Chapter Text
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR
“I get that no one’s perfect,” said Rory, whose insular hometown had expected her to be perfect, “but some flaws are far more egregious than others.”
“You mean like how Colin is semi-sociopathic?” Logan was just a few hours away from spending a so-called ‘wild weekend’ with that aforementioned semi-sociopath and other friends he’d grown up with despite the fact that most of them hadn’t ‘grown up’ much at all. Although generally a carefree, spontaneous man who haphazardly threw items in the general direction of his bag at the last moment, Logan had already packed and zipped up his enormous suitcase the previous evening. Rory, who was both anxious and intensely curious by nature, tried not to dwell on the fact that her normally open, candid fiancé had seemed reticent about its contents. Just as she valiantly tried not to reflect on the snatch of conversation she’d heard him having with Colin the other day. “I just think Rory and I need more space…”
“People tend to love semi-sociopaths,” Rory pointed out earnestly, and not just because she had an odd soft spot for most of Logan’s friends. They’d overlooked her modest upbringing and naturally serious, quietly neurotic disposition to welcome her into their circle, making it their mission to teach her how to have fun and live in the moment while graciously claiming that Rory’s presence had given them greater depth and maturity. “At least in fiction, which you know I vastly prefer to reality – no offense.”
“None taken,” Logan assured her with a grin. “As you know all too well, I’ve been known to escape reality by any means necessary.”
Although also a reader, Logan had evaded the massive responsibilities his wealthy, infamously frosty parents had foisted upon him by partying and chasing adrenaline rushes at any financial and physical cost. He had lived wholly for ephemeral pleasure in large part because he didn’t think he was destined for – or worthy of – a deeper and more enduring contentment. During his senior year of college, he hit a literal bottom after toppling off a jagged cliff and incurring grave injuries. Logan had awoken to find a distraught Rory planted by his hospital bed, and it had dawned on him even in his concussed and heavily medicated state that his more idiotically impulsive choices now affected someone other than himself. By some miracle, he was loved – not by his parents or by the many people who had been interested in his family’s money or status, but by a woman who truly knew and cared about his heart and the parts of his mind he hadn’t yet fried. He had vowed to stop being so reckless, and it was a promise he had kept for over three years. He still took risks that left introverted, cautious Rory simultaneously elated and on the verge of a panic attack, but at least he no longer ended his evenings in handcuffs or intensive care.
“Readers and viewers love nothing more than sociopaths, especially when they happen to be males who deign to act like decent human beings a whopping 2% of the time to impress the woman they fall for.” Rory knew she was harping on fictional hypotheticals to postpone having to deal with some painfully real concerns, but sometimes there was a canyon-sized gap between being aware of something and actually being able to stop or change it.
“Some women are worth changing for,” Logan observed, pulling her closer. They shared a sudden, intense kiss that had Rory thinking she desperately needed to lower the thermostat in their tiny – “cozy”, they insisted- apartment.
“But my tragic flaw is one that fictional characters rarely possess and which we readers deeply resent,” Rory continued, after using her omnipresent book to fan herself. Surely a man who really wanted “more space” from her wouldn’t still be so affectionate? Maybe she had misheard his conversation with Colin. Her memory and emotions had been a tad off lately, so perhaps her hearing was as well. “I’m resilience-deficient. I live in fiction and in my own weird little head –“
“One person’s weird is another person’s fascinating,” offered her optimistic boyfriend, pulling her down onto his lap. She perched there cautiously for a moment, not wanting to risk hurting him since she had gained a few pounds, but ultimately sinking into his embrace.
“It’s just that I was sheltered by my books and imagination and mom and grandparents and the delightfully deranged residents of Stars Hollow, so I kept a comfortably detached distance from reality and never learned how to handle adversity. Unsurprisingly, my pathetically conflict-averse self crumbles –ooooh, now I’m craving a cookie - when that adversity inevitably comes along. I act like a total brat, I suppress, I choose ‘flight’ over ‘fight’, I literally hide under the covers…”
“Hey, that’s why we splurged on the softest comforter we could find even on our more limited budget,” Logan teased. “Not to mention the silky sheets for when-”
“Yes, I know,” Rory said dryly. “I love that you always give me a literal and figurative soft place to land, but what I need are coping skills.”
“What’s bringing this on all this self-doubt?” Logan asked, his nearly omnipresent grin giving way to a more serious expression. Rory had a sneaking suspicion that her inconveniently clever, perceptive boyfriend already knew the answer before she dismissed that as illogical.
