chapter two! the new girl
─── ✽ ───
The piercing ringing of Thea's alarm cut echoed through the carefully decorated bedroom, pulling the brunette from her school work. Thea strode over to the alarm clock silencing the irritating noise and allowing the soft vocals of Susanna Hoffs to become audible once again.
The Gilmore had struggled to get any sleep, so along with a pot of coffee, she had spent the entirety of the night finishing off her incomplete essays. The hope was that the writing process would distract her from Rory's impending arrival at Chilton Preparatory.
"Thea, love, are you decent?" Emily softly knocked on the bedroom door, pushing it open once she'd heard a reply from her granddaughter, "You're all dressed."
"I thought I'd get up a little earlier so I could get some work done," Thea loosely explained, picking up her navy cardigan from the back of her desk chair and slipping it on over her white shirt.
"Your grandfather is already at the table let's go join him," Emily suggested, gently wrapping her arm around Thea and leading her downstairs, "Sophia has made your favourite, chocolate chip pancakes."
"Thanks, Grandma," Thea smiled as she and Emily stepped into the dining room, where Richard was already sitting reading through his morning paper, "Good morning, Grandpa."
"Good morning, Thea," Richard smiled, lowering his paper for a moment to look at his granddaughter, "What's going on at school today?"
"I have a physics and Latin quiz and field hockey practise after school," Thea explained reaching and pouring herself a cup of coffee that would hopefully help her to get through her first couple of lessons of the day.
"Be sure to find Rory and introduce her to your friends," Emily suggested as she stood beside Thea and served her some of the freshly cooked chocolate chip pancakes,
"Rory would really enjoy that, will make her start at Chilton a little easier."
Thea sighed, looking down at the pancakes that had been placed in front of her, "I'll be sure to do that Grandma."
For Thea, Rory joining her at Chilton was one of the worst things that could have happened to her. Chilton was one of the only places that Thea never had to compete with her estranged twin sister. Stars Hollow was supposed to be Rory's, and Hartford was supposed to be hers, but now Rory was taking it over.
• • • • • • •
"And while in French culture was the dominant outside cultural influence, especially for Russia's moneyed class, English culture also had its impact. Tolstoy's favourite author, for instance, was..."
Mr Remmy spoke, pacing in front of his world literature class, waiting for one of the students to finish his sentence.
"Dickens," Paris answered, briefly raising her hand.
"Yes. And last week we discovered Dostoevski's main authorial influences." the world literature teacher continued, stopping in front of Thea and Paris.
"George Sand and Balzac," Thea answered, twirling her pink pen between her fingers.
"Good, as Tolstoy commenced writing both 'War and Peace' and 'Anna Karenina' Count Leo would turn to...." he stopped so that the Geller girl in front of him could answer.
"'David Copperfield'."
"Correct. He would turn to 'David Copperfield' for inspiration,"
The door to Mr Remmy's classroom creaked open to reveal a smug Tristan Dugray and Alexander Harrington. The duo handed over their respective notes, standing beside the desk.
Tristan smirked, eyeing Rory as he waited for the world literature teacher to read over the note. The Harrington sighed rolling his eyes at his friend's actions, before catching Thea's attention. A wide smile spread across Thea's face as she looked up and spotted the Harrington, who smiled right back at her.
"Nice to have you both back. I hope your grandfather's feeling better, Mr Dugray, and I'm glad you're feeling better, Mr Harrington."
"Much better, sir," Tristan answered, moving his eyes over at Thea who gave him a soft smile.
"Good. Take your seat, please," Mr Remmy said before he continued once more with his lesson, "'Great Expectations', 'A Tale of Two Cities, 'Little Dorrit', all major influences on Leo Tolstoy. Of those two literary masters, Tolstoy and Dickens."
The school bell rang out, signalling the end of the period, the world literature students gathered up their belongings quickly shoving them into their bags, and racing out of the classroom. The students rushed through the corridors hoping to get to their lockers before the next bell rang out.
Outside of the classroom, Tristan Dugray and Alexander Harrington stood, leaned against the wall of lockers, their eyes focused on the new girl, who stood being interrogated by Paris. Alec ran a hand through his dark brown curls as he watched the exchange between Paris and the new girl, who seemed to be shaking in fear in front of the Geller.
Thea moved over and stopped in front of the pair, her delicate fingers wrapped around her world literature binder. A wide smile spreading across Alec's features at the appearance of his childhood friend.
"Who's the new girl?"
"Rory Gilmore, my sister,"