As I waited for Derek in the lobby of Seattle Grace Hospital, I gazed around and thought; my life, so it seems, is going better than it ever had. I was happy, a big deal for an eternally miserable person like myself. And even though butterflies still filled my stomach, so did a feeling of dread.
I knew something was going on, even though I refused to admit it to myself. A woman knows when a man is dishonest, and I found myself trying desperately to drown myself in the happiness I felt to get rid of my uneasiness. I chalked it up to my trust issues, my abandonment issues, my general anxiety over loving somebody.
I blamed it on every single factor I could possibly think of, except for Derek, because he was perfect in every single way and he loved me and I loved him; why ruin a good thing because my stomach twisted every time he hit ignore on the ever-present calls he got on his cell phone?
"Ready?" Derek smiles, all tall, dark and handsome. He was dreamy in every way, and as much as I knew it, I also knew he was so much more. He radiated patience and kindness and love, which were all things I hadn't let myself feel in fifteen years.
"Yeah" I smile and he takes my hand in one of his and leans in to kiss my forehead. It had been a long day, and I was more than ready to cuddle up with him and just be.
And then I saw her.
A tornado of red hair with lipstick matching to boot, it would've been impossible not to recognize her; she was beautiful, stunning, and I knew without a doubt it was her despite all the time that had passed. I swear my heart stopped, my breathing ceased, and all I could see was her.
Derek noticed her, too, but he had quite a different reaction; his features went stone cold, and I knew that somehow, someway, she was the cause for the dread I carried around daily.
When she notices me, she stops dead in her tracks. Her eyes meet mine for the first time in over a decade, and we just stare. Those eyes I once knew so well seemed so different, yet the same in so many ways. She looked older, more worn out compared to her once spry self, but still she had the same spark.
The silence is suffocating, but Derek's voice cut through it like a knife.
"Addison" he says, not a hint of the kindness or love I'd grown to know in his voice. "What are you doing here?" He's looking at her, but her eyes don't leave mine, and when a look of realization crosses over her, I know the next five seconds would bring a hailstorm.
"I'm Addison Shepherd, and you must be the woman who's screwing my husband" voice like silk, the same as I remembered, saying each letter like a spell but each word like a curse. It takes me a moment to process, but once I realized what she's said, I drop Derek's hand like its on fire and take a step back.
"What?" I can't conjure up anything more than that; my mouth feels like it's stuffed full of cotton balls and my mind is blank; was the world moving in slow motion, or was it going faster? Either way, I wouldn't have been able to tell.
"Meredith" Derek says, but I just shake my head.
"Addison?" I ask, disbelief in my voice as I turn to look at her once again. "You're married?" A stupid question, really, but one I had to ask. I had to feel the words leaving my mouth, and taste the vibrations they made.
But really, I wasn't sure which shocked me more; that she was married, or that he was married.
"Ten years" she says solemnly, looking at me with such sober eyes I nearly shook. "Well, nearly ten; our anniversary would be in three months"
"A December wedding" I muse, forgetting Derek even exists as I stare down the eyes in front of me. My heart was hurting and my mind was racing; everything was so sudden, and the shock in my blood made a home in my chest. Even breathing hurt like hell.
"Never would've pegged you for it" is all I say, before turning on my heels to leave. The cold air of the autumn night seemed to bring me back to life, if not just a little.
When the doors shut behind me, I don't look back.
~
I met Addison Montgomery when I was merely seventeen years old; a freshman in college, trying to find my place in the world I had yet to experience.
It hadn't been long before I'd found my place, my home, in her arms.
She was older than me, at twenty one she was just finishing her third year of university. She was sophisticated, smart, beautiful. I saw her for the first time and I didn't think she'd even give me the time of day; I was nothing more than a lonely freshman with no friends. But she saw something in me, I don't think I'll ever know what, and she smiled at me in a way I'd always remember.
It was a whirl-wind; we fell in love quickly and we stayed together for two years; but lots had happened, she had moved away to go to med school, and had broken up with me days before her plane left for Columbia University; her dream school in her dream city.
From the day she told me it was over, I didn't think I would ever recover. And for a long time, I didn't. And then I met Derek, and the world didn't seem quite as dark.
She was my first love; she was everything to me. For two years, the sun rose and set for her, in my eyes, she was the universe.
Seeing her again had shaken me up quite a bit; I stopped letting myself think about what I'd say if I ever saw her again, but now the time I never thought would come, is here. And I can't quite figure out what I'm supposed to do.
What even is my place in all of this? Slutty mistress who fucks married guys, or ex girlfriend who's moved on?
