April
"What do you have to say to me, April?" he asks, sounding broken and bitter.
"Matthew, I…" I stutter and take a few steps closer to him. I hate how shaky my voice sounds. "I can explain everything."
"Is that so, April? Well then humor me, please! You can start by telling me why you found the need to sneak behind my back and hide something that affects me directly?"
I sit on the couch, back straight as an arrow, hands on my lap, and try to appease him with a shy smile. It doesn't seem to work though as he is pacing the room, visibly distraught.
"I wasn't going to tell you until I was sure that I'd actually managed to pull it off."
"You were stalling! Waiting until the very last minute, so I'd have no way of stopping you. You knew exactly what you were doing, April!" he exclaims and points his finger at me accusingly.
"Stop me? Why would you even want to stop me?" I ask dumbfounded. Something must be wrong here, I convince myself. "Wait, what exactly did Nicole tell you?"
"She told me that you're planning on turning our clinic, our clinic, into some fancy-ass surgical center for the homeless!"
"Well yeah…" I nod, profoundly confused. "It wouldn't be fancy even if I'd want to, but think of all the people we could be helping if the clinic were to be expanded."
He hovers over me and scoffs: "Could be helping? And what in God's name have we been doing this whole time, if not helping people? Riding ponies and admiring rainbows?"
"That's not what I said. Please, Matthew, don't be angry at me."
"Oh but I am, April, I am angry at you!" he says, as he sits right in front of me on the coffee table, his knees squeezing my thighs. I grow uncomfortable with every second and lean back on the couch. "You didn't even think about our colleagues and how this would affect them, did you?"
"What are you talking about?" I ask at a total loss. He frowns and shakes his head, as if in pain.
"You don't get it, do you? Of course not. I mean, how could you? It has nothing to do with your precious surgeries, so you don't even think about it!"
"A little explanation would be nice," I mutter under my breath.
"Don't use that tone on me," he berates me and proceeds with his reasoning. "Ten people are working at the clinic right now. Almost all are former paramedics, couple of nurses here and there. Each of us does everything around there: charts, patient treatments, rounds, managerial tasks. We take turns; we each contribute the same amount of work for the good of the whole clinic. We are each other's equals, with no one but God to answer to. Say you get the funding and bring this crazy idea of yours to life, what happens to the power dynamic at our workplace? You think we'd still be each other's equals? Or some hot-shot surgeons would come and run the place?
"How can you even think about it?" I ask in utter disbelief.
"How can I not? I'm about to be a nobody, a stupid grunt in front of my wife. As if I haven't suffered enough humiliation in my life already." He grunts then jumps to his feet and turns his back on me.
My resolve is starting to crumble and I'm crippled with guilt again. He is right, of course. It was me who humiliated him in front of his friends and family, shattered his heart into million pieces, and broke his trust in me and true love. The disgrace I caused him pushed Matthew into a downward spiral and as a result, he quit his job as a paramedic. Accidentally running into me or Jackson at the hospital would've been so dreadful for him, so he made a choice to leave.
As we started dating again, he suggested I should leave Grey Sloan and the ghosts of my past behind and start afresh, with him at the clinic. It's funny, but I loathed the idea at first. It made my blood boil to even consider the possibility of leaving behind all the people I love over there, to abandon surgery, not to ease slowly into my new life but to jump into it, shutting all doors behind me. I rejected the idea, loud and clear, but somehow this subject would come up in all our conversations at that time, driving me insane.
Even that dreadful day of the accident, as we drove together, Matthew still insisted that we should talk it over, just one more time. If I'd gotten a penny, every time I'd heard him say that… I tried to ignore him or change the subject, asking him to pay attention to the road, to be careful with a curve up ahead. He nodded absentmindedly and made another effort to convince me. My outburst seconds later almost cost me my life.
"I'd sooner die than leave the hospital!" I screamed at him with everything I got in me, turning beet red.
The penetrating, unblinking look in his eyes would follow me to my grave. He looked straight at me, pale as snow, and opened his mouth in an attempt to say something. Though he couldn't do it, since at that moment I heard a deafening sound and sharp pain, coursing through my body. As I flew through the windshield, a clear thought flew through my mind.
It's all your fault…
Later on, during my recovery, I thought to myself that perhaps the accident was God's way of showing me my new path in life. I saw then that I'd clung to my past too much; I wasn't ready for a change before, but with this accident, I was given a sign from above, one I simply couldn't ignore. The car crash pushed me and Matthew together, and when I said to him about my decision to join him at the clinic, he was so overjoyed and happy as I've never seen him before. I was glad to please him since all I did to him previously was cause him pain and suffering, both physical and emotional.
