Second Person (The Diary of Addison Montgomery)

Second Person, Twenty-Nine

Second Person, Twenty-Nine

The room is dead quiet as they operate on Meredith Grey. You're not there as a surgeon, officially, but you are scrubbed in, anyway, in case there are, God, forbid any gynecological complications to her appendectomy, which seems unlikely, but you want to be ready at any time, anyway.

Your hands are shaking a bit. Your hands almost never shake in the O.R. Ever.

But your hands are shaking a bit now, and you sort of know why; it's Meredith Grey they are operating on.

She's the love of your life, you think, even if you never get to be any more than a best friend in hers.

Somehow it makes you both happy and sad to think that you'll never be able to get over her if she dies, and you'll never be able to find another partner to match up to what you've never even had with Meredith Grey.

You've had a great friendship in your life, and you know, that at least that part is mutual.

She said that as a friend she loves you, and you said that as her friend that you love her back.

It's enough for you to survive on and more. You're honored you get to be this close to her, even if you feel so, so, so far away from her at the same time...

You feel a hand on your shoulder. You want to pull back because you know it's not Meredith's.

Obviously it isn't Meredith Grey's hand because she's lying open on the table in front of you. But you know it isn't her hand just by the way it feels from behind you.

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When Meredith has her hand on your shoulder, it feels like warm rain on a hot day.

When it's Meredith who lays a gentle hand out for you, her fingers feel like butter to melt on your skin and her fingertips feel like the icing on top of a cake and her touch sends you into euphoria at every hour of the day...

You know this is not Meredith because the hands feel brittle and worn, and they don't give you butterflies or any goosebumps or shivers. Thank God not.

This is Richard Webber, who is saying to you "are you alright, Addison? If you want to take a break you can, I understand if this one is hard for you..."

He's talking to you as if you might still be holding a grudge against the Grey girl for sleeping with your husband back before you ever met her.

You're glad he's talking with you like this because it means you know he does not know the actual truth.

You tell him you're fine, you want to stay where you are, you're just a bit dehydrated and you could use a glass of water.

%%%

Richard Webber gets it for you because he's always felt loyal because you never judged him for his own affair even if you knew about it, and because you're a good friend to his wife, Adele Webber.

Both of you used to bond because you felt neglected by your husbands who would never come home from work to watch 'real housewives' with you.

You felt like real housewives even though you both were successful career women in your own right. Adele is an excellent nurse and you were already a surgeon.

So you two would talk. You never had a crush on Adele Webber in the least bit, she was never more than a friend and you never wanted her to be. Of course you know now, she's not your type at all, no matter how lovely she is.