Rory woke up in the morning stiff and sore, but rested. She was so spent, she fell sound asleep the instant her head hit the pillow and she didn't stir. Didn't move at all. She woke up in the exact same position she fell asleep in. She was still in the twilight state that existed between dreams and sleep, though her slumber the night before had been a dreamless oblivion; thank God. As she slowly became alert, her eyes shot to the clock on the sagging nightstand of her former bedroom. Eight-thirty.
As the blissful ignorance of sleep receded, Rory felt anxiety grip her as she remembered all of the events of the previous day. She had to be at Logan's apartment in ninety minutes to gather all of her things. Her breath was coming out in shallow gasps before she even sat up; she broke out into a cold sweat and her ears started humming. For a brief moment, she was legitimately afraid she might pass out. Rory remained lying on the bed –still in her dress she'd worn to the wedding, still only covered by the soft blanket Paris had thrown around her shoulders after Logan left- for what seemed like an eternity.
A violent jolt shook through her when the sticky bedroom door opened with a thud. Slowly, she forced herself to sit up as Paris entered. Rory mindlessly wiped the sleep out of her eyes and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, letting her head fall into her hands. Was it possible to feel like you've woken up with the worst hangover of your life if you never consumed any alcohol the night before?
"Good God Gilmore," Paris said flatly. "You look like you were knocked unconscious by a Mack Truck,"
"Why thank you Paris," Rory grumbled, her head still in her hands. "There's the sworn enemy of my past that I've missed so much."
"Oh don't get your knickers in a knot. Here," Paris stuck a mug under Rory's nose.
Rory perked up upon smelling the coffee, though her position barely changed. She slowly released one hand from her head and groped blindly in front of her, in search of the mug. Once she found it, Paris took her by the wrist until her hand found purchase and grasped the handle. With coffee in her grasp, she found the strength to sit up properly and gulped the coffee greedily, emptying the cup in three huge swallows. She silently shoved the empty vessel in Paris' direction.
"Okay. I realize yesterday was rough, but what am I, your maid? Please do not get accustomed to the gentleness I showed you yesterday. I was adapting to unprecedented circumstances; I figured I could be a pillar of support, seeing as you'd finally unloaded Richie Rich and your emotions are running extra high because of this Jess thing,"
Rory's face twisted slightly at Jess' name, partly through remembering how foolish she'd been that night and partly because her stomach was doing somersaults, she was so terrified of going to talk to him and in so doing, finally admitting to the hold he still had on her. Suddenly, she was regretting gulping that coffee down without bothering to breathe between mouthfuls.
"For God's sake Rory, did you have alcohol stashed in your bra that you stole from the Huntzberger wedding? After crying your heart out did you come in here and drink yourself to the brink of unconsciousness? Because you look like you're about to hurl."
"Again, thank you Paris, for your touching concern for my well-being. What you are seeing here –though it may still be hard to spot despite your emotional growth over the last several years- is a human being in pain. Emotional pain, unsullied by the sedation of drugs or alcohol. Real, genuine, emotional, human pain."
"I have all sorts of anti-anxiety meds, if you want some. A low dose of Ativan to take the edge off? You can take some with you to Logan's, incase anxiety tightens its noose when you're in the belly of the beast."
"You know Paris, you're not doing wonders for me here. Aside from the coffee you brought me, you're just making this whole day seem like it's off to a worse start than even I could imagine –and I have a better imagination than you when it comes to things beyond inflicting aforementioned emotional pain that is central to the human experience."
"Oh relax, Emily Bronte. We are far too young yet for our heights to be in any way wuthered. No one's dying and haunting the other, driving them to insanity. Now, you and Jess on the other hand…"
"Paris," Rory said with an edge to her tone. She shot her friend a look that had her normally bright blue eyes darkened with a warning, tread lightly or suffer the consequences.
