Title: Catalyst
Author: Angeleyez
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Pre6x15 Bridesmaids Revisited. Rory can't stop dreaming about Jess. And she can't help but rethink her relationship with Logan. Complete.
-
She laid the list out on the kitchen counter with an uncharacteristic groan at the idea of rereading. The view of her handwriting crowding every possible corner made her stomach turn. She hadn't meant to do something as dangerous as this, but she hadn't realized the error until it was too late and her hand was flying and the words were spilling and there were more thoughts than she could have ever imagined.
Making a list of the faults in her relationship with Logan had been a way for her to vent without beginning a fight. It had been more about her mistakes anyway. She had meant for it to remain strictly introspective as she tried to sort out the insanity of her emotions, but each number had been an air hole in a tightly sealed box, and finally she had been able to release what she couldn't before in great burst of breath. But before she knew it, it was too much and she had suffocated in the freedom of this thinking –
Their relationship was quite possibly a disaster.
One, she liked the smell of alcohol on his breath. It made her feel sexy and reckless; a naïve reaction she had thought would disappear with time. It had faded but never completely, so she was stuck with the sophomoric thought that she was an adult, and he was an adult, and this was an adult relationship.
Two, she liked to take care of him after a night of too much partying. It was a maternal instinct toward someone she loved, and she enjoyed the truth that slipped from his mouth when he pet her hair and grabbed her hand, steeling himself against the bathroom wall. He apologized a lot, much more than he ever did while sober, and he told her he loved her, over and over, as if it was a secret he had kept too long.
Three, she forgave too easily.
Four, she was a stupid, silly girl. She always had been. She always would be.
Five, she didn't know what this was, what it would turn out to be. She threw around words like 'forever' and 'the one' but those were the types of assumptions one made as the end of college approached and futures had to be decided.
Some complaints were generalizations while others were specific events that fueled her anger, but the final item on the list was her own guilty secret, something she hoped she could get over on her own.
Forty-seven, she had been dreaming about Jess nearly every night since she had moved into the apartment.
-
"It's nice." The flip of his shoulders was casual. She could tell he was taking it all in with a critical eye no matter how aloof he tried to appear. He was judging her in that thoughtless way of his, and she wanted to retrace their steps back into the hallway where she hadn't been so nervous.
Jess had this uncanny ability to make her ashamed of what she had been proud of only moments before. This hadn't occurred to her until they had boarded the elevator, pressed the button, and the gold lacquered interior made her blush.
"Is that a suit of armor?" The twitch of his mouth, she had forgotten that habit.
"Um, yeah." The strain in her voice unnerved her. It wasn't right that he could control her without trying. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him it was authentic, purchased from distant relatives of the royal family during a silent auction, but that would only make it worse.
"Right."
"It's really great living here. I mean, it's only five minutes from – "
"This place is huge." He was burning a trail in the floor, circling the living room, head tilted toward the ceiling as if even the white paint was out of his budget. "I could fit six of my apartments in here."
"Jess – "
"Seven without the knight."
"Look, maybe you should go." For the first time since they had entered the building he looked at her, and it was too much. The room became hot and dirty, full of smoke from a firecracker of tension. She couldn't take it. "You should go." Firmer this time, as if she really had a say. "Logan will be back soon."
"I thought you said he was in New York. Errand for his father?"
He was wearing the same jean jacket from his first visit – the very first in two years, back when she had lost her way. There was no messenger bag this time, or hidden book to shock her back into reality. It occurred to her suddenly, as if the memory had only been born this second, that he had told her how much she inspired him in the elevator. It was hazy, like a memory within a memory, but she thought she could see it – even hear it – his mouth forming the words, telling her that she was the reason he was more than he ever thought he could be.
"Rory?" She saw him saying it now, in the apartment she shared with Logan. He was happy and proud, and he was holding that same book, telling her he couldn't have done it without her.
Jess took off his coat, laid it on the table. "I think I'll stay if that's okay with you."
Her head spun. Pieces of the room broke off like branches, like stars, like leaves blowing in. "Jess?"
"Yeah?"
"I miss your leather jacket."
He smiled, and for the first time, it was real.
-
She jerked awake, startled from a dream she had had too many times before. Burying her face in the sheets, she inhaled Logan's cologne, and held in tears that had yet to form.