As I sat in my living room, alone and heartbroken with nothing but a bottle of tequila and my own thoughts, I realized Derek had pretty much escaped my mind; his lying didn't seem to hurt me as much as seeing her did. After all these years, she still gave me a feeling in my chest that would never have a name except for hers.
A knock at the door startled me, and I figured it was Cristina finally getting here after the million voicemails I left her to get to my house ASAP. I all but paged her 911, and thinking back on it, that definitely would've been more effective.
"Took you long enough to get here I'm practically dying..." I said, swinging open the door, only to trail off when I realized the face that sat on the other side of that door was not Cristina's, but Addie's.
"Hi" she says simply, looking more nervous than she did back at the hospital. "I asked Richard where you lived, he's a close friend and..." she trails off, running a hand through her long hair the way she used to when she was stressed.
I don't speak, I just open the door wider and turn to walk back to the living room.
She follows, as I'd hoped.
"I didn't know he was married" I say, after a moment of awkward silence "I had no clue. I don't really know much about him, now that I think about it" I muse, sitting cross-legged on the rug with my bottle securely in my grasp.
"I know" she states, dropping her purse onto the couch and shrugging off her coat. "I know"
And her voice is so simple, so soft, and it makes my heart squeeze in my chest in a way that hurts, but feels good at the same time.
"You got married" I say, a swig of tequila follows the sentence to wash the taste of the words out of my mouth.
"Yeah" she laughs a cold, stale laugh. One that proves nothing about this is funny, but ironic. "What a shit show that is" she sits next to me, and reaches over for the bottle, her soft fingertips brushing against my hand.
I don't have to look over to know a hearty swallow comes right after she's got the bottle in her grips.
"You were never one to commit" I muse, taking the bottle back. "funny how much things have changed; I suppose it shouldn't surprise me" another gulp burns my throat, but I don't even flinch; not anymore.
"Says you" she snorts, stretching two long legs out in front of her; she's got jeans on, something she definitely was not wearing hours earlier in the hospital. She barely ever wore jeans even in college; I'd always made a joke of it, saying 'Addison Montgomery doesn't do casual' and she'd always smirk back at me.
'Maybe casual just doesn't do Addison Montgomery'
"You had one foot out the door every time something went wrong; you were like a scared puppy that peed on the floor every damn time the doorbell rang. We couldn't argue without you being two seconds away from bolting" She tells me, reaching over to take the bottle to her lips for three long gulps; one right after the other. "Commitment issues were defined by your face in the dictionary. We wouldn't have lasted with me away for med school, you couldn't handle that"
"Here I was thinking you just got bored of me" I say jokingly, while knowing deep down it was the cold, hard truth. She left for med school and I always assumed she just didn't want any baggage following her; the world was so much bigger than the two of us holed up in my dorm room for hours on end watching reruns and eating ramen noodles.
"Meredith" she turns to look at me, her eyes sadder than I could ever remember them being. "we had a relationship, a short college fling that may or may not have been during an experimental phase. It was intense and passionate and It ended"
I knew 'the talk' when it happened; of course, I was usually the one giving it. She was going to let me down easy, tell me we were a mistake, a thing of the past. Then, she'd tell me to get the fuck away from her husband and I'd never see her again.
Of course I knew how this would play out; but it didn't stop the pressure in my chest from cracking my heart clear in two. It had been fifteen years, but I loved her more than life itself at one point, and now, I knew my heart would always hold her dear.
"I know what you're trying to say" I sigh, shaking my head. "You're just-"
She cuts me off, mid-sentence with a wave of one perfectly manicured hand.
"Meredith, you're the love of my life. I've always loved you, and seeing you with Derek made me realize it wasn't him I'd been pining for all this time; it was you"
There's a silence, and a look shared between the two of us. I stopped breathing, and I swear she did too.
"its just" she begins again, wringing her hands together nervously "all these years, I felt like something was missing. I felt like my life was completely out of my hands, nothing was fun, nothing made me happy. I got married, and I searched for that missing piece for years within him. Eventually, I realized he didn't have it and I looked elsewhere. Still, I couldn't find it; like a piece of my soul was gone forever and I tried to find it in work and in men in and even within myself. But the only time it ever felt like it was back, even in the slightest, was when I saw you again for the first time in what felt like forever. I left, I broke up with you, and it killed me, you took a piece of me and I haven't been able to breathe properly until now; being with you, it makes me feel such a sense of relief I didn't think I'd ever get back-"
She's rambling, and I know she's nervous. So, I lean in and I cut her off and I kiss her; it felt like two puzzle pieces clicking together. Her lips felt soft and sweet and like being home after a long day, except that day lasted fifteen years and now it's finally, fucking finally, over.