"Okay, okay," was the best Paris could do at a peace offering. She sat down on the bed beside her friend. "That was a little hyperbolic and possibly below the belt. I'm sorry. You'll talk to him when you're ready, I know."
Rory gave her friend another warning glare –albeit a slightly softer one.
Rory wanted to make things right with Jess more than she wanted anything else in the world at this moment; she just had no idea where to start. How to even begin trying to right all of the wrongs not just of the last few months, but of their entire history together. She would have to go to Philadelphia; he had to want to see her. They had to talk. Not just about books and music, but about them –what they wanted from each other, if in fact they both wanted anything out of each other at all. Somewhere deep down inside her soul, Rory knew this was their last chance to figure out what they were to each other, what they wanted from each other and how or even if they could make it work if they both wanted the same things. All of this would need to be figured out slowly and one thing at a time, but the gist of it was simple: They'd spent six years hurting each other, though Rory knew, deep in her heart that neither of them hurt each other intentionally, despite the alarming frequency with which they'd disappointed each other.
Deep down inside her soul, Rory knew. This was it. If they couldn't figure it out now, it would be over. The idea of losing him for good terrified her in ways she never thought possible.
Dean was a great boyfriend and she loved him for a long time, but she grew out of that, as most people do with their first love. Though she would always regret the hurt she caused him with the Jess thing and the mess she made of his life later on, losing him hadn't wrecked her, not really.
Logan was a whole different animal. He was wild playboy she thought she had the ability to tame, into the exact type of long-term-relationship-guy that he had no bones about admitting he definitely was not. She tried to stay with him and she was successful for a long time. But in the end it came down to Logan allowing her to believe that he'd changed when in fact he was the same chronically lazy, lush playboy he was when they first met. Once the sadness over his betrayal wore off and the anger she felt towards herself for not knowing any better started to dissipate, she knew she was better off without him.
It's true, he did love her. But he never loved her enough to stop hurting her; he never loved her enough to stop her from turning into the exact person she never wanted to be –a person like him who had allowed his amazing intellect and potential be overshadowed by a crippling fear of an honest day's work, much more content to drown his sorrows at the local pub, wasting a life which could very easily have him poised for greatness. The truth of it was, Logan was barely a man; rather than work toward a professional life and reputation he could be proud of –God knows, he was smart, incredibly learned and extremely gifted- he was content to get drunk and spend his life riding on the coattails of the Huntzberger name only when it suited him. He'd tried to pull Rory into that world of laziness and partying and she'd let him. He took her so far away from herself she barely knew where to begin trying to find her way back to the confident, smart, strong, determined woman she had been before he crept into her life like a snake. Rory knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that she was better off without Logan.
Rory was finally seeing clearly. She and Jess had always been right for each other, but they were never ready for each other. Could they be ready now? Could they learn from all of their combined calamities of the past and finally be on the same page together? Rory and Jess were great at talking, but actually communicating with each other was entirely different –that, they'd never been good at. Jess was a master of evasion, he avoided truly opening up about his feelings at all costs, preferring to deftly cover the truth in thinly veiled allusions and monosyllabic answers. He processed things privately, which doesn't bode well in a relationship. One of Rory's biggest frustrations was that she never knew what he was thinking; whenever she asked he gave her responses that did nothing to actually answer her questions.
Looking back on her history with Jess pulled at her heart in a way that none of her other relationships did. Rory and Jess never had closure –not even the messy kind. They just, ended. He disappeared and reappeared with declarations of love that he never expressed when they were together, but instead blurted out a year after he'd bolted to California, having ended up back in New York, only to get in his car and drive away. Rory didn't doubt that she was in love with him once. It was very possible that she could be again, eventually. The pain of being in love with someone who kept leaving, who was never ready –it messed with her. Then, without fail, just as she thought she was moving past it, boom! There he was again. The universe seemed to be adamantly against Rory getting over him. Maybe he felt the same thing, maybe that was the reason he kept showing up. Maybe the reason Rory and Jess never felt finished is because they truly weren't finished.
