❝I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY❞
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⋆𐙚₊˚⊹ chapter sixty-two,
Gilmore Girls — Season Three

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟏𝟕𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟑
―୨୧⋆ ˚ LUCY'S POV

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          ❝𝐈 𝐆𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐎𝐗𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐃❞

I stare at Tristan's acceptance letter from Oxford and his acceptance letter from Yale. He didn't just get into one university, he got into two incredible, highly-regarded schools. I knew he could do it. I mean, I've always admired him and his dedication to his work and writing, so I can't say I'm surprised that he's been accepted to both Oxford and Yale.

I also know that the Yale letter in my hand doesn't weigh the benefits that the Oxford letter does.

  Tristan will be going to Oxford, I just know it.

  He's pacing back and forth, holding my Yale letter. We're in the diner while Jess and Dad are upstairs, but I suspect that they have the door to the apartment wide open so they can eavesdrop our conversation.

  "I knew you'd do it, Blue." He exhales, laughing lightly. "I mean, you're crazy smart. If anyone could get in, it'd be you."

  "And you," I chirp, smiling softly.

He moves to sit down across from me, placing my letter down on the table. I place his letters down, side-by-side. Tristan was accepted to Yale, but I know where his dream lies. I know which school he desires to go to the most, and it's not the school in America.

  He reaches forward, taking my hand in his, and I stare straight ahead at him but he's looking away── down at our intertwined hands. I place my hand over his, catching his attention, and the corner of my mouth tugs in a sad smile.

"It's Oxford, isn't it?" I say, swallowing down the lump forming in my throat.

Tristan sighs. "Blue..."

"It's Oxford, Tristan." I reach for his Oxford letter, and I hold it between us. "You cannot sit here and tell me that when you were accepted to Oxford, you weren't excited, because I know you, Tristan. I know you were happy about it."

He exhales, looking back to our hands. "Yeah, you're right," he utters, and I nod. "I was happy. I-I was so..." he forces out a laugh. "...I was so happy, Blue. I mean, I got into one of the greatest schools in the world. I'm proud of myself."

My smile widens. "I'm so proud of you." I scrape my chair across the floor, inching closer to him. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Tristan. You are brilliant."

He moves his eyes up, and they find mine. "I was happy, and then I started overthinking. I started thinking about all the..." he shrugs. "...the problems with moving that far away, and leaving my sister, and leaving..." His eyes soften. "...you."

"I don't want you to think about that, Tristan."

"How can I not, Lucy?" His hand slips out of mine, and he pushes his chair away, standing up. "Seriously, how can I not think about you when deciding this?" I have no way of answering that so I remain silent, but I keep my eyes focused on him. "If I were to go to Oxford, we'd be separated, and I can't..." He shakes his head. "...I know it's silly, and I know we're young, but I would not be doing this if it wasn't for you."

  "Tristan, come on, that's──"

  "The truth," he interrupts. "Before you, I would have never been able to stand up to my dad. I'd be going to Princeton. I'd be miserable. I wouldn't try and be an author. I'd... be nothing, Luce." I stare at him, wide eyed and silent. "Because of you, I feel like I am something. I'm being accepted to good schools because I had you believing in me. I had hope. I had faith. I had you."

  "You still have me," I argue.

  "Yeah, but you won't just be half an hour away." He sits back down, obviously feeling agitated. "If I go to Oxford, I will be three-thousand miles away, Lucy. Don't you realise that?"

  "Of course I realise that." Now it's my turn to push away from him and stand. "Do you think this has been easy for me? For the past six months, I'd been trying to deal with the idea of you not being right here. I've been trying to think of how my life works without you, and you know what I realised?" He stares up at me. "I can't. I can't do it without you, and that terrifies me because I'm just..." I drag my fingers through my hair, tempted to rip my hair out. "...God, we're just eighteen, Tristan. We're too young to be thinking about the other when making such an important decision."

  His head drops. "I know."

