Heavy In Your Arms
Long night drags into long day, and still Meredith tries to stretch it out further. Her sleep that night is fitful, punctuated by periods of wakefulness, of petulance, and her clinic shift in the morning, out in the second clinic, is scattered with short naps that have her jerking awake every time she thinks she hears someone coming. Aside from the things her own mind comes up with, though, and the occasional patient who needs next to no help at all, it's another uneventful day.
She spends it thinking she won't think about him. Like that's a punishment, like he can know, like even thinking that doesn't defeat the purpose. Maybe she made a stupid choice, but this isn't her fault. Still she stays in the Compound, takes her time with the things she does daily - showers, eats, avoids the bookshelf like it might reach out and kill her. She spins it out as far as is reasonable, then pushes it a little farther. There's only so much she can do, though, before she has to go home, nothing else left to do but draw herself up straight and too proud, steeling herself on the short walk back.
Because she expects to open the door on an empty house, but she'll be damned if she's not prepared if she doesn't. She doesn't and she isn't, but she closes the door behind her and looks at him in silence and hates the relief that comes with being wrong this time. It's a weakness now, like asking for forgiveness when she's not to blame. She closes her eyes and presses her lips tight together a moment, starting for her room again, forcing herself to say something on her way past, even if all that comes out is "Hi." More than that and she'll just start yelling again and she can't, she just can't deal with it now.
[June 20th.]
She spends it thinking she won't think about him. Like that's a punishment, like he can know, like even thinking that doesn't defeat the purpose. Maybe she made a stupid choice, but this isn't her fault. Still she stays in the Compound, takes her time with the things she does daily - showers, eats, avoids the bookshelf like it might reach out and kill her. She spins it out as far as is reasonable, then pushes it a little farther. There's only so much she can do, though, before she has to go home, nothing else left to do but draw herself up straight and too proud, steeling herself on the short walk back.
Because she expects to open the door on an empty house, but she'll be damned if she's not prepared if she doesn't. She doesn't and she isn't, but she closes the door behind her and looks at him in silence and hates the relief that comes with being wrong this time. It's a weakness now, like asking for forgiveness when she's not to blame. She closes her eyes and presses her lips tight together a moment, starting for her room again, forcing herself to say something on her way past, even if all that comes out is "Hi." More than that and she'll just start yelling again and she can't, she just can't deal with it now.
[June 20th.]