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It was one thing for Paris to not get into Harvard. One soul crushing, life ruining thing. It was another for the rejections to keep flowing in.
Princeton? Waitlist, but everyone knows that’s just a method to soften the blow. Stanford? Even though she didn’t particularly want to go (California would just be full of Madeline and Louise clones), the rejection hurt. Even Brown, the fakest of the ivies, didn’t want her, Paris Geller.
Yale was the worst rejection of them all, a concept that would have been ridiculous to the Paris of a year ago. She had prematurely placed herself in the Harvard/Yale rivalry on the side of Harvard, obviously in support of her future alma mater. She hadn’t even considered applying, until she heard one Rory Gilmore was submitting an application. On good nights, she literally dreamed of her future: her getting into every single college on her list, Rory only getting into Yale. She could see it, leaning over Rory’s shoulder, saying, “Yale? Oh, I turned down their offer last night after I received my acceptance from Harvard. Compared to the best of the ivies, any other education is second rate. Don’t worry though, it’s a good thing that you’re going to Yale. Middle management needs to come from somewhere, you know.”
That was the only reason she would want to apply to Yale, of course. A bulldog, Paris would never be. It rang true now, but not in the way she was expecting.
Of the many schools Paris Geller applied to, she received only one acceptance. It was from a school that she wouldn’t have attended if a gun was put to her head. A liberal arts college, known for its fluffy degrees in things like gender studies and film. Her mother had insisted she apply, as her fellow socialite Emily Gilmore (damn these Gilmores) never stopped singing the praises of it. However, the application season was done. The only other option was Paris taking a gap year and reapplying in the fall. And to Paris, that was a fate worse than a gun to her head.
She was Smith College bound.
Rory had been at Yale for a full month, but she was still finding it difficult to adapt. If she had thought Chilton was kicking her butt, she had no idea what she was in for. Professors who accepted no less than perfection. Snooty, wealthy classmates. And worst of all, in New Haven no one knew her name, and she didn’t know anyone else’s. After being the golden child of Star’s Hollow, walking the streets with total anonymity made her feel lonelier than ever before.
She went back home almost every weekend, under the guise of making sure her mom was alright, but in actuality she just wanted to say hi to Kirk and Babette and Mrs. Patty. Hearing everyone gossip about how Kirk’s one act play series were based off of Mrs. Patty’s younger exploits was so much more interesting than the stuff she heard from her classmates, which typically was along the lines of “so and so snorted cocaine off of so and so’s breasts”.
The highlight of her weekdays, however, was getting calls from the one and only Paris Geller. She was unsure of how Paris got her dorm phone number. They never talked after graduation, what with Paris being jealous of Rory’s application successes, and that one time Paris tried to tear the Harvard acceptance letter out of Rory’s hand, screaming “IF YOU DON’T WANT IT GILMORE, IT SHOULD GO TO SOMEONE WHO DESERVES IT MORE”. So imagine Rory’s surprise when, on a thursday night halfway through freshman orientation, her phone rang, and she picked it up to hear a familiar neurotic voice say:
“Did you know that my roommate is a lesbian?”
“Paris? No, it’s pretty hard to know that considering I haven’t heard anything about your roommate, or you for that matter, since graduation. How did you get my number?”
“We went to a party together. It was asinine, I’ve never seen so many ugly haircuts in my life. I left briefly to get another beer, and when I came back, she was sucking face with someone on the rugby team.”
“Well, it’s good for her that she was able to find someone.”
“I’m a little bit concerned. What if I’ve given her some sort of signal that I am open to casual sapphic sex? Maybe I spent too long changing in a way that bordered on stripping? I don’t want to give her the wrong idea.”
“Hmmmm… if you feel that’s necessary, you can tell her straight up, but it sounds like she’s interested in this rugby girl. I don’t think you have to worry.”
“I’ll consider this.”
And then the phone went silent.
Rory stood, staring at the receiver in her hand. Did that just happen? At least Paris didn’t seem mad at her anymore, and she was still her usual Paris self, if a little more shaken than usual.
She considered it a one time, quirky Paris event, until next Thursday night, when the phone rang again.
