She was alone when Adele came for her the next day. George was out with Callie, and Alex had shown up just after noon to 'get Izzie the hell out of this house'. It was true, that the only places that Izzie had been lately were the house and the hospital, but it had not even been a week. Still, Izzie had not complained once Meredith assured her that she would be okay, and Meredith was grateful that she would be alone. She had told them that she was going out with someone and they had not asked questions, though she heard them whispering about whether or not Dr. Shepard was on-call.
Wouldn't they be surprised to see that he was? She thought as she hobbled over to open the door. She had not told them about the AA, and she did not know why. They had been so helpful, helping her move stuff downstairs for the few days that the stairs would be next to impossible, and making sure that she was comfortable. But she kept the conversation with the chief to herself.
"Hi," she said, once she had managed to open the door.
"Hi there. You look nice," Adele commented, and Meredith blushed. She had not made a conscious effort to dress nicely, but the clothes that Izzie brought down, a skirt and nice shirt, had made it seem that way. Truthfully, the skirt was the easiest thing to put on. She told the woman this much as she slowly made her way down the steps to Adele's car.
"Oh, I understand, dear. It can't be easy to maneuver with that thing. My youngest niece broke her arm last summer, and my sister had so much trouble making sure she kept it out of the water!"
Meredith slid into the car and situated herself as Adele went around to get into the driver's side.
"How's Camille doing?" she asked, quietly.
Adele's lips pursed as she backed out of the driveway. "As well as a teenaged girl stuck in the hospital can be, I suppose. Addison says that there's not much that she can do." Meredith nodded. She had heard, of course, that the girl's prognosis was not good. She should not have mentioned it, but what else did she have to talk to this woman about?
The drive was not very long, and Meredith was struck by the irony of the fact that they were going so close to the hospital. Adele got out and got Meredith's crutches out of the trunk, and as she did Meredith wished that she could slide over to the driver's seat and drive this car back home. By the time she had thought about it though her door was being opened. She got out and positioned herself on the crutches, closing the car door. It was not raining, but it had been earlier, and there were puddles in the ground, making getting through the parking-lot on crutches a chore.
As they got to the door of the Y, Meredith found herself hanging back in front of the ramp. Adele had gone to open the door for her, but she came back when she saw Meredith's reluctance.
"Don't back out on me now girl," she said, coming back to her.
Meredith looked up at the gray sky and wondered how the hell she had ended up here.
"Mrs. Webber?" she said, in a whisper, "Do I have to say that I'm an... that I'm an alcoholic? I'm not good with labels. I was always labeled. 'The good girl turned bad', 'the rebel chick', 'the girl sleeping with the attending'. I don't really want to be 'the alcoholic."
"So don't be," Adele said, simply. "You have a problem and you're working on it. That's the truth. And honey? You can call me Adele."
"Okay," Meredith murmured, and Adele went to open the door again. This time Meredith followed. She was not sure what to expect when Adele led her to the room where the meeting would be held. She had a strange vision of a meeting not unlike the Socratic seminars that she had participated in, in college, where everyone spoke on a topic, and this time it would always be alcoholism.Either that or a bunch of people sitting around playing Jenga, and bragging about how muchless they were shaking.Unbiased, she was not.What she saw in the meeting room that Adele took her to, however, looked more like one of the parties her junior high swim team had had, with people and food everywhere.
She felt eyes looking at her when she came in with Adele, but the looks weren't hostile, they weren't 'Oh my God, what has Grey done now?" looks; they were just curiosity about a new person entering their gathering. An Asian man with thin glasses, dressed as if he came straight from an office, came up to them. "Ah, Adele, this must be Meredith."
"Yeah," Meredith interjected. "That's me." She balanced awkwardly as she held her hand out for him to shake. He was attractive, but he wasn't McDreamy. She attempted to force Derek out of her thoughts, though. That was not what she was here for. Dealing with Derek came next.
"Glad to have you here, I'm Steven Tran, and I'm the leader of this merry band. We'll go ahead and start, if you guys would take a seat."
Adele guided Meredith to a chair in the circle, and pulled another one over for Meredith's cast to rest on. It was becoming another person.She was practically counting down the hours until Callie would take the thing off. She thought about asking if she could smash it, just for the satisfaction, but decided that something like that would merely convince the staff that she was insane.
