Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟭𝟮 gold rush

How is your sister? How is Derek? I didn't know that you were taking part in this year's Gala season? Oh, you're with someone? Who is your new boyfriend--?

Inevitably, Mark would be a damper in the conversation. Just as I'd predicted, he held a pretty stilted reputation even this high up on the social ladder. If I'd, for a second, thought that he'd limited his charm to Addie's social circle, I was sorely wrong. I found myself watching the light in the eyes of women (who had only heard rumours of him) dwindle as they realised that I was Mark's apparent flavour of the week. 

The amount of self disgust that I felt as I watched the cycle of emotions pass behind those cherry picked smiles, was almost overwhelming. Their surprise turned to disappointment which and then to pity and amusement, as if they were glad that they weren't dumb enough to fall for that (again? Some of them must've been again.)

What a pity, I could see it written in their eyes, What a bright girl and what a dumb decision she's made. Wherever did Addison go wrong with her? She had so much potential.

I didn't like their pity. 

A few times, I was so overwhelmingly grasped by the impulse to correct them and tell them that in fact I had taste and I was in fact in a very successful relationship with a corporate lawyer, but every time I'd just have to wash it away with a mouthful of champagne. 

Then my mind would inevitably lead me to Calum and then to the fact that I was a terrible girlfriend and then onto other things like how my happiness seemed to always be conditional on what other people wanted and expected from me--

Yeah, champagne sounded like the perfect idea.

I found myself glancing over Mark in periodic increments, watching him from afar as he passionately pitched his surgical study to a handful of the Manhattan elite. 

He spoke with his hands, with swooping movements that almost spilt his champagne all over the floor. He'd filled me in only briefly on what his plans were, mentioning that he'd been trying to gain momentum to do an extensive surgical trials with new burn revision methods-- that's what this was all about, this was why we were here, all because of a debriding method that Mark thought he could completely reform.

I was, once again, exhausted after talking to three people, and yet Mark was going around the room, charming every person in his path. He was clearly very good at it— he caught my eye as he breezed past and winked. Meanwhile, I was throwing out the same tired cliches:

We both work in surgery.

Yes, we're very busy.

Oh, we're so very happy.

Yes, we've been dating for a while now.

We're both very career-orientated.

Did I mention that Mark's thinking about pitching a project on skin graft regeneration?

We've never been happier.

Yes, busy! Always so busy!

No, no plans for anything just yet—

Did we mention how happy we are?

Happy my ass. My date to the gala was a man who genuinely made my chest fill with dread. 

We'd catch each other's eye as I glided past, caught up in conversations about how Mark and I had (fictitiously) spent a summer in miscellaneous haunts that was famous for the social elite and their transgressions-- they were the silent, passive equivalent of drive by shootings. His lip twitched as I tried to keep my distance as much as possible, all too haunted by the way that he seemed to follow me around the room with his stupid dumb eyes.