TROUVAILLE ... l.danes (REWRITE)

chapter thirty-four; the present

WHY CAN'T SOMEONE JUST LOVE HER AS MUCH AS SHE LOVES THEM?

two-thousand-and-three

THIS EBONY bird, beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore. 'Though thy crest be shorn and shaven,' I said, 'art sure no craven'.

Shelley hides a laugh behind her hand. She sits at the back of Miss Patty's dance studio, Lorelai and Rory on one side, while Olive and Autumn sit on the other. Jeff refused to come, deciding he was above The Edgar Allan Poe Society's recital of 'The Raven'. Shelley is pretty sure that Rory didn't even bother asking her boyfriend, who, even though he loves literature, would never be caught dead at an event like this.

Every so often, her eyes flicker over to the couple sitting in the row beside them, silently pressed together. She bites down on her bottom lip and lets the pain explode in her mouth to drag her attention away from them.

Why are they always around?

Lorelai yawns. "I thought Poe was downright funalicious." She rests her head on Shelley's shoulder but is immediately shaken off by her friend when the Poe impersonator's eyes flick over to their sudden movements.

"He was a troubled man." Rory barely looks up from the two pro-con lists sitting in her lap. One is titled Harvard, the other Yale. All morning, she and her mother have been trying to come up with reasons why she should or should not go to either school. Shelley refuses to put in her two cents.

"He enjoyed too much of the party juice."

Lorelai whispers to Rory about Yale's drama programme. She quickly turns her head to Shelley. "What's Harvard's drama programme like?"

"Nuh uh, not getting involved. Remember?"

Lorelai rolls her eyes and continues whispering to her daughter. Olive and Autumn, on the other side of her, lean over to get a look at Rory's lists and comment on how the Yale one has grown longer than the Harvard one. Lorelai's shoulders tense a little more. Is she worried that Rory will choose Yale after all of this? Even if it is closer. Even if it means she'll probably visit home more. If she goes to Harvard, maybe she'll never come back. Stars Hollow can't expect to cling to every seventeen-year-old girl it once housed, can it?

"Uh, look at that."

Autumn points to the front of the dance studio where there is another Poe sitting in the front row.

"A second Poe."

"It's like a Poe story in itself."

"The Case of the Two Poes."

"The Messrs Poe and Poe."

"O' Poe! O' Poe!" Shelley's friends look at her with confusion, unsure of what she's meant to be referencing. She heaves a sigh. "It's 'O, Tempora! O' Mores', the original manuscript was lost and they thought it was written in 1825. It was published in 1889. Don't you know any Poe?"

Lorelai huffs out a laugh and rolls her eyes. Olive mutters something about Shelley always being like this, bringing up obscure literary knowledge that the rest of them don't know. Only Rory smiles and writes down something in her Harvard pro list. Shelley can't stop herself from looking.

Shelley went here :)

She gulps to hold back the tears that bubble up in her throat. Oh. Oh, that's actually really nice.