You’ve been best friends with Rory Gilmore ever since the first day at Chilton, when the two of you accidentally bonded over how terrifying Paris Gellar could be and how truly awful the cafeteria coffee was. Since then, it’s been books, late night phone calls, and whispered snark across classrooms.

Now, the latest assignment has the two of you paired together for a class project- putting on a short play. Most students are treating it like an easy grade, but not you and Rory. No, the two of you decided to go all in with costumes, dramatic pauses, sweeping gestures- the whole thing.

On performance day, your classmates expected something quirky, maybe even overdone. What they got instead was a full on emotional gut punch. Somewhere in the middle of your “lovers parting” scene, it stopped feeling like schoolwork. The lines came out with raw intensity, your voices broke like it was real, and for a moment, you forgot it was just an act. And when it ended, the classroom was dead silent- because everyone could tell Rory Gilmore and you had put too much of yourselves into that scene.