  Tears involuntarily swell in my eyes. "I love you. I love you so much that it scares me. It scares me that I don't know what's going to happen to us once you leave and──"

  "I never said I was leaving."

  "But you will," I insist, refusing to believe that he applied to Oxford for fun. He wants to be in England, learning how to write under some of the greatest minds. "I know you. I know you better than anyone. This is what you want."

  "I want you!" He's now standing, but we're so far away from each other. "Dammit, Lucy. I-I want you. I want this. I want to go to college, see you in the hallway and kiss you. I don't want to have a relationship over the phone── it won't be the same."

  I inhale sharply, feeling as if somebody is sitting on my chest at, and I swallow the sob that threatens to leave my mouth. I step towards him, holding my breath as I'm afraid of breaking down in front of him, and I take both his hands in mine.

  He swallows, his teary eyes on me, and I crack a broken smile. "Tristan..." I step closer, pulling his hands against my chest. "If I wasn't in your life──"

  "No." He shakes his head. "No, I am not answering that. No, I can't. N-No──" He tries to free his hands from mine, but I keep my ground, and I focus on the question I need to ask.

  "Tristan, stop!" I grip his hands tighter. "Please let me ask you this question."

  He stares at me for the longest moment but he reluctantly nods. "Okay."

  "If I wasn't in your life... If you and I had never met, if we weren't together..." Even the idea of not being with him in a hypothetical word brings a great pain to my chest, but I ignore it. "...and you had been accepted to Oxford, would you take it?"

  Time stops as I stare up at him, waiting for the response I already know. All I can see is him. Everything around me ceases to exist as I wait for the tiny word I know will crush me, but I'm the one who asked the question with the intention of hearing that word. I know what he wants, better than he knows himself, and while we love one another, our futures and educations have always been a priority.

  For eighteen years, I've been trying to make something of myself. I want to make my dad proud. I want to go to Yale. I want to study Law at Stanford after I graduate. I want so much, and I know Tristan does too. He was never supposed to be apart of my equation until much later in my life, but I got lucky, and now we have a decision to make.

  Do we keep trying even though we'll end up in different places? Or do we let go now and save the inevitable breakup in the future?

  I want Tristan. I want him here. That's selfish, I know, but for the past two years, I've always wanted him right here. Will it be hard without him around? Yes, but his happiness is far more important to me than anything else. I know he wants to go to Oxford, and in the long run, I know he'll be happy there, and that's what's important to me.

  A tear slips down my cheek, and another slips down Tristan's, but we know we'll shed many more in the future.

  If Tristan and I had never met, and he had been accepted to Oxford, would he take it?

  Well, we all know the answer to that.

  That answer is, "Yes."

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          𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄. Growing up, I secretly dreamt of falling in love only once, and having it stick. To fall in love multiple times has never been something I wanted. Sure, it makes sense that people would fall in love multiple times with different people over their lifetime, but I always believed I'd only do it right once.

I believed I'd meet the boy in my twenties after graduating from Stanford Law. We'd date for a few years, get married, have children, and grow old together. That's what I believed would happen, but I ended up being thrown off course entirely, and now I'm terrified.

I fell in love when I was sixteen. I fell for a boy who hardly loved himself, and now that boy loves everything and everyone around him. He has the biggest heart, the sweetest smile, and the kindest words. He flipped my world upside down, and now I'm just hanging on for dear life because that boy── the one I've loved for two years── is going to be leaving, and I'm not sure if he'll come back.

However, I still believe I will only fall in love once in my lifetime.

Because when your first love is so intense, so beautiful, and so raw, there's no possible way you can find another just like that. I have no idea if I'll ever be able to move on, and if I'm being honest, I don't think I want to move on.

I want to be with Tristan.

"I hate this," he utters, dragging a hand through his hair. "I really, really hate this, Blue."

"So do I."

