Rory and Logan were doing better. They saw each other, talked to each other, and laughed with each other. Had it not been for the Odette shaped elephant in the room, Rory would consider it the perfect relationship.
"It sounds like you still haven't told Logan that you're coming to see me," Deva said, doing her best to throw the ugly reality of her life right in her face.
"You've got great hearing," Rory muttered before nodding. "I haven't talked to him about this."
"Why not?"
Rory was kicking herself for asking Deva to be harsher with her to make her therapy as effective as possible. The soothing voice and tranquil questioning that Deva had used at their first few sessions did nothing but annoy Rory. She wasn't a nutcase. Rory was sure she could handle all the truth that Deva threw at her. Rory had been wrong. So, so wrong.
"It's never come up," Rory replied.
"What do you and Logan talk about then?"
"Work, his friends, what we're gonna eat..." Rory let the sentence hang and thought about the question.
What did she and Logan talk about?
"How is work, by the way?" Deva asked, interrupting her soul-searching. "Still soul-crushingly boring?"
"Of course. But it gives me a lot of time to keep my portfolio updated while Logan finds me some leads for me. I hope one comes up soon. Sitting at that desk is killing me back."
"Are you looking for work on your own?"
"I was, but Logan has better connections than I do. If I did it, it'd be a waste of time."
"You think that investing in yourself is a waste of time because someone else can do it better?" Deva asked.
"That's not what I said," Rory replied crossing her arms.
Deva tapped her pencil against her notepad. "What do you do when you don't have work?" she asked.
"I read, do a little writing, you know. Logan and I go out to dinner and stuff like that."
"Who do you go out with when Logan's busy?"
Lane's name was at the tip of her tongue before she stopped herself. She hadn't seen Lane since the whole Dean fiasco back in Stars Hollow. Jess was doing his best to be the lead in Frozen on Broadway and was still giving her the coldest of cold shoulders. Outside of Lane's sparse video chats, Logan was the only face she saw on the regular. Rory had made friends during her time at The Journal but there had been nothing but radio silence from them. Paris and Doyle had a standing open door policy but the twins' chaotic energy kept her from going back too often. Rory hadn't even bothered trying to make friends with her new coworkers, knowing she would only be there for three months, tops. Outside of her family back home, Rory really didn't know...anyone.
"Rory?" Deva said, pulling her out of her thoughts.
"No one, I guess. Most of my family and friends are from Connecticut."
"You told me that you've lived in New York on and off for about six years. You don't know anyone up here?"
"A couple of my college friends live up here but they have kids and you know the whole drill. There's Jess but," Rory sighed, "There was this whole thing that happened–he won't talk to me. I've tried."
"Who's Jess?"
"My ex-boyfriend/step-cousin. It's not as creepy as it sounds, I promise!" Rory said at the shocked look on Deva's face, "We dated way before my mom and his uncle got together. He's a great guy."
"Why won't he talk to you?"
"I guess I did a crappy thing to him but, in my defense, I did it because it was the best choice for me and my career."
"What'd you do?"
"So I blew an interview. Titanic level bomb. I vented to Jess and he connected me with a senior editor from Buzzfeed. I told Logan about the interview and he gave me some good advice and I decided not to go to the interview. I told Jess I was sorry but he won't speak to me."
"It's a little strange to be so upset with someone for canceling an interview. Is Jess like this a lot?" Deva asked.
"I didn't exactly cancel. I didn't show up. Buzzfeed probably has thousands of people coming in for interviews every day, I don't know why it was such a big deal."
Deva frowned. "You can't understand why Jess is upset that you were a no-show at an interview that he got his friend to give to you?"
"I can understand why he's upset. I'm not an idiot." Rory snapped. "One missed interview isn't the end of the world and Jess is acting like it is."
"I'm no journalism expert but Logan must have given you some top-notch advice for you to turn down an opportunity to work on some serious stuff at Buzzfeed. Or did Jess's friend ask you to be a mail clerk or something?"
"The Buzzfeed job was mid-level and Logan didn't have another job lined up for me but he knows the industry. His father is a big deal. He gets this stuff. Anyways, the job wasn't paying me enough. It wouldn't have been good for me."
Deva leaned back in her chair. "Why did you become a writer?" she asked.
Rory furrowed her brow. That question certainly came out of left field. "I used to make up stories a lot as a kid. I would write them down and draw stupid stick figures or whatever. I did it so much that mom said that I was made to be a writer. It was my destiny! But when I got to middle school I figured out that writing made no money and I was not trying to be a starving artist. Journalism was the closest thing to being a writer that didn't have me living on government cheese."
"And you said a few sessions back that you were a Yale Alumni. Was Yale your first choice?"
Deva was really going off-script here. Rory had no idea how any of these questions had anything to do with what they were talking about.
"My first choice was Harvard actually. My mom and I always dreamed of me going there but my grandparents wanted me to Yale since my grandfather went there too. My grandfather ended up being right about Yale, so I went there."
Deva sighed. "Rory, I'm going to ask you something. I'd like you to realize that I'm not asking to offend you, okay?"
Rory nodded as her heart rate spiked.
"Have you ever made a hard decision about your future on your own?" Deva asked.
Rory tucked her hair behind her ears. "I don't understand the question."
