Leaving, losing, loving | Merluca

Part 3

Meredith was still starring at her phone, waiting for Andrew's response. If she would even get one that evening.

When she couldn’t wait anymore, because her nerves were getting to her, she decided to check on her kids again. They were all asleep, so she watched the news, before she started to read into some medical journals, only to put them away after the first few sentences.

Almost half an hour later, after running through the house a few times, she heard a knock on her door. She had already given up on hearing from him that evening. The last thirty minutes she was mostly trying to calm herself down a bit so she could go to sleep, as the rest of the household did an hour ago.

Meredith quickly went to the door. She could already see his figure through the glass. She carefully opened the door to let him in.

“Hey.” Andrew was looking at her. He seemed hopeful, but there was an equal amount of fear in his eyes. He didn’t move, obviously unsure if this was the right thing to do.

“Hey.” She answered him. They were standing like this for a moment, just staring at each other. Neither one making a move.

When the cold air outside made Meredith shiver, she opened the door a little wider, showing him that he should come inside. It took him a moment to bring up the courage to go into the house, that had gotten so familiar to him months ago. After just looking inside for a moment, he finally walked over the threshold.

Meredith waited a minute until he was turning to her again before she started where they left off earlier. She tried to push the anger aside, that had come up over the last few hours, after the first wave of relief had washed over. She wanted to give him a chance to explain himself. She wanted to hear what he had to say.

“Why did you come earlier?”

“I-I wanted to apologize for shutting you out. I needed time.” He tried to explain his behavior “I know it wasn’t fair to you, but I needed to be alone.”

“You left me, Andrew. For three months.” She exclaimed, her anger taking over for a moment before she added a little calmer “I had no idea how you’ve been.”

Technically it wasn’t true that he left her. She knew that. They weren’t together at that time. But, he knew that she cared. And he hadn’t even let her know he was okay. He had chosen to not reply to her. And that had hurt, besides not knowing how he was doing.

“I am sorry, Mer.”

She knew that he felt bad for it. She could hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes, but she couldn’t go back like nothing had happened.

“Why now?” She said a bit harsher than intended, trying to put her anger aside again. “Why did you come today?”

“I have been getting better.” He reasoned and then tried to explain why he didn’t come sooner.

“I didn’t want to bring you down with me.”

“But, Andrew.” She started, trying to be understanding, but wanting to make her point clear “You can’t decide when to shut me out and then expect me to wait for you for however long, and whenever you want me to.”

“I know that. And I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath “When I asked for time, I meant only for a few days to get clearer thoughts… I started therapy.” He paused for a moment, looking at her, but not quite meeting her eyes. She could see that it wasn’t easy for him to talk about all this. “But the more I realized what was going on the more I got scared. I know what it did to my family. And- I didn’t want that for you.” He took a step closer to her, still a few feet away from her. “You deserve better than that, Meredith.” She heard his voice breaking slightly. She knew he meant it. But how could he just decide what was best for her?