In My Blood

Chapter 27

FINAL CHAPTER

Addison Montgomery's Point of View

"Meredith please, we need to talk." I say, gently catching her by her hands as she passes. She looks at me furiously but doesn't say anything. The girls are at home spending Derek's night off with him, so it's just the two of us, alone in the quiet brownstone.

"There is nothing to talk about." She says. "I don't want to talk about this again Addison, we've talked enough last night." She says, pulling away from me. I told Meredith my plans to leave. No part of last night involved talking. She completely freaked out and screamed for hours about how I am so ungrateful and irresponsible. Threatening to call everyone from Derek to Mark to Bizzy on me. I know the threats are empty though. She's mad, but she wouldn't do that to me. Last night went over about as well as this is going. She knows the plan. I can't hide it anymore.

"Meredith please. I need your help."

"Why would you even involve me with this? What the hell is wrong with you?" She demands. The stress from the last forty-eight hours too much. I can tell it's getting to her.

"I involved you because you have Oakley." I say calmly, but there is a sense of urgency in my tone. "I told you my plan because I need you to listen to me. Mark is an idiot and I'm not going to be here to help you if you can't figure things out." Meredith starts crying at this, I reach to touch her, to comfort her, but she shakes her head angrily and moves further away. I look at her sympathetically, my heart breaking knowing the pain I've caused her. She didn't deserve this. She did nothing wrong.

"You can't just vanish Addison." She sits down next to me, despite her coldness jut seconds ago. She takes my hands in hers. "I want you in my life. I want you in the girl's lives. No matter what. You are family and your placement in our family is unconditional."

"I understand." I take a deep breath. "This is only temporary Meredith. I have to go, this isn't right. I want to be here, but I can't live like this anymore. I need to breathe. This isn't safe for anyone anymore." I try to stay out of my emotions. It was never my intention to hurt her, or the girls. I was going to leave with just a goodbye note on the fridge, but she woke up and came downstairs for a glass of water just as I was attaching the note to the refrigerator, and about to walk out the door.

"Why?" She demands. "You're doing better, you're getting stronger." She says, but I know she's just being kind. I think about this for a moment. Am I really getting better? For every good thing that happens there are equal bad things. I am no longer comatose with grief, but I am on five different antidepressant and anxiety medications per day. I am no longer starving myself, but I have been dependent on supplemental nutrition for longer than I'd care to admit. I am no longer suicidal, but there are more days than not where I stay in bed all day long, crying because I miss her so much. Certain that my heart will explode out of my chest. I still don't know how I am going to move past this. I don't know how to be the person I was before Heavenly died. I don't know how to be the person they need.

That person is gone. She's never coming back.

"I'm suffocating." I try to explain again. "It's like I'm drowning and the own chance I have to breathe again is if I go there to that place. If I help people. I cannot breathe here knowing that everyday I'm here I'm hurting the people I love the most a little more each day." I was given a job opportunity. I accepted recklessly without really thinking about the consequences. I just want to get away.

"Addison." Meredith starts, but I cut her off.

"File the adoption paperwork. I took it to the bank this morning and put it in the safe deposit box." She was so mad at me last night that she called Derek to come over while she decompressed. She didn't come back until ten this morning. He was willing to go to the bank with me. I tried to get him to let me go on my own, but he refused. He doesn't know what's going on. He didn't know to say know and, I'm ashamed to say, I took full advantage of that. "I transferred Oakley's trust fund into the care of you and Derek. I closed Heavenly's trust fund and put the money in a trust fund for Willow, also in your names." She looks away from me, but I continue. "I've added you to my bank account. The deed to this house, my will, and all of Oakley's important paperwork is in the safe deposit box. The key is in the butterfly container in the freezer. I'm leaving you my bank card, but yours will arrive in the mail within the next week or so. You have unrestricted access to the account for Oakley's continued care." There is over two million dollars just in that account. It should be enough to at least soften the blow of me leaving. She could live the rest of her life on the money in that account if she's careful. I only removed 50,000 from that account to a separate account for personal use, leaving the rest for Oakley. I still have my trust funds, my investment fund I can pull from if there is an emergency before I am settled.

"No." She says, shaking her head. "Addison I can't do this."

"I'm going to do this with or without your help, so you might as well help me."

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?" She asks me, hurt. "You're making a mistake that is going to ruin your life, and you want me to just sit here and watch that happen?"

"You can't stop this, Meredith. This is the decision I need to make to save my life. I have to save myself now." I am at a loss how else to explain this to her.

"What am I supposed to tell Mark? The Girls?"

"What you tell your girls is up to you and Derek alone. Mark..." I think back to the night he visited. I wonder if it was sincere or if he was just trying to clear his conscience. "I wouldn't tell him anything unless he asks, and even if he does you don't know where I am, you don't know what happened. I just left." We sit in silence for a long while, she just watches me. "If he presses for details show him the note I left. He knows my handwriting. He'll know its legitimate."

"Fantastic. So now they can blame me, and I can be the bad guy in your stupid stupid games."