There was no panic this time, Paris was just telling her about her week. Apparently her lab instructor was embarrassingly bad at his job, to the point where Paris had to get up and cross his orbital diagrams out on the blackboard and replace them with her own. The food was bad, but the dorms were cute, in a New England, almost Harvard-esque sense. Her roommate’s fling with the rugby girl was short lived, mainly because Paris refused to take the hint and leave the room.
“I’m not homophobic, I just don’t want lesbian sex happening in the same room I do my problem sets in. It’s bad juju, and god knows that the TAs here are so useless, no matter how much time I could spend at tutoring hours, they couldn’t even make a dent in the evil lesbian sex vibes.”
Rory even managed to sneak in a few words here and there. Although she wanted to project a strong air of confidence like Paris effortlessly could, she found herself talking about how lonely she felt. The excitement about the fascinating topics and research she was doing blended with the low energy mixers, sitting all alone at dining hall tables, and going to parties with the hope of finding a college fling, just to return home alone, every night. She wasn’t sure if Paris was even listening, but it was good to have someone to talk to about these things.
“Miss Gilmore, may I talk with you after class?” Rory’s eyes flashed with fear when she heard those words leave the mouth of her Press Ethics professor. The paper she had submitted last week was subpar, and she knew that. There was just so much else to do that there was no time to polish it. When the clock hit 2:30 and all her classmates packed their bags and left, she slowly approached his desk.
“Miss Gilmore, the spin you took on the essay prompt was really quite unique, I haven’t seen anyone write their paper that way in my 25 years of teaching this course.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Really?” She wasn’t expecting praise for the assignment she’d given such little effort.
“Yes. That’s why it’s disappointing that your logic was so imprecise, and that your examples felt forced into fitting a line of reason they shouldn’t have even applied to. It truly could have been a one-of-a-kind paper, perhaps we could even talk about doing more research and potential publication, but instead I came away disagreeing with you even though I agree with your stance.” He pulled her paper out from his briefcase, a large red C written on the front.
“I have to leave for a meeting in a few minutes, but I would love to talk to you about this in my office hours on Thursday. You truly are a bright student, but your reasoning skills are subpar with the Yale University standard. If you’d like to perform better for the rest of my class, I would highly recommend you attend.”
“Of…of course professor!” Rory quickly squeaked, and then got out of the classroom as quickly as she could.
Later, as she was filling out her planner in her room, she went to check the syllabus for her professor’s office hours, when she came to a halt. Thursdays, 5-7. That was when Paris called her.
It had become a recurring thing, every Thursday night. They would rant to each other, talk through essay ideas, complain about (in Paris’ case) how fake all the people who tried to be her friends were or (in Rory’s case) how no one wanted to be her friend.
The thing is, try as she might, she never got Paris’ number. The dorm phones were old models that didn’t even display the number of the caller or take voicemails. She had asked Paris multiple times during their phone conversations, but she had always been too caught up in the chem department drama to answer the question. She had no way to contact Paris without Paris contacting her first. And so she had no way of telling Paris that they would need to cancel this week.
Knowing Paris, if Rory didn’t pick up, she would assume the worst. Their friendship was over, Rory hated her, et cetra. Rory could ask her roommate to answer, but what if Paris led with something crazy (and oh so Paris) like “My lesbian roomate isn’t cleaning the shower and now the drain is all clogged with her hair. Aren’t lesbians supposed to keep it short or something? I hate to support stereotypes but it would make our bathroom much more palatable.” She hadn’t sussed out the political stances of her roommate, and she didn’t want her saying something mean to Paris because of that.
As she was puzzling out a way to contact Paris, the phone rang. Rory picked up and:
“Rory, I kissed a girl.”
“...what…”
“Approximately 18 minutes ago.”
“That is a when, not a what. But that doesn’t matter. Did you like it?”
There was a pause. “No. Of course not. I was just curious because my roommate does it all the time. I needed to know if there was an appeal in the female lips as compared to, say, Jamie’s lips…. And after my research I have concluded that there is no advantage.”
“Interesting, I’ll keep that in mind. Did the girl you kissed share the same opinion?”
“No, her mind has been made up on that one for a while. 100% super gay.” Paris’ voice got noticeably more muffled and upset sounding. “But still, she only did it because I told her I’d let her copy my bio notes if she did.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure if you wanted to find someone for your sapphic experiments, you could find a willing participant without the need for coercion.”
“Ha-ha Gilmore. Unless that was you offering yourself up as a volunteer, I seriously doubt it.”
