A/N: Okay here's a short update to the story hope that you all enjoy the next installment of My Hopes, My dreams.
Chapter 8: Dreams take flight
Abby's eyes drifted out the window, "you know this was just supposed to be part of my New Year's Resolution, I never thought that it would be something that I would stick with. You know what I mean. My life had spun so far out of control that I never thought that I would be able to get it back."
"How do you feel about that, getting your life back?"
She had a lit cigarette in her hand, taking a long draw from it as she thought about the answer to that question, "it feels good in a way, very strange."
"Go on."
"I am happy in a way, but it just seems at times to be something that is very surreal too." She said turning back around, "you know I swore that after that letter that was it. That I wouldn't put my heart on the line like that again but yet I have found myself doing things that I never thought that I would do."
"What things Abby?"
"Finish medical school; finish my first year as an intern." Abby said looking now back out the window. Looking out the window and not making eye contact seemed to make talking a lot more easy, as if she could put herself outside the conversation. "It is almost scary to think that I could practice medicine anywhere now. That I could go into private practice and treat people. I'm not comfortable with that, it's just seems like this impossible responsibility."
"It is an enormous responsibility Abby. Do you remember our conversation about your insecurities?"
Abby nodded, "yes I do and I have tried to face those on numerous occasions and try to have more faith in myself and what I can do. I must admit that when I was given the new job offer that I was shocked someone thought enough of me to pass my name on."
"Want to tell me about the job offer?"
"I got a job offer to do part of my residency or start my residency over basically in psychiatry down in Texas." Abby was getting restless now as she talked and smoked. "I liked my psych rotation a lot, was afraid that they might confuse me for a patient at times, and I think it was because of my crazy family that I was able to get such a solid grip on evaluating those with mental illness."
"And moving to Texas let's talk about that."
"There's not much to say about that." Abby said looking now at the woman sitting there whom she had been conversing with all this time, "I mean if I take this job and move to Texas, I'm giving up my residency at County, and it feels like I am giving up any chance of having a relationship with Carter. I mean he seems to feel like long distance relationships don't work and I can understand that but that's not the way that I feel."
"How do you feel about that?"
Abby was used to the poking and prodding that her therapist had to do, she still hadn't gotten to the point where she freely gave up information very well, she had been working on it and talked more with out prompting than she had in the beginning but it was still a work in progress. "It's only to Texas, his relationship, the one that was long distance involved an entire continent, this is me just moving to another state. However, I'm not saying that is going to make it easy, but doesn't anything in live worth having take a lot of work? This is something that, our relationship that is, is something that I would be willing to fight to make work. But my dreams can't take flight if I never let them off the ground."
Abby paced a little more now, "you know I've never thought that happiness was something that I deserved, and now I don't completely blame Carter for the breakdown of our relationship there was a part of that, that was my doing, which I am fully ready to take complete responsibility for. I was never one to rely on someone and in a relationship that works you need to be able to trust the person that you are with enough to open up to them, not only to let them be there for you but to be there for them as well, and I didn't do that the first time we were together, everything just seemed to pile up before I could get a hold of it and there was something inside me that didn't want to let him in. It was my crazy family and I had always dealt with it myself."
"And now Abby?"
She took another drag off the dying cigarette that was in her hands, "now I feel like that if I want to have this then I have to clip my wings. I don't know if I will ever get another chance like this. I am happy in emergency medicine, I like the variety in cases that it presents, the challenges of solving the mysteries when they come in, yet there's something about psychiatry that calls to me too. I don't want to see my dreams crash."
"Abby where do you envision yourself in five years?"
"Wow uh," Abby said, "I don't know?"
"Do you think that you, if you didn't' take this job offer would be with Carter in five years or even in 10 years."
"I would like to think that this time we could give it a serious go around. You know I mean we do work well together when we are together and we have fun when we are doing things as a couple, if you can call us a couple. I mean we've had a few dates and those have been fun. I wanted to take it slow not to rush back into things, knowing that we can't just start over as if nothing had happened but that doesn't mean that whatever feeling that I might have had are not there anymore. Damn it." Abby said kicking the floor now, "I'm in love with Carter and there's nothing that will change that."
"That frustrates you?"
"Everything about it frustrates me." Abby said nervously lighting up another smoke. She had this habit of chain smoking when she was doing this, but the therapist didn't seem to mind. "You know what it's like to come to the realization that you need someone in your life and that you don't want to live with out them. That they have become something that you really need, that you are comfortable talking with but yet there are some things that you never want to tell them for the fear of hurting them. Relationships take being open and honest and I have a hard time doing that, whether he knows it or not trying to be that kind of person, the one that can take the time to be dependent on someone takes a lot out of me."
"Is that something that you are ready for now?"
"To be dependent upon someone?" Abby half asked knowing that she would be expected to give an answer to that one even if she didn't want to be. "Yeah I think I am." She was finally answering honestly, listening to what her heart was saying. "I guess just because dream doesn't come true it doesn't shut the door on all the other dreams."
"What dreams might those be Abby?"
"The dreams that every little girl has growing up." Abby replied back, "to find that one man, your very own prince charming, the man who can rescue you from your mundane life and take you places that you never thought that you would ever see. I wasn't read fairy tales as a child but I've always believed that that someday I would find that man. Richard wasn't the right one for me and I know that now. It was a hard lesson learned in life, but I can see that I have that man in front of me now, within my reach and deep inside I am scared of losing that. Not that I would ever admit that to him, and I know in my heart that he only wants what is best for me, for me to follow my dreams, but he's a part of that dream, a part that I don't want to end in following the rest of my dreams. I know that I can be happy here in Chicago, I just, I guess that telling him how I feel, how I really feel is harder than I ever thought that it would be."
"Maybe you should tell him what you just told me?"
"Oh that falls under that easier to say than to do." Abby said, "talking to you is nothing like talking to him. I wish that I could say what I wanted to say when I am around him but it seems like the words never want to come when I am around him. All I can do when he's near me is barely keep my thoughts straight. When he was gone I missed him something desperately, I wondered constantly if he was alright, worried that he was going to get hurt and then when everything else happened I got the second chance that I wanted those feelings came back to the point that he's all that I think about anymore."
As Abby left her therapist's office that night, her decision was much more clearer than it had been in days. While she might have wanted her dreams to take flight, and part of that dream required her to move, there was much more for her in Chicago. She did love her job at County and while the other one provided opportunities she had opportunities at County as well. She made the decision that night to stay in Chicago, to give up part of the dream to make the rest of the dream come true. While Abby never thought that she would have happiness, she knew that she deserved it. She needed to give everything that she had to make this happen but he was worth it, she was worth it.