We sit down, our hands still intertwined and our knees touching. I hold onto his hands tightly, inhaling and exhaling slowly to suppress the tears that threaten to fall from my eyes.

"I don't wanna give up on us," Tristan says, lifting his eyes to look at me, but I keep my eyes trained on our hands── the hands that will no longer get to hold each other once he leaves. "Luce, look at me." I keep my teary eyes on our hands. "Baby, please."

I inhale through my nose, exhale through my mouth, and I lift my gaze, our eyes meeting. "Do you think we can make it work?" I ask, my voice cracking.

"I think we can make anything work."

"It'll be hard," I breathe out, and Tristan nods. "Like, really, really hard."

"I know," he replies, nudging his foot in between my feet. "B-But we can make it work, right?"

The question looms over me for several minutes, eating me from the inside. I sit here, holding his hands, crying quietly, thinking about all the ways that this relationship could blow up in our faces. To be separated by an entire ocean means to be separated from touching, from kissing, from looking at one another. Once he goes to Oxford, the passion for one another may fizzle out. We might fizzle out.

I crack a smile, my chest tightening. "They say distance makes the heart grow fonder," I joke, and Tristan exhales a laugh.

  "Do you think it does?"

  I nod, positive that it may make the heart grow fonder. "Maybe," I reply. "What do you think?"

  "I think the distance will make us stronger," he admits, and I force a smile, my heart beating widely in my chest. "I want to make this work, Blue. It's been two years already, but I know I want an entire lifetime with you."

"How do you know?" is what I find myself asking, but the moment the words leave my mouth, I wish I could take them back.

"Because every time I think about the future, I see you, Blue." A tear trickles down my cheek, and Tristan reaches a hand up, brushing his thumb against my cheekbone. "I don't care how young we are, Lucy, I-I see it all. I see our future."

I sniffle. "How's it go?" I ask, curious how he sees our future.

He pushes a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand sliding against my jaw, and his lips upturn in a devastating smile. "Well, you go off to Yale, and I──" He pauses, and I fill in the blank, nodding at him to continue. "Anyway, you then go to Stanford to study law, and we live in a crappy apartment, eating takeaway every night. We barely have any furniture, just a bed in the middle of the room, but we live perfectly."

Another tear rolls down my cheek, but another one also rolls down Tristan's. "What else?" I ask, my voice cracking.

He swallows thickly, hand tightening in mine. "We get married once you graduate Stanford, and we move back here. You'll work nearby, and be the most successful lawyer in the world. We then buy your old house from when you were a kid── you know, the one your grandfather lived in?" I nod, forcing a laugh to leave my mouth.

"I love that idea," I admit. "That'd be nice."

"And then, after a few years, we have three kids." I always wanted three kids, and it seems he remembered from the night we discussed it. "All their names start with an 'L', and they go to school here, right across from Luke's. We'd pick them up from school together, make dinner every night, and put them to bed after reading them a story."

I grin. "An 'L'?"

"Well, it runs in the family." He shrugs, his smile still wide and beautiful despite the difficult, hard discussion.

  "You want three?"

  He nods. "I want as many as you want, Luce. If you don't want any, we don't need to have any. If you want three, we'll have three. Hell, if you want eight, I'll──"

  I'll snort a laugh. "Absolutely not."

  "Then we'll have three." I nod, hooking my ankle around his. "Their names will start with an 'L', okay?"

  "Two boys, one girl," I say, and he hums delightfully. "L, L, and... L."

  "That sound good to you?" he asks.

"Nearly perfect," I whisper back, and he quirks a brow, confused. "You forgot to mention that you'll be the most successful writer in the world."

He rolls his eyes, and I squeeze his hand. "Blue..."

"The most successful," I insist. "I have a lot of faith in you, Tristan. I know you're going to do brilliant things in the future. You're incredible, Tristan. I'm so, so proud of you."

  He leans in, pressing his forehead to mine. "And I'm so, so proud of you, Blue."

