Addison Forbes Montgomery-Shepherd always prided herself on the fact that she never cheated in school. Sure, maybe the other kids called her a dork. Maybe they called her a teacher's pet. Maybe she was all of those things, but the truth remained that she learned it all. And now all those kids who teased her were working at McDonald's, and she was one of the top surgeons in her field.
But now that she looks back on it, she wonders if cheating in school would really have been such a bad idea. Maybe it would have been good practice.
Because she's realized that she is very, very bad at cheating.
She not only chose to have sex with someone who wasn't her husband. No, she decided to have sex with his best friend. In Derek's bed. When she knew he would eventually be coming home.
Good cheaters would have easily seen that it wasn't the best plan in the world. Good cheaters would be discreet – hotel rooms and strangers and secret codes. But no, she had to go and get caught in a way that could easily have been avoided.
She's pretty sure Derek never cheated in school. If he had, he probably wouldn't have been so stupid as to leave an intern's panties in his tuxedo pocket. That was just so purely amateur that it made her angry. Derek was probably the kid in class who told on other kids for cheating. He was that kind of guy. (Self-righteous do-gooder). He didn't know how to cheat.
Mark, on the other hand, was probably the one copying off of Derek behind his back during chemistry. Mark knew how to play the game. Mark cheated on exams, cheated in basketball, cheated on cheerleader girlfriends. And she was pretty sure he'd never gotten caught.
Well, at least not until she found him with that nurse in New York. It had thrown her off – she'd expected him to sleep around. He was Mark, after all. But she hadn't expected him to do it in their bed. (Funny how she'd come to think of it as theirs). It had been a slap in the face – she wasn't worth it anymore. He didn't want to bother hiding it. The cycle was so ironic that it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
When she'd yelled that he didn't care enough to be careful about cheating, he'd replied in a simple sentence.
You're still wearing the rings.
So she'd come out to Seattle. Because she cheated on Derek and then Mark cheated on her and now she realizes that she should have seen the next part coming.
Everybody cheats on the class dork, after all.
She's pretty sure Meredith was the girl who never went to class, who showed up to ace the test and then smoke on the front lawn the rest of the day. Meredith probably didn't even bother to cheat. Maybe she's never had the opportunity – she doesn't have husbands or boyfriends, unless Meredith counts Derek as a boyfriend (but Addison doesn't want to think about that).
Addison wonders if she should take after Meredith and just not give a fuck. Because her and Derek and Mark are just so bad at cheating. They can't seem to get it right.
If she steps back and looks at the triangle (no, Meredith makes it a square. And do Finn and Callie get corners of their own?), she sees that she's the one who started the domino effect of Very Badly Done Cheating.
She silently curses her parents, her private school, all the things that she can blame her dorky non-cheating past on. Maybe she had too many years of perfection that her subconscious just had to screw it up.
Because right now, she's not sure who's cheating on whom.
She lives with Mark, and Derek lives with Meredith.
Which is fine. It's not a problem.
The problem is the fact that right now, she's in the supply closet. Pressed against the wall. Her skirt is hiked up over her hips and his hands are everywhere and she has to bite Derek on the shoulder to keep from moaning out loud.
She can't remember when it started – sometime after the divorce, after she gave in to Mark and let him move in with her, after Derek built a house for himself and Meredith. She tries not to think about it at all, really, because when she does her head starts to spin a little.
(And now she really can't think anything except oh god and Derek and now).
Afterwards he continues to hold her up against the wall, resting his forehead against hers.
"This is wrong," she says, because usually they don't talk after and she's so sick of the silence.
He smiles slightly – sadly – at her. "Are you sure? We were married for so long. I think there has to be some kind of loophole."
She decides that she's all for the loophole, because she's really bad at cheating and there's probably some rules she doesn't know about. "Okay."
"You just – we just – fit so well," he whispers.
She thinks that it's really not fair of him to compare Meredith to her – she's had so much more practice, after all. Meredith's known him for barely a year, while she's had over a decade to perfect exactly how to make him beg. "Okay," she repeats, and gently pushes him away so she can pull down her skirt.
She knows that Mark is in surgery, with Meredith as his intern. She always wonders if Derek sets it up that way so that they can be by themselves for an hour. Sometimes he calls it divorce therapy, as he's biting and kissing her lips so savagely that she's sure one day Mark will notice the bruises.
She runs a hand through her hair as Derek buttons his shirt. He leans over to peck her on the cheek and it feels like it's burning her skin.
It's Derek, and she's Addison, and she wonders if she never cheated in the first place if they would have been just fine.
He leaves the supply closet and she waits a few moments before going out as well. This is the hallway that's always empty, but they need to be careful. (Maybe she's learned something after all).
But it's not empty.
It's Richard, and it's Mark, and it's Meredith, and it's Derek staring at the floor. She notices that he forgot to tuck in his shirt.
Richard looks like a parent who is sick of dealing with guilty teenagers. Meredith looks like she wants to melt into the floor and die (sometimes Addison just wants to force-feed her a sandwich). Mark's face is pale as he looks from his former best friend to his former best friend's ex-wife. She feels nothing and wonders if she should.
"Seriously?" Meredith whispers.
"This is your revenge, isn't it?" Mark asks Derek.
Now they're all looking at Addison.
She shrugs.
"I never cheated in school," she says, and it's true.