have to wait outside. It'll be about an hour if you wanna go grab some coffee or something." The doctor apologizes.
"Okay, thanks. Smile pretty for the camera." She kissed her cheek.
"Oh yeah, I'll be putting it in my modeling portfolio." Anna teased, which put her mother at ease.
"Thanks." She thanked the doctor one more time before she and Rory left.
Anna is lying in bed. Lorelai was standing next to her with a small table of items. "Okay, you've got your TV, you've got your books, your magazines, your refreshments, you have your CD player, your assorted CDs. Stan Freberg, Ash, you have your Sinead O'Connor because when life really gets you down, Sinead's really the one to teach you some perspective. You have a pad of paper in case you decide to write the great American novel. And over here you have a tiny but annoying bell in case there's something that you need but you don't have and you want to summon the common but lovely house wench who will promptly leave her talking mice and come to fetch the Contessa whatever she may require."
"Mom, this is sweet but my wrist is fractured, not my feet." She looked at the crowded table.
"I carried it up the stairs, so humor me." She put the bell on the end of the table. "Is your arm hurting you?"
"No, the painkillers are top-notch. They make me tired." She yawns.
"Alright, you sleep." She went to pull the rolling chair in front of the bench at the foot of the bed.
"What are you doing?" She pulls the covers up to her chin as she watches her mother.
"Just a little feng shui, go to sleep." Lorelai brings in a pillow and blanket.
"Mom, that rolling chair will roll out from under you." She sighs.
"I'll be fine. I don't move at all when I sleep. I'm so still people have thought I was a corpse." She settled into the chair.
"Mom, I have the bell, go to your room." She tried to reason with her.
"I can't hear you." She settled into the chair.
"I will not help you up when you fall." She turned off her light.
"I love you too." She sang.
On the Movie in the Square night, rows of chairs were set up in front of a large movie screen near the gazebo. Lorelai, Christopher, Rory, Anna, and Sookie were walking toward the seats. "The Yearling?" Chris question.
"Great movie." Lorelai defends it.
"Boy, you think they could've gotten the genius in charge of this to come up with something other than The Yearling." He teased her.
"You know, picking a movie that will appeal to a large group of people is hard." She glares.
"Rory! Anna!" Lane ran up to them.
"We'll get seats." Lorelai, Sookie, and Christopher walk away.
"Oh my God! Let me see. Oh, that sucks, that sucks. Does it hurt?" Lane looked at Anna's cast.
"Only when I remember how I got it." Anna knew that everyone's rage was going to be towards Jess for a while.
"Okay. Here, angry girl for an angry arm." Lane held up an Emily the Strange sticker.
"Oh, cool! Thank you." She held out her arm.
"You're welcome." Lane puts a sticker on the cast. "So, tell me what happened."
"An animal ran out into the road and we swerved and hit a pole. I feel bad about Rory's car." Anna looked over at her sister.
"How bad?" She asked.
"Scrap metal." She sighs.
"Have you talked to Dean?" Lane looked at Rory.
"No, he gets home tomorrow." She sighs.
"I can tell him if you want." Anna offers.
"No, I'll tell him." She shook her head.
"What are you gonna say?" She wonders.
"I don't know." She shrugs.
"He's gonna freak," Lane stated the obvious.
"I know." She was dreading it.
"And Jess?" She looked at Anna.
"Not since last night. I got to. We had an ugly argument beforehand. I want him to know I'm not blaming him. I just don't know when." Despite all their problems, she did want to work it out with him.
"Wow." Lane gasps at them both getting ready to have a hard conversation with their boyfriends.
"I'm going to. Right now, everyone is mad. Mom and Luke are upset with each other over it. Dad came into town for this. Both of them are watching me like a hawk. I don't want to set anyone off by saying that I want to talk to him. Everyone needs time to call off." She misinterpreted Lane wow as judgment for making Jess suffer in guilt.
"Maybe you can try tomorrow." Rory tried to make her feel better.
"Tomorrow. Oh yeah, that's plenty of time. No one will still be mad then." Lane scoffs.
"Sarcasm doesn't become you." She playful glares at her friend.
"Maybe not, but it does sustain me." She smiled.
They sat down next to the adults as Kirk's short film started. It was black and white with odd repetitive dialogue about a man meeting his girlfriend's parents. There was a dance number, where he took his shirt off.
"No!" They heard Patt gasps.
"I swear to God!" Babette yelled. The Gilmore Girls lean to the right to hear the gossip. "Last night, not long after the accident happened, Luke walked him straight to the bus station, stuck the kid on a bus, and sent him home to his mom," Babette told her the news. Anna was frozen at the news.
"I can't believe Luke would send him off like that." Patt didn't believe Luke would do that to his nephew that he swore to help.
Anna stood up and ran to the diner. "I got it," Chris told Lorelai before running after her.
She threw the door open to the diner. "How could you? You can't just send him off like he's a dog going back to the pound."
"Anna, calm down." Luke rushed over to her.
"No, you swear to help him. But, you treated him like everyone else. He's not something you can give back. He's a person….. you didn't even let him say goodbye." She sobs. Chris pulled her into a tight hug. She cried into his chest.
"I'll meet you at home with ice cream and an actual good movie. We'll order pizza." He whispers. She nods before walking out. Chris waited until she was out of sight before he turned back to Luke. "You gave him a choice, didn't you?"
"He doesn't want my help or anyone else's and he doesn't want to help himself. I can't let him run rampant around here." Luke reasoned.
"You gave him a choice?" He asked again.
"Yes, but it would be better if she blamed me. Her heart doesn't need to break again over this." He nods.
"She also doesn't need to lose a father figure over this." Chris reasoned.
"Chris..." He felt guilty for taking a role that wasn't supposed to be his.
"It's fine. In fact, I should thank you. You stepped up when I didn't. Just because I want to step up now doesn't mean you have to step down. It takes a village, right?" He acknowledged what Luke had done for the kids. Instead of just treating him like another face in the crowd like he normally did because he couldn't face the thought of someone taking his place. "I'm not going to tell her, that's up to you." He walks out of the diner to go home to his heartbroken daughter.
