2. Broken
Loving can hurt sometimes
but it's the only thing that I know
when it gets hard -
you know it can get hard sometimes
it's the only thing that make us feel alive
Meredith Grey sat on the ground in the tunnel she used to hang out with her friends her intern year, avoiding her responsibilities as a resident and Derek. Mostly Derek and his nurse.
She sat down, the feeling of the cold floor against her thighs and her butt, her back leaned on the wall. She had a can of Coke and a bag of chips in her hand, unopened. She was enjoying her break - a break from her ten-hour shift, but also a break from being all smiley and acting like nothing had happened. It was a hard job, because in fact everything had happened.
She had lost everything she had, again. She had witnessed her heart being ripped from her chest and shattered to the ground, again.
Her mom had died - she had died, after telling her she was a common, pathetic, weak, ordinary person. Once again Ellis had said she was a waste of space on the planet. Her mother had always been able to turn every weakness in Meredith's nature to terrifying, gigantic fears. She had always been able to turn her into a shaking, fragile creature. Her mother had dominated her entire life, determining more than anyone else the person Meredith had become.
Which was this small, strong, complicated girl who was feeling completely useless, sitting on the ground with her unopened snacks.
Meredith had spent a great amount of time and energy hating her mother, all the years of her childhood and part of her adult life. Meredith had to hate her because she had been sure her mother had never loved her. Sometimes, when she had been a teenager, she had spent endless nights, awake in her bed, waiting for Ellis to show up in her room just to take her in her arms and stroke her hair in silence.
But now her mother was dead. Her mommy was a handful of ashes, and she will never hold her again. And
Meredith was sitting on the ground at Seattle Grace where it seemed like everything was still the same. But everything had changed and she was broken.
She opened the bag of chips and put one between her lips, swallowing down the nausea.
Her stepmom had died for the hiccups and her dad had slapped her.
The only member of her family who could make her feel loved in a long time had died and her dad, the man who had been MIA her entire life, had slapped her in the middle of the hall. In front of the Chief. And in front of Derek.
She ate another chip, trying to ignore the nausea and to divert her thoughts from Derek.
Her dad had slapped her in the middle of the hall, telling her it was her fault if Susan had died. He had abandoned her when she was five, he hadn't seen her grow up, he didn't see who she was now because she looked so much like her mother. He hadn't been able to be a dad because of the anger he still felt toward Ellis, and then he had appeared, and Meredith had let herself fall in love with Susan, with the idea of being pampered by her, of being loved, maybe to even have a mother for once in her life. She had loved her enough to feel cold and empty inside when Susan had died. She hadn't needed her father slapping her and telling her it was her fault.
Meredith had the feeling she wasn't strong enough for this. She wasn't strong for any of this, because she was broken.
She swallowed some Coke along with her nausea, letting her mind stop on Derek for the first time, that day.
They broke up and he was all smiley and holding hands with that nurse, that Rose.
Okay, even if she was a mess.S he knew Rose didn't have anything to do with her messed up parents or even with her break-up with Derek. She hadn't even been in the picture when Ellis and Susan had died and she was far away from them when Thatcher had slapped her and Derek walked around telling her she was the love of his life.
Love of his life her ass. She hated him, stupid brain surgeon. Stupid, stupid brainless brain man. She was the love of his life and he had left her. Or maybe she had left him… She didn't know. What she knew for sure was that Rose didn't have anything to do with any of this except now she was the woman who slept in his bed. In his arms. In Meredith's spot.
She hadn't been enough for him - he didn't want her. He wanted to get married and have kids and she wasn't even capable of keeping herself together. She was falling apart and he walked around holding hand with that bitch.
She didn't love him anymore. She wasn't like Cristina - she wasn't going to be left at the altar, with a room full of people. She didn't love him - and she was a fool. Because she wished she could stop loving him, but the truth was, she was crazy about that idiot. Every fiber of her being was crazy in love with him, and she hated herself because she wasn't able to let him in, to ask for his help to keep her little body together.
She had lost him forever, she had lost everything, she was even losing herself.
She put the Coke and the chips aside, she leaned over and threw up on the floor.
She was broken - maybe forever.
