This wasn't Denise. This wasn't the kind of thing she did. Denise didn't cry, she got angry. She punched things. She found fat dudes and had hard sex in the on-call room. But she didn't cry.
...Okay, so sometimes she did. But not often. And always in the comfort of her shower, or in her bed late at night, away from the prying eyes and ears of others. And when something that bad did happen - which wasn't often - she had a way of dealing with it: ignore it, be really angry and passive-aggressive, deny anything was wrong. It was a good system and had served her well over the years, saving her from, she assumed, many embarrassing memories of public vulnerability.
And yet, here she was, crying like an idiot on Sunny's bedroom floor. And why? All because stupid Drew had gotten some stupid job in some stupid other state and stupid dumped her because he "didn't see a future with her there". Whatever. Denise could handle the breakup. Sure, Drew had probably been the most serious relationship she'd had… ever, but so what? Ignore, anger, denial. It worked. Unfortunately, as with most news at Sacred Heart Medical School, word of their relationship ending had spread fast, and the more people heard the more people tried to give her their condolences. "No one died, people!" she wanted to scream. But still they came. Elliot and Carla tried to buy her lunch and talk about how much boys sucked. Cole offered to be her "rebound bae." Dr. Cox had even given her the day off. That said, no one had come at her with such unbridled sympathy as Sunny.
Sunny, it seemed, had had just as much invested in the couple as Denise herself. Her time was currently split equally between crying uncontrollably, giving Denise empowered speeches, trying way too hard to make things okay with baked goods, and attempting to pull Denise into what she called a "girl's day out", and Denise called "the exact day Satan planned before trying to rope you into his pyramid scheme". Denise has carefully avoided all contact with Sunny, planning to only pick up her end of their tentative friendship after the other girl's tearful craze had ended. And she'd been doing great - until in a moment of weakness she accepted one of Sunny's apparently never-ending flow of cupcakes and had found herself bombarded with Sunny's squeaky voice asking her how she was. And then… Denise hated to admit it… she had agreed, just to shut her up, to hang out after work.
And that was why, after multiple drinks and a play by play recount of her and Drew's relationship, courtesy of Doctor Dey, she found herself in Sunny's room, the yellow walls adorned with pictures of kittens and unicorns, leaning against her pink bed, tears streaming down her face.
Sunny was tittering around the room, talking nervously, and was honestly just surprised Denise hadn't ditched her at the bar. "Oh, Denise, this is great," she said. "I mean not great, obviously, but you have to get it all out there you know? Like… you can't get over D-R-E-W unless you really let yourself, and crying's an important part of coping and..."
Denise groaned through her tears and held up a finger in the "stop" gesture. "Oh, shut up," she said, reaching up and tugging Sunny's sweater until she stumbled onto the floor next to her. "You have no idea how hard it is being your best friend..." Denise muttered, covering her eyes with her arm.
"I'm your..." trailed off Sunny, sitting up.
Denise stopped, surprised at what she'd said. It wasn't that it was a lie, more that she'd sworn she would never actually use the phrase "best friend" un-ironically. She sighed and rubbed her temples, deciding to run with it, no matter how lame the words sounded. "Yeah, dumb-ass," she said. "And I am never saying this again, so listen up. I'm intoxicated, and sad, and really tired. Sunny Dey, despite how utterly lame you and your name both are, you are my best friend. 'K?"
"I..." said Sunny, smiling. "You're my best friend, too, sweetie."
Denise groaned but let the pet name slide. "Aren't you best friends with like half the campus? Including all the… trees or whatever?" she asked.
Sunny shrugged. "No… I mean, I'm friends with everyone but no one's ever… been my… my best friend. ...I guess you were hopeless enough to settle," she laughed quietly.
"Yeah," said Denise as she stood and took in the room, right down to the "Hang in there!" poster. "No offense, but I think I get why you say that." She stretched. "Anyway," she said, making air quotes, " "best friend rules", you comfort me about my ex-boyfriend and tomorrow you forget tonight happened, deal?"
Sunny smiled. "Deal!" She clapped her hands excitedly.
"Okay," said Denise. "First, I need a drink." She walked to the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, flopping onto Sunny's bed when she returned. Glancing at Sunny's concerned expression she rolled her eyes good-naturedly and kicked off her tennis shoes. She took a sip of her beer. "Let's talk about Drew," she said.
Sunny climbed onto the bed, too, sitting next to the other woman. "Let's talk," she said.
And for the rest of the night Denise talked about Drew, and cried, and Sunny held her and commiserated. And in the morning, when Denise woke up in Sunny's bed, their arms around each other and the dark haired woman's head tucked into her chest, she didn't pull away.