CHERRY. [JESS MARIANO]

Honey, I'm Home!

"That's it! I'm not gonna get into Harvard!" Rory exclaims as she takes a seat next to me on the bus back to Stars Hollow.

I close the book in my lap and look over at her. "Well, hello to you too," I joke.

She loosens the tie around her shoulders and casts me a worried look. Her uniform was crumpled and her bag was half-unzipped. The bus was relatively empty except for the usual people we saw on the way back from school.

"Did you not hear anything they said at the seminar just now?" Rory asks exasperatedly as the bus starts to move. In school we had this whole 'How to Get into Colleges' seminar where an Ivy League college consultant and an admissions officer from Princeton gave tips on what to write on your college application. I didn't hear the rest.

"I was a bit busy with my Faulkner," I told her as I waved the book in my hand.

She looks at me with wide eyes. "That was how you can get into Yale! It was a big help!"

"Calm down, I heard the gist of it," I say. "Besides, I think I've been to too many of those things cause of my grandparents." My grandparents have been in town for a whole month to 'help me choose the right college.' And I don't think they plan to leave anytime soon.

In other words they've been trying to get me to go to Oxford or Cambridge. Thankfully, they rented a house in Hartford so that my mum and I have enough space to ourselves.

"Then you can listen to my problems," Rory began quickly. "I don't think I'm gonna get into Harvard."

I sigh, time to turn into therapist mode. "What makes you say that?"

That was her cue to delve into a very vivid recollection of the seminar which I was way to engrossed in my book to listen too, my bad. Basically, those stupid panelist managed to convince Rory that she was like every other person who applied to an Ivy League school. Too in over their heads.

What got to her the most was the fact that they said people who write essays about Hillary Clinton and have college paraphernalia on the walls their whole lives probably won't get in cause they try too hard. The worst thing was that they had completely made Rory lose faith in herself.

"Who'd you write about?" She asked me once she was done going on her rant.

"I picked Jane Austen," I tell her, happy with my choice.

She groans and buried her face into my shoulder. "That's a good one," she says. But it was muffled from the thick cloth of my blazer, so it sounded more like 'Msh ugh cold phone.'

"I'm sure you'll have time to change it," I suggest to her as I pat her head. I was never good at this whole comforting thing. I was a lot like Chandler Bing in that department, I'd rather give a sarcastic comment. "You can write about your mum."

She takes her head off my shoulder and looks up at me. "That's actually not a half bad idea."

"Gee, thanks."

"Where're you going after this?" She asks me, ignoring my remark.

"Do you want what my mum thinks I'll be doing or what I'm actually doing?" I ask her.

Rory nods her head, understanding my answer. "I take it you're going to be with Jess?"

I imitate the sound of a bell. "Ten points to Gryffindor," I tell her.

"Hey!" She protests, "You know I'm a Ravenclaw."

"My bad."

Rory turns in her seat to look at me seriously. "You know, you ought to tell your mum about all this."