"You could never be a nobody, Matthew," I say softly and walk up to him, wanting to stroke his shoulders to calm him down. He turns around to face me, grabs both my wrists and pulls me closer. I think he wants to kiss me, but he only brings his lips close to mine and stares me down.
"If you insist on carrying on with this plan of yours, I don't think we could survive this, April."
I freeze on the spot, mind racing like crazy. This can't be happening. I can't allow myself to live in this reality. I can't fail at yet another marriage. And I can't accept that all my years of hard work and medical training are at risk of going down the drain. I feel my body shaking, and wrap my arms around me if only to crush this feeling of despair.
"But why?" I almost cry and turn to him for answers.
"Because you promised me, April. Or are you going to break yet another promise to me?"
"I promised to leave the hospital, and I did. Why do you insist…"
"You promised that we'd work together, side by side!" he shouts, interrupting me. "You promised me partnership! You promised me respect and your devotion. I'm sorry, April, but I don't see how you opening your own freaking hospital with his money is a sign of respect towards me."
"This is what's bothering you?" I should've known he would react this way. My running away with Jackson is still a forbidden topic for Matthew, although I can see that he is still not over it. "It has nothing to do with Jackson or his money. He has no idea about any of this, I swear!"
"You expect me to trust you on this? He asks sarcastically. "You don't have the best track record when it comes to him."
I want to defend myself and hold my ground, but realize that I have no arguments. I'm so tired of fighting, that I just want to give in to Matthew and give up altogether, but suddenly I remember Catherine's intelligent eyes looking at me with approval and ordering me not to waste her time. I still have a little fight in me left, so I lick my lips nervously and hold my ground.
"It's your choice to believe me or not, but I choose to pursue this. I want to do good the best way I know how. It breaks my heart not to have your support. But, Matthew, it has nothing to do with you."
"Well, duh…" he lets out a sarcastic laugh and points his finger at me, a gesture I'd grown to hate. "It's about you. As always everything is only about you!"
"How is it about me?" I scream almost hysterically, choking back my tears.
He gives me a heavy look and gets his composure back. "You decided to leave the hospital, April, you. It was a conscious choice made by you, a grown woman, after weighing in all pros and cons. You saw the clinic for what it was and now what; it's suddenly not enough for you?"
I wipe a tear with my finger and take a deep breath, trying to relax. Matthew's calmness in the face of my nervousness does not make me look good or strong in this argument. And I so desperately want to win this argument.
"No, it's not enough for me," I say with a shaky voice. "People are allowed to change their minds. I changed my mind."
"Of course you changed your mind! You always change your mind, April. It's like a trademark of yours; you should patent the hell out of it. You'd be rich and wouldn't have to beg your ex for the money."
I snap at him and start pacing around the room, hand on my hips. "You leave him out of it! Leave him out of it, Matthew, or I'll…"
"Or what? You'll change your mind in regards to me too? Wouldn't be the first time."
"How many times will you bring this up? You said you'd forgiven me. And yet here we are, having the same old fight we already had millions of times."
"Because when the situation presents itself, you choose his comfort over the unity of our family!" he sees me frowning in utter disconnect and rushes to explain: "Just last week, when I suggested Harriet go with Ruby to my parents' ranch for the summer so that they could bond and start treating each other as sisters, you didn't even consider it. You shrugged me off as if I was a stranger to Harriet with absolutely no say in the matter."
I stop in my tracks and give him a probing look. For the first time in this whole damn evening I don't feel small or week, getting lost in a quicksand; no, I've found my ground and stand firmly on my feet. This is the only area of my life I would never subject to his control.
"But you don't really have a say in the matter," I say and watch his face turn red from anger. "At least not when it comes to important, fundamental decisions. She has me for that and her father. And it's not going to change, no matter how uncomfortable it may be for you, and trust me; I get just how uncomfortable it is for you. It's not easy for me too. But deciding how to raise Harriet, what school to send her to, how to organize her summer is up to me and her father. It's not up to you."
"And how do you think this makes me feel?" he asks shrewdly with an almost philosophical undertone to it.
"To be honest, darling, this is the only area where I don't give a damn about your feelings."
Matthew weighs whether or not to say something else, but ultimately decides against it and leaves the room hastily, without uttering so much as a good night.