Rory hesitated. While that was sort of a joke, there was a sort of realness in the undercurrent of it. Obviously she should shut that down, she wasn’t into girls like that, and she wasn’t into Paris like that. But still she found herself saying,
“That would be a little tough over the phone, don’t you think?”
That was for sure a joke, Paris knew she wasn’t being serious. But also, it wasn’t a no.
she should have said no she should have said no she should have said no.
Paris paused, for a really really long time. Rory was unsettled by that, normally you couldn’t stop the words from flowing out of that girl. She had to break the silence.
“Uhm so anyways I need to go to my professors office hours during our normal phone call time it’s really important for the class I swear I just wanted to let you know ahead of time so you don’t think that I hate you because I’m not picking up the phone.”
The silence on the other end somehow got louder. Then, all Rory heard was:
“Ok.”
And the slam of the receiver on the other end.
Rory went to her professor's office hours that Thursday, but she told her roommate to listen and let her know if the phone rang during that time. It didn’t.
The Thursday after that came again, and Rory’s room was quiet all night long.
On the third Thursday, the phone rang, and Rory practically flew across the room to it. But, when she picked up, it was a spam call about selling her life insurance policy. She threw the receiver across the room.
Soon enough, it was Thanksgiving break, which Rory was infinitely grateful for. Without Paris’ weekly calls, she had felt more alone at Yale than ever. She almost cried when she came back into Lorelai’s open arms.
A few days into the break, Rory was pacing on the porch, thinking through the rhetoric of her take home essay. Her professor had given her some fantastic advice, and the most recent paper she had written got a B+. Still not where she wanted to be, but she knew if she really applied herself, using the new strategies he’d suggested, an A was totally within reach for her.
As she was thinking about journalistic integrity, the nicest car she had ever seen pulled up across from their house. No one got out, it just stayed there. She walked over to it. Paris Geller sat in the front seat.
Rory motioned to roll the window down, but Paris just stared at her through the glass, before motioning to the other door. Rory heard it unlock and she got in.
“Long time no see, Gilmore.” Paris said, trying to come off confident, but her voice was shaky.
“You too Paris. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to talk these last few weeks.” Rory didn’t know why she was apologizing when Paris was the one who never called, but she felt the need to address their silence.
They were both silent for a few minutes. Paris looked terrified, and kept glancing down at her lap to where a single notecard sat, absolutely crammed with notes. It wasn’t an expression Rory was used to seeing in Paris. a) Paris was scared of absolutely nothing. Even in cases where being scared was a valid response, she tended to express those emotions with anger and pride. b) Paris would never dare give a presentation without having it memorized forwards and backwards. Rory didn’t even know she owned notecards. All of a sudden, Paris crumpled the notecard up and threw it in the back of the car. Then, she turned in the seat and looked Rory right in the eye. Rory was suddenly aware of how close they were in this small small space.
“I had a big speech planned, but fuck it. That dumpster fire was just ‘wah wah feel bad for me’. And sure, I may be scared out of my fucking mind right now, but I will never, ever coast by on self pity. Brad did that once. He ugly cried in front of our calculus teacher to get his grade raised from a B- to a B. I could never. Too much self respect for that. Anyways, I should cut to the chase. I broke up with Jamie.”
“I’m sorry to hear that Paris. How are you feeling about it?”
“You want to know why though, don’t you? You’re acting all sorry because you think that if you stick around long enough, I’ll spill the beans.”
“Well, a) I am genuinely sorry, you seemed to like him a lot. And b) considering you came here with a speech prepared, I figured you were planning on telling me that anyways.”
“There’s that brain that got you into Yale, Gilmore.” Paris paused for a moment, and the car filled with uncomfortable silence. “I lied to you. On the phone when we last spoke. About my research.”
“So you just made up that story? You didn’t bribe your classmate into kissing you?”
“No, that part was, perhaps regrettably, true. I lied about the results. Certain parts did make it a better experience than with, say, Jamie. Lip gloss is a fantastic invention that men should experiment more with.”
“Why did you need to lie about that to me then?” Rory looked up from where she had been fiddling with her hands in her lap to see Paris staring at her. The two locked eyes. Rory’s breath unconsciously hitched.
