-1Chapter Two

Broken Perfection

Haunted eyes stare vacantly ahead, lost in the reflection staring back at her. She barely recognized the woman. Perfectly styled shoulder blade length hair the color of honey. Slender body encased in a classy, yet sexy, black pants suit, feet encased in three inch heeled black patent leather Jimmy Choo's. Large diamond studs, as well as the tennis bracelet on her left hand, spoke of success. Yes, the woman in the mirror was nothing, if not a success.

The soft whisper of the bathroom door cuts her attention from dwelling on the stranger in the mirror who was her. A beautiful woman with shining wheat colored hair in a creamy cap sleeved mock turtle neck top paired with a mocha colored a line skirt. Chocolate colored heels that looked a bit like Mary Jane's tapped across the gray marble floor. She knows the woman, and so they exchange friendly hello's before the other woman disappears into one of the bathroom stalls.

Her gaze reverts back to the mirror. Emerald colored eyes narrow. Whether she herself, or the woman she had become, was doing the glaring was yet to be decided. Letting out a sigh, she fishes a tube of soft berry colored lipstick from the tiny excuse of a purse she had brought with her. A far cry from the over sized tote she carried back home, but then she wasn't toting around wipes and snacks in this purse. Her heart aches, thinking of the two reasons for those wipes and snacks. Her babies who were no longer babies, but a precocious six year old and giggly three year old.

"Damn it. Don't cry." She softly ordered, applying a thin refresher of the lipstick. Her lashes rapidly blink as tear drops cling to them. Pale fingers twitched, desperate to grab the flip phone that was nestled in with the lipstick. She wouldn't though. They had agreed. No calling. They needed the time apart to think.

"Are you alright?"

She cocks her head to the left slightly, finding the blonde staring at her with concerned eyes. "I'm fine." What a liar she was turning out to be. She wasn't fine. She was far from fine. Her life was falling apart and she had nobody but herself to blame.

"Fine? You're not fine. Come on, this me you're talking to. Izzie. I know you. Don't say you're fine when you're not." Perfectly glossed pink lips lift into a twittering of a smile. A soft kindness shined from doe brown eyes. It was on the tip of her tongue to spill the whole ugly truth out to Izzie. To tell her how she had cheated on her amazing husband with his so called best friend. A repeat of history if ever there was one. To tell her about the broken look in Mark's eyes when he came home early to find her fucking Derek in their. The same bed they had created their daughter and son. Thinking of it brings bile to her throat.

"I'm not fine. I just know that talking about it won't make it any better." She drops the tube of lipstick back into the miniature purse, longs to pull out the phone, then turns to flash the woman a smile. "I messed up big time, Iz, and there isn't a damn thing I can do to fix it." Her throat thickens with emotion. The broken surgeon who fixed everyone else but couldn't fix herself. She needed someone to fix her. Someone to tell her that Derek wasn't worth it, that he had never loved her, would never love her, and she was throwing away almost seven years of marriage, as well as her children's happiness. Someone to tell her that she had married Mark not because she was pregnant with their son but because she loved him. Why the hell couldn't' someone have told her that before she messed up?

"Ah." That was it. Just an all knowing ah. The concerned was joined by something else in Izzie's eyes.. "Is this about Derek?" A naked left hand brushes a stray golden curl from her face. Meredith feels the bile threatening to spew from her mouth. If Izzie knew, and she hadn't' told her, it meant word of her affair had gotten around the hospital. If it had remained their secret she might have been able to get Mark to forgive her "It gets better. Having people call you the dirty slut."

"They're calling me a dirty slut?" Meredith braced herself over the sink, certain she was going to be sick. Nausea had become a constant in her life lately, doubling with Mark finding her and Derek.

"A few people have," Izzie admitted. She licked her lips. "I think it was Rose who told everyone. Mark called her. Thought she should know what her husband was doing with his wife. At least that is what I heard."

She couldn't hold it back any further. The contents of her stomach splatter in the pristine white sink as sobs shake her slender body. Her perfect life was in a shambles and she had nobody to blame but herself.