Author's Note: My story, "Accidents Happen," is based on the wonderful "Gilmore Girls" television series and the amazing characters created by…not me!

Accidents Happen

Chapter Eighteen: The Letter

In the months leading up to Luke and Lorelai's wedding, Jess split his time between Stars Hollow and Philly. Rory continued to write freelance while helping to plan the wedding of the century. So many details were left to deal with and both Luke and Lorelai were up to their eyebrows. Seating charts, menus, cakes, floral arrangements, and program samples were tacked up around the kitchen. Rory was sharing her bedroom with a dress form and Lorelai's sewing machine.

Unable to find the perfect wedding gown, Lorelai decided to make one for herself. She bought yards of ivory silk and spools of sequins and beading. She designed a strapless dress with an empire waist, sequined and beaded waistline, and a flowing skirt and train. Lorelai designed and made the bridesmaid and flower girl dresses as well. The bridesmaid dresses for Sookie, Rory, and April were all the same brilliant shade of red satin but were each a different design. Sookie's dress had short sleeves and a full skirt, April's dress was a sleeveless tea-length dress with a high scoop neck and a ribbon tied at the waist, and Rory's dress was strapless with an empire waist like Lorelai's with beading and sequins. Martha's flower girl dress had a red velvet short sleeved top and bow with an ivory full tulle skirt.

Wardrobe for the men was much easier. Luke's tuxedo was black with a traditional tie and vest in ivory. Jess was going to wear a classic black tuxedo with a black tie and vests. Davey's tuxedo was black with a red bowtie and vest.

Lorelai's father was set to walk her down the aisle in his tuxedo and her mother was wearing a gold brocade suit as mother of the bride. After a long fought argument, Lorelai and Luke agreed to allow her parents to pay for the rentals for the ceremony and reception, like the chairs, aisle runner, alter arch, topiaries, candelabras, and table linens.

Lorelai put bouquet samples together. Her bouquet was going to be a cascade of red roses and ivy with ivory silk ribbon. The bridesmaid bouquets were hand-tied bouquets of red and white roses with red and ivory satin ribbon. Martha would carry a basket of red and white rose petals. Luke, Jess, Davey, and Richard wore rose boutonnieres. Luke's boutonniere had a red rose, rosebud, and ivy. Jess's, Richard's and Davey's boutonnieres were single red roses. Emily and Liz would wear red and white wrist corsages with ivy and ivory ribbons.

Sookie was in her glory planning her best friend's wedding menu and cake. The cake was a three-tier chocolate cake with black cherry pudding filling frosted with ivory fondant and covered with real red roses. The most recent version of the reception menu included a choice of three entrees: filet mignon, shrimp scampi, and Sookie's original creation, Chicken Lorelai as well as seven appetizers, two soup selections, a baby green salad, and raspberry sorbet. As a compromise, Luke and Caesar were catering the rehearsal dinner at Luke's featuring all of Lorelai's favorite junk foods. Truthfully, Luke and Caesar were making burgers, Pete was making pizzas, Al was making Chinese and Mexican, and Taylor was providing the ice cream.

Luke and Lorelai hired Hep Alien to play their reception along with Lane to DJ. They wanted an assortment of musical styles and having both live music and a DJ was the easiest way to have the best of both worlds.

Two weeks before Lorelai and Luke's wedding, Rory received a letter postmarked from the Connecticut State Penitentiary System that was stamped as being "reviewed and approved" by badge number 4324.

Rory stared at the envelope for days before she opened it. It was a large manila envelope with her address printed neatly on the front. There was no return address, but the postmark and approval markings made it obviously clear who the letter was from. Or at least she assumed it was a letter. She had no idea what else Logan would mail her and she didn't know anyone else but Logan who was in prison.

"You don't have to read it if you don't want to, Rory," Jess told her.

"I have to read it," Rory said. "I have to know what he has to say for himself. I need some closure, Jess," she told him. "I need to do this for me."

"There might not be closure in there," Jess pointed out. "Reading it might do more harm than good."

"I spent weeks feeling afraid of remembering what happened. Then, when I remembered, I felt afraid of what those memories meant. Now, I have the opportunity to at least glimpse why what happened to me even happened. I have to take the chance."

"I just don't want you to get hurt."

"I know that. Plus, the beauty of reading it is that if I don't like what I'm reading, then I can stop and throw it away."

"Rory, you've read terrible books from cover to cover. It's like eating potato chips: once you start, you'll never be able to stop!"

"I'm a big girl, Jess," Rory said. "I need to know what's in this envelope."

"You do what you need to do, Rory. Reading the letter won't change anything between us. I promise."

