That night, as I tried to focus on my biology homework, I couldn't get Meredith out of my head. I was thinking about her a lot. Why did she hate me so much? Was I mean to her? No. Was I mean to her friends? No. Was I mean to anyone? NO! I twisted my pencil around in my hand and startled myself when the phone rang. I picked up nonchalantly and breathed into the receiver, "Hello?"
"Derek, are you coming to pick me up? I've been waiting for a half hour!"
I silently cursed myself. MY DATE WITH ADDISON! I had completely forgotten! "Oh my God, Addison I'm sorry. I completely forgot. I have so much homework and still have to study for my tests. Do you think we can do it another night?"
I silently waited for her response. "Sure, fine, whatever…I'll see you at school tomorrow. Bye."
"Addi-"
Great. She hung up on me. I quickly dialed Mark's number and when he answered I immediately screamed, "Meredith Grey is ruing my fricken life. I forgot about my date with Addison because I was too busy figuring out why Meredith hated me, I can barely focus on my bio homework, Addison is pissed, and this whole situation is really screwing me up!"
I heard him sigh on the other line. "Dude, you got a thing for her don't you?"
I immediately felt my cheeks redden. "WHAT?! MEREDITH! NO! She hates me! SHE'S A COMPLETE BITCH!"
"It's the chase man…you love the thrill of the chase."
I rolled my eyes. "Mark, I have a girlfriend."
"Look, I'm just pointing out the obvious. If you didn't have a thing for her you wouldn't care if she liked you or not."
I quickly defended myself, "We're working together for a MONTH! I do not want to be working with someone who will most likely sneak into my house and kill me while I'm sleeping."
"Now that's going a little overboard Shep…just talk to her."
"Meredith?"
"Yeah, ask her why she hates you. I'm sure she has an answer."
I hesitated. Mark did have a point. Talking to her couldn't hurt anything…could it? "Fine. I'll talk to her. But I want to make on thing clear…I do not have a thing for her."
I heard him chuckle on the other line, "Whatever you say Derek, whatever you say."
The next day in between classes, I stuffed my books into my locker and glanced at the clock: 11:02. I had three minutes to spare. As I closed my locker, I was surprised to see Meredith right in front of me. I took a step back, a bit surprised to see her. But, I had to act pissed. It wasn't so hard to do considering I really was pissed. "What do you want?"
She ran her long fingers through her golden hair and shifted on her feet. "Uhm, look I'm sorry about yesterday. I, I shouldn't have done that. You've done nothing wrong. It's just…well, my old boyfriend was exactly like you. Tall, handsome, popular, captain of the football team and everything…" she sighed then continued, "He ended up cheating on me with my best friend. I guess I've never really recovered from that…so I judged you. Which I know wasn't right, and I'm sorry." She avoided my eyes and looked down at her tiny feet.
I gave her a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry."
She looked up, her eyes wide. "For what? You didn't do anything."
"I'm sorry about your boyfriend. That must've sucked. But, I would never do that with my girlfriend so really…I'm not like your ex."
She slowly nodded her head. "You have a girlfriend?"
I replied, "Yeah, three years now." She gave me a small smile then continued to look down at her feet. I couldn't tell if she was disappointed or just curious. I was hoping she was disappointed, and the weird thing was…I had no clue why. I cleared my throat. "So uhm, I was thinking, maybe for extra credit or something we can start a week early on this project thingy."
She shrugged. "Sure. Like, today?"
"If you have nothing going on cause I know you're really busy…"
She smiled. "No, no…today is fine. Oh and I don't really take piano or violin. I just made that up."
A huge smile spread across my face. "You dirty liar!"
She giggled, "Shut up! I was mad and my hormones were all out of wack. But, I'm telling you now so deal with it."
I playfully shook my head. She was feisty. "Are you always this bossy?"
She grinned, "Maybe…"
I smiled then held out my hand. "Friends?"
She placed her hand in mine and that single touch sent shocks through my body. "Friends."
After school, I leaned against the graffiti colored wall and strung my fingers through my hair. We had a lot of work to do. As I looked up, I saw Meredith walking towards me. Her face was flushed from the cool weather, and a ridiculously huge sweat-shirt covered her tiny body. She wobbled side to side as she struggled to carry two giant jugs of paint. I grinned. She looked really cute.
"SHEPHERD, HELP ME OUT WILL YA?"
I ran by her side and took the paint out of her hands. "Too difficult for you?"
She stuck her tongue out at me and tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ears. "I'm not the strongest human being in the world."
"I can see that."
She glared at me. "Shut up."
I chuckled then gently placed the paint on the ground. As I stared at the wall, I took out several paint brushes from my back pack. "Okay we should probably start from the left side. Then we can work our way to the right."
She placed her finger on her chin and contemplated this. "Nah. We should go from the right first. It's easier."
"No, the left."
"No, I really think we should start from the right."
"The left makes more sense because there is MORE writing. Once we get finished that, its smooth sailing."
"EXACTLY! It will be easier to cover up the tiny spots THEN head to the big ones."
I shook my head. "No, we're starting from the left."
"OH MY GOD, START FROM THE DAMN RIGHT!"
"You know what Meredith, quit being so controlling!"
"I'M ONLY BEING CONTROLLING BECAUSE YOU ARE GONNA SCREW THIS UP!"
I raised my voice to match hers. Why did everything have to be a competition? "What's the big freaking deal?!"
"YOU'RE the one making it into a huge deal!"
"I'm not the one fighting about a stupid spot on the wall!"
"Everything all right over here?"
We turned towards Mr. Webber, obviously shocked to see him standing there. I quickly nodded. "Uh, yes sir."
He looked at me with a questioning look then faced Meredith. "Miss Grey? Everything okay?"
She shrugged her tiny shoulders, grabbed a paint brush, dipped it into the white paint, and started rolling the brush on the right side of the wall. "Everything is perfect, sir."
He nodded, "Good. Glad to see you two working early." We both smiled as he turned to leave.
After he left, she grinned then said to me, "I started from the right."
A/N: Thank you guys SO much for those awesome reviews. I seriously cannot stop updating and thinking about this story!!! I was actually ready to post a new chapter three days ago, but my All I Need fic was DELETED from the site because it dealt with real people! I am so sad right now considering I worked SO hard on that fic and now its GONE! So to make a long story short, my account got a "time out" because of the restriction and wasn't allowed to update new stories for a couple of days. Ugh, I am so sorry to all my All I Need readers. I really do feel your pain considering I had big plans for that story coming up...but thats life. And life sucks. Anywhoo, as you can see, they really don't like each other. Even after they "attempted" to be friends, they really do not. But, I think that makes the story interesting. Please continue to review and tell me your thoughts!!! (plus I'm sad cause of my story being deleted, but reviews would definatley lift my spirtits:)!!!)
MeredithDerekfanforever- I know, I want Derek to break up with Addison too, but she is actually going to be a significant character in this story, and is going to be sticking around for awhile. ;
