Rory slammed the door of Finn's beach house behind her, her entire body shaking and her heart twisting with pain that was making her physically ill. She didn't even slow down as she made a sharp turn up the stairs and pounded up to her guest bedroom. Never before had she felt like she felt at that very moment. It was as if a part of her, as real as an arm or a leg, was suddenly gone. But this was what she wanted, right? So why did it hurt so much?

She grabbed her suitcase of the closet and began shoving her clothes into it. There was no way she was staying in this house until the next night. She would go the airport and get on the first plane back she could find. She wasn't staying in this house tonight, she didn't care if she had to sleep at the airport.

"Hey, we're leaving for the party soon so—Rory, what are you doing?" Stephanie walked up beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm packing."

"I can see that, but why?"

"Because I can't stay here tonight."

"I figured as much. What's going on? Is everything okay? Did something happen at home?"

Rory started to answer, but her words caught in her throat. Shrugging off Stephanie's questions, she focused completely on stuffing her clothes into the suitcase. She didn't care that they were completely unfolded or that there was no way the suitcase was going to close around the giant mountain of fabric. All she cared about was getting out of that house. Now. Before Logan came back, before Logan came back and...

And then her facade shattered. Just the thought of him never smiling at her or taking her into his arms again, just the thought of him walking into that house with his eyes so angry and cold absolutely broke her. She stopped packing, her body shaking so furiously that Stephanie latched an arm firmly around her shoulders, steadying her.

"Colin? Finn?" Stephanie yelled, tightening her grip on Rory, "Get in here!"

Rory couldn't form a coherent thought as she heard the pounding of her friends' feet on the steps. She didn't even register that they had entered the room until she heard Colin's voice.

"What's going on? Rory?"

She glanced up as he took a step towards her.

"What happened?" he murmured.

He reached for her, and then she collapsed. As a wave of heaving sobs grabbed her body, she fell into Colin's chest. He caught her instantly, his arms wrapping around her in a cocoon of warmth and strength. She laced her fingers around his shirt, trying desperately to draw in a decent breath. Slowly, her guided her to the bed and sat her down, his hand running lightly over her back. He pushed her away from him slightly, brushing damp hair off her tear stained cheeks.

"You're scaring me, Rory. What's going on?"

She shook her head, unable to speak as she felt the tears welling up in her eyes once more. Biting her lip, she lowered her gaze to the floor and refused to look at any of her three best friends. How could she tell them what just happened? How could she tell them what she did? How could she tell them what he said?

"Hold on," Colin's gaze traveled around the room briefly before settling back on Rory, "Where's Logan?"

His words landed on the room like a bomb. Rory inhaled sharply, biting her lip firmly in an effort not to completely break down once more. Stephanie took one look at Rory's stricken face and instantly paled.

"No. No, no, no, no, no. Tell me he didn't break up with you," she pleaded.

Rory shook her head slowly, silent tears finding their way down her cheeks.

"Then you didn't break up?" Finn asked, speaking for the first time.

She shook her head again, "I um, I...I did about 98 of the...breaking."

Her voice was quiet, and sounded odd even to her own ears.

"What? Why?" Colin demanded.

"I don't to talk about it," Rory whispered, her eyes wandering towards the window.

Rory felt Stephanie's stare on her, and she turned to find the blond girl's eyes shooting sparks in her direction.

"I'm going to go find Logan before he drinks himself into a coma," she mumbled, her words icy, "I should have seen this coming."

Finn lowered his gaze, "Call if you need help getting him back."

"I will," Stephanie's stare found Rory again, "Why the hell are you crying if you broke up with him?"

"Steph, please," Rory began, but she had already walked out the door.

Rory squeezed her eyes shut, willing the pain to disappear. When she opened them again, Finn's eyes were firmly trained to the floor and Colin, who had always been her rock, was gripping the edge of the bed so firmly his knuckles were turning white.

That's when she realized that she lost more than Logan that night, she had lost her best friends as well. She was the one that broke up with Logan, so it was her that had cracked the foundation of all their friendships. She was the cause, losing everyone was the effect.

"Are you going to explain?" Colin asked suddenly, still refusing to meet her eyes.

"It wasn't going to work, that's all you need to know. I'll get the next flight home."

Rory stood to finish packing, but Colin grabbed her wrist firmly and pulled her back on to the bed. When she turned towards him, he finally brought his gaze up to meet hers.

