All this time

Part 22

One Tuesday afternoon in late August found Rory sitting with Melissa at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.

"I'll believe it when I see it" Melissa said

"You'll see it on July 9th 2019" Rory told her

"You set a date?" Melissa asked. She sounded surprised

"Why do you sound so surprised?"

"Because you've been engaged for 7 years. I kinda thought that at this point you were never getting married"

"I feel like I should be offended by that, but you're not wrong" Rory chuckled. Just then she saw Avery walk into the kitchen.

"Mama when is Millie and Abigail and daddy coming home?"

"Daddy's picking Abigail up from camp right now, they'll be here soon. And Amelia is at gymnastics, she won't be home until later"

"She has gymnastics over summer vacation?" Melissa asked. "Don't most kids extracurriculars take a break?"

"Abigail still has twice a week. And Amelia's doing this thing, the gym has this training camp for the elite gymnasts. She's not elite yet, but I guess they made an exception" Rory told her. "So she's over there, doing gymnastics all day, every day. With kids that are several years older than her"

"You don't sound too happy about it"

"No, she knows what she wants, she should go after it. I just worry about her getting hurt"

"I know what you mean" Melissa said. "Every time I send my boys to play football there's a tiny voice in my head saying that they're gonna get hurt. Why did my idiot husband pick football for them, of all things? And why do they have to love it?"

"Didn't Jack play football when he was younger?" Rory asked

"Yeah"

"That's why he picked it" Rory said

A couple of hours later, Logan went to pick Amelia up. When they got home Amelia went straight to where Rory was sitting in her home office, working.

"Hey, how was it?" Rory asked

"Really good" Amelia said, excitedly.

"Why do you look like you're about to explode?" Rory asked

"I found out what I have to do to compete in the Olympics" Amelia told her.

Is this what Lorelai felt like when 10 year old Rory talked about going to Harvard? The thought of Amelia being in the Olympics made Rory so proud but at the same time it made her really nervous.

"I can compete level 10 this year and if I do 2 specific National competitions, and get a high enough all around score, I can become junior elite, because by then I'll be 11. Then I can compete at US championships, and if I place in the top 3, I can make the National Junior elite team. Once I'm 15 I can be on the National elite team, they'll compete at the 2023 world championships in Belgium and the people who score highest make it on the Olympic team."

That was a lot of information, so Rory took a second before responding. "First of all, wow" she said. "Second of all, you know that I believe that if you really want to do this, you will, right?"

Amelia nodded

"But I also want to make sure you know that sometimes things don't work out the way we plan. This might not happen"

"I know" Amelia said. "But I can try, right?"

"You can try"

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