After Afterall

8

When my mom was a senior resident, she began working on a diabetes trial to follow up her Harper Avery winning Grey method. The world of medicine watched her, but my mother was struggling to find her breakthrough. I remember she barely slept, never ate, and rarely came home. I was ten or eleven and every night Richard came home early so I wouldn't be alone. My mother never did find her breakthrough and uncharacteristically quit her research right in the middle.

Just like my mother, I started reading in on her trial when I was a senior resident. I could see her vision, but not the outcome she wanted. I tried to talk to my mother about her trial, but the whole project was dead to her. When I picked her research up where she left it, I decided not to tell her.

On the days I'm not busy with surgery, I focus on the diabetes trial. I've been in and out of the lab for three years, but I find my time is best spent researching. I read as many medical journals as I can find on diabetes and anyone doing diabetes research. I consult back issues from the 1980s and beyond, because I like having a wide range of information. My mother operated the same way and in her notes I found research from as far back as the 1960s.

But despite how seriously I take my research, I can't seem to stop thinking about Derek. It's been three days since the State Dinner, so three days since he kissed me, but it still feels like it happened five seconds ago. I'm trying to be reasonable in reflection, but even when I allow myself to remember how nice the kiss was, I can't shake the thoughts of the after. I don't mean me leaving, but what would be expected if I didn't just leave. And I also don't mean sex. I mean marriage.

I'm not the kind of woman who thinks so far ahead, ever, but you can't just casually date the President of the United States. If I were to date Derek, I'm dating the media and the people and every pair of eyes who watches my every move. I'd be a spectacle and that doesn't sit well for me. The idea keeps me up at night, but to be honest, so does the kiss.

I'm finding it impossible to focus which leads me to reading the same line again and again. So when Cristina walks into the room and begins talking, I can't hear anything she says. I'm looking right at her, watching her lips move, but I think of Derek. Again. Again. I grow frustrated really quickly because I'd like to just be lost in my work or other thoughts, or hell, what Cristina is saying, but I can't make any of it work.

"Mer, are you listening?" she asks.

"Yes," I lie almost too quickly.

Cristina furrows her eyebrows together. "Oh really, so what did I say?"

I try to think up something Cristina might have been bitching about—the interns, Owen, Alex, a patient, Callie—but decide the interns are the most logical. "The interns?"

"No. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. I'm fine."

She stares at me. "No, you're all weird and hidey. You've barely been around the last few days. You've been hiding in here, running to surgeries, not coming out for drinks. Alex said you didn't stay home last night, either."

"You're asking Alex about me?"

"No," she says, "but he told me. "Tell me what's going on."

"Nothing."

I start packing up my things, figuring I can find somewhere else to hide, but Cristina puts her hand on top of my notebook and pulls it away. Before I can grab it, she's holding it against her side. "Tell me."

I wonder if the kiss between Derek and I is need-to-know only information. If I tell Cristina, would it be breaching some unwritten rule? Or maybe even written rule. Derek never said anything one way or another, but for some reason I don't believe the President making out with someone in the Oval Office is off-limits information.