In medical school, they teach you a lot of things.
How to cut, suture, close. How to identify heart chambers. How to cure sick babies before they're even born. How to open up someone's brain without killing them. How to deal with diseases, stitches, medications, gunshots.
Maybe, even, what to do when you look at your beeper and see "Code Black."
But what they don't teach you is how to deal with what this job entails. They don't teach you how to tell a worried mother that her child has just died on the table. They don't teach you how to function on four hours of sleep a night, during which you can't even get your eyes closed because of the nightmares that haunt you. They don't teach you how to hold your voice steady when you call a patient's time of death and realize that in some small way, you are pretending to be God. They don't teach you how to prepare for feeling like your life is spinning out of control while you're trying to save someone else's.
And they sure as hell don't teach you what to do when your own husband refuses to look at you, when your heart is breaking while you rattle off a patient's condition to him and both of you act as if the past fifteen years never happened.
"Mrs. Calloway's tests are on their way back," I said, my eyes on his scruffy sneakers that he loved so much. He always used to tease me for wearing high heels to work whenever I could. (Who are you trying to impress, Addison?) I missed our teasing. "We'll know for sure then."
"And remind me again why you called for a neuro consult?" he asked, his voice clipped and detached. As if he wasn't talking to the woman he'd married. As if there wasn't tension so thick between us that I could hardly breathe.
We used to sneak away in the middle of shifts together
"Because I think – " I lowered my voice so the patient wouldn't hear – "that the baby has a brain defect."
"The baby's not born yet." Still that professional, disdainful tone. Like we were just colleagues who were having a disagreement over how to treat someone.
He chose her. After all that, he finally chose her.
I felt that familiar rising in my chest – as if at any moment I would collapse at his feet and beg him, plead for forgiveness. (Just take me home, Derek.)
But I couldn't. Because I'm too fucking stubborn to give in.
And so is he.
So we continued our little game.
"I know," I said, tapping my foot with impatience despite myself. He's the same as he's always been – he's convinced he's right and won't even consider my side of it. "And she's only seven months along. If it's a tumor, which I think it might be, we're going to have to –"
He held up his hand to stop me. "Don't even try. I'm not going to operate on an unborn baby's brain, Dr. Shepherd."
All I heard were the last two words, and they almost knocked the wind out of me.
Dr. Shepherd.
He looked at me evenly, and I snapped my jaw shut, realizing that it had dropped open at what he had just dared to do.
Dr. Shepherd.
Like any other doctor. Like anyone else in this fucking hospital, he had called me that. As if it wasn't his fucking last name that I had taken eleven years ago.
"Is that all?" His bright blue eyes (once I had thought they were the reflection of mine) gave me a cool, steady stare.
I couldn't say a word, just stared at him. Was this really the same man?
He nodded as if he'd expected nothing different, and turned to leave the room.
"You okay, honey?" the woman in the bed asked me.
I turned around in shock – I hadn't realized she'd been listening.
"Don't worry about him. That guy's probably just another asshole." She paused to smile. "But he sure is cute."
I smiled weakly. You have no idea.
- - - - -
Three weeks, two days, eleven hours had passed since he'd handed me those signed divorce papers. I remembered him walking into the trailer, and I'd known what was coming the second I saw his face.
I tried, Addison.
He'd been wearing that green sweater I bought him three Christmases ago.
I'm sorry, but I just can't do it anymore. It's not going to work.
I had stared at him, dumbfounded. He kept talking, as if he needed to fill up the empty space.
And it's not – it's not Meredith. His voice softened as he said her name, and I remember feeling absolutely blinded with the hatred I felt for her at that moment. It coursed through my blood like poison. She'd taken him from me. The fucking little intern had won.
It's really not her. It's us – it's you and me. I don't think I have to tell you, Addy, do I? You already know.
Of course I knew. I knew – I'd realized – that I'd lost him the moment I first turned to Mark. Maybe even before that. Maybe I lost him years ago.
But it had never been down on paper until that day.
- - - - -
Friday morning, seven am. Richard had called all the attendings and interns for a brief meeting.
I stood strategically between Burke and Bailey, hoping that I wouldn't have to see him.
But no, there he was, looking professional and perfect as always. God, I love that messy hair. His eyes swept over me without a change of expression, and landed on the little blonde within the pack of interns. I watched harshly as she shyly met his gaze.
