She curls up on his sofa, feet tucked underneath her, while he goes and grabs two beers from the kitchen. He sets them down on the coffee table and watches her gaze shift here and there, almost nervously before settling to look up at him through her lashes. She looks so vulnerable, but he just bites his lip and settles on the floor.
He's thought about this before. She'd be lying on the sofa, watching television. He'd sit on the floor, maybe playing with a chubby little baby boy who smiled at him the same way she did. She'd run her fingers through his hair absentmindedly while she watched. "I love my boys," she'd say with a small smile. And he'd kiss her and she'd smile.
He never should have let her in.
"Coop," she starts, with a small sigh. "You won't even look at me." He reaches for his beer, twists the cap off and tosses it off into a corner. He takes a swig and sets it back down.
"Do you want to watch a movie?" he tries. "Something with Ashley Judd killing some guy who wronged her?"
"I want to talk." She clambers down from the sofa, settles against him on the floor, and he knows that it's times like these that he can't resist her. His hands find their way to her hair, run through it soothingly. She picks up his left hand, the pads of her thumbs tracing the veins on it.
"What do you want to talk about?"
"Why weren't you there for me?" He's fighting this primal impulse in him to stand up and yell, to break things and shout, "I told you so!" He tries to remember that he loves her, that he cares for her so much, that they've been best friends for forever. "Why..." She starts to break again. He can hear it in her voice. He's tired of this game they've been playing, tired of the whole cycle. He understands that she's been hurt, but to hurt him back without knowing it, isn't that equally bad?
Her thumbs are still rubbing little circles on his hand.
Why does he do this to himself? She murmurs something about wanting to watch the movie, but he knows it's not the same. Their relationship has shifted. He's disappointed her for the first time, and she's not used to it. He broke her faith. They get back up, sit on the sofa, but there's a cushion between them. When she leaves, she gives him a soft kiss on the cheek. "Bye, Coop." She sounds tired. Maybe what he's always had to deal with is finally beginning to get to her.
The next morning, Violet walks into the office and drums her hands on the reception desk. "Dell, do you have cake?"
He smiles and sets it on the counter. "Double fudge with--"
"Thanks."
"It's for Naomi."
"Dell, I need this cake right now. I need it. Plus, Naomi wants you to stop baking things at her, remember?" When her day runs slow, she spends the majority of her day in her office eating cake. It doesn't make her feel better. Just a little sick.
At home, she makes herself a TV dinner and eats as she watches 30 Rock. She tries not to think of when Cooper would turn to her and roll his eyes, or crack a joke. She tries not to think of him at all. It doesn't work too well. When Tina Fey's character sits and eats in her wedding dress, Violet knows all too well how that feels. Someone knocks at her door. She wipes her hands on her pants and opens the door.
His hands are in his pockets and his eyes are to the sky. "I didn't want to say, 'I told you so,' last night, Vi. I didn't want to be that guy. I wanted to be the supportive best friend. I wanted to be Coop. But I did tell you so. I told you that he would hurt you, and you looked me right in the eye and you chose him over me. You trusted his judgment over mine. And when he left you hanging, you wanted me to stay to help you to pick up the pieces." He starts pacing, and she starts listing the six stages of grief in her head to help her focus on anything but this. "I love you, Vi. God, years of friendship and doing this with Allan and just--I love you. Do you see it? Can you see it? There. It took me forever, and I--" He laughs a little bitter chuckle that she didn't expect. "I thought it would be something poetic, with chocolates and roses, but there it is. I. Love. You."
She slams the door in his face, and stands with her back to the door, hyperventilating. She can't handle this. Why did he think she could handle this? He knocks at the door.
"Violet, open up!"
He makes no apology.
"Violet, I just have one last thing to say!" She takes a steadying breath, turns around and reaches for the handle. She runs through the six stages of grief in her head, listing every detail that she remembers, and she relaxes. She opens the door.
He's standing there, hands in his pockets and eyes to the sky.
And then, suddenly, he's invading her space, arms around her waist, lips pressing insistently against hers. She can't do anything, can't respond, just lets him kiss her in a way that she knows she'll remember for...forever. And forever scares her. He pulls away, and looks in her eyes. He's not smiling, and there's a part of it that makes her heart hurt.
"Bye, Vi."
"See you later."
She closes the door and takes a deep breath.
The next day, she goes in to find Sam, Naomi, Addison, and Pete talking passionately, agitated hand gestures and all. Sam's waving a paper. "Violet?" Addison asks.
"Yeah?"
"Did you know about this?"
"About?" She turns and her eyes settle on it. The empty office space. The glass that still bears his name.
"He...left."
"He left?" Sam hands her the letter, and she reads it quickly, stumbling over words like "resignation" and his name. She has a little flare-up of the chest pain from yesterday. It's nothing, she tells herself. Just a little heartburn.
"Yeah. We thought you'd know something about it. You guys are best friends, right?"
She bites her lip as Dell sets a cake on the counter. "I have a patient at 9, guys." She really doesn't, but she goes and grabs the cake and heads for her office anyway. She hears Addison whisper something in that sad tone of voice, and she doesn't want to deal with it.
She knows she can't fix this problem with cake. There's not enough cake in the world to fix this.
But that won't stop her from trying.
Allan left her. Then she left Allan. Then Cooper left her. What a sad little triangle.
Halfway through her second-last bite of double fudge whatever, she breaks. She runs to his office, shuts the door, closes the blinds, leans back in his chair, and half-lays on his desk.
She doesn't recite the six stages of grief in her head this time.