"It's not a game, Meredith. This is real."

"What is it then?"

"I'm choosing life."

"Why does it feel like I'm never going to see you again?" She asks, her voice breaking. I want to hug her, to take all of that worry away. I never wanted to put her in this position, it just happened.

"I just need some time. Meredith please. I'll do anything."

"Clearly." She says. "You sold your vehicle for $100 to the homeless family down the street."

"I also gave them $10,000 and Oakley's extra infant car seat. They have a six-month-old baby Meredith. They're good people. It's safer for them to sleep in my old Prius with locking doors, heat and air conditioning than that worn out tent under the bridge behind the 7-11. I don't want to be followed and I figured I wouldn't be using it. I made it clear in the letter that I left of my own free will, and do not wish to be followed. I didn't actually take their money; I just wrote it down on the paperwork so it's legal and they can get the car registered in their names."

"The minute Mark finds out you've left he's going to track you down. Do you really think he will sit and listen to this BS? I'm your best friend and I don't even want to listen to it."

"I'm not with Mark anymore." I remind her. "What he thinks doesn't matter. There is nothing he can do to stop me from leaving."

"He still loves you Addison." Meredith says gently. "He cried on our couch for ages after he signed those divorce papers." I look at her oddly when she says this.

"Still, it's not my problem. He made his choices. He did what he had to do to survive, and now I have to do the same thing."

"He made the choices that he had to make to keep you alive Addison. Every choice he made was with your health, and Oakley's health in mind. You would have died. You almost died so many times. It's probably some freak medical miracle that you're still alive right now."

"How much easier would the last 18 months have been if he had let me choose?" I ask her. "If he would have let me die. If you would let me die?" I question. "You can't tell me you haven't thought about it." I decide to let Mark's affair slide. She obviously meant all of the medical decisions that he had made while I was pregnant with Oakley, and then in the time after she was born.

"Not for a second." she objects, and I sigh at her annoyed.

"You were never a very good liar."

"Do you want to know what I think about?" She asks, and I stay silent. "Do you want to know what keeps me up at night?" She takes a deep breath, I guess gathering her nerve. "I never thought about if I thought you'd be better off dead, or that I wish you would die so I wouldn't have to deal with you. You are my best friend. That was never a consideration." She squeezes my hands tightly, forcing me to look at her. "It has always been the sheer terror of not knowing if I was going to wake up and find you dead from an overdose, or hanging from a ceiling beam, or bleeding out in the bathtub, or dead from some other self-inflicted injury."

"Meredith I'm so sorry." I say gently. "You didn't deserve that. You deserve so much more than having to live in constant fear. You deserve to be happy with your husband and the girls. No one deserve the weight of what I put on you. I'm sorry for giving you that burden to carry."

"You're not a burden Addison." She says. "I did what I did because you're my family. Because I love you, and I want you to be okay."

"Do you love me enough to let me go?" I ask her, and she falls silent.

"If I help you, how do I know that you're safe?" She asks. "How do I know that you're okay? This isn't going to work. I should call the police or... or something."

"Maybe." I agree. "But would you really? You know me better than that."

"They can keep you safe." She justifies finally, and I shake my head.

"I am not a threat to myself, and I am not a threat to others." My voice is so calm that I am scaring myself. "I have to do this for me Meredith." I say carefully. "I'll keep myself safe."

"Fine." She says reluctantly. "I can't buy you much time though. A couple days at most. They're going to find out you left."

"That's fine." I say. "Thank you."

"I expect calls, weekly, or at least texts. You can turn off location services on your cell phone so we can't track you. I just want to know you're alive. Please."

"Okay." I pull on my oversize hoodie and grab my backpack (that has my wallet, phone, passport and a few other essentials inside.). I walk to the door, and she pulls me to her, hugging me too hard, for too long. Her tears are damp on my skin.

"I love you enough to let you go." She whispers gently. "Please don't make me regret this."

"Thank you." I respond. "I love you too, and I won't. Thank you for everything that you've done." She finally lets me go and I walk down the stoop, raising my arm and hailing one of the bright yellow cabs. I get in, taking one last look at Meredith, standing on the brownstone stoop, and the life I had before we drive away.

"Where are you headed Ma'am?" The driver asks.

"JFK International Airport please."

"You got it." He says, pushing a few buttons so that the fare will ring up correctly. "Are you going on a trip?" He asks me. "Business or casual?"

"Neither." I say, shaking my head. "I'm changing my life."

Authors Note:

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU so much to everyone who has stuck around for this crazy journey that has been "In My Blood." This story is now completely rewritten, and in it's final form. I originally had a different ending in mind, but I love these characters far too much. What do you think Addison is off to do? Do you think she is just ghosting or does she have a plan in mind? I still don't know how realistic it was that Meredith just let her go that easily, but it worked out. Please review and let me know what you think! I want to hear from you!

Also please read the squeal to this story which is now available on this platform. The title to the squeal is titled Feels Like Home and takes place 4 years after this chapter. : )