"When you two started this relationship, you brought in every single one of us into it. You broke up with him before, and we turned against him before we knew all the facts," he paused, placing his hand over hers, "We need facts, Rory, so we don't make the same mistake again."

A single tear trickled down her cheek, but she wiped it away quickly. She refused to cry anymore about hardships that she caused.

"I just know it won't work," Rory finally admitted, "He's going to college. He's going to have so many more options. And in a year, I want to be going to Harvard. It's easy to see that we'd just be kidding ourselves. I don't want to get hurt, okay? I don't want a drunken mistake to be made, or worse, a sober mistake to be made, simply because I'm not around. This is the best solution."

"Rory..." Colin shook his head, taking a deep breath as he turned away from her, "Logan would never--"

"I don't want to hear it. I just want to go home. Please, just let me finish packing."

"You're not going home by yourself, not like this. I'll go with you."

"Colin, no, I'm fine. I just--"

"I'm going with you," he interrupted firmly, "I'll go pack."

He stood up and walked out of the room without another word, and Finn followed behind him without so much as glancing in her direction. With a shaky sigh, she began taking her clothes out of her suitcase, folding them, and then tucking them back inside. All the while, her breakup with Logan just kept replaying in her head.

In the end, the result wasn't exactly what she wanted. She didn't go into the conversation wanting to cause him pain, or make him angry. She didn't go into the conversation with the intention of flat out breaking up with him. She loved him. But she'd learned that sometimes love just wasn't enough. He had such a hold on her that the smallest mistake would absolutely break her. She wasn't sure it was worth the risk.

She'd been planning on telling him just that. She'd even considered telling him that she loved him. But love was a complicated word, and it had so many emotions and consequences attached to it, that she just couldn't bring herself to tell him. She had wanted him to remain in her life. She guessed she just wanted their relationship to be less romantic and more platonic. He was her best friend, and he always promised that he would never intentionally hurt her. But she guessed she was just kidding herself by thinking that he would agree to the changes she had in mind.

But even for as much as she had hurt him, she couldn't believe some of the things he said to her. For him to say those things, those cruel, heartless things, she had trouble believing he even cared about her at all. He talked about the problems he had helped her through like they burdened him with more than they were worth. She blinked back tears, he hands pausing over her next set of clothes. She always thought he was the one person who never judged her. She guessed she was wrong.

In the end, she hurt him with her actions and he scarred her with his words.

He didn't care about her as much as she thought he did, so maybe everything she suspected was true. Their relationship could have never withstood the challenges that were to come. So, they were over now, before they lasted longer and the end hurt that much worse. She hurt herself, and him, before he could destroy her. It was self defense, in a way, and she would have to learn to deal with it with no regrets. And she would have to learn to live her life without Logan Huntzberger in it.

She closed her suitcase and glanced around the room, making sure she had packed everything she brought. Colin poked his head in the room, his expression as dead serious as she had ever seen it.

"You ready to go?" he asked, stepping forward to lean against the door frame.

She nodded, not speaking for fear of bursting into tears. Grabbing her suitcase, she exited the room just as Finn appeared, his eyes somber. He glanced from Colin, to Rory, and back again, before opening his mouth.

He kept his gaze firmly on Colin, "Stephanie called. She's going to need...help tonight."

Rory dropped her head, her heart jumping to her throat. She wasn't surprised that Logan was off drinking himself into oblivion. However, she couldn't stop herself for being concerned for his well being. A part of her wanted to go apologize to him at that very second and beg him to take her back. But the other part of her, the stronger part, knew that the break-up was for the best. She had to go home now.

"Call and let me know that every thing's okay," Colin said, lacing his fingers around Rory's elbow, "Let's go. I called the car."

Rory followed him down and the steps and outside without really realizing where she was walking. Every now and then, the full weight of the situation would hit her and she would feel like crumbling to the ground right where she was standing. One touch from Logan was all it took to comfort her in the past, so who was going to be there for her now?

Had she made a terrible mistake?

---------

After a few hours of throwing a lot of names and money around, Colin got himself and Rory a first class flight back to Connecticut. They left Colin's private plane for Stephanie, Logan, and Finn to ride home in.

They barely talked the entire flight back, Rory was too consumed with thoughts of Logan. But she couldn't think about him too hard or the tears welled up in her eyes once more. The last thing she wanted was for Colin to have to comfort her, when she knew, that was the absolute last thing he wanted. She couldn't remember a time when she'd felt so uncomfortable around her friends, especially Colin. But now everything was different, and she put the wheels of change in motion.

