Heart of Glass

Tuesday afternoon

"But Meredith, why not?" Derek asks again, standing outside her doorstep. Meredith has no idea how he knows her address (but who wouldn't, with her mother being a world-famous surgeon and all and living in the same city as him). "Why won't you go out with me?"

"Because… because you're too good for me," Meredith replies grimly. She is aware of the lame, clichéd excuse and is fully aware that it won't work. But she's desperate. "Why don't you just go out with someone from your little circle of pep squad fans and go at it? Just leave me alone."

"But I know you liked that kiss. There's plenty more where that came from and you know it," Derek smirks smugly at Meredith, who isn't impressed at all if not for his ultra-gorgeous looks. "Please, this Friday night. We can just catch a movie or something…"

"I can't, Derek. Please, just go. I—I'll see you in school." Meredith shuts the door in his face and runs to her bedroom. Heck, they've only known each other for two days and things were already happening. Meredith began to think nervously about what would happen tomorrow, and Thursday, and Friday, and the week after that, and the weeks after that. It's like the whole movie that played in her mind yesterday might actually change because of this Derek Shepherd character. Maybe her high school life wouldn't deteriorate as much as she's expecting after all.

But then the problem with Derek is that he's just so vague – he kisses her, walks away, and then after school he says he doesn't want to talk about it; now he's wondering why she won't go out with him. Actually, even she is also beginning to wonder why she's saying no to him. He's gorgeous and kind, but then he's also a bit too persuasive and of course, not to mention that his enigmatic aura really makes his actions rather hard to decipher. To Meredith he could have three possible intentions: either he already really likes her and is sincere about everything or he's just gonna see if she's an easy catch and end up playing her somewhere down the road… or maybe he just wants to rape her somewhere down the road.

Another knock on the door.

Meredith runs back downstairs; her parents are still at work and therefore she's alone at home (again). Meredith opens the door, frustrated at the fact that Derek's still standing there.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but I think I just asked you to piss off, Derek," Meredith says, now agitated almost to a point that she's actually impressed. "Or I'm gonna call the cops."

"For what?" Derek chuckles.

"Harassment," Meredith tries to keep a straight face and not give in to Derek's tempting smile. His lips are poison, and yet Meredith feels like once again she wants to taste the venom within. Self control is a bitch.

"Look, I already know you wanna go out with me, so why won't you?"

"Um, maybe because I don't want to go out with you."

Derek sighs. "Okay, fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

As he turns around, Meredith grins and takes a deep breath before she taps his shoulder to kiss him. Yes, this time it was her who kissed him. And it's full and Meredith feels a natural high as Derek's hands run down her spine. The venom begins to work its way through when Derek parts Meredith's lips open with his tongue, and Meredith falls into a euphoric state that she didn't even know existed back at the lunch room. The fact that the whole scene is illuminated by the moonlight plus the warm lighting coming from inside the house, Meredith begins to wonder why some people even do drugs. Kissing Derek is heaven, and when Meredith pulls away and Derek asks why, she smirks at him and says she'll see him tomorrow. Derek then smiles, places two fingers on his lower lip and turns around again, mounts his dad's Chevy and drives home. Damn, are hormones crazy or what?

Meredith closes her front door and runs back upstairs, wondering how the movie of her high school life would play out with Derek in it. The whole no-boyfriend-for-the-next-three-years thing may actually turn out different from what she thinks, and maybe she would have a prom date, and maybe she could actually be recognised during graduation and her parents are gonna send her to some Ivy League Med school and she'll be a surgeon whether or not her mother would approve of it. Well, that's how things would play out in Meredith's head when she thinks positively. Yesterday was the negative thinking and Meredith would die if she'd have that kind of high school life. Drowning in the Duran Duran tunes filling her room, Meredith ends up falling asleep, forgoing the shower and the stereo-stopping and the alarm-setting. Big mistake, isn't it?

-

Once she wakes up, it's already 9:30am and Meredith is already late; unfortunately blaming tardiness on musical groups and dreamy new classmates doesn't cut it for Meredith and therefore she has to blame it on herself. Upon waking up Meredith knows that she can either call in sick or call in tardy. Absence and tardiness have two different effects on school records. Saying she is sick would make a mark on her health record and being tardy goes on the student record as well. Apparently, being sick has more mercy to it on the report card.

Meredith goes to school.

The pressure is with the shower time and the changing and the breakfast, which she manages to breeze through effectively by skipping breakfast (her mum says it's a bad idea; it's dreadful) and is done in about ten minutes. She arrives at about 9:44 by car, right in time for second period. Thank heavens it's a Wednesday, and on Wednesdays classes start at 8:30 instead of the usual 7:30. Meredith figured that there's no time to go to the lockers, so she rushes to her International Studies class only to face trouble when Mr. "Stingray" Sturgeon finds a bag next to her seat. Thankfully, the Stingray let it slide since it's only the third day but swore to give her detention if he sees her khaki knapsack again; even if it wasn't the khaki knapsack, he'd still give her detention – hence Meredith has to remember to set the alarm next time.

The question of the current situation in Lebanon, no matter how important or intense it is, really doesn't bother Meredith at the time. She's exhausted from morning pressure and hungry because she didn't have breakfast. Oh, and great – after lunch she has PE, which means that all the food she's about to eat is gonna be drained faster than it takes to actually digest.

Because of the late start, Meredith goes to the first assembly straight after second period. Because she is high school, it's the assembly first before lunch and not the other way around. Because of that, the chances of the really good cafeteria food still being in stock are slim. Because of that, Meredith finds herself screwed.

