He knows he fucked up. He knows.
He knows what he wants, and he's going to get it eventually.
He knows she's scared, she's hurt, she's trying.
He knows she needs time.
He'll wait for her, he knows that too. In bars or in hospitals. Manhattan or Seattle.
He'll wait.
He sits with his scotch, thinking. About how a little less than a year ago, he was with her. They were dishonest and they were wrong, sure. But it hadn't felt that way when he ran his hands through her hair, when she sighed softly into his ear. Quiet dinners and bottles of wine and whispered promises about how yes, someday this would change. Someday this would be made right.
He'll continue to pay his $400-an-hour shrink, who will continue to tell him that he is self-destructive to an almost pathological degree. The same shrink who makes it very clear that fucking his best friend's wife was a disgusting and very, very stupid thing to do.
Well, he didn't need anyone else to tell him that, did he?
He wonders where she is right now. He pictures her in that dingy trailer and smiles at the thought – Addison Forbes Montgomery, little Miss Upper East Side, is living in the middle of the woods. He has to give her credit for that. She must be trying pretty damn hard to convince herself that she should be doing the right thing.
He questions since when did the right thing involve being apart from the one you knew you should really be with? Fuck the past, fuck the vows, fuck the rings. He knows what is meant to be, if there really is such a thing. And he's sure she knows it too.
He sips his drink and it burns his throat, but he can't help enjoying it. Maybe he really is self-destructive. Maybe his life is just one long downward spiral. Maybe it all began on that day when he looked at Derek's wife – Derek's wife – and realized that he wanted her. And so he had her, of course. Mark Sloane always gets what he wants.
But what he hadn't expected was the aftermath. The tumbling, all-consuming, ridiculous obsession that their little fling had turned into. He remembers how she looked at him, how she touched him. He remembers clenching his jaw as he watched Derek ignore her, brush her aside, break anniversary plans. He was the best friend. He was simply doing the right thing when he took her into his arms and filled the void her husband had left.
He still has the nagging feelings, though – would she ever have turned to him if Derek hadn't shut her out? He'd like to think that it would have happened anyway, but he can't be sure. Before the extramarital business all started, he would have bet his career that Derek and Addison were the perfect couple and always would be. He had never really minded being their third wheel – he was the playboy, Derek's wild counterpart. And Addison… well, she had always just been his best friend's beautiful, captivating wife. The situation had seemed to work for all of them. At least, until he went and fucked it up.
He hates her, a little. He hates her for turning him into this broken mess who felt the need to fly across the goddamn country to bring her back. He hates her for making him lose his best friend.
He remembers their wedding. He remembers making the speech as best man. He remembers how the first time he kissed her, a year ago, he pulled back and looked into her eyes and saw Derek and felt his stomach clench at the thought that he had just destroyed something big. He remembers realizing that he was the worst person who had ever lived, to devastate his best friend's trust like that.
He pours another scotch, single malt, the same drink as Derek. He doesn't believe in regrets, and it's a damn good thing because otherwise he'd probably be even more fucked up.
If he were a better person, he would go to his best friend and ask for forgiveness. Nothing would ever be the same, anyway – but he shouldn't be throwing away twenty years of friendship over… over what? A woman. Well, not just any woman. The woman he wants to be with, for good. Addison. Derek's wife. Derek's wife.
Every time that word rings in his head, he feels a little nauseous. He really is going to hell, he thinks.
He knows she doesn't love Derek anymore. She just loves what Derek used to be – what the two of them used to be. He knows that someday soon she'll realize that her husband's moved on, moved on from everything that used to be part of all of their lives. The man lost his best friend and his wife and now he has his intern and his trailer and Mark wonders if he'll be happier this way.
He knows there really is no hope for a happy ending to this mess. He just wants her, he doesn't care what the consequences are because he's pretty sure all of them have already exploded in his face.
The way he sees it, it can't get much worse. So she might as well face the truth and come back to him.
He's in love with her – he's pretty damn sure about that. Her hair and her smile and her laugh and her infuriating cockiness, so similar to his own. He never thought he'd find one woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life trying to make happy.
But now he has. And it's killing him.
It was just his fucking bad luck that his best friend found her first.
He knows he fucked up… he knows.
She's all he has left, really. All he needs.
She'll come back to him, eventually. He knows that too.
But all he can do for now is wait.