First Year Med School
Addison knows her friends are noticing something different about her, but she can't, for the life of her, focus on something other than the fact that Bizzy is coming to visit her.
Apparently, skipping Christmas would warrant a two-day visit from her mother.
"So… should Mark and I bring the usual to your place later?" She felt Derek's arm wrap around her shoulders. Any other day, she would have playfully shoved him then linked their arms as they head to class together, yet now, everything about her was… not fine at all.
"Get your hands off me, Derek," She said calmly and quietly, her stiff body doing all the talking. She knew he was frowning at her, yet she can't allow her emotions to take over because once they do, she knows tears of frustration would be unstoppable.
And that is not the person Bizzy Forbes Montgomery raised.
"Is everything okay, Addie?" He kept trying to catch her eyes, and once he did, she channeled all her WASP training and schooled her features.
Out of all her friends, Derek seems to be the only one who can see through her walls, to get past the thick Forbes Montgomery veil she initially wore during her first day of med school.
For some reason, he seems to understand her and she definitely hates him for it.
"Game night is canceled. I… I have to attend to some personal matters. Please tell the others." With that, she walked away because any minute longer, Derek would have gotten past through the weak walls she just rebuilt, and she would have broken down in just a second.
That night, she bitterly thought about how she could have been having fun at that moment, their window night in weeks, yet Bizzy's sudden presence dampened her plan.
Like she always does with anything remotely fun in her life, ever since she was young.
"All's well with your studies, dear?" Bizzy asked, or subtly demanded, more like. She took a sip of her gin and tonic—which was 50% gin and 50% tonic—before speaking.
"Yes, Bizzy," She stated simply, not showing effort to keep the conversation going.
"If that's so, I trust you can spend a couple of days away? There's a gala—"
They both turned at Addison's door, the knocks and mutters making Addison's heart race.
No…
"Are you expecting someone?" She shook her head, yet still stood up, as she knows Bizzy will raise an eyebrow at her if she just ignored it and that's just the worst.
Out of pretentious courtesy, she smoothened out her clothes, a practice taught to her before welcoming guests.
The moment she opened the door, there was a mixture of heightened agitation and a brief relief.
"You seemed so down a while a—what's with the clothes, Addie?" Derek asked her, frowning as he looked at her head to toe, taking in her… formal designer clothes.
While they've seen her wear these types of clothing during appropriate occasions, they've never witnessed it partnered with her cold demeanor and WASP-y attitude… inside her apartment.
She knows after this night, after her sudden unexplained detachment, she's going to lose them and she's going to be all alone again… like how it has always been.
She scanned all her friends' faces and they were all carrying their typical food share during their game nights…
Bizzy's going to have an aneurysm… or a heart attack.
"I'm afraid I cannot let you in—"
"Nonsense, Addison. Where have your manners gone? Invite them in." She gritted her teeth and allowed herself a moment to let down her cold mask to glare at Derek specifically.
How thick could his head be?
She opened the door wider, as if revealing Bizzy's presence to everyone. Had her insecurities and the typical Forbes Montgomery air not been messing with her head the whole day, she would have found her friends' reactions amusing—Derek like a deer in headlights, Mark with raised eyebrows and pursed lips, Naomi with her head half down, and Sam… with his inappropriately wide smile.
"Bizzy, these are my… friends. Everyone, this is my mother, Bizzy Forbes Montgomery." She felt like a robot, one with mechanical gestures and a monotone voice. It scared her how easily she could slip to this void, of feeling like a puppet whose imaginary strings are pulled by Bizzy's shadow.
"Oh, uh, pleased to meet you, Mrs. Montgo—" Sam started, being the mature one out of all the guys, as Derek and Mark just freaking stared at her mother.
"Call me Bizzy, please." Addison remained passive, but she swore it was evident even to her friends how the temperature dropped, as if Bizzy just summoned Connecticut's unbelievably low degrees with her.
"Pleasure to meet you, Bizzy. Uh… Addison, we're so sorry for barging in… we could just reschedule when you're free…" Naomi continued Sam's remark as the guy retreated to his shell after Bizzy's passive aggressive cut.
She knew each one of them was ready to bolt out of her place and leave her, and her heart aches as she knows they'll probably never come back, now that they saw how screwed up she becomes when she's with "family".
"No, stay, dear. All of you made an effort to visit, it would be a shame to send you all back… I will see you at brunch tomorrow, Addison, sharp."
Passive aggressive.
It was the look that summed up everything, the half-a-second gaze, telling her nothing yet so much at the same time.
And stemming from her anxieties, that fleeting moment of Connecticut ego from Bizzy was the longest half-a-second in her entire life, making her certain that her friends caught her mother's judgmental impression.
If she does pray every night, her prayers would definitely include how she would offer everything she could just to not to turn into Bizzy.
Addison felt empty as she watched her mother walk out of the door, not bringing with her the hollowness she constantly bestows on her daughter.
When the door closed, there was just deafening silence. She wanted the floor to swallow her whole, as she has never felt this embarrassed to her friends.
Why can't she have a normal family like them? Well, except Mark, but he's practically a Shepherd…
"I'll just go… change in my room. Make yourselves comfortable." She blindingly sent a smile in their direction, not letting herself actually see their reactions, before rushing to her room, desperate for a chance to just… breathe.
The moment she closed the door, she gasped, thoughts already a thousand miles away. All she could manage was sit on the edge of her bed, not even attempting to start changing her clothes like what she said.
She could only focus on how her mother's presence single-handedly destroyed whatever relationship she built with the people outside her room, and she's overwhelmed with the pain and anger currently brewing in her chest.
That's what Bizzy Forbes Montgomery is good at.
Like she was born with the sole purpose of crushing Addison's happiness.
She only realized she was sobbing loudly when she felt someone hold her hand, kneeling in front of her. Past the tears blurring her vision was Derek, looking at her with those concerned eyes.
He wasn't saying anything. He just kept holding her, placing a hand on the side of her face, wiping the tears free falling from her eyes. And when she did not show signs of stopping from crying, she watched as he sat next to her and wrapped his arms around her.
He gently nudged her to lean on him.
She gripped his shirt tightly, letting out all her pain she kept to herself since she was a kid.
All she could think about was how this spot, right here, inside Derek's arms, was the only safe place she's ever been in her entire life...
And she wants to stay here forever.