Love
Rory's thoughts about love, Dean, Jess and Logan. NARCO.
Spoilers: Up to episode description/preview of 6x08, Let Me Hear Your Balalaikas Ringing Out
She thought love was something you should have to work for. It should be dangerous, an adventure. She'd been wrong, and she'd thrown it away. Twice. Love was the person who made you feel safe, and needed. The adventure of love was what it took to get to the place in your heart where you were capable of loving that person, being happy with that person. And the greatest loves were the ones you didn't have to work to trust.
She had never been as happy as she had been when she was with Dean. She had never been as sad as she had been on his wedding day, or when he had walked away from her on the dance floor at the Dance Marathon. But it had been too easy with him. She had intuitively trusted him, she'd never had to work to find that place. She wanted her heart to travel, she had wanted it to see the world. She wanted to know if the love she felt for him was only because he was the only person her heart had ever known, or because he was the best person her heart could know.
She had devoted her senior year to falling in love with Jess. It was a challenge, it was exciting, it was an adventure. She hadn't managed to do it, but that was okay, because she had met the challenge head-on, she had tried her hardest, and he was gone for good, so it was okay that she had failed. It was okay that her happiest moment with him had made her half as happy as Dean had, because when he left, it made her half as sad as things ending with Dean had.
Then she had a second chance with Dean. But she hadn't fallen in love since the last one, and like an idiot, she had let that put her right back where she was before Jess. Happy with the man she loved, but scared to love him in case her heart was playing tricks on her. So when Logan had come along, good-looking, charming, and seductive, she had let herself be seduced. She had let Dean leave, and tried to patch her broken heart with Logan.
For the first time in her life, she was dating someone who her grandparents approved of. Lorelai would be able to be happy for Rory no matter who she was dating, even if it was really hard for her at first. Emily and Richard were not so open. Rory was a people-pleaser. She wanted everyone she cared about to be happy with her. By dating Logan, she could make her grandparents, possibly her father, and eventually her mother happy, so she tried to fall in love with Logan. She had even told him she loved him.
But then Jess came back, his life reformed, and made her look at what she had done to her life. He yelled at her, and although he didn't say as much, let her know he still wanted to be with her. Something inside her clicked then. She had made Logan into another Jess. She had loved him in the way Dean had loved Lindsay, as a tool for getting over someone she wanted desperately to be over, but wasn't.
Maybe love didn't have to be hard to be true. Maybe the easier it was, the more real it was. Maybe you shouldn't have to work to fall in love, maybe if you had to work at it, it wasn't as true.