"I know that," Rory said, smiling. "But it might change some things for me."

Rory stared at the sealed envelope for three more days until she finally opened the letter Thanksgiving morning. She didn't read it right away, just looked at the impression from Logan's handwriting through the pages of yellow legal pad paper. After a few more hours, she gathered the courage and strength to open and read the letter, which was dated one month earlier.

October 22, 2007

Dear Rory,

I am writing with the hopes that you will read this letter, but with the knowledge that you may never read it and that you may never know, believe, or understand. I need to confess what really happened and why. I also need you to know what role my family and I played to try and keep me off the police's radar and out of jail for what I did to you.

No words will ever come close to telling you what I am feeling and how sorry I am. It was an accident caused by my poor judgment and my reckless, dangerous behavior. I never meant to hurt you, Rory, but I know that I did, both physically and emotionally.

I had a four hour layover at LaGuardia between the legs of my flight from San Francisco to London. As soon as I landed, I had an uncontrollable need to see you. It was the first time since your graduation and our break-up that I'd been on the East Coast and I couldn't be that close to you without trying to see you again, so I rented a car and drove to try and find you.

I never made it to Stars Hollow because I got into an accident on my way there. I got turned around and ended up backtracking to Hartford so I could get my bearings. I was drunk, Rory. I don't have any excuses for myself. I drank myself silly on the plane. I was drunk and speeding and I misjudged the curve. The gravel on the side of the road pulled me off the road and I couldn't correct it in time. When I saw your car, it was too late. I side-swiped your car and then I saw you, I just didn't know that it was you. I couldn't stop, Rory. I hit you. God, I saw your body fly off after it bounced off my bumper and I was so scared! I stopped to see what I had done, to see if I could help, and then I saw that it was you.

I will never be able to get your face out of my mind, Rory. Seeing you that day is permanently etched in my brain. You were already bruising and bloody and your eyes were swelling. Your legs were crumpled underneath you and they were obviously broken. You tried to talk, but you either couldn't or I couldn't hear what you were saying. I talked to you. I apologized to you. I know you couldn't hear me, but I was serious then and I'm serious now. I am sorry for what I did to you. All that I can do is apologize and I cannot change what happened.

I drove off, which was, again, a stupid move since I was drunk, stressed, and scared out of my mind. I stopped at a payphone to report the accident. I said there was an accident, a woman was hurt and to send an ambulance. I didn't give my name for obvious reasons and I wiped my fingerprints from the receiver and the push buttons with my shirt. When I got back into the car, I could hear sirens in the distance. I was afraid for you, but I was more afraid of getting caught. I was afraid of what actually happened.

I called my father for help and Mitchum went into damage control mode. Besides telling me how stupid I was, he told me where to dump the car and to get into a cab to go back to the airport, to get on the plane, and to go to London. I left the car outside the fence at an impound lot in Hartford and had the cab driver pick me up at the bar across the street. The cab picked me up about a half hour later. I tipped the cabbie $500, so he was more than happy to stay silent. I barely made it to the airport before my plane took off. I got on the plane and went to London. My dad told me to forget about you and Hartford and that he would make it all go away.

He tried to make it go away, but he didn't take into account a few things. First off, he didn't think you would survive the accident. I didn't think you did, either. I thought you were dead, Rory. God, I thought I killed you. I kept looking through the obituaries for your death notice, but it was never there. Then, knowing that you survived the accident, I never thought you would remember anything. He thought I was stupid, letting you see me and risking everything, but I need to do one thing to make sure I haven't completely turned into my father. I needed to confess everything. I'll be spending the foreseeable future in prison and I want to be sure that my parents pay for the roles they played in the cover-up.

Mitchum and Shira Huntzberger tampered with evidence in order to keep me from facing prosecution. I should have been charged with a DWI, too, but it was too late by the time I was actually arrested. Mitchum contacted the rental car company and paid to have a rental car detailed, claiming that I had hit a deer and that my insurance would pay for the repairs. The insurance paperwork was faked. I am not sure whether my mother manufactured the paperwork or paid someone to do it. The car was detailed by a BMW dealership in Hartford. They would have the original bill of sale. They probably did a lot of things that I don't even know about but I want to make for damn sure that they get prosecuted for their actions.

I will never be able to apologize to you enough. I will never be able to make up for what I did to you. I will never be able to tell you how happy I am that you're alive and that you've healed. I hope that you're happy in your life and with Jess. It doesn't matter to you, but I am trying to turn my life around. I am in AA and it's actually working. I hope you will consider writing back to me someday, but I am not expecting you to. All I hope for is for justice to be served.

I love you, Ace, and I always will.

Logan