"Can we talk?" Colin asked suddenly, glancing over at her from the other side of the limo.

"Colin..." Rory began, reluctance heavy in her voice.

"Come on, Rory. It's me. Talk to me."

She sighed, "What do you want to know?"

He ran a hand through his hair, "I don't know. I guess, I want to know that...after all this time, why can't you trust him now? What has he done to not earn your trust?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to break down. With a shaky breath, she opened them, and focused on Colin. He was staring at her intently, his brown eyes searching her blue ones for the same answers Logan had been trying so desperately to find.

"Things are going to be changing now," she explained slowly, "He's going to college and in a year, I'm hopefully going to be going to Harvard. We won't be around each other anymore, Colin. It'll be different, things will change. I'm afraid of that change..."

Her voice faded away as her last sentence finally let out what she'd been dancing around all this time. She was afraid of the inevitable change. Logan could say they wouldn't change all he wanted, but they would. They couldn't stop it. And the closer they got, the more serious they became, the harder it would be to drift apart from each other later. She didn't want to get hurt. She couldn't handle that, not from him. She hurt herself to protect herself. It didn't make much since to anyone else, but to her it was the only solution.

She tasted her salty tears before she even realized they were sliding down her cheeks. Angry at herself, she wiped at them quickly, trying to hide her emotions from her worn out best friend. But soon enough, Colin had his arms wrapped tightly around her and she felt herself being pulled into his side.

"Hey," he soothed, running his hand up and down her arm.

He didn't say anything else; he didn't have, too. Rory knew exactly what he was thinking and she could almost see the words on his lips. He didn't exactly understand why she had broken up with Logan, but he would be there for her anyway. He wasn't going anywhere. And at that moment, that was all she needed to know.

--------

"Mom?" Rory called out, silently thankful that her dad's car had been nowhere in sight.

"Rory?" Lorelai came bounding down the stairs, "What are you doing home?"

With just one look at her mother, Rory felt herself practically crumbling. She dropped her suitcases on the floor and crossed her arms over herself, tears tumbling down her face as she heard her mother rushing towards her.

"Rory?" Lorelai's arms closed around her, "What happened? What's going on?"

Rory let Lorelai guide her to the couch and as soon as she sat down onto it, she leaned against her mother to find the strength she had been longing for.

"Did something happen with Logan?" Lorelai asked gently, although Rory had a feeling she already knew the answer.

"We—I...broke up with him," Rory murmured.

"Oh, hun. Why?"

"Because I know it's not going to work. I know things are going to change. No matter what he says about us and how we won't change, we will. I don't want to end up hurt because he's at college without me and he's drunk and that blond at the bar looks particularly attractive. Worse, I don't want him to think that blond is particularly attractive when he's completely sober. I can't get hurt by him. I won't."

"But Rory--"

"I didn't really want to break up with him. I guess I just wanted to kind of...step back for awhile. I wanted to give us some time to cool off. He's my best friend. I miss him already. But maybe he was right. Maybe I was stupid to think that things could ever be okay with us again."

"Rory--"

"It wouldn't work. I know it wouldn't work. But now Stephanie's mad at me because I was crying afterwards. And Colin is trying to be there for me, but I know he doesn't understand. And Finn? I don't know what Finn is thinking. I just...I..."

"Rory!"

Rory snapped her head towards her mother and was instantly looking into the familiar sympathetic blue eyes. She dropped her head onto Lorelei's shoulder and Lorelai stroked her hair slowly, soothingly.

"Listen, kid, I can't tell you if what you did was right or wrong, only you know how you feel. But I do know that you miss him and I know this wasn't easy for you. You get to cry, okay? So we're going to get ice cream and sappy movies and your going to cry."

Rory nodded slowly, finally feeling comfort from her mother.

"And as for you friends," Lorelai continued, sitting up slightly and facing Rory, "They will understand eventually, I promise. Stephanie and Finn will come around, and Colin will be there in the best way he knows how. This is hard from them, too, because now they have to balance the two of you. But things will settle down."

Rory wanted to believe that everything Lorelai said was true, but she knew that it wasn't. Things would never settle down, not for her. Because what Lorelai didn't know was that she let the man she loved go. She let him go because she was petrified that he would let her go first. And she knew that if he did, there was a very good chance that she would never learn how to trust again. If she wasn't around him, she couldn't see the signs that he was pulling away. She needed signs. She needed a warning. When he was at Yale, she wouldn't have a warning. With Logan, she just needed him to be around.

So maybe he'd never taught her to trust again after all.