❝𝙸 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚜𝚊𝚢.
𝙸 𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚖𝚞𝚌𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚎.
𝙸 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚝𝚘 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝙸 𝚖𝚎𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚒𝚝.
𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝚜𝚢𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎.
𝚃𝚛𝚞𝚕𝚢 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚢,
𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚝𝚝𝚘𝚖 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚢 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝.❞
𝙿𝚜𝚢𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚔 – 𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙷𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 (𝙸 𝙷𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚈𝚘𝚞)

Going to Chilton was never really on Eleanor Gilmore's bucket list, so when she got in, it came as a rude shock, sort of like how her former friend, Jocelyn Arquette, dumped her food and drink on Eleanor in the middle of the school cafeteria, for everyone to watch and laugh, to signify the end of their friendship.

It was okay, because Eleanor met her two other best friends, Arielle Briggs, a black girl, and Madison Pérez, a Dominican girl, when they went to help her wash food stuff out of her hair.

Leslie Danes, a girl who was half Flipina and half-white, was Eleanor's first best friend. They had meet in the first grade, when Leslie shoved sand down Eleanor's shirt and later, in the cafeteria, Eleanor threw French fries at her. 

She and Madison had meet Bradley "Brad" Campbell on the edge of town last year in Hartford when Madison had asked Eleanor to come with her when Madison went to go meet up with some guys she had meet. So, while Madison and a guy hooked up in a car, it left Eleanor, Brad, and one of his aquaintances to walk around, trying to ignore the car rocking. Then Brad's dad found them. He was going to tell Lorelai, but decided not to.

Then Brad transferred to Stars Hollow High, and he joined the cello program that she, Leslie, and Madison were a part of, just so he can hang out with them. 

She was getting ahead of herself. It all started on Wednesday after school. She was going on the teen hayride with her friends because that was a tradition to bring in the fall season fully, because she loved fall, sue her.

She was getting dressed in a red felt skirt, black over the knee socks, and a gray sweater. She topped the outfit off with black and pink boots. She was getting a coat when her mom burst into her room, holding a paper bag.

"Oh, hey, here, have this," Lorelai said, tossing her the paper bag.

Eleanor fumbled the bag, before finally catching it and opening it. She took out Rory's Chilton skirt and arched an eyebrow at her mother.

The both of them had black hair and light blue eyes.

"Yeah, I'm glad that Rory's going to Chilton." Eleanor asked, "Why are you giving me Rory's skirt?"

"You start on Monday too," Lorelai had told her.

Eleanor was in disbelief, she was smart sure, probably not as smart as Rory. She didn't apply to Chilton; she didn't even bother with it, unlike Rory. Besides, there was one opening and she didn't want to ruin Rory's chances of getting in.

Eleanor was fine at Stars Hollow High. Sure, Chilton would've been helpful to get her to Yale and the work may be a challenge, but Eleanor didn't want to leave Arielle, Brad, Madison, and Leslie behind to go to some preppy school. Besides, no one at Chilton would see her cute outfits and that would cut in on her, Brad's, Arielle's, Madison's, and Leslie's cello practice with Mr. Munroe since they decided to play the cello together in the seventh grade, barring Brad, who joined last year.

Eleanor asked, "How did I get in?"

"By the way, on Friday, we have dinner with the grandparents," Lorelai replied, not answering the question.

Eleanor said, "Anything else you want to tell me? You got pregnant? I'm adopted? Chris – I mean Dad is coming to live with us permanently?"

"It's just those two things," Lorelai replied.

Eleanor tossed the paper bag onto her bed. "I've got to go. I don't want to miss the hayride."

She grabbed some candy apple flavored lip gloss and took off.

"Hey, Nell," Lane, Rory's best friend, greeted her.

Eleanor looked at Lane, "Hi, Lane. What are you doing here?"

"I'm on a date," Lane said glumly, motioning to one boy. "His older brother is chaperoning." She motioned to another older looking boy.

The three of them looked like they really didn't want to be there.

Eleanor was confused. "Where did your parents pull them from? You're the only other Asian family here." She was talking about the Suzuki family, who owned the Japanese restaurant there.

"I don't see my parents allowing me to date Akari," Lane joked. "And she's Japanese and she wants to be an anime developer. Also, she's a girl."

"Her brother on the other hand..." Eleanor pretended to muse.

"I don't see our parents arranging our marriage anytime soon," Lane told her.

"Just a thought," Eleanor told her, "If you're desperate."