I drop my head, resting my forehead on our intertwined hands. I feel the tears rolling down my cheeks, but I don't bother stopping them now. I just let them fall. I cry for the future── for our hypothetical future that he's planned. I cry for him because I'm so damn proud of him that it hurts. I cry for myself because after slaving away for years, I'm finally getting everything I want.

Well, nearly everything I want.

I lift my head, and Tristan removes his hands from mine to hold my face. "You did it, Luce. You're going to Yale, baby."

I nod, weighing my cheek onto his hand. "I was so, so happy." I force out a laugh. "Jess found it, and he held it out to me, and I..." Tristan smiles at me. "...I got in, Tristan. I did it."

"Yeah, you did, Blue." He pushes my hair past my ear, gripping the hair at the base of my skull. "You did it."

"We did it," I correct, and he nods, but he doesn't look so sure. "I'm so damn proud of you."

"And I'm so damn proud of you, sweetheart."

I lean forward, pushing my forehead against his, and my lips catch onto his. I bring my chair closer to him, sliding my leg in between his legs. Tristan's hands hold my face, keeping me close to him while he kisses me softly and passionately.

This kiss is like no other. It's heartbreakingly beautiful, and if time could freeze, I'd want to live in this moment forever. I want to kiss him until my lips dry, and my body melts into a puddle on the floor. I want to kiss him until I can't catch my breath. I want this for the rest of my life.

But he's going to Oxford, and we won't get to kiss like this anymore. We won't get to kiss, touch or look at one another. Our relationship will be restricted to phone calls, and I'm not sure how I will be able to deal with that.

I pull back, my hand on his knee. "Do you really think we can make this work?"

"I want to make it work, Luce." I bite down on my lip. "I know it'll be hard. I know we'll only be able to talk on the phone, but we can make this work, Luce. I believe in us."

"So it's decided," I whisper.

He nods in confirmation. "I guess it is."

"You'll go to Oxford," I say, my voice cracking. Tristan swallows, and he nods, but he doesn't say a damn word to confirm. "Tristan?"

A tear rolls down his cheek, and I reach my hand up, wiping my fingers against his cheekbone. "Do I really need to go to Oxford?" he asks, brushing his hand against mine.

I sigh. "Come on, Tristan──"

"I'm serious, Blue. Yale is a great school. I could go there, could I not?"

"Yeah, you could, but you want to go to Oxford deep down, Tristan." He can deny it all he wants, but I know him. He wants to go to Oxford. He didn't apply there without the desire of wanting to go. "I know Yale is a great school, but I don't want you to regret going there when you could be in England."

"I'm just..." he shrugs, eyes on me. "God, Blue, I'm terrified."

To hear that he's scared petrifies me. He's never admitted to being scared, not in the two years we've been together, and I hate how afraid he is of starting his future three-thousand miles away. "I know," I whisper back. "But you're going to be absolutely fine, Tristan. You are one of the strongest people I know. It'll be okay."

"I don't want to lose you."

"You won't," I assure. "I promise."

"And you won't lose me," he assures, but I already know that I could never lose him. "We're in this together, right?" I nod.

"So it's decided," I repeat. "You'll go to Oxford."

He inhales sharply, breathing through his nose. "I'll go to Oxford," he confirms, his voice hoarse. "And you'll go to Yale."

I hum in response. "And I'll go to Yale."

"Three-thousand miles away," he utters, and I brush my hand across his knee, trying to calm him. "We'll be... three-thousand miles away from each other."

I close my eyes, unable to look at him as tears fall down his face. "I love you," I say.

"I love you," he replies. "I'm sorry."

I shake my head. "Don't ever be sorry for being brilliant," I chuckle, moving forward to rest my head against his chest. "Don't ever apologise for knowing what you want, okay?"

His hand brushes through my hair. "Okay."

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authors note:

this is probably the rawest, saddest chapter i've ever freaking wrote and im sorry

the future is still undecided though . . .

what do you guys think?