Logan stood nervously behind the door of the ladies room, waiting. It had taken him perhaps ten seconds to fully grasp what had happened, and he'd rushed after Rory without explanations, leaving the four looking after them in shock. Clearly none of them had realized that a simple game could've turned into something serious.
Rory paced around the bathroom, as the light over her head flickered. Her head throbbed, she'd clearly had a little too much to drink as well. And what had just happened was just too much on top of everything. She was angry, hurt, disappointed and just plain tired. She was done with the game and she needed time to process. Realizing that Logan was probably just outside that door, she understood that there was probably no reason to delay her exit. It was not like she had a place to hide or run to. And perhaps that was for the better. After splashing her water with cold water, and drying it off, she emerged.
"Ace, I'm sorry…," he began.
"Can we just go?" she said, clearly not ready to hear it.
She didn't wait for an answer and headed out the door, and Logan followed, quickly grabbing their jackets and telling Karl that they had to leave as Rory wasn't feeling well. Technically it was the truth.
The night air had turned crisp, as the two walked along the street, the establishments along the street still bustling with people, Rory hastily walking in front while Logan followed five feet after her, feeling like it was better to give her her space right now. Rory recalled the general direction back to the apartment surprisingly well, giving Logan no good reason to interrupt her. She clearly needed some space, and that was justifiable. Logan cursed his terrible judgement call. Why was it that he never made mistakes like that at work, and always with Rory? It was as if he couldn't quite think clearly around her, blinded by his emotions. On the bright side, the walk through the cool night, sobered the two up significantly.
Suddenly, about halfway back to the apartment, Rory came to a halt at a street corner. Logan hesitated, keeping his distance, observing.
"What were you thinking, Logan!? God!" she turned and raged. "You had no right to put me in that situation!" she continued shouting angrily. "What you go along with the game and just by chance the person you aim to play the joke on is the person who you know will get hurt by that. Our breakup was not just hard on you, you know. You have no idea what I went through!" she shouted, getting a few curious looks from bystanders.
Logan stood there quietly, waiting for her to say something more. But nothing came. Her last sentence had calmed him - he didn't know what she'd gone through, hence he couldn't have know the seriousness of the situation, but he hadn't been completely oblivious either. He could remember the look on her face at her graduation so well, he had no doubt she had been hurt too.
"I screwed up, I'm sorry. You're right, you're absolutely right," he admitted, finally daring to speak. "I'm still an idiot around you: I can't think straight, I overthink things, I'm scared all the time of saying or doing the wrong thing and well clearly failing," he explained, taking a deep breath, feeling defeated. "I actually considered doing the dare on someone else and then I just thought that would've hurt you too, like I'd never be willing to do it to you again, that we could never do that. I even considered just refusing to do it altogether, but then they would've wanted me to explain. And I am not ready to discuss it with them, it hurts for me too," he sighed. "I may have said what I did in the worst possible context but I did mean it, and for that I am not sorry. And no, I am not pressurizing you, I just love you, and I am terrified of losing you again," Logan said.
Rory sat down at a nearby bench, closed her eyes, leaning her forehead on her hand, letting out a shallow breath. She wanted to be angry at him, but everything he had said made perfect sense.
"And you say I don't know what you went through, you're right again, I really don't. So please enlighten me," he added a few minutes of silence later.
Rory was still processing. Her head had stopped throbbing, the cold temperature waking her brain up from her haze.
"Okay, let's go talk. But can we go back to the apartment first? I could really use some coffee, before we do this?" she suggested practically, her anger having been replaced by some level of understanding. She rose to leave, Logan still observing her carefully, trying to read her mood. "And Logan…," she began, "I do love you," Rory added. As much as she hurt both because of the past and the events of the evening, she couldn't deny that she had feelings for him, it was the least she could do - make sure he didn't feel like he was alone in this.
Logan smiled weakly, realizing the difficult discussions that lay ahead. He placed his hand across her shoulder supportively, as they walked onwards.
"I'll go make some coffee," Logan said, as they'd arrived at the apartment.
"Okay. Do you have a large piece of paper or a whiteboard or something? Markers?" Rory asked, already developing the idea in her head how they could do this productively, at least attempting to separate the facts from their emotions.
Logan knew well enough that this was her way to tackling big problems, and he didn't object. "Check under the bed, there should be something. And markers I should have in the top drawer of the desk," he called out from the kitchen.
By the time Logan returned with two large coffees and some grilled ham and cheese sandwiches he'd scooped up, Rory had removed one of the large abstracts paintings from his wall and hung the old poster presentation the white turn-side outwards on to the nail on the wall and separated half of the paper with a vertical line, on column marked L and the other R. The row headings listed: proposal, breakup, time in between and present day pro-con.
"This is going to take all night isn't it?" Logan sighed. It was not that he didn't want to do this, it was just a daunting prospect, and Rory got that.
"It might. But I think we can agree, that we need to do this. We'll do as much as we feel up to, and just continue tomorrow if we still have things to discuss. This may not be very pleasant but it's the only thing I can think of that we can do to break the pattern. We need to replace the guessing and fear with knowing, right?" Rory explained after taking a large gulp of coffee.
