Reflecting their own light: Rory and Logan

Chapter 9.5

I woke up and got ready for work.  I hadn't even bothered to look at the woman in the bed next to me this morning.  It didn't matter who she was, or how she got here.  Damn Colin and Finn for taking me out on a Tuesday night!  At least they had good taste in bars and women.  Did I really bring someone home last night?  Or was it actually Odette?  I didn't have time to go back and check.

Once I arrived, I made my way to my office, interacting with as few people as possible.  I opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of scotch.  Nothing like a little hair of the dog to help the hangover.  I finished the glass in one swallow.  I went into the bathroom in my office, brushed my teeth, and gargled.  Then I splashed some cold water on my face, and looked at myself in the mirror.  There was no happiness in my life, not since I'd last seen Rory.  I had kept track of her in hopes of putting myself in her path.  Just so I could see her one more time, but she had gone off the grid.  No bylines, no books, no trace of Rory Gilmore.

What the hell had I become?  But I knew...I had become my father.  I didn't want to admit it, at least not to anyone else, but it had happened.  I was in the middle of my preordained life.  What could I do?  I was stuck in a loveless marriage.  Now, it was nothing more than a set of obligations: parties, events, appearances.  We didn't even share a bed anymore. 

I managed through the work day with a lot of coffee, and a little more scotch.  I went home well after 10, and she was waiting for me at the table.

"Another late night?"

"Yes, Odette.  I have a lot of important work to do.  It's crunch time, and we have an important deadline coming up," I replied, intentionally leaving work talk vague.  She doesn't care anyway.

She didn't need to know I'd spent the last three hours drinking in my office and trying to track down Ace.  I was a pathetic mess.  I grabbed myself another scotch and sat back at the table.

"Don't forget that tomorrow we are having dinner with the Sudburys," Odette reminded me.

"I won't be able to make it.  It's going to be another late night with the team tomorrow.  I told you it's crunch time," I lied.

"Logan, you've cancelled on them twice in the last two months.  If you don't come, they'll thing something is wrong," she warned.

"I'm sorry, but we are working on a tight schedule, and the deadline is looming.  You'll have to make extra apologies for me," I replied, unfazed by her warning.

"Logan, what's wrong?" she said, touching my shoulder.

I cringed away from her, stood up, and walked toward my bedroom.  "Nothing," I said sharply.  "I'm going to bed.  Early day tomorrow."

I sat on my bed and thought long and hard about my life.  I fulfilled my obligations for appearances, but I tried to find ways to get out of them as much as possible.  I made Odette go by herself.  She didn't know that I couldn't stand to look at her.  Sure, she was beautiful, but every time I saw, she reminded me of regret.  The regret that ate away at me every single moment of every single day.

I drank to numb the pain, forget the memory.  I slept with other women to distract myself from the emptiness.  Each woman the same with brown hair and blue eyes, but none of them were her.  I had become dead inside.  I laid down and finally fell asleep.

I woke up in a cold sweat to the credits of the movie I had started.  I had this anxious feeling as I recalled my dream.  My breathing was shallow and quick.  My pulse was racing.  I looked around and recognized I was in my NYC apartment, not the London flat.  I rushed to the bedroom and saw Rory's stuff was here.  I must have been dreaming.  It was a very real and vivid dream, but merely a dream.  I started to calm down to process it.  I saw what my life would have been like if I had followed Mitchum's dynastic plan.  Wow, my life could have done in a different direction, one that was disgusting and repulsive to me.  I couldn't stand the man in my dream.  I guess I didn't realize how miserable I was, and how I wasn't being true to myself.