Her eyes remained fixated on the ocean. More appropriately, she watched the waves. She watched them push the very earth away, leaving a new line each time they pushed ashore. Nothing could hold the waves back. Nothing could stop them from getting where they wanted to go.
Every once in a while, the waves would calm, allow the shoreline a short retreat from the constant beating- more often than not, the waves would surge heavy and hard, tearing at the sand as violently as it could. The waves were determined. They were going to leave their mark. They were not going to relent.
Cristina's vision blurred once more and she recognized this wave. She'd fought it several times, but just as the sand beneath the waves, she was eroding. Her fingers curled around the black iron fence of the patio as she focused on the waves. She had learned that if she just let it come that fighting the waves didn't hurt as much. If she just let it happen, it didn't last as long and then it would calm.
Even breathing was hard now and she wondered when the waves would stop coming. She wondered how you can make the waves stop coming when they're so goddamned determined to leave their mark.
How can you stop something that seems unstoppable?
--
Her eyes remained fixated on her friend. She had been nearly motionless for almost an hour. But now she sees the familiar droop of her shoulders, the hunch of her back as it hits her again. She watches her hands grasp onto anything available as if she's holding on for dear life. It comes in waves, and she doesn't know how to stop them.
The first few times, she tried to be there. She tried talking to her and getting her a drink and getting her tissues and holding onto her, but nothing seemed to help. She suggested alcohol- her frequent answer to even life's smallest problem, but Cristina seems fixated on feeling it all.
Meredith wonders if she wants to feel it. She thinks that maybe if she lets herself feel the pain that her walls will be stronger next time. She won't fall as easily. She won't fall at all. She'll know better. The waves can come, but her walls will be impenetrable. The waves will not touch her.
She watches as she fights and struggles against the waves now, searching for the surface. She's drowning in emotions that she doesn't recognize. She's fighting to breathe when he's taken her air away.
She wants to be there for Cristina, but no matter how much she thinks she understands Cristina, it's times like these that she realizes she doesn't know her at all. She wonders if anybody ever really has. Meredith tries to think of what she can do, tries to think of what she hasn't done- and there's nothing.
--
As the wave resides, Cristina's posture straightens once more and her hands fall to her side. The salty sea air dries the tears on her cheeks on her cheeks that she refuses to acknowledge and she focuses on the waves once more. Her breathing calms and her chest isn't tight and she keeps waiting for a moment of clarity to come. She keeps waiting for an answer, an explanation, a phone call, she keeps waiting for him to just appear and tell her that he's sorry and he was wrong. She keeps waiting for her opportunity to rip into him and tell him how wrong he was.
The door slides open behind her and she's quit looking to see who it is. Instead she focuses on the waves, and her eyes blur again. This wave came sooner than the last one.
She feels Meredith's arm around her, but she doesn't return the gesture. She doesn't even acknowledge her. Instead, her posture hunches again and she fights to catch her breath and hold as much air as she can before she drowns in her sorrow once more.
Meredith watches her and it hurts to see her person like this. She's at a loss for empowering words, anything to make it better, so she stands there with her friend. The sun starts to rest against the ocean and she wishes that Cristina would rest, but she'll stand here as long as she needs to. She wants to rub her hand against her chilled skin. She wants to pull her inside and make her eat and take care of her and it surprises even herself. But it's her person and she's been there. Cristina has been there when it was the only thing that she could do.
As Cristina stares out into the darkening skies, her eyes focused on waves that she can barely see, Meredith remains at her side. She leaves her arm still, wrapped around her shoulders and stares out at the ocean with her.
All she can do is be there for her.