Reinventing Addison
Numbness is tempting. And seductive. And easy. She's supposed to be a fighter, she's supposed to be the woman who doesn't shy away from a fight, the power-radiating, secure Addison, out to save babies and look good doing it, but she has a feeling this person is gone, that this person is inextricably linked to Derek. She gets to be someone else now.
The hair helps. Blonde and cut and curled, she looks a little like Marilyn Monroe- or a drag queen impersonating her, anyway. A good drag queen, mind. It doesn't even look that bad, once you get over the initial shock. Just very different, so different, in fact, that Mark, for a split second, didn't recognize her when he met her for lunch. He claims this isn't true, of course, but she knows better. And she doesn't blame him- looking at her reflection in the silver cutlery, she doesn't recognize herself either. New Addison will take some getting used to.
They're sitting at a typical, trendy TriBeCa lunch location- all glass and white and chrome, raw fish and miniscule meals with pretentious names, Mark's idea, obviously. Old Addison would never had thought of this place, personally being a fan of friendly neighborhood restaurants, or, you know, staying home. With Derek. Wearing huge T-shirts and attempting to cook, which almost never worked, and usually ended in take-out or pasta, and watching Julia Childs and arguing over why their food never turned out as good. And falling asleep on the couch, and waking up to find herself being shleped to bed rather unceremoniously by her husband, both of them collapsing with laughter when she peeks up at him.
New Addison, she decides, likes this place. Even the raw fish.
"So," Mark says. He looks pale and, on closer inspection, awful. All this must be as hard on him as it on her, she reflects. After all, he's known Derek since they were eight years old. They bonded the way kids do- simultaneous mischief. A birthday party, Derek sticking an M&M up his nose to see if it would fit, and then asking Mark to help him get it out with a toothpick and some tweezers. They used to joke and say they bonded over surgery. Said it was their first surgery, together- first of many, they'd say, and click beer bottles and grin at each other in that manly, affectionate way. "Have you…" He leaves the question hanging in mid-air.
She nods. "He's… he called me." She leaves out the eight messages, the crying, the panic. Her voice is measured, even. "He said he was moving to Seattle for awhile. Remember Richard Webber? He offered him a job."
"Oh." Mark says. "Are you…?"
"I'm staying here." New Addison can treat this information as simple fact.
"God, Addison," Mark says, not looking at her. "What were we thinking?'"
She shrugs. "We weren't, were we?" She sips her Martini, glances up at him. A long silence, as Mark massages his temples and she glances, vaguely, at her unfamiliar reflection in the decorative mirror behind the bar.
"I was." Mark breaks the silence, tracing a crumb on the glass table, not meeting her eye. "I knew… I knew it was going to be like this when Derek found out, and I knew he would. I knew what I was risking."
New Addison has a hungry heart, a heart that's sniffing the air and getting excited, a heart in desperate need of attention. A heart that's starting to beat, loudly and irregularly, at this moment. New Addison has hands that reach out and lift his head off the bread crumb, making him look her in the eye. New Addison has neurons in her fingertips that awake at the sensation of his prickly, rough skin in hers, and corners of a mouth that turn up in a smile at his brave attempt at a cocky grin.
She's known Mark forever, longer than Derek even. He was in one of her physics classes in sophomore year. He drove her crazy because he looked like an underwear model, behaved like an annoying Frat Boy and was smarter than she was. New Addison can remember that she had quite a bad crush on him, was in high spirits when they were assigned to work on a lab project together. New Addison doesn't have to remember that he was too hungover to make their first meeting, that he sent Derek instead, who back then was shy and awkward and sweet, and invited her for pancakes to make up for his best friend's behavior. New Addison certainly doesn't have to remember the lingering taste of maple syrup on Derek's lips which she was never quite sure was really there, or just her mind playing tricks on her. Right now, New Addison is preoccupied with the man in front of her, his skin, warm and real under her touch, and his smile, a little sheepish, maybe, but sure nonetheless.
He meets her eyes, this time. "I was thinking that it was worth it. I was thinking you were worth it. So yes, I was thinking."
Her brain comes to life, on overdrive, snatched half-thoughts whirring through it. Clearer memories from the night before, how fantastic and right Mark's lips felt on her, how he gave her the confidence to free-fall headfirst into disaster, not do the right thing, not hold back, but to cling to this moment, raw and more real than anything she has experienced in awhile, as though she was waking up from the nightmare that was her life into this harsh, blinding, sordidly brilliant moment of reality.
"I wasn't," she says, and adds, before he has a chance to open his mouth. "And I'm not sorry I wasn't thinking." Because thinking would have made whatever happened between them before Derek burst in, that moment of clarity, that moment of awakening a New Addison inside her, impossible.
"Yeah?" Mark says. "You're not sorry?"
"No." New Addison isn't, anyway.
"Good."
In the end, it's surprisingly easy. Becoming, accepting, being New Addison. With blonde hair, and Mark and everything. New Addison is stronger, not as mean-spirited, and, because she doesn't spend her time out of the hospital fighting with someone she has to remind herself she loves, less resentful. Mark is there, to coax New Addison out of her shell. He lets her stay at his place, makes sure she remembers to eat. For a week, they don't as much as kiss.
Numbness seems like a small price to pay, sporadic episodes when she's tired, and feels like everything around her is happening through a heavy blanket, a layer of snow around her. When she's back a the Brownstone to pick up clothes or books, and there's a whiff of maple lying in the air. And she feels absolutely nothing. No nostalgia, no regret, no joy. Nothing. It's like she turns into ice for a few hours. Mark will try to melt her, but that never seems to work. She just waits for it to pass. Looking at herself in the mirror, an unfamiliar blonde in clothes Old Addison could never have worn, colors that would have clashed horribly with red hair, helps. Sometimes. And sometimes it makes it worse. But the spells become less and less frequent, and Old Addison silently fades away, and Derek with her.
Meanwhile, she thinks she's falling in love with Mark. Or could be. She wants to. Or would want to. In any case, it seems like the most natural thing in the world, when she wakes him up one night at three AM, scoots over to his side of his giant king sized bed, and starts kissing him. And it is natural. And right. And what she wanted. Loving someone, being loved, human contact, letting him in and the silence that follows, as he falls asleep with his mouth in her hair and she watches the sun rise over Manhattan. His measured breathing, his smell still unfamiliar, exciting on her skin. She slips into his arms, looses her cheeks somewhere between his chin and his collar.
Something's missing. But she can't figure out what, and so, she closes her eyes and, rocked into dreams by Mark's deep, even breaths, she drifts into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.