Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own NBC, ER or any of its characters, nor do I have rights to the lyrics of Crash and Burn by Savage Garden, the song from which I chose my title.
Okay, so this is my first ever posted story on Though I'd love to hear feedback so I could improve upon my writing, I would like to add that any unnecessarily vicious comments should be kept to oneself. Read and enjoy. Love always, gossamerthoughts xx
-x-
"Let me be the one you call/if you jump, I will break your fall/Lift you up and fly away with you into the night/If you need to fall apart/I can mend a broken heart/if you need to crash/then crash and burn, you're not alone"
-x-
It wasn't the room that bothered me; it had the same sterile feel of waiting rooms anywhere. Even though no one was coughing or making other sickly bodily noises, I felt that something unwanted would be clinging to me upon my departure. Even under the unnaturally bright fluorescent lighting, there was an unspoken darkness to the room. The uncomfortable silence remained unbroken except by the sound of magazines being absently thumbed through, and by the woman in the seat next to mine, chattering incessantly into my ear. She had obviously deluded herself into thinking that I was interested in anything that she had to say.
"You would think that my husband would be happy to find out he'll be having a kid. Spreadin' his seed and all that, right? But 'No way,' he says to me the moment I break it to him. 'I'm not having some baby pissing and shitting all over my house.' He forked over the cash like that," she snapped her fingers in my face and shook her head in disgust.
"What's your story?" she said, finally offering the conversation to me. I watched as a new expression crossed her face, and I realized that she was looking at me for the first time.
"You look really young. How old are you anyway?"
Without answering, I tried to subtly and slowly edge away from her, moving nearly imperceptibly closer to the door. I really didn't want to admit to myself that I might actually belong in this room. If I could fade into the falsely cheerful floral wallpaper, I would have in a heartbeat. I considered responding to the stranger obliviously telling nonsense stories to my turned-away face, but even that didn't seem to be a viable option.
Eventually, inevitably, my deception would be painfully revealed.
Instead, I stared down at my shoes and tried to think of more innocent times, when words like 'piss' and 'shit' had not been part of my vocabulary. I tried to pretend that the other people in the room were not all here for the same reason, anxiously awaiting the same fate.
"Samantha Taggart?"
I felt my insides turn to ash at the sound of my name. Involuntarily, I wrapped my arms around my stomach and hugged myself protectively.
"Samantha Taggart?"
I kept my eyes on the floor, my breath catching in my chest. I didn't dare myself to move. No one would know that it was my name being called. As long as I remained faceless, this was a game that I could still win. I just had to wait it out.
"Molly Stevens?"
Molly stood up and walked down the dull-carpeted corridor, accepting the fate that I had been too afraid to claim as my own. I left the waiting room without another thought.
The dread only came to me once I stepped outside of the building itself. Could I turn back and try to get in for my missed appointment? I really didn't want to make a fool out myself in front of the entire room. I could lie and say that I had gone through with it, but it would only be so long before it my lie would stretch itself thin, and it would be horribly obvious to even the most naïve.
Besides, the odds were already against me; my mom and grandma were living proof that poor judgment and attraction to men who easily made up the population of living scum of the earth was in my blood. I just didn't want to face them with the fact that I had lived up entirely to their expectations: I was fifteen, pregnant, and pissed off with the world for stacking another obstacle in my path—as if I didn't already have a crap life to deal with everyday.
-x-
Sam pulled back from Ben's kiss, amazed at him. He had just heard my grandmother's colourful account of my past, and here he was, her kiss still lingering on his lips.
He hadn't run away.
She hadn't thought that she could feel this way about a man since Luka. She had almost been ready to prepare for a life of sleeping alone, as crushing as the thought of cold sheets beside her seemed.
He's sweet, she smiled sadly to herself, watching as he pulled away from the curb and drove off.
But is he ready to take on a Taggart?