Chapter 35
August 20th, 2021
It was always strange sleeping in a new space. Though Logan certainly had plenty of experiences in that recently, but no doubt also from before. Embracing the ascetics of sleeping on a simplest canvas stretcher at a roadside guest house while hiking Mount Kailash China certainly was an experience for someone like him. No down pillows this time, just his wool-fleece sweater wrapped into a pillow case.
But since he'd just survived four days of vomiting and fever at a student hostel in Sri Lanka, all alone, a few weeks ago, anywhere that he felt fit and well seemed like a good place to be. He wasn't starving, he was used to walking by now. Hardship, even the self-inflicted kind, really put things in perspective.
The building, more like a hut really, was hardly windproof, but compared to the constant windy weather he was used to during hiking by now - it was a calm place to linger a while longer. Logan turned his side on the canvas bed, deciding to close his eyes for five more minutes, having learned to quite enjoy these simple things - the cool morning air against his skin, the moment when everyone else in the room had either woken or at least stopped snoring.
He felt rested though, something he hadn't in years of sleeping in fancy hotel rooms or even his own bed in London, with his brain numbed by a lingering haze from scotch or wine, whatever it had been the night before. It seemed like it had been the only way he'd been able to go to sleep for quite some time, sometimes even resorting to Odette's sleeping pills.
Now with a day of physical exhaustion from walking, or frankly travelling of any sorts in transportation that was too small for someone like him, his knees pushed up against the back of the seat in front of him, forced to eat whatever he picked obliviously without speaking anything beyond a few very basic Chinese and Nepalese survival phrases, he was always tired by the evening and slept wherever he felt safe enough. Out here it was easier to feel safe than in the cities.
Walking seemed to do two things for him. In parts give him nothing but the walking itself to think about, for example, when his feet ached or when he was walking on difficult terrain.
But once the terrain got dull, long stretches in valleys or when he saw anybody for hours, which he kind of preferred, his mind just kept going back to the choices he'd made in his life.
After weeks of contemplation he could honestly say that except for taking his chances to try his luck in Silicon Valley briefly after graduation and his latest stunt in form of a disappearance act he wasn't happy with most of his choises, even if they had seemed a decent idea at the time.
Money really didn't buy happiness, but he felt stupid for having attempted to confute that cliche. Sure, some people might argue, and he couldn't deny that a certain wealth provided him to do what he was doing now, but he did agree that there was a moment on that curve of happiness until which money mattered.
The Huntzberger fortune had never given him freedom of choice, and he felt idiotic for having believed for a second that having the chance to choose his own project at the HPG would be enough.
He kept going back to thinking what was it that Rory had wanted from him, or rather what had been the reason she hadn't wanted him. When he'd proposed, or later.
He knew his biggest issue probably had been the expectations of other people that came with his life, the branding of his name and the way it might limit her options. Rory was all about the freedom. She was raised like that, it was in her blood.
What he hated to think about the most was that perhaps there was something about his person that made her not want him. That hurt. He didn't really know what to do about it. He didn't even know what that could be.
He cautioned himself not to think about her too much though, realizing that he had really no business budding his nose into her life. He'd done a pretty good job at only keeping tabs on her news alerts. There really hadn't been much since they last saw each other. A few local articles, human-interest stories, a couple of reviews and announcements on competitions he really didn't understand her involvement in - all it had said about her was that she was a supervisor of some sort. How desperate was he to still think about her, after all this time?
He'd tried getting lost in a beautiful Norwegian tourist he'd met in Thailand, but as he'd later realized what had drawn him to Sara. Her love for books, her blue eyes and the way she looked a little like Rory when he looked at her sideways - he realized he was just trying to replace her.
He had tried to move on, he had allowed her to move on by staying away - but the shadow of her memory had never really left. Maybe he hadn't wanted to push it away enough, as through some dark times her voice had been the one urging him to not just end things there. She had when he'd stood on top of White Cliff's of Dover in summer of 2020, having been on a holiday with Odette at a nearby spa.
It was from that moment onwards that he'd started to look for other kind of releases. Pain mostly.
It was still pain that kept him moving. The pain from his lost toe-nail, a frugal diet of rice, legumes and tea, his wind-chapped cheeks and the lactic acid in his muscles. It for him was similar to what self-flagellation was for others. A search for redemption, purification, repentance…
It was a big step for the better compared to what he'd done before leaving London.
October 31st, 2021
Logan still couldn't quite believe that he could once again call Rory his girlfriend. It had been more than a decade since he'd last been able to do that. He knew damn well that the term 'girlfriend' or 'boyfriend' didn't fit well with people who were their age. Neither of them was a girl or a boy, after all. But it was what exclusivity meant, even if they were taking things slow, didn't it?
His euphoria of looking over her sleeping form next to him was shaded by performance fear, truth be told, but not the sexual kind. He was terrified of screwing this up, feeling like he'd gotten an undeserved chance with her.
It was almost for that reason he wanted them to see a therapist - to have someone watch over him to make sure he didn't screw up by saying the wrong thing or saying too little.
It had been hard hearing Rory list her flaws to him last night. The only reason he hadn't listed his was because they weren't really in relation to Rory, but all the people he'd seen before and after her. He'd been horrible to many of them. He had been pretty horrible to himself too. Drinking had been a big part of that, but so had excessive excersising and a few other things.
