"Callie, we are not done! Please!"
"Arizona, we were already done eight years ago."
Within minutes the rain and the dark swallowed the blonde, her despair and the Florence Motel.
Present days
Callie was driving aimless, confused.
She stopped crying around the second drive through the city and she was just in some sort of a trance.
Million thoughts ran through her mind. A chaotic mess of people, emotions and memories: Penny, Arizona, an affair, the kids, her kids, a kid. And than again a kid, her kids, the kids, an affair, someone else's Arizona, her Penny…
When you faint, when you lose consciousness it usually a violent or unpleasant return to reality. A jolt, some malodorous vinegar under your nose or a slap full in the face are all a painful regain of lucidity. So it is a car that honkes at you and get you violently out your revery.
Callie buried her face in her hands, then ran them through her hair with a deep breath. She needed to get out of the street even if it meant going back to reality. Forty minutes and a call later she knocked on a familiar door.
She couldn't recall how much time she spent under the rain. She was trying to gain some courage to face the person behind that door.
After she knocked she was welcomed with a "Jesus Cal! You are going to be sick!" The woman pulled her inside and started undressing her. "Go get a hot shower, for Christ sake. You are as white as a ghost!"
That night felt infinite to Callie. For the third time she was under water. She felt under water, in some sort of a bubble that the hot from the shower was melting away. Her defenses were going down. Naked and exposed, she was entering the real world again. She looked at herself in the mirror for what felt the first time in six months and what she saw upset her even more. She knew she had lost some weight but the pale bony figure in the mirror with dark circles under her eyes said something else. Since most encounters with Arizona happened in her lunch break, she believed she was nourishing her body with love. It now seemed that something had been more likely eating her up from the inside. The secret, maybe. The shame, perhaps. Defeated, she searched for a comfy sweatpants and a hoody trying to hide herself again before the next certain exposure downstairs.
The redhead was cooking when she spotted Callie on the threshold. She left the task and got closer. Face to face she sucked her in a powerful hug, strong enough to crumble the last defense the brunette had.
Callie started crying so violently that took Addison by surprise. Callie's pain was tangible and contagious even if she still didn't have a clue of what was going on.
Only when the tears started to subside she guided Callie to the kitchen counter and went back to her previous task.
Callie was aware of the looks that every now and then Addison thrown at her but she was grateful for the silence.
This was Addison after all: someone you could call out of the blue, whom gives you shelter without asking a single question.
In fact, the redhead had in no time two plates of pasta ready on the counter. She took a sit on Callie's left only saying "It's spicy, you should like it."
However, Callie couldn't ingest anything if she didn't spit something out first.
"I left Penny", she had to start somewhere.
The news didn't make Addison falter, because it wasn't a news at all. She was well aware how much her friends' marriage was fragile. What she didn't know was what actually happened to make Callie act this time. So she just took the brunette's hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze of support.
"I had an affair for the past six months", she went on staring into space.
"I had an affair for the past six months with Arizona Robbins", Callie finally admitted for the first time out loud.
That's when Addison's fork stopped midair. That's when something, or better someone, came back from the dead. She was so sure she wouldn't hear that name again to the point she would have betted good money on it.
But it seemed clear that she would have lost big time.
Addison got up and went straight to the cup board. She took two wine glasses and placed them in front of Callie.
She had a bottle of Chianti already in hand and she was generous with the pouring.
She gulped half of her own glass straight away and looked at her friend. In a single click all the puzzle's pieces came together and the brunette's odd behavior of the past months was instantly understandable.
"Say something, Addison", Callie finally spoke playing with her own glass.
"Did you have an affair or are you having an affair?"
The brunette wasn't able to hold her gaze, "It ended tonight".
"Did she give up on you again?"
That single question hurt like a motherfucker. Callie shut her eyes close and tried her best to swallow back fresh tears.
Telling your story to someone is a process that can change drastically your perception of what you thought was the reality.
In that kitchen, to Addison, Callie organize in a coherent story the chaotic mess of people, emotions and memories that had taken residency in her own head for the last months.
For the first time, Callie had to explain the story of her affair to someone. In doing that, for the first time, she couldn't just focus on emotional glances, a feeling of deep intimacy or an idea of destiny. When you report a real story you have to stick to the facts.
And the facts were pretty arid: they met by chance, they still felt attracted to each other and they decide to act on that attraction. They had sex in an isolated motel for months without sharing a single word on their lives.
And that was it.
There was a gap between the love story Callie believed she was in and the sexual affair she had just shared. Now she could see it. Now that she verbalizes it, she was painfully aware of how much she distorted the narrative with past feelings and future hopes. Did Arizona give up on their relationship again? Not really since there wasn't anything to give up in the first place.
Maybe there had been some mixed signals from the blonde at some point.
Maybe they never happened.
More likely Callie only needed a good enough reason to justify her own actions.
It didn't really matter anymore. Her marriage ended. Her affair too.
"What am I going to do now?" Callie looked her friend with profound anguish.
"What you did last time. You take some time off to grieve and then you start to built your life back."
A/N Did anyone actually think that Callie was going back to Penny?
No Penny nor Arizona this time but a real conversation is coming.
In the meantime Happy New Year to every one