"Probably not even then," Lane said. "They want a Korean doctor."

Arielle, Leslie, and Madison joined them, bringing some holiday themed quilts with them. The quilts had been made by Leslie's mother, before she died of cancer when Leslie was about four.

Luke did date again when Leslie was eight. He dated some woman named Rachel, but she split town when Leslie was around ten.

Eleanor vaguely remembered the red-haired woman.

Brad wasn't with them, because he had a date.

There were a few times when Eleanor and Leslie had begged Luke to marry Lorelai so they can be sisters. Luke would laugh and say no because Lorelai would be stressful and he didn't like her like that.

Leslie passed the quilts to her friends when they heard the clopping off hooves.

"Oh, good, it's here," Eleanor said.

"Yay," Arielle said dryly. She didn't like the hayride because she found it boring, uncomfortable, and freezing on there, but she went because Eleanor, Leslie, and Madison liked them. Sure, they tell her that she doesn't have to go, but she went because it was tradition to bring in the fall season.

So, Arielle got her ass on the wagon, sitting near the end so others could block out the wind for them.

"I'm going to Chilton," Eleanor told them.

Madison yelled, "What?"

"I know," Eleanor replied. "I'm not happy about it either."

Arielle side-eyed her, "Why are you going, Rigby?" She was a fan of the Beatles and since there was a song called Eleanor Rigby, Arielle took to calling Eleanor 'Rigby'.

"I don't know," Eleanor replied.

They passed by Luke's, and Eleanor spotted her mother and Rory walking, looking really irritated, which was strange, because they rarely fought.

She knew that Rory and Lorelai were really close, like 99% of the time it seemed as if Lorelai favored Rory over her. She knew that Lorelai loved the both of them, but it seemd like Lorelai loved Rory more. Maybe it was because Rory was an easier child to deal with. While Rory preferred to read, Eleanor preferred to terrorize Taylor Doose by rearranging things in the market.

While Rory did her homework, Eleanor did at least 90% of it and went to go hide fish beneath the fruit in the fruit stalls for a few days. While Rory came home at a certain time, Eleanor came home late after drawing some 'obscene' (in Taylor's words anyway) pictures in the store or in the town square; of course, that later morphed into going to parties when she got older.

To make matters worse, it seemed like everyone preferred Rory over her. She and Rory can write the same paper, yet the teachers will always pick Rory's over hers.

They can take a test with the same answers with the same wording, yet Rory will somehow get an A+ while Eleanor gets an A.

Just the other day, their English teacher, Mrs. Traister made a comment about how Eleanor was not like her sister, even though the teacher knew that Eleanor had finished her assigned reading and book report and was doing a word search to pass time.

To make matters worse, her own grandparents preferred Rory over Eleanor. It was obvious with how they beamed when they spotted Rory, yet grimaced slightly when they noticed her. They would lavish praise upon praise on Rory, while dismissing Eleanor completely.

She really didn't want to go to dinner at the grandparents to face inevitable disappointment.

Sometimes she wished that someone, besides her friends, picked her over Rory for once. It seemed like the only thing that guys noticed about Eleanor was her large breasts.

When Eleanor walked in the house, Lorelai and Rory were blaring a Macy Gray song. She was going to go up to her room when Lorelai said, "Hey, you! Who is this guy Rory wants to throw Chilton away for?" 

Eleanor was confused, "She doesn't want to go to Chilton?" 

"No, there's some guy," Lorelai told her.

"Oh, I think his name is Dean. He moved here from Chicago," Eleanor told her.

Lorelai asked, "Does he drive a motorcycle? Does he have any tattoos?" 

Eleanor asked, "Does it really matter?"

"If she's willing to throw her future away, then yes, it matters," Lorelai replied.

Eleanor sometimes thought that her mother overreacted over little things like that. It was like Lorelai saw them as mini-versions of her, despite the fact that she told and warned them about sex. 

"No on the motorcycle, if he does, I haven't seen it, and I don't know if he has any tattoos," Eleanor replied.

"Okay," Lorelai said. Eleanor started to go upstairs. Lorelai called out, "Hey! How come Brad wasn't with you and the girls on the hayride?"

Eleanor looked at Lorelai, "He said that he had a date."

"He was alone at the diner," Lorelai replied.

"I know," Eleanor said. "He said that he was taking himself out on a date."

Lorelai nodded, still having no clue where Eleanor found that guy at.