“It’s nothing,” she began, at which her wholly unconvincing attempt at lying was mercifully interrupted by the doorbell.
“Colin and Finn?”
“They’re never early,” Logan reminded her. “They’re never even less than an hour or two late. Maybe your mom?”
Lorelai, like Logan himself, was spontaneous enough to drop by without notice, armed with a surplus of random games, anecdotes, and their favorite cheeseburgers from Luke’s Diner.
“She and Luke are on their third unofficial honeymoon,” Rory reminded him. Although notably more reserved, soft-spoken and diplomatic than her mother, Rory had inherited Lorelai’s caffeine addiction, love of music and movies of all genres, and tendency to have rather complex romantic relationships. To be fair, perhaps all romances were complex, taking us to heretofore unknown emotional highs and lows while revealing the very best and worst of who we could be.
“Ah, yes, of course. They say the third time’s a charm, though no one ever knows who the ‘they’ in question might be or why we’re supposed to heed their advice.” Logan stretched back on their bed, one arm draped over his suitcase while the other stroked Rory’s hair. “Maybe Paris?”
“No, they’re on some island that Luke will pretend to hate but secretly love – oh, you mean the person, not the place! Remember, I just bought way too many clothes with her the other day, and she knows no one can handle her company for more than a couple of hours per week. Plus, she’s off meeting her mysterious new boyfriend’s mom.”
“Fingers crossed that this new relationship of hers doesn’t culminate in another restraining order,” Logan joked. Paris was an acquired taste, with few people other than Rory remaining in contact long enough to discover how true and loyal a friend she could be. Rory sometimes had the shameful thought that she kept Paris in her life partly because she made Rory’s own neuroses seem so mild by contrast, but she quickly suppressed it. Rory was quite adept at squashing discomfiting ideas – though they sometimes burst forth in unexpected and alarming ways. Her traitorous brain reminded her of Logan’s “Rory and I need more space” line – as well as a certain secret she was keeping.
“Maybe it’s Lane,” Rory guessed, finally heading toward their entryway to find out. She discovered a package rather than a person waiting for them on the other side of the door. Rory scooped it up excitedly and carried it back to their bedroom. “Oh, I love when I forget which books I’ve ordered – my increasingly sieve-like memory means that I’m always surprised!”
“No, that’s for me,” Logan noted, swiftly taking the box out of her hands.
“And to think reading comprehension used to be among my best and only skills,” Rory joked. “Yup, that’s yours – so go ahead and open it.”
Logan shrugged. “Later, maybe.”
“Since when do you have impulse control?” She had been going for playful but could hear the underlying concern in her own voice. It was actually Logan who had taught her to climb out of her own head long enough to act rather than merely observe and to fully enjoy the present moment. And yet here he was, uncharacteristically declining to open the present in this moment. Why?
“Since I discovered the importance of timing.” He leapt off their bed and headed toward the nook that served as their kitchen while she murmured something about the thin line between being intriguingly enigmatic and obnoxiously evasive. “Want some coffee? Oh, wait, I should know by now that with you that’s always a rhetorical question.”
“Decaf, please,” Rory called. “I’m jittery enough.”
She whipped out her phone and started typing out one of her many beloved lists, but she was too tense to comprise it with her usual geeky glee. Still, she always felt more comfortable expressing herself in writing than out loud, especially when it meant she could plan her approach rather than risk (and here she almost shuddered) extemporaneously blurting out whatever came to mind.
Issues to Address with Logan:
1. Why isn’t he telling me exactly what he’s doing with Finn and Colin this weekend, and why does he seem to be concealing the contents of his suitcase?
2. What’s in the box – he’ll appreciate that Se7en reference – and why is he being so uncharacteristically secretive about this particular package?
3. Why does he suddenly want “more space”? (And check with Logan or Google to verify when punctuation marks are supposed to go inside the quotation marks)
4. The life-altering development that I can’t admit to Logan yet because I can’t even acknowledge it myself…
She couldn’t bring herself to linger on the fourth item, so she forced her mind to process the first three. Was it possible that Logan was having an affair? He’d had more than his share of dalliances before they got together, and maybe his playboy tendencies hadn’t disappeared so much as just gone into temporary hiding, waiting to reemerge whenever monogamy became too tedious. No, he had changed since they met as two allegedly clever yet utterly clueless college students – they both had. She, for example, had become at least a little more courageous and assertive (it’s not like she could possibly have become less so, she reflected ruefully), no longer such a conflict-averse people pleaser that she’d avoid direct confrontations with the love of her life.
TO BE CONTINUED...