She never meant to lie. She didn't.
And anyway, omission isn't lying, is it? Not really. Not if you hide the thruth because it's easier, less painful, to love without it.
She didn't mean to lie. Not about Mark, not about Amy. She simply meant to keep it from Derek, because knowing the truth would hurt him. And that's the last thing she's wanted for months now, the delicate dance she does around Derek's wandering affections, his occasional presence, his wildfire mood swings.
He's stressed, she reasoned. Head of the neurosurgical department at a top notch hospital at age thirty eight isn't for people who take Sundays off and are home by seven. He spends more time in the OR than out, but he's saving lives, honing his formidable skills, he's building his career.
The little things, they didn't have to bother h with the little thimgs except that the little things turned into big things, so big that the weight of the secrets crushed her.
She realises she's speaking out loud now, the words tumbling from her mouth and she can't stop now because only half the truth sounds worse than the whole.
It sounds awful that Amy caught her and Mark kissing in his office that day, but she turned the tables cat-quick, bartering her secret for Addison's.
You keep your pretty mouth shut about my life and I'll never tell him what I saw you doing with it, Amy promised. You're just as bad as the rest of them, Addie. I thought you were better.Or does half the truth sound better? Who lets their sister spiral into a morass of drugs and alcohol in exchange for her silence?
Who kisses their husband's best friend? Their best friend. He was her friend too.
But now she's lost a sister and a husband and a friend, she's all alone. The truth can't hurt anyone now. Can it?
"Where is she?" Derek asks calmly. "Addison, this is serious, she could be hurt, not that you would care -"
"I love her." she says thickly. "I love her like a sister, I would never -"
"Oh, don't say you didn't mean to." he sneers. "She's young, Addison, she doesn't know better, she trusted you and look what you did to her."
She let her down. Amy, little Amy, the tempestously sweet child who turned into the sullen teen who stole frim her wallet, her jewelry but she never said a word. Money is just money, and she liked feeling like a big sister.
She did the things she thought a big sister should do, not that she ever had any guidance. She lectured on birth control, but at fourteen maybe it was too soon. She did her hair, she chose her first pair of earrings. She held her as she cried first over crushes and then real boyfriends, she took her shopping and listened to adolescent ranting. She covered shattered curfews, and nursed hangovers. She taught her to drive in Derek's car, hands over hers on the wheel. She performed CPR as her tears mixed with Amy's blood, pushing and pushing and pushing until she came back to life, dead for three minutes.
Closer than sisters, no blood between them.
Could it be her fault? There are the credit cards she told Derek she lost in the locker rooms and then had canceled. The tennis bracelet she can't quite remember where she put. Stray cash, a couple pairs of earrings.
The brand new bundle of prescription pads she had printed for both of them, but she's almost sure some are missing.
"She's using again, isn't she." Derek says, rattling the box.
She nods quietly. She's no saint, she's never exactly been squeaky clean. She can understand the pull Amy feels, how temptingly easy it is to swallow a pill, let it erase all the problems. She's been known to drown her sorrows in a bottle sometimes, after all.
"Well, you were lying." Derek says, something like satisfaction in his voice. "It wasn't your first time with Mark."
..
Things fall apart for a reason. Amy does drugs for a reason. She kissed Mark for a reason.
She slept with him for an entirely different reason.
Derek doesn't want reasons. He wants answers.
"What do you mean?" he asks, frustrated, he tries to drag his fingers through his hair like he does when he's at the end of his rope and ends up wincing in pain. "What do you mean, you don't know?"
"She didn't tell me wwhere she was going." she says defensively. "She didn't tell anyone."
"She has to come back, she can't just leave her residency program. She's got what, a year left, if that."
"Maybe she'll finish out the year somewhere else."
"Maybe she'll get herself shot or overdose or choke on her own vomit." Derek retorts. "You know what she's like. You know what she's done."
And you don't know the half of it.
"Who was she working with?" he asks suddenly. "If she's still using their DEA number, we could -"
"She wouldn't need to." she says miserably. "The prescription pads, they're missing. She took some of both of ours."
"Jesus." he exhales. "Addison, are you sure you don't know? This isn't just some secret you're keeping?"
"Why the hell would I do that?" she snaps. "I don't know where she is, or I'd have dragged her back here by now."
"Get on the phone." he orders. "Start calling, every program you can think of, we probably know someone somewhere and if she's finishing her final year somewhere else -"
"Derek." she whispers. "You should call Mark."
..
They're friends. He's lived with Mark long enough to know that the steady stream of girls he dates mean little more than sex to him.
He's lived with Mark long enough to know what concern looks like on his face, and the way he's looking at Addison now is concerned.
It was just the one time.
"Look, you have five minutes to talk." he starts, making Addison flinch a little. Mark looks away from her. But not at him.
"Did she tell you anything? Where she was going, who she's with?" Addison pleads. "She's using again, Mark."
"I knew."
"You knew." Derek says, his voice throbbing. "Now you're telling me."
"She...she came over a few months ago." Mark says heavily. "Said she needed a little cash, she was running low on rent and she wasn't making her loan repayments, but she was - you know what she's like when she's using."
He does know. They all know. His mother, voice raised, hus sisters, resorting to guilt and blackmail. Mark, the one who drove her to rehab because Derek couldn't look at her. Addison, a red handprint glowing on her pale cheek.
"You gave it to her anyway." Addison exhales. "Mark."
"I thought she was getting better." Mark yells. "She told me she was going to meetings, she wanted to finish her residency, she was applying to fellowships -"
"What do you mean?" Addison asks, eyes narrowed. "None of us have seen her in months, when did you?"
Mark stares at her a moment, his eyes drifting to the immaculately polished floor, and that one second of hesitation is all Derek needs to know what must have happened.
After all, they all know each other so well.
"Oh, Addie." Derek says disparagingly. "Did you think you were the only one he's slept with?"
I'm ...sort of digging back in titime, I think, with this story, back to maybe the point where everything started going wrong. These characters just have such gloriously entangled pasts.
If you like it and plan on reading...please review.
If you think this is/ should be a MerDer story, please do not review. You will not magically change my mind.