A/N: So, I decided to parallel Meredith Grey to a chocolate cookie. I know it's random, and this is probably the first of many short one shots I'll write this season. By the way, I'm in no way bashing on Famous Amos cookies. They're just the first store bought/vending machine cookie that came to mind. And let's face it, store bought cookies will never compare to home baked cookies. :)
For most, a chocolate chip cookie is a familiar comforting, delicious treat. Most young girls spend endless hours in the kitchen with their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and older sisters baking these delectable round desserts. They learn the butter has to be softened, but not melted. If it's too hard, it won't mix into the batter properly and you'll have random chunks of butter in the end result. They learn not to cry over a broken egg and how to break an egg without getting shells in the batter, and that it's important to mix the sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt together before adding the vanilla extract, eggs, and softened butter. Then you always add the chocolate chips last. They learn that Grandma's oven is different than Mom's oven, so the fifteen-minute cookies baked in Mom's oven might turn to stones in Grandma's oven. Baking fresh chocolate chip cookies is an experience every young girl deserves to experience.
Meredith Grey never did, though.
Chocolate chip cookies are like people: each one is a little different. When we hear the words, "chocolate chip cookies," and we picture a specific cookie: the one we know best. What cookie are you picturing? Are you picturing a soft, gooey, warm cookie that just came out of your grandma's oven that is ready to be dipped in milk? Or are you thinking about that two-week-old brick in your mother's cookie jar? Or the hard, crumbling mess from the vending machine?
Cookies are created in all shapes, sizes, and textures, just like human beings. Some are lighter than others. Some are quarter sized, while others are as big as a table. Some are pencil thin, others are thick, filling your entire mouth with one bite. Some have only one chocolate chip, others have wall-to-wall chips. Some have colorful baking chips melted into the mix. Some are soft; others are hard as a brick. No two chocolate chip cookies are exactly alike. No two people are exactly alike.
We all want that perfect chocolate chip cookie: The warm, delicious cookie that will melt in your mouth while also sending euphoria to your brain. Did you know it's a proven fact that chocolate releases endorphins in your brain? Chocolate chip cookies aren't just a comfort food by definition; they actually release happy chemicals within a person's brain.
Well, for most people, anyway.
Unless you're Meredith Grey. She despises chocolate chip cookies.
Meredith Grey has never considered herself a warm and gooey person. She isn't a person who likes hugs, nor does she believe in the American Dream. She believes happy endings only exist in fairy tales, and life is no fairy tale.
She remembers eating her first chocolate chip cookie, though she doesn't remember how old she was at the time. She knows she was crying. After all, a good portion of her childhood memories involve tears. Her mother was working, as always, and she was standing in the hospital waiting room with her father, hoping her mother would get off work soon so she could come home and read her a bedtime story. For some reason, she didn't like it when her father read her bedtime stories. She doesn't remember why, but she remembers believing her mother was a much better storyteller than her father. So, she longed for the rare nights that her mother was actually hope and could read to her.
She wouldn't stop crying, despite her father's constant attempts to comfort her. He just couldn't do it. The next thing she remembers was him handing her something round. It had dark dots all over it. She had never seen anything like it before. She remembers thinking it looked nasty. She didn't like the feeling of the crumbles in her hands.
"Eat it," her father demanded, and she reluctantly took a small bite of the object. It was hard and sweet. She spit it out and started to bawl. Her father was furious. "What kid doesn't like chocolate chip cookies?" she remembers him barking at her, and she cried harder and harder, begging for her mommy.
She doesn't remember her mother ever coming, either.
She doesn't remember the next time she ate a chocolate cookie, but she knows it was years later. Her entire childhood, she associated chocolate chip cookies with nasty bricks with black polka dots. Her third grade teacher used to bring freshly baked chocolate chip cookies to class every Friday, and she was the only kid who refused to even try them. She's pretty sure that her teacher was offended by it, too.
Izzie Stevens had managed to change her perspective on chocolate chip cookies by relentlessly demanding she try her cookies. Meredith hadn't been able to say no. Izzie Stevens wasn't the type of person who took the word "no" easily. And admittedly, Izzie had been able to change her perspective on the dotted rock, making her realize that not all chocolate chip cookies were bricked rocks with dots.
So, when she enters her house that evening to find the lingering scent of warm, freshly baked cookies, Meredith freezes and her eyes yield toward her three-year-old daughter, whose face is covered with white flour. She's holding an egg in her hand preparing to break it to add it to the cookie mix. Next to her, her aunt is preparing to place another batch of cookies in the oven.
"Mommy!" Zola exclaims; her eyes widen with joy when she sees her mother enter the door. The excitement from her mother's sudden entrance causes her to drop the egg on the floor as she is running toward Meredith. "Oh, no!" She stops and large tears erupt from her eyes. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry!"
"It's okay, Zola," Amelia softly tells the little girl, reaching for a paper towel.
"Room in the kitchen for one more?" Meredith asks hesitantly, wondering if it's time that she, too, learn with Zola how to bake warm and gooey chocolate chip cookies.
"The more the merrier!" Amelia insists with a light smile on her face.
Meredith smiles warmly and gives her daughter a love-filled hug. "Okay, Zozo, show me how to bake a chocolate chip cookie," she says.
"Well, first you need to wash your hands," Zola replies innocently, pointing to her mother's fingers. Meredith laughs.
Correction: Meredith despised chocolate chip cookies.