"Rory!" Paris screamed. "Snap out of it! This is no time to go all Girl Interrupted. It's past nine o'clock already. You have to get your scrawny ass out the door and over to Logan's. Come on. There's a muffin on a plate in the kitchen; eat it before you go, so that the coffee doesn't burn a hole in your stomach."
"Right. Coffee. No holes in stomach. Muffin. I'm on it," Rory said, slowly coming out of her thoughts. Standing up, she winced as she forced her feet back into her high heels and mechanically brought her hand to her hair, running her fingers through it to kill any bird's nests that might have sprung up while she was sleeping.
"Are you okay? Where did you go just now? What were you thinking about?" Paris asked gently but pointedly as she followed Rory into the kitchen.
"What? Nothing," Rory shook her head and took a bite of the muffin.
"You need a better sales pitch, Gilmore, because I don't buy that one bit. You should really work on your poker face."
Rory knew it was true; her emotions always played all over her face and made it impossible for her to conceal much. She sighed. "Fine. Nothing that I want to talk about right now," she emphasized. "Better?"
"I buy that as the truth," Paris said with a single nod of approval.
"Good. Now, I have to go."
"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?"
Again, Rory let out a sigh. "No. I'll be fine. This is something I should do alone." Paris opened her mouth to speak, but Rory quickly cut her off. "I know, I know. If Logan's there, I will call you. I will happily let you tackle him to the ground with your frightening krav maga skills."
For the briefest of seconds, Paris' face twisted in pain at the mention of krav maga, making her think of Doyle. She quickly swallowed the lump in her throat and was once again back to the business at hand. "Good. I'll enjoy tackling the weasel," she said with genuine seriousness.
Rory popped the last of the muffin in her mouth and forced her feet to move towards the front door, "If he's there," she started.
"I'll be there within ten minutes. I'll knock him down, and he'll stay down. I snuck out while you were still asleep, put a few boxes in your car." Paris said with a slight smile.
"Thanks, Paris." Rory smiled weakly in return and hurried out the door before she lost her nerve.
Rory got there early; she sat in her car until ten fifteen, to be sure that Logan would indeed be gone when she went up to the apartment. After retrieving two empty boxes and an oversized suitcase from her trunk, she slowly made her way into the building, got into the elevator and pushed the button for Logan's floor.
She turned the key quietly; half afraid of making too much noise even though she knew no one was there to hear. Rory walked inside cautiously, slowly surveying the space. It was strange to think that the morning of the day before, she wholeheartedly thought of this as her home that she shared with the man she loved. Just goes to show how drastically things can change in a day.
As she looked around, it was almost hard to believe that this place could've ever felt like home, let alone as recently as yesterday morning. This apartment unmistakably belonged to a rich person; someone who spent money with the same frequency that other people changed their underwear. Everything about it –the grandiose chandeliers, the giant fireplace, the pristine kitchen with top of the line stainless steel appliances, the regulation size pool table, the bedroom with an en suite bathroom that looked like it belonged in a spa, the king sized bed complete with pillars- was so far removed from all of the things Rory identified with, she was mystified as to how she managed to feel, for so long, as though she fit in here –or in Logan's world at all.
Rory was suddenly more eager to get this over with than when she had first arrived. But before she did anything, she needed to get out of the dress she'd been wearing for over twenty-four hours. She unceremoniously peeled it off of her skin, crumpled it into a ball and threw it into one of the empty boxes. She kicked those cursed high heels off with such force that they almost flew across the room. She quickly shuffled back to the apartment door to lock it. She also moved a small table in front of it, so that if Logan came back, she would hear him trying to get in.