The other people in the room sat down, and Meredith found herself examining them. They did not fit with her idea of alcoholics, but then again, neither did Dr. Webber. Or herself.
"Let's get started," Steven said, sitting down and smiling at everyone. "Does someone want to speak first?"
A young man, he looked about nineteen, with green hair and a black leather jacket cleared his throat and stood up. "Um... I'm Paul... Yeah. Um. Well, you guys know that my sister Rachel had been doing good. I mean, she was going to her meetings and she was clean... But two nights ago I found her passed out in the bathroom. She had OD'd on heroin."
Meredith watched the young man, he reminded her of a friend that she had once had, a kid named Zach, whose mother never seemed to notice that he and his girlfriend did drugs. Zach had wanted to stop, and had tried to keep Erin clean, but the girl eventually disappeared. No one knew where she had ended up. Meredith had never done drugs, just everything else.
"She's at Seattle Grace now, and they're sending her to rehab. Again."
"How are you doing?" Steven asked him, leaning forward towards the boy.
"I'm... Okay. Better than I was last time she used. I'm being strong for her. I just... I always think she wants to get clean, like I wanted to get sober, but she can never stay clean."
Steven nodded. "Good. We're here for you, Zach, and I'm proud that you've made so much progress."
Zach smiled. "Yeah. Thanks."
Steven nodded, just as the young woman sitting on the other side of Adele burst into tears.
"Gina? What is it?"
She sniffed, wiping her face on a tissue that Adele had produced from her purse. "I... I fell off..." she said softly. Standing up. "Last weekend, my friends and I were celebrating my best friend's promotion. I'd been sober for so long that I thought, what would one glass of wine hurt?" she began to sob again.
"What happened?" Steven asked gently.
"Nothing. My boyfriend came, and he stopped me. He was great. I just felt so stupid, and disgusting. I knew what could happen, but I was sure that I was a different person. It was just one glass." Her sobs started again, and Meredith looked away. She did not really understand what the big deal was, if she had stopped drinking at one glass of wine. Hell, her life wouldn't be anywhere near this screwed up if she could do that.
Her disdain must have shown on her face, because she realized that everyone was looking at her.
"Meredith?" Steven said. "Do you want to tell us your story?"
Meredith swallowed, and reached for the crutches. "Got a year?" she asked, bitterly, sliding her casted leg to the floor.
"You can stay in your chair, dear," Adele told her, gently placing a hand on her shoulder, but Meredith shook her head.
"No. If I have to do this... I'll do it right... I'm Meredith. I'm a surgical intern at Seattle Grace. I have a drinking problem. I guess, I guess I've had it since I was in high school, but I never thought anything about it. Just that when I drank I got drunk. Usually, really drunk. I was your classic bad girl, child of a single parent. My mom was a surgeon... Now... Now she has early onset Alzheimer's. I thought I'd cleaned up my act when I started med school. But... But... I met a guy, when I moved here. Well, it wasn't him, really, it was moving, and putting my mom in a home, and everything.
"When I met him, it got better. I mean, I drank, but it wasn't the 'get drunk and sleep with random guys' drinking that I specialize in. But then I found out that he was married."
Saying all of this was difficult, and she was well aware of the fact that everyone in the room was looking at her, but she focused on the poster on the opposite wall and kept talking.
"He decided to try with his wife, and I... Spiraled. My roommates got worried about the guys I was bringing home. I had a good relationship, but then the guy. Derek. He and I. We had sex. And I was a dirty mistress. But they're divorcing. And I know it sounds awful, but we're right. It sounds like I've just been letting him hurt me, but I've been in those kind of relationships. This isn't it. We just screwed up, and we're working on it. And coming here is my half of the bargain."
She sighed, realizing how pathetic she seemed.
"But my deciding to get...sober... really did not have anything to do with him. I got drunk three nights ago after a patient died. My friends brought me home, because they care, but I got mad I tried to get out of the house by way of a tree. It was stupid. Anyway, I fell, tore the cartilage in my knee. And I'm here." She left out the ultimatum from Dr. Webber, because she had a feeling that she might have ended up here anyway.