I could feel it, then. That he'd gone back to her. Our divorce wasn't even close to being finalized and already he was keeping her warm at night again.
I don't want it to be messy, Addison. You can keep it all. Keep everything you want.
Didn't he realize that not even our assets – and god, they were a lot – were enough to console me?
Richard went on and on about some new hospital policies – does any of this matter in the end?
All I could think about was that the man I was still desperately in love with wanted nothing to do with me. I rubbed my left fourth finger unconsciously, feeling naked without the gold bands that had been there for so long.
"Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd?" Richard asked, and I snapped back to reality. He had the look on his face that someone has when they've been calling your name for some time.
"Yes?" I wasn't even embarrassed. This whole fucking hospital knew I was falling apart, why hide it?
"I was just talking about the new management system," he explained patiently. "And I was wondering if you were still on board for… the rest of your contract?"
I cringed. Why, Richard, do you have to do this to me in front of everyone?
They all knew what the question meant. Is she going to stay for the next year even though she thought she'd be living out here for good with him when she signed it? Idiot.
"Are you asking me if I don't keep my contracts?"
"Well, no…" Richard said awkwardly.
"I'm here for as long as I said I would be," I snapped, turning on my heel and walking away.
I hated him, I hated them all, I hated this godforsaken state… but I keep my word when I sign it.
- - - -
For once in my life, I knew how Meredith Grey had felt six months ago. Everyone looked at me with pity, knowing that he had chosen her over me.
I couldn't believe I lost him.
She doesn't even know him. She doesn't know that he likes his coffee with honey and he used to start studying for his medical exams the night before and he memorized our wedding vows before I did and he knows every doctor in New York and he would spend summers with my family in Nantucket before we were married.
All she knows is that he loves her.
And all I know is that he doesn't want me.
I sat at the bar after work, staring down into my gin and tonic. The fat bartender tried to make conversation but I shot him a look of death.
He knows all those doctors. He probably knows I'm his wife – or, I was his wife. And he's probably on that girl's side, anyway.
I leaned my head down on the counter, staring at the floor and wishing I could sink into it.
"This seat taken?"
I was about to say no, fuck off, when I recognized the scruffy sneakers. Immediately I sat up. "What do you want?"
Derek sat down and ordered a drink. "I just wanted to say hello."
"Are you meeting your girlfriend here?" I couldn't help asking spitefully.
I had to be sarcastic and bitchy and standoffish.
If I wasn't, I would cry. And I didn't know if I'd be able to stop.
"No." He took a sip, studying me calmly.
"That's a surprise."
"I want to know how you are."
"Stop." I put my hands over my ears. "Seriously, stop it. My god, I was your wife, Derek. I slept next to you and worked with you every day and made you dinner – okay, maybe not all the time, but I tried. And now I'm Dr. Shepherd?"
"I'm just trying to make it normal at work. I don't know how to do this."
I wanted to scream at him. Do this by telling me you still love me. Do this by waking me up from this nightmare.
He looked helpless and a little sorry, for once.
"You do realize that you're killing me, right?" I asked, trying to sound like I was joking. We both knew I wasn't.
"I'm sorry, Addy. I can't help it. If I thought we could make it work, I'd keep trying. But we were running around in circles."
You're an obligation at this point, Addison, and nothing more.
"Marriage is supposed to take work," I said.
He smiled sadly. "Not this much work."
I knew he was right… I knew. But it didn't make a difference at this point.
"I never used to be a someone who threw herself at you begging," I said quietly.
"I know. You made me chase you around forever." He smiled at the memory.
And now look where we are.
"We had good years, Addy. I'm glad you're staying out here. I hope we can be friends, someday." He looked into my eyes earnestly. "I really do."
I couldn't help it - I reached out reflexively to run my hands through his hair, the way I used to. And he grabbed my hand and kissed it, the way he used to.
"It would be easier to stop loving you if you weren't perfect," I said softly.
"It would be easier to keep loving you if you still were."
And there it was – the slap in the face. The reminder that yes, this was all my fault. I cheated on him. I destroyed this marriage.
"I'm not trying to hurt you. I will always love you, and love what we used to have. But some things just aren't meant to be." He sounds like a fucking therapist.
"I'll see you at work tomorrow," he whispered, kissed my forehead and left.
I wished he had just run me over in his godforsaken trailer and left me there to bleed.
It would have hurt less.