She sat up and the blanket slipped from her shoulders. With a shy hand, she covered herself and looked over at where Logan should have been. The empty place was rumpled, the blankets twisted near the foot of the bed. This wasn't the first time.
Tying the sash of her bathrobe, she entered the living room and spotted Logan on the couch, his face illuminated by the white light of the television screen. He was hunched forward, gripping an X-Box controller, eyes watching colored dots dart across a green field.
"Football?" she asked.
He jumped, swearing when he missed a pass. She sat down next to him, and he paused the game but didn't put down the controller.
"Hi," she said.
"Hey." He kissed her cheek and smiled. "I've been thinking we should paint this place."
She faltered. "O-kay."
"And I was thinking about buying another bookcase for the bedroom."
"Really?"
"For your books," he said.
"Of course."
"You have so many."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry." He put down the controller, kissed her on the mouth. "I want you to be happy."
"I am." The room was so dark and the TV so bright, it was as if the rest of the apartment didn't exist. They were their own island, a couch and his hand on her thigh. "Are you coming back to bed?"
"Soon. I just gotta finish this game. I'm up by thirteen with a minute and a half to go. They don't stand a chance."
"Okay." She noticed the empty cans of beer for the first time, a perfect circle of six on the coffee table. She licked her lips and recognized the taste. "Goodnight."
The game jumped to life as she stood. She stumbled in the dark, leaving behind her boyfriend and the crisp snap of a fresh can.
-
This was the kind of instinct she never forgot: smile when he leaned toward her and look away shyly, eyes scraping the top of her shoes. Hesitate when he first made contact. Put her hand on his cheek, slide a step closer. Kiss back.
Lying on the bed she shared with Logan, Jess fumbled with her jeans. It was a miracle when they finally peeled away and his hand slipped over her skin. His mouth was fused to her neck, her fingers busy ripping through his hair. One second she couldn't feel a thing, and then –
The world was made of water. Her legs swam lazily across the bedspread, sheets bunching under her toes, her back arching to meet his hand. There was only this, the span of their high school relationship revisited in three seconds, the height of their passion reached without the obstacles of virginity and naivety and inexperience and yet –
-
She woke up panting before more could happen. In the darkness of the bedroom, with Logan's cologne heavy and strong, staining the sheets and pillowcases and blankets, the dream felt more like an encounter, a secret she had kept.
She snapped out of the haze when she heard the bathroom door click shut and the padding of Logan's feet down the hall, away from the bedroom. The guilt was sticky on the back of her throat. She waited for Logan to come back, but when the clock read three-thirty and she was still alone and sick of the sound of her own heartbeat, she fell back into a frustrated asleep.
-
She refolded the list easily, her finger sliding along the familiar creases. She slipped it back into a hardcover copy of Girl With a Pearl Earring just as she heard the front door open. Dropping the book into her nightstand table, she called out a greeting.
"They're coming tomorrow," Logan announced as he removed his jacket, throwing it onto the couch.
"Who?" she called back.
"They'll be here when you're at class. By the time you come back from the newspaper, it'll be done."
"What?" She was both curious and annoyed that he was making these statements so cavalierly, but she couldn't bring herself to go into the living room and face him. She was too tired, so she laid back on the bed and mentally added: sixty-two, he's always making these plans.
"There you are." He sat on the bed beside her, and produced a rose from behind his back. It had been cut, leaving only a couple of inches of stem. The gift was simple and sweet enough for her to sit up and give him her full attention. He slipped the flower behind her ear. "The painters are coming tomorrow," he said.
Wide-eyed, she frowned. She hadn't thought he was serious, six beers in him at three in the morning. "Oh."
"And I have a decorator coming too. You'll love it. I'm painting the bedroom your favorite color."
She ignored his generous use of I and smiled. "That's great."
"I got this medium kind of blue. Not quite the color of the sky but not so dark that we'll need flashlights to get around."
"Oh," she faltered. "I thought you said you were painting it my favorite color."
"I am," he insisted. "Blue."
"Blue isn't my favorite color."
"Yes it is."
She tensed, wondering how suddenly he was supposed to know her better than she knew herself. "It's not."
"But that dress," he said. "You always wear that blue dress."
"Because you love it. You said it matched my eyes."
"I did?" He touched his head as if waiting for it to come back to him. "Yeah?"
She remained silent, retreating from this conversation and his presence. She was back on her book, her list, thinking she would copy it onto a fresh piece of paper. White, clean, no creases.
