Cristina's sister always called her an introvert. She had a face of stone but always kept her feelings to herself. She never went out of bounds for anything because she believed in patience. She believed in fate as much as the next person but that is one thing she would keep to herself. Despite popular belief, Cristina loathed the art of argument. She disliked it because of how she became once she argued; she would build up all of this anger that it would lead to tears in her eyes. It wouldn't exactly mean that she was hurt or sad but more so there was so much anger fueled within her. So she refused to say anything to anyone. She would keep things to herself until it ate her up inside and when it did she could do only one thing – clean.

After school, Cristina didn't even wait for Meredith like she usually did because she didn't want to explain to her how she felt. Instead, she went straight home and re-arranged her living room. Her mother worked very much and as well did her father. They were oblivious to the small changes that would occur in their home and even when they did notice they would let Cristina do what she wanted so she did this without hesitating. She vacuumed rugs, and hand washed the hard-wood floors. She had an expensive dishwasher but washed each dish separately giving them a dazzling shine. The sun went down and Cristina stayed hard at work. The last thing on her agenda was to wash all of her own clothes.

She knew she could have washed her clothes at home but Cristina loved Seattle at night. She packed her laundry bags and headed to a local laundry mat three blocks away. She chose this particular place because of the lights outside of the window. It was in a direct view of breathtaking blue lights that guided the longest bridge in all of Washington. All she wanted to do was stare at the wonderful lights.

Immediately after arriving, she separated her clothes by color and then put them into three separate washing machines; one for colors, one for whites, and one for delicate.

She put in six quarters, two in each slot, and pressed go for each machine. There she stood, sulking while a machine washed all of her clothes. She sat on the table where people would normally fold their clothes and swung her legs.

Cristina felt weird because she had never felt this way for a boy. Or would she have to remember that he was a man? Owen made her feel things and for the first time she didn't like it at all. Cristina felt smitten because for once in her life someone took the time to know her. They took the time to understand who Cristina was and for once it wasn't a girl and it wasn't two boys fighting over someone else. It was a man who made her feel seen; he made her feel like a person. She had never had that before.

She had spent a beautiful night talking with him and being around him and he even decided they should go on a date. Though she didn't exactly agree to it, she got dressed for the occasion. Wore a nice blue dress with comfortable flats and she waited…

…but he never came.

This made Cristina mad but more importantly broken hearted. 'So this is what it feels like to be hurt ', she asked herself. She didn't like this feeling and she never wanted to wish this upon anyone. Immediately she thought of Avery and how she had been stringing him along. She felt like karma was giving her a wakeup call. She took out her phone and looked through the contacts and very quickly she clicked on Avery's name.

She stared at the key pad and tried to figure something out.

I'm at the laundry mat.
I know I haven't been hanging out with you lately. I'm sorry.
Can you meet me?

Before she could send it she heard a familiar voice.

"Cristina?"

She looked up and quickly her doe eyes transformed to eager, paranoid ones.

Closing her phone, her back tensed. "Owen, what are you doing here?"

He raised an army bag filled with dirty laundry. Her mouth curved to the side while she put her hands in her pockets. "You?" He asked trying to fill the air with something.

She pointed forward and aimed toward her washing machines. His mouth formed into an O shape. "Doesn't your building have laundry machines?" She knew this because when Izzie was fourteen , her mother divorced Izzie's father. They downgraded from an enormous house with 7 bedrooms to just a two bedroom apartment. Izzie had this obsession with fabric softener so she would always hang out in the laundry room. Cristina was never close to Izzie in the way Izzie would like, but Izzie grew fond of Meredith and that was Cristina's person. Everywhere she went Cristina went. Now she's glad that she had come in handy.

"Uh… yeah but they don't have that blue, nice smelling softener that I like."

He lied. This is something Cristina knew so she lowered her head for a moment only to stop the smile that was surfacing. What she didn't know is that he had been watching Cristina from a distance. Owen was never good at relationships; he didn't know how to start them, to handle them but one thing he knew was how to end them. In his head, he can see how this relationship would go and how he would screw it up. That night of their planned date he sat on his couch in trousers and a nice shirt, kicking himself for not going. But he didn't want to ruin something so beautiful. He didn't want to ruin her.

Every day after class, he would find himself in front of her school, trying to musk the courage in apologizing but the stories that Derek relayed to him made him nervous. This day he saw her leave school and go home and something told him that she was hurt particularly by what he had done. He sat at the coffee shop picking at a muffin and when he was finally about to leave he saw her dragging a huge shopping cart filled with clothes. He left the coffee shop and ran straight home. Looked through his clothes and found decent clothing and put it in a laundry bag. He needed an excuse to see her, and he did.

He looked at the floor while his thumb grazed over his chin and let out a mere chuckle. "Actually that's not why I'm here."

"I bet," she said sarcastically. His eyes met her sarcasm and with the intensity straining from them she jumped back, intimidated.

"I uh.." he meant to confess. He meant to tell her everything he felt and everything he did but he was sidetracked by something so beautiful. The pearly white lights that covered the Seattle bridge illuminated and kept Owen in awe. His eyes gazed above Cristina and stared out the window. Cristina looked behind herself to see what he had been staring at and smiled to herself realizing he had seen something that made her happy.

"Yeah. It's the reason why I come here."

"Why haven't I seen the bridge like that before?"

She pursed her lips and shrugged her shoulders, "You know, I don't know. It's like you have to look at the bridge from a certain angle or you're just not interested in it. I've been coming here for such a long time and every time it looks more stunning than the first."

His lips disconnected from each other as he folded his arms, "Yeah.. I know what you mean."

He meant to confess in that moment, and Cristina knew why he had come. In her eyes he knew that through all the things he had done it came down to one thing: Cristina was different. The corners of his mouth rose as he looked at her and realized this conclusion. Her head jerked back in repulsion of how creepy he looked but something told her it was okay.

He was okay.