Dashing into the bathroom, Rory threw off her bra and panties and allowed herself a quick shower –a small step in the direction of feeling like a human again. Afterwards, she quickly grabbed fresh undergarments, her most comfortable jeans and a relaxed lightweight shirt and –mercifully- a pair of running shoes. After getting dressed, Rory forced a brush through her long, brown locks and tied it up in a messy bun. Her bangs were dripping in her eyes, and she chastised herself for the day she'd decided to get them cut. She made a mental note to let them grow out and never cut them any shorter than could be tamed by a clip or bobby pin ever again.
Freshly showered and comfortably dressed, she set to work methodically covering every inch of the apartment, locating every last one of her belongings. She never wanted to come back here. If there was anything she happened to forget, she decided that she could live without it.
An hour and a half after she arrived, Rory was stunned to see that everything she owned that was in Logan's apartment was haphazardly divided amongst two huge boxes and a giant suitcase. She looked up from her belongings to survey the apartment, finding that it looked exactly the way hotel rooms and apartments did in the movies after being ransacked by an ex. The wet towels from her shower were in a soggy bundle on the bathroom floor; the bed was a mess; hangers were strewn about everywhere; dresser drawers were left open. For a fleeting moment, her type-A organizational side was horrified at the mess she made and she legitimately considered cleaning up after herself. Calmly reminding herself of exactly what had happened to necessitate this turn of events, she thought better of it and decided it was Logan's mess to clean up, not hers.
Rory picked up a box with one arm and tilted the suitcase onto its wheels with her other hand, kicking the other box along with her as she headed back towards the door. Maybe she should have let Paris come with her after all; she hadn't been thinking far enough ahead to plan out how she was going to get everything down to the car by herself. When she made it to the front door, she set everything down and moved the small table back to its proper place against the wall of the entry way.
Grabbing her purse, Rory dug for the apartment key; when she found it and saw the mailbox key on the same ring, she decided to check Logan's mailbox to make sure he would have no reason to use mail as an excuse randomly show up. She had only been living here for about seven weeks, since right before she returned to Yale. She couldn't remember getting more than one or two pieces of mail since she moved here, so it was highly unlikely there would be any mail waiting for her in the box on the wall outside the door. Still, better safe.
Standing in the apartment doorway, keeping the door propped open with one foot, she stepped out into the hallway with the other and reached with one arm to blindly feel for the tiny keyhole on the small iron box outside the door. Holding the top of the box open with one hand, she groped around the inside of the box with the other, wrapping her fingers around the thick stack of mail. Rory stepped back into the apartment and first put the keys on the table, planning to leave them there for Logan to find. This was a swanky building with a doorman and Logan lived on the penthouse floor, no one was going to break in. She turned her attention back to the stack of mail in her hand, thumbing through it quickly.
Rory was scolding herself for taking the extra time to check the mail when she was about to flip to the last piece –clearly there was nothing here for her, why would there be? Without even bothering to look she flipped the thin envelope she was holding to the bottom of the bunch in her hand, finally revealing the thin postcard that had been hiding beneath a dozen other articles of mail.
Rory glanced down for less than two seconds –barely enough time to register the words on the front of the postcard. It couldn't be. Her overactive mind was playing tricks on her. She quickly did a double take and forced herself to focus. As she stared at the glossy photo, she was sure it was a building she'd never seen before. It looked like a house, a brownstone almost. The Liberty Bell was in the background, blurry and out of focus. In big, block letters, text along the top of the postcard that broke with an ellipsis and continued along the width of the bottom read, "YOU ARE INVITED … TO TRUNCHEON PUBLISHING HOUSE".
Upon closer inspection, she saw that some of the text had been crossed out, replaced with a more personal message inserted in place of the non-committal invitation. With a trembling hand, Rory held the postcard closer to her face and saw, above the bottom line, scrawl she would know anywhere, on account of several of her books being littered with the same penmanship. The personal message added just enough to the bland, mass-produced greeting on the card to tug at her heartstrings: "Jess Mariano REALLY, TRULY invites you and genuinely wants you to come…TO TRUNCHEON PUBLISHING HOUSE … please?"