"I could get a different color."
"No," she said. "Don't spend more money."
"It's fine. Your favorite color. That must be… green."
"Logan, just paint the bedroom whatever color you want. I don't care."
He pressed his lips together, surprised at her tone. "I'm going to go order dinner. What do you want?" He was already out the door, in the hall, calling the number of his preferred restaurant.
"It doesn't matter." She ripped the flower out of her hair, threw it across the room. It wasn't until she saw it land that she felt the sudden pain. She went to the mirror and pushed back her hair to examine her face. A thin red line was forming from her ear to the corner of her eye. Blood dotted the corners. She reached for a tissue.
"How's Luigi's?" he asked from the doorway. "Whoa, what happened?" He went to her, touched her face.
She said, "You forget to cut off the thorns."
-
Wrapped in 460 thread count sheets she bought with Logan, she dragged her nails across the inside of Jess's thigh. There was a breath of a laugh as he flinched away from her hand.
"Does that tickle?"
"No."
She did it again, and his reaction was the same. "It does," she insisted. "I know about the M spot, I read Cosmo."
He twisted toward her and fit his hands over her breasts. He kissed the space between, her collarbone, the hollow of her neck. She wanted him to climb on top of her, fade inside her. She wanted to fall back to only moments before, continue the passion as if it was only on hold, just waiting for their lips to meet once more.
"Did you miss me?" she asked. "I missed you. I miss you all the time."
"Probably," he answered. "Maybe."
"You missed me," she said. "Admit it. I still know your phone number, the one at Luke's. I recite it in my head. I hum it under my breath. I think you missed me."
"I did," he decided. "I thought about you all the time."
"Did you dream about me?" Facing each other, propped up on their elbows, their bodies were mirror images, the longing and regret twin echoes.
"All the time. You were always there."
"Really," she said.
"Really."
"I wish I could call you."
"You can."
"I wish this was different."
"It could be."
"I'll call you," she said.
"Okay."
"Soon."
-
This time when she woke, she didn't know whether to try to fall back asleep or swear off dreaming altogether. She sat up, and thought about how she could still remember his number. Five, five, five. It was easy. Six, four, nine, nine. She had never truly forgotten it but never thought about it, until suddenly it bubbled back to the surface as if from an unwatched pot. Lately, it had been playing during sex with Logan, like this tempo of nostalgia, a number for a thrust.
Going back to sleep was impossible now. She was too awake and too unused to this new room she suddenly found herself living in. Tapestries hung across the newly painted walls, next to famous paintings she feared were authentic. Her collage of postcards had been taken down but she had yet to ask Logan where he had put them.
She didn't know what Logan was trying to accomplish. Or she did but didn't want to admit it. It hadn't worked, anyway. She was alone in bed.
-
The dreams weren't only becoming more frequent, they were picking up speed. There was no longer a night spent in the living room, a night of foreplay, a night of pillow talk. Every time she closed her eyes, Jess backed her into the pool table, slipped a hand under her skirt. They fell against the couch, the kitchen table, the wall; it was a miracle when they made it into the bedroom.
-
Today, it was the living room. Yesterday it had been the kitchen. She thought the bathroom was next. After talking it over with the landlord, Logan was going to have a wall knocked down, the bathroom extended, a Jacuzzi added. Rory thought it a bit much.
Every night when she came home, there was another bookcase added, a new statue to step over, another painting to admire. But she was still waking up alone.
-
He had his hands on her, and she knew she should say no, but she couldn't. The syllables weren't used in this dreamworld; refusing Jess was part of a dead language.
"This place is huge," he said. He squeezed her side, a thumb dipping into the waist of her skirt, brushing against her hipbone. She was thin, a sharp angle, but he fit so well. He knew exactly where to touch her. "I could fit six of my apartments in here."
"Jess…"
"Seven without the knight."
"Jess, I – "
"Is Logan here?"
"No."
"Are you happy?"
"No."
"Then kiss me." He tilted his head, moved closer.
"It's not that easy," she said quietly. She thought she might cry, but she was tired and couldn't remember why.
"But isn't it?"
-
She cried. She wasn't sure if it had started while she was still asleep, but it didn't matter because this time, she wasn't going to stop. She buried her face into the pillows, letting her body shake with the kind of sobbing she couldn't remember doing in so long. To make matters worse, the dream still hung around her. Her body burned with his touch, her head filled with the scent of his cologne.
