A vague sense of existence overtakes her as she attempts to swallow. Her throat is swollen and aches with the attempt. It feels as if someone is raking their nails down her trachea with each labored inhalation. Living hurts.
Heaviness hovers in her brain, like a thick cloud of fog obscuring more than just her vision. Her spirit, her soul, they are gone. They have vacated her body, leaving only the empty shell of a person behind. A pod person. She is a pod person now who has nothing. No reason to live. No reason to go on.
Images flash through her mind as her eyelids flutter. Darkness. Ice. Derek telling her he hates her. The images are not clear and she doesn't understand what they mean, but for some reason they leave her feeling more alone than ever.
She feels cold and hot at the same time. The blankets surrounding her encapsulate her in their warmth, but the coldness from her heart chills her blood cells and spreads throughout her damaged corpse. Corpse. Corpse because she can't be a human being. She isn't a human being any longer. Human beings feel things. She feels numb. She feels dead.
The morphine flowing through her veins and to her heart only reinforces her feelings of inhumanity. She doesn't feel the pain from the incision on her arm. She doesn't feel the ache in her chest from the repeated shocks from the defibrillator. The lack of physical awareness and the emotional emptiness that has overtaken her leaves Meredith Grey feeling dead.
She feels dead until she inhales once again and the long, sharp nails scrape down the cartilage that comprises her trachea. A groan escapes past her chapped lips as her eyes begin to flutter open. Beams of light blind her and for the first time she becomes aware of where she is and exactly what has happened. She tried to kill herself. She saw Derek on a date with Rose and she tried to kill herself. It is only after this acknowledgement that she remembers that she is pregnant, but she doesn't care. She may have been unsuccessful in her attempt, but she still yearns for the release promised by death.
Faces hover above her bed, staring down at her. She can see the worry etched on their faces, but it doesn't effect her. She feels like Dorothy at the end of Wizard of Oz, waking up from her almost acidic dream to find that none of it was real. Unfortunately, for Meredith Grey, everything is all too real. Even the vague and unrecalled dream is real in the realm of her subconscious and she can't help but find herself detached from the entire scene. She is an actress playing a tragic role and this is her downfall. She is the pale, manic Lady Macbeth wandering the halls of the castle as her demons continue to torment her. She is Meredith Grey. She is nobody.
"Meredith??" she hears a frantic voice ask. She knows that voice. She knows that voice all too well. It has haunted her. It has haunted her in her sleep. It has haunted her while awake.
"Please, say something," he begs in a strained voice.
She can't look at him. She doesn't deserve the comfort that she knows his eyes will give her. That his eyes always give her. She closes her heavy lids and turns her head away, deflecting the loving looks sent her way.
She feels her fingers caressing her cheek and instinctively flinches away from his caring touch. Since when was it instinct to flinch away from him? Less than twenty-four hours ago so was longing for that touch, for that caress, for that safety found only in his arms in the moments after sex.
No. Not anymore. Now his touch, any touch, only alerts her to her cold, bare existence and reinforces her need for solitude. Being alone, shutting people out, also prevents them from hurting you. From now on, that is what she plans to do. Meredith Grey is switching from a forward to a back fielder. No longer will she take place in the offensive maneuvers that guide people through life, but only in the defensive position that allows them to simply survive until the next game.
She feels his warm hand reach for hers and jerks it away, vaguely aware of the needle ripping through her skin as the IV is pulled out from her sudden movements. The stinging sensation is only a slight vibration in a world plagued by earthquakes. The gasps from those occupying the room are only a whisper in a world filled with screams. A suppressed sob from the man who once loved her but now hates her, merely a flicker of light in a world consumed by flames.
She rolls onto her side, ignoring his hand as it places gauze on her now bleeding arm in an attempt to stop the profuse flow of blood. But he can't. He can't stop the bleeding. He can't stop the bleeding of her deeply fractured heart.
She forcefully holds her eyelids closed, not wanting any light to infect the safety of the darkness in which she has found shelter. His hands work to bandage her arm, in the process once again becoming covered in her fresh, warm, red blood.
She finds herself hating him. Hating him for being so damn perfect. Hating him for being so fucking dreamy. Hating him for leaning and that stupid smirk that makes her heart flutter. Hating him for loving her. Hating him for hating her.
"Mer?" he whispers close to her ear. She can feel his hot breath on her neck and the wetness of a fresh tear on her cheek as he begs for something. For anything.
Nothing.
Images of him stomping on her beating, bleeding heart and yelling that he hates her reverberate through her mind, lulling her into a sort of apathetic existence. Apathy is better than caring. Caring only leads to getting hurt. Caring only leads to getting broken.
His hands leave her body, but she doesn't feel cold. She doesn't feel anything. She doesn't feel a single thing and it has nothing to do with the morphine. It has nothing to do with the flow of morphine and everything to do with the fact that Meredith Grey is no longer Meredith Grey. Meredith Grey does not exist anymore. Meredith Grey is a ghost. A shell. A nobody.
The non-existent Meredith Grey doesn't want to exist any longer. The non-existent Meredith Grey doesn't want to feel anymore. The non-existent Meredith Grey hates the previously existing Meredith Grey.
She feels the tape cling desperately to her arm as it hold the gauze in place, much like Meredith finds herself subconsciously clinging to the catatonic state of existence. She needs to be catatonic. She needs to be numb. She needs to pretend for just a while longer. No dead mommy. No dead fake mommy. No secret wife. No abusive, alcoholic father. No baggage. No pain.
The voices attempting to speak to her blend into a grating sounds, like nails being dragged across a blackboard. They scratch her eardrums. They cause her to grit her teeth. The fail to touch her soul. They fail to find Meredith Grey.
Meredith Grey is lost within herself and doesn't want to be found. She travels along the road paved in red, attempting to put more distance between the non-existent her and the her that physically exists. The road back is slippery and messy, a destruction site caused by the cyclone that is her life. The lack of the good witch and the ruby slippers deny her an easy return. So, who will save Meredith Grey? Who will wake her up from the nightmare that has become her life? Who will save Meredith Grey from herself before it is too late?
Maybe we'll turn it all around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late
So...I still have to write in my blog...but I will try to do that tonight or tomorrow...I live in Oklahoma and lost power because of the ice storm. I am now at my mom's house. I realize that the last chapter seems out of place...but all of those things that happened in the dream will effect Meredith in some way...even if she doesn't remember it all..I don't think many people liked it because there were not as many reviews...but I loved it. I loved writing it and I loved the way it turned out.
I hope you liked this update. In case you couldn't tell...things are not just going to go back to normal like nothing ever happened...it will be a long, difficult struggle. Meredith really wanted to kill herself...she really wanted to die...and that is not something that you just come back from. So, let me know what you think.
-Marci