"Did you know he was married, Meredith?" Mrs. Hanson looked at her.
"No," she sighed. "I didn't."
5. Reasons
Meredith unsuccessfully tried to stop the tears from forming in her eyes while Derek slowly explained the situation of Addison to Mrs. Hanson without letting go of Meredith's hand. This time she had no control over her tear ducts. She stared up at the ceiling and prayed that her tears were reason enough for Mrs. Hanson not to question her right away about the subject.
"Why did you go back to Addison, Derek?" Mrs. Hanson asked with a calm voice.
Meredith looked down from the ceiling at Mrs. Hanson and then at Derek. It was a question she'd wanted him to answer for so long. He'd told her that he had made the wrong choice, but he never said why. She knew he'd probably had his reasons and didn't want to push him. She thought those reasons had more to do with Addison than herself, and she did not want to hear stories of how he had once loved that red haired long legged woman. She slowly realized how much they had left unsaid.
Derek paused before answering the question.
"I... uhm...I didn't want..." he began, but the words didn't come easily. He took a deep breath. "I wasn't a good husband. I never cheated, but I was not a good husband. I didn't treat Addison the way I should have. And as much as I resented her for what she did, I felt responsible. I thought I owed her that much." He paused and looked at the woman sitting next to him, before he continued. "I had been a bad husband, and I was afraid that I hadn't changed, I mean I didn't even tell Meredith that I had a wife... I was too afraid to lose her that I just... she deserved more... Meredith deserved more. She didn't see it, but she deserved more. I owed her a chance to fall in love with someone who was worthy of making her happy."
Meredith stared at Derek. She was speechless. She had thought about his reasons for leaving her over and over, but it never occurred to her. It never crossed her mind that he, Derek Shepherd, thought that he simply wasn't good enough for her.
"Why didn't you say anything?" she whispered.
"We never talked about it," Derek replied. "No one ever let me near you. Bailey kept me away from you, so did Izzie and Cristina. And then time passed. You moved on eventually and I let it go, I let you go... tried to at least."
"Meredith, how did you feel when Derek went back to his wife?" Mrs. Hanson asked with that same calm voice.
"Shattered. My dad left, and so did my mom... in a different way though. I learned not to lean on others because people always left or were absent in some way. But this time I did, I let myself fall in love with him. And then... he left too," Meredith said never letting go of Derek's hand.
Derek looked at her fighting to keep her tears back. He hadn't realized it at the time, but he now knew that he was in many ways responsible for her trust issues. How do you expect someone to trust, when you have given them no reason to believe?
"You've had trust issues?" Mrs. Hanson said.
"Yeah," she sighed.
Mrs. Hanson contemplated of asking them why they couldn't let go of each other but then she opted against it. It was obvious, maybe the only thing that was obvious in this relationship. They needed each other.
"The two of you have made good progress today," Mrs. Hanson said studying their faces. "Next week, we'll continue where we left off. Derek you mentioned Meredith moving on?"
"Yeah," Derek replied breathlessly.
"Okay, that's where we'll start next week. We'll take this one step at a time." She smiled at them.
xxxxxxxxxx
They were silently sitting in his car on their way back to the hospital. Meredith sighed.
"Oh, god! We really did make a mess of this, didn't we? Both of us!" she said.
He stopped at a red light and looked at her. Her eyes were still a bit red from earlier.
"We did," he said as they both laughed at themselves. "We'll be fine," he then added.
"Yeah, we will."