Rory felt her eyes well up with tears. She delicately tucked the postcard in the front pocket of her suitcase, ensuring it was laying flat and wouldn't get wrecked. Her hands were trembling; whether it was because she felt terror, relief, or surprise, she wasn't sure. She was feeling all of those things and more simultaneously. She let her tears fall freely as she exited Logan's apartment and loaded up her car. But the tears that fell from her eyes now were different from all of the countless tears that she'd cried in the last day or so. These tears were tears of joy. She was still terrified of facing Jess, but she felt the faintest glimmer of hope rising above the terror. So maybe, this terror was a good thing.
Rory sat in her car a long time, letting the emotion wash over her. He wasn't shutting her out of his life; Jess was inviting her in, creating space for her to meet him halfway. He was reminding her that no matter what they put each other through, at the end of the day, he would never stop caring about her, even if caring abut her was painful sometimes. She hated that caring for each other went hand-in-hand with hurting each other. She didn't want it to be that way; she wanted things to change. Rory knew that she and Jess would need to have some painful conversations, deal with all of the hurt they caused each other over the years that they always just ran away from rather than dealing with, because running was easier. They had a lot to work through together. For the first time, faint though it may be, Rory had a feeling in her gut that this could work. She and Jess, they could work through everything, find a way to be honest with each other and finally find a way to be happy. It wouldn't be easy; nothing with them ever was. Nothing worth having ever came easily.
Rory drove home in a daze. A happy, terrified and confused daze. When she pulled up, Paris was anxiously waiting for her on the sidewalk in front of the steps up to the apartment building. Rory was instantly glad to see Paris' anxious form waiting for her –she really had no idea how she was going to make it up to the third floor of their walkup with all of her stuff.
As she parked her car, Rory's relief at seeing Paris gave way to a slight wave of panic. The instant she opened the car door Paris would be in her face asking an impossible number of questions at rapid-fire speed. The one thing Paris wouldn't know to ask about was the postcard burning a hole in Rory's suitcase. Sadly, even though Paris wouldn't ask, Rory knew her face would betray her. Her face would not say "I found a postcard from Jess in the mailbox at Logan's when I made a last minute decision to check it before I left; it's currently burning a hole in the top pocket of my suitcase," but it would betray enough for Paris to know something was up and she would badger Rory until she cracked. As she tried to steady her breathing and force her face into neutral territory that could withstand Paris' unique brand of intense questioning, the thought finally occurred to Rory that she actually had no idea how Jess would know to send mail to her at Logan's address. The concept of snail mail was becoming archaic to begin with –getting anything in the mail that wasn't a bill or a flyer was rare enough; add to that the fact that Rory had received personal mail, at the home of her (ex) boyfriend from the only ex-boyfriend she never achieved closure with, who had recently reappeared in her life to give her the wakeup call she needed that only he could deliver –everything about it made Rory's brain hurt.
Once her brain ran through the facts, she quickly deduced that Luke must have told Jess where she was living, which made sense. Her stomach lurched as she pictured Jess addressing the postcard to her at the apartment she shared with Logan –while she was sure Luke and Jess didn't gab about the situation and dissect it the way she and her mom would, Rory knew that Jess must have been aware that she was living there with Logan. Her face twisted involuntarily, her disappointment and regret at knowing how that must have hurt him briefly playing across her face.
She had been sitting in her dormant car for long enough that Paris was now yelling at her, rapping her hands on the window. Rory snapped out of it and shook her head violently, screwing her eyes tightly shut in an effort to force her face to appear nonchalant. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and opened the door.
"Boxes. Trunk," she said to Paris, pointing behind her. The less she talked, the better. Maybe she could even get unpacked and settled before Paris became totally insufferable. Before Paris could be distracted and while she was sufficiently occupied retrieving the boxes from the trunk, Rory darted out of the car and opened the door to the backseat, clutching her suitcase before Paris even had a chance to look at it.