"Right," he agreed.
"So, here goes. What was going on in your mind when you decided you were going to propose to me like that back then? You'd recently told me to choose what I wanted to do, wherever I wanted to do it and then you just sprung it on me in public and made me choose all or nothing," she said, trying to state the facts as she saw them.
"I did, didn't I? Like I said before, I was an idiot. The explanation that I have is just that I got the job offer, taking me across the country, alone, and I realized I didn't want to do it without you. You were still undecided on the job front as far as I knew and I figured the West Coast could have offered you just as many opportunities. And I guess I was just so sure that you'd say 'yes', that I didn't even consider the alternative. And when you hesitated I was just so offended, I couldn't think straight. Like you didn't love me enough to come with me, like we weren't on the same page anymore," he explained.
"But I was too young to get married and settle down, I was still figuring out who I was, hell, in a way I am still doing that. And I needed to make the career choice first, like you yourself told me to do. And I know it was the right thing to do. When I saw you at graduation, I never expected you to say all or nothing, that just left my mind completely blank. That was so unfair. By saying 'no' to you never meant that I didn't love you. Hell, I could've even come with you, but just not as Mrs. Huntzberger. That alone would've been like a loss of identity. You must realize that that association in itself would've completely altered my career prospects?" she tried to explain.
"It could've been a long engagement, you could've kept your own name, you could've even travelled for work, I just didn't want to live there without you, I didn't want us to be in limbo. I hated it there without you," he replied.
"But you never said that, you said all or nothing, and 'what's the point?', " Rory recalled.
"I never realized those things needed to be said. You know I would've always supported you along your career. Getting engaged or married and moving wouldn't have been the end of those discussions," he tried to explain further.
"Looking back I realize that partially my fear of that commitment was probably down to my mom too," she sighed, trying to analyze her thought process back then. "I never really had a good example of marriage, not counting Emily and Richard, proposals always seemed to ruin things. Mom's engagements - they didn't exactly guarantee that she'd actually have her happy ending you know," she added.
"But have you gotten over that fear now? Lorelai and Luke have now been together a while, right? Engaged or not, the prospect of a long-term relationship cannot be that foreign to you," he continued.
"You're right, it's improved," Rory said.
"So, can we conclude that a) I was selfish for pushing and didn't think I was cornering you blinded by the idea that surely you would say 'yes', which was wrong of me, b) you were scared of commitment because you were scared to lose your identity, your choice career, and you never expected me to make it all or nothing," he summed it up.
"I think the mistake that started this was that you didn't talk to me Logan - you got the job offer and you went a long way in your head without talking to me. If you had eased me into it... If you had explained how you were scared to take the job without me coming with you, how you wanted something more than just being together like we were, not ending up doing it in public like that. Maybe things would have not ended like they did," she added.
"Don't think, talk," he concluded, writing it down on the paper.
"Did you consider getting back in touch with me after?" she asked.
"I did, so many times. But I after a few weeks cut the cord, I had Colin erase your contacts from my phone, e-mail, social media. I felt like it was the only way to move past you. I was so hurt, I think I spent like that entire first year working 80 hours a week and the rest of the time drinking just to pass out to not think about you," he explained.
"I felt like calling so many times, and then I still had your number, but I just felt like there wasn't anything I could say to make it better - I was still not ready to marry you. And the first few months were horrible - I pretty much cried myself to sleep on most days. Most of the campaign trail I just barely went through the motions. I didn't want to talk to people, and that was like the most important part I should've been doing. I was so out of my element," she added, regretfully.
"It was the 'what's the point?' that truly cut me. Like there wasn't a point of us being together unless we were married. Like the three years we were together didn't mean anything, like that was somehow insignificant," Rory continued to share, after a brief pause.
"It wasn't, you realize that now right?" he said, "I was just hurting, and that was a terrible choice of words," he added apologetically.
Rory could understand that, but it still hurt, and Logan could see it from her face.
"The three years with you were the best I've had. Yes, we were young and we had our issues. Mostly communication issues, if I recall correctly, but I've never felt that strongly about anyone, and that hasn't changed. I am so sorry for everything that happened, what I said and did," Logan continued.
"Okay," Rory sighed after a few seconds, "can we agree to move forward from that and not go back dwelling on it?" she asked.
"I can, if we agree to try to avoid the same mistakes. And I know how stupid that sounds in the light of my stupid act today," Logan said. "Can you move past it?" Logan asked after a few seconds.
"I can, if you promise to never put me on the spot like that again. I am not a good decision maker, you should know that. I need time to process things, make my lists even if just in my head. I need us to talk, always," she explained.
"I promise, Ace," he said, taking her hand, and pulling her to his lap for a kiss.
"Does this mean that there's hope for us?" Logan asked, after parting from the kiss, clearly wanting to hop over a few steps on the table.
"We wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't hope," she said, adding "but there's a long way to go to get to that decision."