"When we're together, you tell me about other people's opinions a lot. I know what your mom thinks, what your boyfriend thinks, what your friends think, and everyone else who's ever made decisions for you."
"I make my own decisions."
"Folding under the pressure of other people is not called making decisions. It's called a hostage situation."
"No one is holding me hostage!" Rory said. She stood up and began to pace the room. "There's nothing wrong with talking to people about things you're not sure about. It's an in-person 'pros' and 'cons' list. There's nothing wrong with that."
"There is nothing wrong with that, but that's not what you've been doing. What you've been describing is you making major life decisions that affect only you, based on what other people want for you."
Rory sat down and stared at the clenched fists in her lap.
"Why is it wrong to listen to people who know more than me? Isn't that the literal definition of therapy? Should I stop going to the doctor too?"
She was being snippy but she couldn't help it. Deva was telling her that she spent her entire life being a pushover and it wasn't a great feeling.
"When you know more about human psychology and physiology than me or your primary care physician, feel free to stop going. But I doubt that anyone in your life knows more about Rory Gilmore than Rory Gilmore."
"But some people know–"
"Forget about some people and whatever they know. It's easy to let people tell you what to do because if things go wrong, you don't have to take the blame. But you can't live your life waiting for someone who thinks they know what's best for you to tell you what to do."
"Every time I make a major decision, I make the wrong one," Rory said.
Rory could count the number of decisions she made on her own that didn't turn out to be huge mistakes.
"Then make the wrong decisions, Rory. You are one person in a world of billions. You can make every right decision and not have things work out. You can't live your life in fear of the inevitable. You won't live at all."
Stuffing Twinkie #3 in her mouth, Rory faintly remembered the talk she had with Deva about stress eating. It was hard to follow the advice when the office snack cabinet was right there. It was every stoner's dream. There were Dorito's, Ho-Ho's, and Devil Dogs as far as the arm could reach. To offset the influx of sugar, Rory swiped a travel-sized box of raisins. If that wasn't balance, she didn't know what was.
"It's Lorelai, right?" A woman said as she walked into the office kitchenette.
Rory swallowed her half-chewed twinkie and nodded. "I go by Rory, but yeah, that's me."
"Denise," she replied, offering her hand to shake, "I wanted to thank you for hopping on our launch last week. I know that the female health sector isn't your specialty, but you handled it like a pro."
"Thanks, it was no big deal. I'm happy to help."
"Hey, are you free right now? One of the clients popped by the office, I'd love to tell her you're the reason we got everything out the door when we needed."
That was the last thing Rory wanted to do. Rory wanted to schlep back to her desk and pretend that she was going to eat those raisins before giving them to a homeless man on the way home. But Deva did ask her to be more social.
"Sure," Rory said with a shrug, "Lead the way."
That night, Logan saved Rory from ordering far too much pity pizza by dragging her to a party in Soho. She ignored when Logan introduced her as a "friend from college". Listening to Logan's friends schmooze about recent media takeovers had wiped any of Deva's words out of her head. She was too busy trying to evaporate from boredom. In the car ride back to the apartment Logan patted her thigh and smiled at her.
"You were energetic tonight. Getting easier to mark up semicolons down at the office?"
"You bet. I met one of the clients and the creative director of the launch I worked on last week. My boss also told me that I am a joy to work with and no one has a bad word to say about me."
"Anybody with a brain has nothing but good things to say about you."
Their taxi pulled up to the apartment and Logan helped her out.
"So that bald guy in the Nordstrom Rack suit is brainless?" Rory replied stepping into the elevator.
Logan rolled his eyes, "Rory the average age of my compatriots is about 106. They're all bald guys. You gotta give me more than that."
"You know, the bald guy who had about twenty rings on each finger and kept flashing that very fake Rolex."
"You're an expert in luxury goods now, huh? That's a step up from someone who didn't know what a Birkin was."
"I was young then. I'm mature and now know that Birkin bags are a bigger waste of time than I thought they were. What's the point of a bag if I'm too afraid to put an egg McMuffin in because it's so expensive."
Logan laughed as he unlocked their door. "An egg McMuffin in a Birkin. God, I can't wait to tell Honor about that. But I know who you're talking about. Fat Bastard."
He held his hands up at the affronted look on Rory's face. "Don't give me that look. I didn't make it up. He's a heavy hitter from the finance department. Don't even worry about him. Guy's a nutcase. That's what happens when you marry your psychiatrist."
"He married his therapist?"
"No. Psychiatrist. The man has had full access to a prescription pad and woman who believe Klonopin and Adderall cocktails will solve everyone's problems. Especially her husband's."
"Hey, it's not her fault her husband couldn't shut up about how sensitive millennials are these days. That's his own problem." Rory argued.
"That whole industry is a scam. My dad sent me to a therapist after I totaled my third Porsche when I was 17. One of the best therapists on the East coast he said. He paid that idiot to tell him to stop buying my cars. Christ."
"Aren't one of your aunt's bipolar?"
Logan drained his wine glass and gulped down what was left of Rory's. "Everyone in my family's fucking bipolar. I get that people need meds to keep them from being pulled out of the Hudson but talking about feelings is bullshit."
"Bullshit?" Rory echoed.
"Bullshit," Logan said, slumping into the couch and staring at the ceiling. He tapped his empty wine glass with the metal of his wedding ring. "Total bullshit."