Arduous Honesty
by Jasmin Kaiba
Part I
When he sees her again after three agonizing years, it's not the fireworks he sometimes dreams about, but it's not the burning pain he'd expected either. It just is. They're standing across each other, deep in the bowels of the Grand Central Station and neither of them can get out a word. For all their ways around words and saying what they mean in so many ways, they're both rendered mute when it comes down to it. It's sad, really.
But, Logan surmises, actions always speak the loudest. So he does what any journalist worth his salt does. He studies her. Her crystal blues are fixed on him, an unreadable expression fixed upon her pretty face. She hasn't changed much. She's thinner, more graceful, her cheeks hollowed, lips plumper, hair longer. All in all she's the same Rory he walked away from on her graduation day three years ago.
Sadly, he's also the same Logan. Hopelessly in love with her, and desperate for any sign that she actually returns the feeling. A fool, his father would say. But his father is dead, and Logan refuses to let the old man haunt him even from the grave.
And then, as if someone had turned a page in a picture book, Rory's face changes. Color floods her ivory cheeks, tinting her skin a lovely shade of red, her eyes glisten like twin skies and the biggest smile he'd ever seen stretches her delicious lips. She takes a few steps forward, eager, but uncertain, pauses and then breaks into a run. A few second later, her slight weight slams into him, her slim arms wrapping around his shoulders, her face pressed into the crook of his neck, her warm breath tickling sensitive skin.
Only one word is necessary to convey all her terrified joy, "Logan," she whispers and he's lost again. Lost in the tumultuous sea of their epic love that was always right, but never quite enough. They were too young, too naive, too inexperienced and too ignorant of the real world all those years ago. All the love in the world wouldn't have been enough to salvage a relationship that was destined to shatter once out of the protective walls of Yale where it was born.
The real world was too jaded, for a love so innocent.
But things are different today. They are different. He's more centered, more self-assured, more free. And she's not anymore the princess trapped in a tower, waiting for a prince to show her the world; she has the world in her grasp, and she knows it.
Today they don't need each other anymore in the ways they did back then. Today they just want each other. And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.
His arms wrap around her small frame and he pulls her tighter to his chest, breathes a little easier now that her scent is filling his senses again, and he's certain that they wouldn't be making the same mistakes again. Rory and Logan have grown up and they won't be standing in their own way ever again.
AN: The first part of the promised story after the happenings of Love Letters. It is short, but it's just the beginning. More is coming soon. Thanks to my wonderful beta xshynenstarxfor her never ending support. I hope you enjoyed it and will tell me what you think.
Jas