With sudden horror, she scrambled to her knees. It wasn't possible but yet she knew it now, maybe she had known it since the beginning. Every night she slept surrounded by Jess, his presence as visceral as the smell on her pillow.
She rushed into the bathroom and pulled Logan's cologne out of the medicine chest. At the time, when she had bought it as a house-warming gift, a thank you to Logan for allowing her to move in, it had been an afterthought, a black bottle on a shelf among dozens of others. It was cheap compared to what Logan usually wore, but something had compelled her to pick it up and bring it to her nose. The smell had made her eyelids flutter and a sense of calm spread through her. It must have been nostalgia but she mistook it for pleasure and a promise; it made her expect – want – something more.
She had picked it out for Jess years ago, when they first began dating. Now Logan wore it daily. He even dabbed it on the pillows after she had told him it helped her sleep at night.
-
"Logan?"
He was adjusting his tie in the mirror, leaning close to examine his hair at the same time. She wore the blue dress he loved, even though she had no plans on going out tonight.
"Yeah?"
"The painters just called. They said they'd be back this weekend."
"Great." He turned away from the mirror, shot her a wide smile.
"You said it was done. All the decorating?"
"I want the bedroom repainted. It's just not… right, you know?"
"Yeah," she said softly. "I do."
She didn't know how to start or even what to say exactly. She wanted to tell him that she was in love with someone else, that she had been for a long time, and saw no end point in sight, but she didn't know if that was true. Jess was there, he always would be, but she had to stop using him as an excuse. She blamed him for every important decision she made, from her second break-up with Dean to her decision to return to Yale. It wasn't Jess's fault that she made stupid decisions or started a new phase in her life; he hadn't told her to go to Yale in the first place or let Dean kiss her when he leaned too close. But he was always part of the change, pointing her in a direction. He always seemed to be the clarity she needed.
"Come on, we don't want to miss our reservations," he said, putting on his jacket.
"I don't want to go." She hung back in the doorway of the bedroom where she could still smell the cologne Logan had put on earlier.
"What?" He had his hand on the door, keys in his pocket.
"I don't want the painters coming back."
"Ace, if this is about the money, don't worry about it. You know I have it covered."
"This isn't about the money. This isn't about the colors of the walls or the paintings that you just have to have." Her fingers fluttered in front of her face as she felt the flash of tears erupt somewhere behind her eyes. "This is about how you need a bunch of decorators just to fit me in your life."
"Ace, that's not it." When her expression didn't change, he plunged on. "It isn't! I just thought the place needed a sprucing up."
"A sprucing up?" she demanded. "This frat boy's paradise? This million dollar apartment? Painting the bedroom green isn't going to make sleeping in the same bed any easier. We either live together or we don't."
"Ace, it's not – "
"No!" She dropped her purse, turned from him. "You're lying to me." She walked over to the nearest wall and pulled down a tapestry. She pulled at the painting that hung beside it but it was nailed to the wall. Logan rushed after her.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm just trying to give the room more light!"
"Rory, stop." He grabbed her hands, held them in his own. She thought of Jess in the same position, his touch careful and warm, pulling her in. When a relationship got tough, she drifted off toward him, kissed him until the other person didn't exist. This wasn't his fault. This wasn't because of him. The dreams hadn't meant what she thought.
"I don't fit here."
"It's just – " He stopped, held her tighter. "I love you, Ace. I do."
"I know." Her voice trembled, and a few tears slid down her cheeks.
"The whole moving thing in happened so fast. I wanted to give you a place to live. I didn't think it'd feel so…"
"It's okay," she said. "I feel it too."
"Look, I'll find you somewhere else to live. Somewhere really nice, somewhere close to Yale and me, okay? I'll pay for it, Ace. You won't have to worry about it."
"I don't think that's the best idea." She finally let her eyes meet his. She wondered if he saw it, this tired defeat. "I don't think we're working out."
"No!" He reeled her in, kissed her mouth. "Ace," he massaged her arms, squeezed her elbows, "we're just not ready to live together, but we will be, we just have to get there."
"I think it's more than that." Her list had grown to seventy-seven items and there'd be more and more until she had a notebook full and no breath left.
"No, there's nothing else. We belong together."
She looked at him in earnest, pulled the list from behind her back. She squeezed until she felt the paper bite her palm and her skin give way. "But we don't."