CHAPTER 28: Before It's Too Late
As soon as he sees his ex-girlfriend open the door standing between them from the other side of it, Logan takes a long deep breath, his brown eyes staring at her intently, fixed with his focus and purpose for why he is there.
"I want to give us a shot... I want us to be a family."
#
As soon as the words have left Logan's mouth, Rory own jaw drops in surprise.
"What?"
The last time that this same topic had been brought up, she had been the instigator after trying to plant a kiss on him late one night. In that time, Logan has done a complete 180 on his viewpoint of the matter, after he got the prod that he needed from their daughter... But are her thoughts still the same, too?
"I really want us to try again. I want us to start afresh. I want to be with you" Logan explains, rephrasing his first statements that Rory had asked for clarification on.
Then, as he speaks, Logan takes another two steps closer to the mother of his child, trying to read her expression beyond her initial surprise at his sudden and abrupt change of heart.
"What do you mean? Like, where's all this coming from, Logan?"
Logan chuckles to himself when he thinks about the answer to her question in his head. He's clearly feeling hopeful and at peace with the weight of his admission finally out in the open, before explaining to her why he had been moved to action today.
"Let's just say that I was given a little push in the right direction... By our daughter, in fact. She must have accidentally left her diary at my place after the sleepover. I came across it and had a quick look to see if it was anything important in there, to check whether I needed to get it back to her sooner rather than later. Anyway, let's just say that Elleigh gave me the little push that I needed..."
Rory's face scrunches up slightly, more than a little curious by what the content of their daughter's diary could have been, to say the least.
"The point is that it helped me to acknowledge my feelings for you and the fact that despite everything that happened in the past, I want to try again... We should at least try and be a real family."
Taking a deep breath after he speaks, Logan is feeling hopeful; knowing that he's finally admitting to reciprocating the feelings that Rory had put out there a few weeks backs when she tried to kiss him after the movie night. In fact, Logan is feeling so hopeful that he doesn't bother reading Rory's body language as well as he should...
He doesn't take note of how she takes a step back from him.
He doesn't take note of how she crosses her arms in front of herself.
He doesn't take note of how she keeps looking towards the ground, rather than him.
He doesn't take note of any of the signs that she is withdrawing from him, until her words do it for him.
"Look, Logan... I'm sorry for the mixed messages. I got caught up in the moment with you that night. I tried to make a move irrationally. The more that I've thought about it since then, the more that I've realised that you were right to pull back."
Logan looks at her with a frown, a look of confusion. It's like he can't quite make sense of what she's saying or as though she's speaking in another language, even. Her words are foreign to him.
"What?"
This is the eloquent, default response that both Rory and Logan have turned to after being surprised by the other person's thoughts thus far into the discussion.
"I think that things should stay the way that they are..." Rory says convincingly, giving him a serious look as she keeps her arms crossed tightly, strengthening her own body language. "I shouldn't have thrown myself at you that night. You were right to pull away."
Logan tries to wrap his head around the fact that here he is changing his mind, trying to change his answer from that night, while Rory is standing in front of him doing the exact same thing, changing her own mind too.
This time, it's Rory pulling back out of hesitation... Initially, she had wanted them to get back together, while he had been reluctant; his scars from Rory still a little too raw to trust her enough to rekindle their relationship. Yet, now, this time he wants them to get back together, as she had wanted at first. But, it's Rory who is reluctant now, having had the time to think the idea through more thoroughly.
"Are you serious?!"
Logan scoffs, asking the question as he runs a hand through his hair in an attempt to try and manage his shock and his disbelief at Rory's 180, before he goes on to answer the question for himself.
"Of course... But, it's my fault, I should have expected this from you. I should have just gone with it that night, because I should have known not to expect that you wouldn't change your mind on me. After all, I wanted casual, you changed your mind on that. I give you commitment and ask you to marry me, then you change your mind on that. I say yes, agreeing to give us another shot and..."
"Hey! Unfair..." Rory says, standing up for herself with a frown.
Logan just looks at her from across the room. "Is it? Is it really?"
After posing the question to her, he closes his eyes and just flings a hand out as if to say 'scrap that'. Then, he's about to change the direction of the conversation to try and present his point to her further, trying to help her remember when she was the one who initiated the idea of them getting back together. However, Rory jumps in first with her counter-argument.
"Look, I admit I still have feelings for you too, Logan. But, it's different to when we were together the first time around. We could be up and down and together or not and the only people we'd hurt were ourselves. But, we've got Elleigh now. We can't make her go through our highs and lows, too... We're better off just staying stable, as friends."
Logan sighs at what Rory's telling him, trying to dissuade her argument.
"Elle wants this. She wants us to be happy. She wants us to be a family. I know that for a fact."
Rory looks down to the ground, arms still crossed together as she just looks down, shaking her head at what Logan's trying to tell her.
"We've tried –and failed- in the past. We're in a good place with her; both of us are. There are so many ways that it could go terribly wrong and just imagine what impact that would have on her. She's too old to be shielded from the impact of that; she'd know what's going on. We'd be putting so much on the line with no guarantee that we can make a success of it."