He wasn't proud of any of it, but it was not on his list of things he wanted Rory to know. At least not this early on. He couldn't disagree with Rory's statement of her being a flawed person, but he wasn't much better. He liked to think that perhaps whatever they'd done had just been the means to get back to this moment, this moment of togetherness.
Rory slept facing him in one of his T-shirts, her bare knees pulled up to her chest, her forearm tucked under the pillow. Her now makeup-less skin showed her freckles, a lot more of them than he'd ever remembered, but they were cute. She also looked skinnier too, more frail than he remembered.
They hadn't done anything last night - they'd watched a few movies, talked about lighter things and slept. They were both fully clothed, well - t-shirts and underwear at least. Neither had dared to touch more than holding the other above the waist. It was not for the lack of want, but just cool and level-headed brain power. A lot of the time they'd just been quiet. The feeling of holding her like that just having been so overwhelming even he'd had to hold back his tears. He had a pretty good feeling she'd felt something very similar. In a way they both still grieved the years lost, and him perhaps also the things missed that she had had to go through alone.
Logan couldn't even picture what he would've felt had he known about the baby. He tried to picture how he would've left his life back then for her. He wished he had. But as Rory had mentioned - she hadn't wanted him to leave his life for her just because of the baby. And he could actually see that - it had been his mistake not choosing her for her then. But then again she hadn't shown him that she wanted him either. They had been both big messes of insecurities.
He couldn't help himself and he slowly brushed his lips and nose against her forehead, breathing in her scent, causing her to stir. Her eyes peeked through barely open eyelids, at the already bright room, the sun shining right in through the unclosed blinds.
"I didn't mean to wake you," Logan said quietly, as an apology.
Rory stretched herself out, turning to her back.
"What time is it?" she asked, not wanting to admit the slight awkwardness of being in bed with him like this, in an almost asexual way, having to put a lot of effort into not starting something that certainly would've not been that. Also, she'd definitely felt his lips before and it was almost too good of a feeling to feel without wanting to do the two oppisite things - cry from having missed those touches so much or kiss him.
"Ten-ish," Logan replied, bending his bent under his head.
"Good," Rory exhaled, already having worried for a second that she might be late. It was Halloween tonight and there were errands she would need to run before taking Em trick or treating in Stars Hollow. Their community in West Hartford didn't compare to what went on in Stars Hollow, so they usually spent that there, just leaving out a bowl of candy at their house.
"You sleep alright?" Logan asked, casually.
"I did," Rory replied.
It was then Rory's eyes caught a sight of something she didn't recognize peeking out from Logan's t-shirt collar. "What's this?" she asked, turning back on her side and gently tugging at his round collar.
"Oh," Logan looked down. "It's a tattoo," he said, stretching out his collar a little more for her to see.
It was large, definitely larger than the collar allowed to see, at least the size of two-three palms. But Rory got the gist - it was a wolf with some abstract patterns in red and black around it.
"It's called trash-polka style. There isn't much deeper meaning to it other than it felt right at the time - like a lone wolf or something. My first sign of rebellion I guess, I had it done last year in London," Logan explained. "I've got a few," he added, but didn't offer elaborate on the others.
"I just have the glasses, wrinkles and the scars," Rory replied humbly, laughing lightly, and pointed out her deepest wrinkles between her eyebrows and forehead. Logan's tattoo certainly looked way cooler than what she had. Next to him, she just felt old.
"Scars?" Logan asked with some concern.
"Stretch-marks for one, but I was bleeding pretty badly after delivering Em so they did a laparoscopy, but it wasn't enough so they needed to do another incision," Rory explained, hesitantly, carefully raising the bottom of the T-shirt she was wearing. Doing that exposed her basic black seamless underwear and for a moment she felt like she might reconsider - she was nervous to show him these and, to be honest, a little aroused by this setting. But she felt like she just wanted to get it over with - she didn't want that to be an unwelcome surprice once they went further one of these days.
The scars on her abdomen, four in total - three small ones and one larger, along with a few short purple marks really didn't look like anything negative to Logan. But they were yet another thing to exemplify how much she'd been through without him around.
"You can barely see them," Logan replied, not wanting her to feel self-conscious about them. Not that she should - not at all.
"Still - they don't exactly do me a lot of favors," Rory admitted.
"Well you have an incredible little girl as a result and you're here - isn't that what counts?" Logan replied, knowing from his sister's case that hemorrhages during delivery could be quite dangerous.
"I know, still - I just don't have the body you used to know," Rory said, blushing slightly. Neither had he - but she felt like he'd only improved in time while she had not.
Those word certainly caused a thick sensual tension in the room. Both could just imagine each-other's touches, firm grasps of the flesh, kisses on skin, making them both swallow hard. Oh they'd known each-other's bodies alright.
At that Logan moved, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, taking himself out of the moment, knowing it was for the better. Sleeping together in the same bed had already been pushing their slow pace.
"I'm going to take a shower," he explained, making Rory muse a little, as she watched him walk to the bathroom and close the door behind him, having sensed the effect her words had had on him. It gave her some hope that her body wasn't completely ruined yet.
