This is not me.
It's not. Addison Forbes Montgomery Shepherd does not sit on a wooden, DIY porch, leaning against a trailer on a January morning so cold my breath is steaming in front of me, huddled in a grubby flannel shirt over a $200 Victoria's Secret negligee with a bright blue anorak –an actual anorak- around her knees, watching a misty, murky not-sun rise over Seattle. And she certainly doesn't do it almost morning because it's the only time she can think, cry or just be left alone. This is not me.
Maybe that's why the man asleep on the other side of this thin sheet of aluminum is not my husband.
No, not what you think. I haven't gone back to my existence as adulterous bitch, thank you very much. But this man, the man who's flannel shirt and anorak I'm wearing, he's not Derek Shepherd. And certainly not my husband. That man can't possibly be the same person as the slightly awkward college boy who would tease me mercilessly about taking English lit along with the pre-med course load in college, and still stayed up all night with me to help me cram for the midterm. Who would order extra croutons in every Cesar Salad, always, and leave them all for me, especially when he knew I was pretending to be off carbs. The only human being with whom I've ever completed the Sunday Times crossword puzzle. Who knew of –and loved- my dorky love for the Staten Island Ferry, and would get up early with me on some, glorious summer mornings and we'd catch the first ride, loving the way it feels to zoom in and out of Manhattan.
But all that was before, of course. Before Mark, before Meredith, before I became someone who wears flannel shirts and lives in a trailer. There has been a time, before –before the befores, of you will- when I would wake up in the morning and wonder if the man asleep next to me was still my husband. But that feeling –sliding up against him and willing him to come back to me- that feeling never lasted long, becomes sometimes he would, stir in his sleep, mumble "Addie, go back to sleep" and gently swat me on the forehead. And we were fooled, both of us. Thought it was the workload, sometimes not seeing each other for more than two days, or else trying to make quality time between rounds, in the on-call room, that was making it so hard. Everyone said residency was tough on marriages, everyone thought we were crazy for getting married so early, so young. One of my bridesmaids confessed to me that she'd lost fifty bucks when we came out of our surgical internship still married. There was a betting pool at our wedding how long it would last. How is it, that we survived that, and can't survive this?
I'll tell you why. Because we called this marriage once, and we proclaimed its time of death –12:03 AM, on a stormy night in New York- and for two months did nothing to revive it. And every night, lying in bed next to my hot boyfriend after a day of cutting up infants and saving their lives and a night of sex, good sex, sex like I hadn't had it in what felt like years with Derek, every night I'd lie there, listening to Mark's even, measured breathing and wonder why it all felt so wrong. And it took me two months to figure it out. Well, not two whole months, but six weeks and a tiny Yankees onesie to figure out that what the reason it didn't feel right was it wasn't. I wasn't right without Derek. The problem is, I'm not right with him anymore either.
Doc, that flea-carrying, hyperactive canine freak, strolls over, lies down next to me. I let him out when I woke up, even threw a couple of sticks, because I'm that kind of person. I play with the dog my husband shares with his ex-mistress. Once again, this is not me. I glance at the dog with disdain. I don't want him. My husband doesn't want me. We've got that much in common. I grab a tennis ball from behind me, consider, briefly, aiming for the river. He'd probably try to fetch- and drown. And if Derek didn't hate me before, killing Meredith Grey's dog would definitely do it. Suddenly, I feel something wet on my ankle- I'm being slobbered. I have ex-mistress'-dog-saliva all over my ankle. This is what my life has become to- and the most disturbing part is that I'm strangely comforted.
Behind me, I can hear the trailer door clicking open.
"Mmmmm-or-ing," a voice behind me grunts and I can't stop myself- I burst out laughing. Derek looks so distinctly un-Mc-Dreamy-ish, so… his hair is sticking up at weird angles, his rattiest, oldest T-shirt is stained in places and has slipped up, revealing budding love-handles. His eyes are slits, he's frowning in confusion as he bends down to look at me, looking like a Gorilla trying to perform heart surgery, and I can smell his morning breath even from here.
"Addie, wha?" He mumbles, crouching down next to me and loosing his balance, falling on his butt with a little thunk that makes Doc howl, because his tail was apparently in the way. I laugh even harder, but then, suddenly, as he starts to smile and his wrinkled brow irons itself out, my laughter gets caught in my throat, and I choke up, start crying. The knowledge hits home that I want to see him looking this ridiculous every morning for the rest of our lives, and I won't. I won't get to see what it looks like when the love-handle-potential becomes a reality, when his eyes are framed with crows feet and the hairline recedes, revealing the incredibly soft skin of his forehead. I won't get to feel his elbows when the skin sags, won't run my hands through his graying hair. We will not grow old together. We will not look ridiculous together.
He sits down next to me, dangles his legs from the porch and puts his arm around me. Gently, but detachedly kisses the top of my head, wipes away my tears with the tip of his T-shirt. Strokes my flannel-wearing arms and doesn't say a word, because he knows that there is absolutely nothing he can say, now, that will make it right.
We look over the river, into the cold, gray sky. Looking at each other has become impossible, apparently, but I can still lean against him, nestle my head in the crook of his shoulder where it fits perfectly and join him as he studies the grayish blue of the Seattle sky. And I think about how much I still love this man.