Anti-Romantics

Yes, I kissed him

Eight o'clock arrived. She walked into therapy with a rather cheerful tone. Derek was her striking opposite, he looked defeated. He hated himself. She made him hate himself. She contrasted all of his failures. He found her sitting and sat down. "Hey." She smiled. "You know, i'm sorry about last night. It was my fault and I shouldn't have gotten defensive. It's sweet you worry." He groaned sitting up and finding a place not near her. She frowned. Her cheerful mood deteriorated and was left feeling dreary. He watched as she began jotting something down in her notebook. She bit her lip anxiously. She felt like she had done something wrong to upset him. She just wanted him to want her and not Addison, she had promised herself to never be a second choice. Sure, she had a fun night but it was nothing compared to the night she had shared with Derek. She tried breaking the silence. "The least you can do is acknowledge me you know, we live in the same house."

His cheeks flushed of all color that was previously there. He looked as if he had seen a ghost. "Can you lower your voice?" He whispered.

"I'm sorry all right? I don't know what else you want me to say to you. It was late, we got drunk, things happened and I had my phone on silent. You aren't my parent, I don't need to ask you to spend the night out." She cringed as soon as she realized other actual couples were staring at them. "Oh boo hoo." She mocked them.

Shannon walked into the front inviting them both in. "Derek it's nice to see you back." She hesitated. "You as well Meredith."

Meredith said something under her breath that went unheard while Derek shook her hand.

"What has happened since the last time I've seen you two?"

'A lot.' is what she wanted to say.

"We went out and then we fought. She stayed somewhere else for a few days and here we are." He stated.

She rolled her eyes.

"Can you tell me the events leading up to the fight." She asked.

Meredith interjected. "I found him talking to another woman."

He took a long sigh. "It's not like that."

"Oh really then what was it then?" Her real emotions clouding her judgement. "You said you loved her."

"I said that I loved her, not that I am in love with her! She's like family to me."

"Then what am I?"

Shannon observed the two.

"You're.. you're.." He hated his stupid, stupid brain. He hated being put on the spot like this. He could not come up with a single thing.

"Great! I am really glad we did this. If you excuse me Shannon, I need to get going my first day of my new job is tomorrow. I just can't do this today."

"Can you do it any day? It seems you two run into conflict and you are nowhere to be found. Hey, we all have our flaws but why don't we talk about it?"

She sighed heavily setting her stuff back down.

"Why do you think you run?" She asked making her heart drop. She ran because it's what her mother had enforced in her brain since she was a small child. Her mother ran away from her father when she was five, her first lesson of avoiding conflict. She hated conflict, she grew up in conflict. A horrible love triangle between her mother, her father, and an outsider. Yet all that could come of her mouth was "I don't know."

"You don't know or are you just not telling us?"

She frowned. "This is stupid, I, I really need to go."

"I'll make you a deal, you tell me why and I let you go" She checked her watch. "twenty minutes early."

She looked at Derek who nodded and back to Shannon. "My mom had an affair when I was five. Richard, the man my mom cheated on my dad with agreed to leave their significant others. My mom left my dad and Richard didn't leave his wife. My father was enraged and my mom took me to Boston, he didn't... he didn't try to come after us. He gave up. My mom was no mother, she didn't want me. I basically raised myself. And here I am thinking that it'd be different with me and my fiancé and then he cheated on me and guess what I did I ran. So that's my deep dark and terrible secret, I really have to get going." His heart broke, he had seemed to be in the long line of men who had only disappointed her. He wished he could tell her how he felt but he had lost that chance a long time ago.

"Fiancé?" Shannon caught on.

"Fiancé, husband..." She was buying time. "We were so in love it felt like we were in the honeymoon stage. Okay, I need to go for real this time." Derek watched as she picked up her bag flustered.

She walked out to her car still pissed off at the fact that he was mad at her. He had absolutely no right. She banged her hands against the wheel. She wondered how long they could keep up the lying. It was fun when they didn't no each other. It was fun when she knew he didn't have a wife. It was fun when she wasn't crying herself to sleep.

When Derek arrived home an hour later he decided to check on her. For once the door wasn't locked, the door squeaked open. There she was in a white nightgown sprawled all across her bed snoring quietly. She looked like an angel on earth. He hoped to talk to her tomorrow about what had been happening with her. He really wanted to know her. And she really didn't want to know him.