"That's quite a story, Meredith," Steven said, as she slowly sat down again. "And I want you to know, we're not here to judge you. Your life is yours, we're just here to help you live it in the best way that you can." She nodded and slid back into her seat. Adele took her hand and squeezed it as Meredith felt that a weight had been lifted off of her.
It was weird, she thought, to know that she was never going to drink again. She would miss, she guessed, being the girl who danced alone with the bottle of tequila, but there were things that were more important than that. Like being happy with herself, and having a good relationship with Derek. She smiled as she thought about him, and remembered the concerned look on his face as she had gone into surgery the other day. He loved her and she loved him. They would make it.
As the meeting ended, she stood up to listen to the prayer of serenity, taking it into her mind and holding on to it. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
She could not change that Derek had been married. She could not change that her mother had Alzheimer's. But she could fix herself. She could be a great surgeon. As she got into Adele's car she felt peaceful in a way that she had not felt in a long time. She was heading in the right direction.
She went to meetings for the next two days, chauffeured by Adele. Izzie and George were curious, but they accepted her explanation of 'a thing she had to do'. On the day before she would go to Callie to get the lighter splint, she asked Adele to do her a favor: "Could you take me to my mom? I really wouldn't ask, but Izzie hasn't been driving yet, since Denny, and George is on-call. I just want her to know that I'm okay…." It was more than that though, at the meeting she had found herself talking about her mother, and her childhood.
"Of course, dear," Adele said, quietly. "Just tell me where to go." Meredith directed her to Roseridge and Adele pulled up in front. "I'll wait here. Ellis was never very pleased to see me," she said, as she helped Meredith with her crutches. Meredith nodded and hobbled in. She was getting seriously tired of the crutches; although they were a great lesson in asking for help.
"Hi, Meredith!" the front nurse said cheerfully. "How are you doing? Your mother said that you were injured, I didn't know--."
"Yeah. I fell. Where is she?"
"Just there, in the sitting room. She has had a good day. Go right on in."
Meredith nodded and made her way to her mother. Ellis did not seem to focus on her as she sat down, and Meredith sighed.
"Hi, Mom. How are you?" There was no response; her mother's eyes were focused just over Meredith's shoulder. "I'm sorry I did not come the other day. Derek explained everything to you, right? I fell out of that old tree, by my window. The one I learned to climb on. I'm okay though, or I will be. I'm taking care of myself. So, you don't have to worry. If you do, worry that is. I'm going to be okay."
Suddenly, her mother reached out and grasped Meredith's hand. She was startled, but she squeezed her mother's hand back. Ellis Grey did not look at her daughter, and Meredith was not sure that her mother had really heard her, but it did not matter. They sat like that for a while, until a nurse gently told Meredith that visiting hours were over, and she remembered Adele alone in the car.
"I'm so sorry," she said, as she got in.
"Not a problem, dear. Not a problem at all."
Meredith sat back in her seat, but was startled as her phone began to vibrate.
"Hello?" she said, without really glancing at the number.
"Hey, Meredith, baby. I'm in town next month, want to get together?"
The voice sent chills down Meredith's spine, and she quickly slammed her phone shut. "Wrong number," she murmured to Adele, sliding her phone back onto her belt, and attempting to keep her hands from shaking.
A/N Review please!
Jenga is also fun with people with bad fine-motor skills. Trust me, I'm one of them.
Meredith-like rant, feel free to skip:
So, um, people have been taken issue with the fact that in this story I portray Meredith as having a drinking problem. Okay, so here's my justification: She probably doesn't, and I handled it that way in I Wish I May. But there is something not normal about sleeping with a new guy every night, and all the other not-good things she does at her age and with her level of maturity in other things.
Also, I did acknowledge that she isn't in too deep, as in she's not necessarily an alcoholic. But she has a problem. And yeah, maybe the chief shouldn't have threatened her, but he cares about her and her mother enough to worry.
As for her being complacent. She's not. She's scared of what could happen if she didn't go with it. Meredith does that. She goes along with things.
I'm not going to pitch the "it's my story" fit, because I understand your concerns. And this is just a short fic in between I Wish I May and it's sequel (not named yet), if you don't like what I'm doing the next one will be up soon!