Never Give Up

Rumors

My friends walked in about an hour later. It was going on 10 and I had a late shift. Good thing tomorrow was Friday.

"Yo your gang is here." Alex said.

"I see that, captain obvious." I smirked.

"So, anything fun happen today?" He asked, smiling. Something told me he already knew what happened.

"What do you know?" I asked.

"Give me some fries and I'll tell you."

"Give me money and I'll give your fries." I replied.

He handed me the money and I brought him back some fries that he started to eat.

"You gonna tell me what you know or are you just gonna eat the fries?"

Alex didn't answer.

"Rumor is that you showed Mark up." George said as he took a fry from Alex's plate.

"Rumor is? It only happened an hour ago."

"So it did happen?" Cristina asked.

"I didn't really show him up." I said.

"I know you. You showed him up. Tell me the details." Alex looked at me and gave his famous smile.

"He just told me not to taunt Derek and I told him that Derek shouldn't say something about Alex. I walked away from him and he got pissed and grabbed me by the arm so I grabbed his and pushed him into back into the booth and it was over. Nothing big happened."

"Nothing big happened?" George said, mocking me. "You threw mark Sloan down."

"I didn't throw him down, I pushed him back into the booth. There's a big difference."

"There won't be tomorrow when everybody knows about it." Alex said.

I sighed. "I gotta go clean up. Have fun eating your fries." I said and walked to a dirty table to clean it.

"Hey don't get me wrong, I love that you stood up for me, but now the whole schools gonna know about it." Alex said.

"Dude you're gonna be famous. Can you sign my napkin?" Cristina asked in a joking manner.

"Eat the fries and go home." I laughed and George walked up to me.

 "Can I talk to you?" He asked,shyly. 

I nodded my head.

"About the other night—" 

"Listen, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that when I don't know you or your family." I interrupted him.

"No, it's not that. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I shouldn't have got mad at you. I should've explained, that," He paused. "That even though my family is loving, we don't have it good. The only reason we have our house is because my grandparents died and gave it to us. I would be living in my parent's car if it wasn't for them. We have no money. My brothers had to quit school, so they could help with the bills. My dad is a mechanic, and my mom works at a little store downtown, so we don't have the best income coming in. The only reason I'm not working with my brothers is because I honestly don't know shit about cars and my grandparents knew it, so they left money for me to go to college."

I didn't know what to say. "I'm so sorry George. I guess that's what I get for assuming."

"It's fine. You didn't know, and I should've told you."

"So, we're good?" I asked him.  

"Yeah, we're good." He smiled at me. 

"O'Malley, you coming?" Alex yelled across the diner.

"I'll see you tomorrow." He said and walked to the rest of the gang.

"Bye Mer!" Cristina and Alex yelled.

I finished cleaning up and told my manager bye and headed home. It was a quiet drive which helped me clear my head. When I pulled into the driveway, my moms car was there. I thought she would've left to go do some big surgery or something. I knew as soon as I walked in, she would say something. I tried to dodge her, but she was sitting on the couch watching videos of her past surgeries.

"Well, I see you're home before midnight." She said while keeping her eyes on the tv screen.

"Mom, I'm always home before midnight. Not like you'd know or anything." I said and went to the fridge to get a bottled water. 

"Meredith, you do not get to talk to me like that. I am your mother."

"You may be my mother, but you're certainly not my mom." I yelled.

She opened her mouth to say something, but her pager beeped.

"Well then. Looks like you have patients to attend to. Don't let me keep you waiting." I said and headed upstairs.

"We'll talk about this when I get back."

"I won't wait up. You won't be home before tomorrow anyway. I washed your clothes and they're on your bed. You're welcome." 

I heard her mumble under her breath, but couldn't hear what she said. I heard her car leave and I got in the shower. When I finished showering, I hopped into my warm bed and dozed off to sleep.