The sophomores sit in the left side of the orchestra seating of the theatre, which is actually the worst place to be in terms of watching productions and being watched by the speaker on the podium, especially if it's the high school principal standing behind that block of wood. Mr. Martell greets the student body and welcomes them to another great schoolyear, and Meredith is sitting with her home room at the back row and the seat farthest from the centre aisle simply waiting for this damn thing to finish so she can eat. The whole assemble feels like forever and unfortunately for Meredith, unlike other teenagers her brain seems to be disoriented with the whole idea of shitting off the brain from listening to boring lectures. That means she had to reluctantly listen to Martell announce council elections and review new policies and ask for comments and suggestions.

And just how desperate is Meredith for something to eat? Once they're dismissed Meredith Grey is the first person through the theatre doors.

-

She ends up having lunch with Derek yet again, her only friend in Seattle Grace so far (that is, if Derek can already be considered a friend after recent events and if Meredith and Derek will even have any more new friends for the rest of the schoolyear).

"So, I was just wondering…" begins Derek, but he is interrupted by Meredith.

"I'm still not going out with you," she says hastily, followed by another bite off her burrito.

"I was wondering who's gonna kiss who this time."

"Oh please, you've got to be kidding me."

"I'm not." Derek looks up at Meredith, who is currently at a very unglamorous and unattractive state, with her mouth surrounded by salsa on all sides. "You want me to clean that up for you?"

"No, you perv," Meredith says, expecting that Derek's gonna end up kissing her in public again. Instead, he just hands her a paper napkin.

"Fine, be that way," says Derek, who Meredith hopes doesn't think she's the pervert in the situation. Hah, maybe they're both perverts. The thing is, Meredith likes kissing Derek and it's more than clear that the latter enjoys it as well. Why Meredith hesitates so much to go on a simple date with the guy is a mystery. Yes, even to Meredith.

"Hmm, I'm impressed," Meredith grins before taking another bite. Burritos are her secret love.

"About what?"

"You're not asking me," Meredith clarifies. "I thought you were gonna, you know…"

"Gonna what?" Derek asks, pretending to be vague again (at least that's what Meredith thinks) until a girl approaches him and catches his attention by caressing his neck. To Meredith's surprise, she's one of those 5 girls who dressed the same, talked the same and pretty much looked the same.

"Hi Derek," SKANKY CHEERLEADER NUMBER ONE greets with that airy, bubbly voice she has that irritates Meredith so much it's like her Vena Cava's gonna burst. SC1 turns to Meredith to give her a mere eyebrow-raise.

SC1 sits with Derek for the rest of lunch, much to Meredith's dismay. Meredith later finds out that her name is Alice, not to be confused with her friends Alexis, Allison, Alex and Alexia. Talk about variety, thinks Mer as her bored figure reluctantly tolerated Alice's gabbing. The cheerleader's such a goat, all she can talk about is fashion, nails and a crowd consisting of a hotel heiress that thinks she can sing, a formal Disney child star and a TV star whose character gets killed off the show. Alice would present Meredith a question about one of these things or ask for her opinion on something at least relatively associated with them and Meredith would either shrug or say, "Why don't you tell me about it?" Unfortunately, that question would only lead to the girl's continuous blabbing about topics irrelevant to either Meredith or Derek.

Meredith shoots Derek a look and he shrugs his shoulders. Meredith leaves the two after a while, something she should have done once the airhead even began talking.

Suddenly, the burrito doesn't matter anymore.

-

"Are you okay?" Derek asks Meredith quietly during Bolton's debriefing on the upcoming review unit on plant fertilisation. She doesn't respond for a while, and when Derek's attention shifts back to the teacher, Meredith finally responds.

"You didn't tell me you already asked someone else."

"Well, you wouldn't say yes to me," answers Derek. "Plus, I think Alice is pretty nice, don't you?"

The hollow stick-figure?

"Apparently I don't, Derek." Meredith says hotly. "You could've at least given me a heads up on that."

"You're not my mother. I don't have to tell you everything I do," Derek coolly adds despite Meredith's forthcoming meltdown. "Besides, I've only known you for three days. It doesn't really matter, unless you're guilty."

"Guilty about what, exactly?"

"Shepherd, Grey, out of the classroom now." Mr. Bolton announces, frustrated. The lab pair walks out of the room. "When you come back, I'm splitting you two up."

-

"That's great, Derek. Look what you just got me into." Meredith is annoyed and possibly more frustrated than Bolton right now.

"Anyway, that's over. You're feeling guilty that you kept on turning me down, aren't you?"

"You only asked me eight times yesterday, you know."

"So you're telling me you were gonna say yes?"

"I don't know," Meredith responds softly.

"Exactly."

Bolton soon talked to both of them and reassigned their seats. Meredith sat next to someone in her grade and Derek sat next to someone else as well, of course. Meredith didn't talk to Derek after that for the rest of the day. Every time she feels something for him – be it infatuation, envy or guilt – Meredith doesn't fully understand herself. Maybe a reason why she can hardly seem to understand herself when feeling something for him is because she can't even fully understand him. How depressing. All the complications occurring between the two over three days are almost abnormal, considering the small time frame. So many things usually don't happen in such a short period of time, especially when it comes to two total strangers such as Meredith and Derek that meet just because one just so happened to have slipped over a puddle of water and the other happened to be courteous enough to escort the previous to the clinic.

But right now, Meredith knows what she feels. She feels anger because Derek didn't even tell her that he already asked someone out before lunch. She feels envy towards SC1 a.k.a. Alice because the SC might steal her seat at the lunch hall. Most of all, she feels guilt – heavy, tormenting guilt – that she didn't say yes when Derek asked her just because she likes to play hard-to-get. So maybe she ­does like Derek after all, but right now, at this point in time, she's almost at the point of hating him.

He makes her feel shattered.