Kevin/Addison - "intimacy"

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Our Door Handles Stopped Moving Years Ago
- Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson
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"Where'd you go to school?" Kevin asks, plopping down a container of egg rolls on the coffee table and making himself comfortable on Addison's couch.

"Yale," Addison answers quickly, mouth inappropriately half-full. "Well, Columbia and Yale."

"No, I meant high school. Some private school?" Kevin rephrases, watching her swallow.

"That was a long time ago," Addison says with a frown. All he can talk about lately is the money, edging its way into conversations about absolutely nothing. So far he's figured out where she lived in New York because she mentioned how she used to love skipping out into Central Park when it was freshly blanketed with snow, and that she's not simply a doctor who delivers babies, but one of a very small group of people who can deliver the results that are classically identified as miracles. It's all incredibly uncomfortable, being under inspection, and she doesn't miss this from her childhood.

"Yeah, but, you don't forget. I went to a public school, played basketball, football one year, straight B student, and had a very fun prom night."

"I hated prom," Addison sighs, dropping her chopstick in a white, cardboard container. "Look Kevin, just- it is whatever you think it was. Private school, big white house, maids, nannies, vacations in foreign countries. But that's not- me, it's...I'm not that person anymore. I don't think I ever was."

"First job?" Kevin quizzes. He worked at the gas station down the block from his father's apartment the summer her turned 15.

"I'm not doing this anymore," Addison declares, scooping up her leftovers and heading for the kitchen. She refills her glass of wine, buying time before she has to return and explain her first job was her career, unless helping grade her father's classes' lab assignments when she was 12 really counts. It takes three full minutes before he comes in, wraps his arms around her waist, and huffs into her neck. "I don't want to talk about it," Addison admits.

"Addison-"

"You know who watched me graduate high school, college, and med school? Archer. I don't want to talk about it anymore. It wasn't glamorous and fun, ok?"

"Ok," Kevin agrees, cinching his hands around her tighter. "I'm sorry."

"Prove it," Addison whispers, pulling back and reaching for the top button on his shirt.

And before he can think to probe deeper, apologize more for upsetting her, or anything else, she has herself up on a counter, bare feet pressing into the back of his thighs. It's not exactly the result he was looking for, but ever since that night, that stupid party, nothing has been satisfying.

Nothing has relieved the pressure of trying to live up to her past; nothing she can do eases the discomfort of knowing they aren't evenly matched.

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