Paris leaned forwards, and put her hand under Rory’s jaw. Rory felt the brush of the blonde’s lips against hers for merely a fraction of a second, with no time to process what was happening, other than that Paris was certainly right about lipgloss improving the experience.
“I erm… knew I needed more research, with a more willing party, and someone who I actually wanted to kiss. But I thought if I said that you would pull out one of your stupid pop culture quips, and I didn’t want to be Thelma from Thelma and Louise or something. But instead you suggested yourself as an option.
“It’s honestly embarrassing that that wasn’t even a possibility I had considered, but the moment you said it it hit me. I didn’t want to talk to you for a while because I had to do some reflecting on the past three years of our lives. I even reached out to Madeline and Louise to get their input.”
“Which was?”
“Louise said, and I quote, ‘When you got over hating each other, the two of you had mad sexual tension’ and Madeline added ‘Honestly even when you were hating each other you had it too. Perhaps even more’. Normally I wouldn’t trust those airheads’ judgement to decide where to go go for brunch, but when it comes to picking up subtle tension their word is law.”
“Certainly.” Rory paused, still feeling the phantom tingles on her lips. The words forced their way out of her. “May I ask… what were the results of research, y’know, part 2?”
Paris blanched. “A significant improvement.”
Rory smiled. “I agree.” and then leaned in again.
The first kiss had been nothing. A casual brush of the lips. This was different. They both knew they wanted it. A kiss from Paris went exactly the way you would expect it to. She knew what she wanted and she would do everything in her power to get it. But she was still classy, not going too far out of her way to break from first (technically second) kiss norms and-
oh wait was that her TONGUE??!!!
Nevermind.
Of course, they were two fairly respectable girls. One had a family reputation to uphold, and the other had a town full of nosey neighbors wanting to know who the BMW belonged to and why it was fogging up. So a few minutes later, Rory left the car, assuring Paris that they would make more plans to meet up over break. She looked both ways to make sure no one was watching them, and then gave her a goodbye kiss.
As Paris drove away, Rory was trying her best to come up with a plausible essay related reason for her hair to be mussed up and her lipgloss to be smeared.
The rest of the semester went a lot more smoothly for both girls. Paris’ brutal honesty hurt sometimes, but was fantastic for paper revisions. The paper Rory had been working on over break got an A+, which was at least partially related to several coffeeshop dates where Paris was given a first draft, a red pen, and free reign. Having someone to talk to every night, not just Thursdays, made the experience a lot less lonely, even if it was just over the phone. Paris made plans to come visit Rory at school, as her finals ended long before Rory’s.
“Half of my classes don’t even have a goddamn final Gilmore! How does this place pass for an accredited institution? How do I know employers won’t just throw my degree in the trash the moment they see it?!”
One night, Rory’s phone rang, and she picked it up, expecting it to be her normal caller. Instead, it was a different voice. She introduced herself as Paris’ roommate.
“I just wanted to say thank you so much. I don’t know what magic you are working, but it’s like letting a hyperactive puppy tire itself out in the backyard. She’s been so much more chill, she even left the room when I brought a hookup in. And I only needed to ask once!”
Rory didn’t know what to say to that last part, so she just laughed. “I just hope she wasn’t too weird at the start of the year with all that ‘my lesbian roommate’ stuff.”
“No worries. I could tell she had her own shit to figure out.”
“I’m sorry, this is going to sound like a really stupid question, but can I get your guys’ phone number?”
“You don’t have it already?”
“This is Paris we’re talking about.”
"Right-o"
“Hello? This is Paris Geller speaking.”
“Hi Paris.”
“Rory? What are you doing calling me? You never do that for some reason.”
“I never had your phone number. I literally could not call you.”
“You should have asked! Did they not teach you phone manners in preschool, Gilmore?”
“I did. MANY A TIME. You just never told me because you were steamrolling through with your premed gossip.”
“That does sound like me. Speaking of, I can’t WAIT to tell you about which professors got caught making out in the lab storage closet.”
“It’s the guy with piercing blue eyes and the bald one, right? They seemed to have good chemistry from what you told me about the department meeting.”
“It’s like you’re right here in Ford witnessing it with me.”
“Paris?”
“Yes?”
“I love you”
“I love you too”
And all of a sudden, it was like the 80 miles of distance, the state border, and the whole ‘long distance relationship’ thing was gone.