It had been three weeks since they had lost the baby and Rory still tried to pretend that nothing had happened. She refused to talk about it, just quietly put away all of the books she had gotten, the one tiny outfit she had already allowed herself to buy.
Logan had tried his best to comfort her but she kept insisting that she was fine. He told her that they would have another one, when they were ready and could support it. She nodded but seemed not to have even heard him.
She continued with school as before, with a dogged persistence but she withdrew from Logan and nothing he could say or do could make her connect with him. He felt like they were strangers. Of course she didn't blame him, she just pulled away from everyone. She had even fought with her mom and wasn't talking with her now.
Logan tried over and over to elicit some response, some hint of the love she had for him but it was like nothing was there. She seemed to be an emotional blank. And the most frustrating thing was that she refused to acknowledge that they had a problem. She kept insisting that things were no different than before, that nothing had changed between them at all. It was impossible to reach her if she refused to admit there was a problem, if she refused to confront her emotions. She had never cried about the baby, she never said anything about it at all.
Logan had cried. He hadn't realized how much he had been looking forward to being a father. How he had an overwhelming amount of information on what not to do with a child. He could have written a manual on that topic. He wanted a chance to correct everything that had been wrong in his childhood, and make his own child feel so loved no matter how many times it screwed up. And Rory would have made a great mother.
He had mourned the child that had barely existed but felt better afterwards. He had accepted what had happened, and had been so worried about Rory that the baby had seemed less major. He still burned with anger at the thought of the man who had robbed Rory and wished that he had been there with her. And there was some guilt as well, because if he hadn't taken the job with Marty he would have been there to drive Rory home from school that day and she would have been safe.
But as much as those things bothered him, he was more bothered by how Rory was obviously pushing him away. She talked to him still but there was no emotion behind it. She put no passion in her kisses, when she even remembered to kiss him now. Whenever he tried to talk to her she was suddenly busy, or tired, or wanted to watch a movie.
It got worse and worse. As Logan got better and was able to move on with his life Rory seemed to be more and more stuck. She was doing fine in school, she was home when she was supposed to be but she wasn't ever really there with him.
So it really was almost no surprise to him when he woke up one morning and found her gone. There was a note on the table for him that read:
"Logan, I'm sorry but I had to go back to Stars Hollow. This isn't the life I want, and I just can't stay here with you. Please try to understand and don't come after me." It was signed simply Rory. No 'Love, Rory' or 'I love you, Rory' like she usually left.
Logan pushed back tears. He had felt for weeks that he was losing her and couldn't do anything about it and this was just the final step. He felt overwhelming frustration at how he had seen it coming, how it had almost seemed inevitable and nothing that he could say or do had made any impact on her at all.
Logan kept staring at the note, reading it over and over. Rory had been the one thing in his life that was still worth anything. She was the only thing that made it good, the one thing to look forward to at the end of a long day of work. She had been the reason he gotten a job and worked so hard, gotten this apartment, tried to stay out of trouble. And now she was gone. Logan knew that she meant it when she said not to come after him. It would only make it worse if he followed her and tried to talk with her.
There was nothing for him to do but go to work and hope that she would change her mind and come back. And talk to him, really talk to him again. But once he got to work he knew that probably wasn't going to happen.
That afternoon Emily came outside and fired him.