Logan sighs and rubs his face with hands, still finding it hard to believe the direction that the conversation has taken. He had been so sure and so confident just before she opened that front door. He had not even imagined the idea of her changing her mind. Yet, here they are and here he is trying to convince Rory to take a risk for them all over again. He never thought he'd let himself get into the same situation, after being handed back the engagement ring he'd bought for Rory all those years ago.
"Well, to me, it's beginning to feel like your life's mission is that you're intent on hurting me. I should have known that of course you'd change your mind... I should know by now that you never really can commit to me, or to us, completely."
Logan looks crushed, despite how much he tries to hide it. Rory sighs, reading him and seeing his hurt. She tries taking a step closer to him, trying to close the gap and meet him halfway to lessen the blow.
"Look, Logan, if Elle wasn't a factor, things would be different and I would be willing to go there and try again. But, she is. Despite how I feel, I can't risk hurting her when everything is fine as it is."
"Do you honestly think that I would do anything and that I would even raise it as a suggestion if I didn't really, truly think that we would be able to make it work? Do you really think that I'd even see it as an option if I thought that we'd hurt Elleigh?"
Rory sighs and looks Logan straight in the eye for just a moment, before flinching and looking away nervously. Logan knows that she knows the answer to that question. However, with a sigh, Rory sticks to her argument and sticks to the safe choice.
"It's too much of a risk..."
"You're right. It is a risk. But, hey, life's too short..."
With a final shrug and one last look in Rory's direction that shows just how crushed he is, Logan turns around and walks out of the home, feeling a lot less happy than he thought that he would be after having that discussion...
#
"I need coffee. A lot of coffee" Rory announces with a groan as she drops into the seat beside her mother.
The following morning, she had arranged to meet up with Lorelai, needing to debrief after her discussion with Logan the previous day.
"Good morning sunshine. I just love the rays of positivity and light that my daughter emits into my life" Lorelai replies sarcastically, in reference to Rory's grumpy, grumbling mood and downcast appearance from the moment she entered the Diner.
Rory takes no note of her mother's sarcasm, instead taking it upon herself to summon over Luke, play nice for a few seconds before demanding the much needed caffeine hit. As soon as the magic elixir is in front of her and after a few, slow, appreciative sips, Rory is finally ready to talk.
"So... Logan visited me yesterday. You know how a few weeks back, I tried to kiss him? Well, apparently he's been doing a bit of thinking since then... He wanted us to get back together."
"And?!" Lorelai says with a jolt of enthusiasm and sudden interest, begging the author for the next chapter of the story. "I can't believe that you held out from telling mommy for a whole day! Where is the trust?!"
Rory rolls her eyes at her mother's woeful, overly dramatic response, before filling her in further.
"So, Logan came over and professed how he thinks we should be together – he wants to give us and our relationship another shot. But, I told him that he was right to pull away that night. He was right because we should just stay as friends. We were always so up and down when we were together and we shouldn't have to put Elleigh through that."
Lorelai nods, suddenly becoming more serious as she listens to her daughter's explanation.
"Do you still have feelings for him?"
"Yes, but-"
Lorelai quickly interrupts her daughter, posing another question to her before she has a chance to justify herself further.
"So what do you want?"
"I want to do what's right for my daughter and to look after her."
"Well, yeah, but what do you want?"
Rory rolls her eyes at her mother's repeated question, just like Lorelai had rolled her eyes at her just seconds before when Rory had dodged the question.
"I want to be a good mother."
"Yeah... But what do you want, Rory?"
Rory huffs at her mother with frustration.
"We're getting absolutely nowhere, you do realise?!"
The mother and daughter's discussion is interrupted by Rory's phone that begins to ring from where it's sitting on the table in front of her. She quickly picks it up and begins to take it outside before Luke catches her eye and reminds her of the ever-present diner rule.
"Weird... It's Honor. Logan's sister. She hasn't called me for a while."
Lorelai watches as her daughter leaves the diner, abiding by her step-father's 'no phones' rule far more obediently than his wife does.
The mother watches as she steps outside to take the call and answers the phone with a furrowed brow. She watches on as her daughter's face falls as quickly as her mouth drops open. Lorelai sits up straighter in her seat, tensing up as she can only imagine from inside that diner -out of earshot- what words her daughter is hearing to elicit such a reaction from Rory. She watches the fear and devastation play out on her daughter's face so quickly, before the short phone call is ended. Rory pauses for a moment, taking a deep breath before making her way back inside and back over to her mother in the diner.
Seeing the expression on her daughter's face only frightens Lorelai even more. Rory looks like she's seen a ghost. She can see the moistness within her daughter's eyes, the tears that are threatening to fall.
"Rory –hun- what's wrong?" Lorelai asks with a frantic urgency in her voice. She can't hear the answer fast enough.
"It's Logan... There's been an accident."
Aren't they frustrating? One step forward, two steps back!
Anyway, thank you so, very much to everyone who left a review and gave me their feedback on the last chapter.
Next chapter: Logan's family and friends rally together. What happened to Logan and will he be okay?