"Because of You I’m Breaking" [Chapter 7]
Title: Because of You I’m Breaking [Chapter 7]
Author: JCapzona
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Disclaimer: All television shows and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings ext. are the properties of their respective owners. This work is non-profit and simply written for fun. Reference to persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be factual.
Summary: The scariest thing about the morning after isn’t waking up to discover who’s beside you; it’s waking up to find that they were never really there to begin with…
Author’s Note: So the good news is that I’m off my writing hiatus for BOYIB (Because of You I’m Breaking), which was midterm induced so my apologies for that. I took some time off to write some nice thoughts. Happy thoughts, which came in the form of Strawberries & Crème. I do have to admit that I’m guilty for purposely avoiding writing BOYIB because of the recent angst in the real Calzona storyline…but somehow I found myself typing this out from 2am-5am…fatal attraction I guess? Don’t know. Never watched the movie. I guess in the end, I came back to BOYIB because it hurts me to leave things incomplete, I need closure with the story and I can tell you guys now that you’re really going to hate me for this one. Like REALLY. It’s not the last chapter though and I plan to continue it for quite a bit longer, so please don’t code out on me. Enough ranting…let’s cut the drum roll & get this party started~*
***Arizona’s Voiceover: *** We like to watch movies. We like to watch movies because they take us away from our lives and for that blissful hour and a half we get to step in someone else’s shoes. We get to experience life through a different set of eyes. Feel what it’s like to be in someone else’s skin. We get to dance in the rain. Soar out into space. Swing through the forest on a brittle vine. We get to be…someone else. We appreciate the comforting difference between movies and real life in that movies hold a specific formula. Boy meets girl. Girl falls in love with Boy. Boy proposes. The freakin’ end. The formula is cheesy. It’s tacky. It’s overdone. But we love it. We love the guarantee. The comforting pledge that at the end of the hour and a half, we’re guaranteed closure, we’re guaranteed explanations, we’re guaranteed a satisfactory resolution. The guarantee that there is some sort of end to the chaos and drama we’ve endured…
I drifted my fingers lightly across Arizona’s sleeping figure, stopping myself from actually making contact as I left my fingers dangling deftly, millimeters away from her soft expressionless face. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, I felt a barrier that persuaded my fingertips from stroking her gorgeously peaceful face. I lay beside her, taking it all in…everything about her was just…perfection. Her blonde curls strewn across her temple, her dimples etched in her cheeks as she breathed deeply, sound asleep from our rough reunion in the hospital elevator which had somehow progressed to my bedroom. I wanted to touch her soft golden hair, its soft glow teasing me to do so. I could see the dark roots ebbing into sight, and I wondered silently whether she was a natural blonde…but this thought was insignificant, pushed away by the image burned into my mind as I looked down painfully at the gorgeous girlfriend who was sleeping beside me; the image of Arizona crying, the memory of her tearing up as I watched her fight away the tears, push away her agony as she walked into Mark and I in the on-call room. And then it hit me. I was scared. I was scared to touch her because I was scared that she would wake up. Scared that if I moved, or made any sounds, I would wake her and she would remember. She would remember Mark. She would remember my cheating on her. She would wake up and leave. And she would never come back. Because as strong as she is, as amazingly brilliant of a person she is, she was hurt. And I thought back to the elevator a couple hours ago, how she had lunged at me with hunger as she crashed her lips onto mine. It wasn’t just lust… it was anger. Pain. Hurt. I could see it in her blue eyes which were dark with suffering, in the way she bit down on my lip, in the way she grabbed me roughly, clutching me as I felt her need to dominate me. Her need to re-claim me. It was in the way she whispered to me, her smile, her touch, her presence. I knew there was something different, something off, something wrong…she was hurt but I needed her. I needed her to be here with me, even if she wasn’t really her…
I saw her scrunch her nose in her sleep and her eyebrows pushed downwards, her breathing was becoming less shallow. I blinked away my tears as I stared transfixed in her appearance, mesmerized simply by her presence, by her closeness, by a proximity we haven’t experienced in such a long time. Arizona began to stir and I swiftly closed my eyes, feigning sleep, breathing deeply as I felt her push off away from the bed. I didn’t have to open my eyes to feel her leave the mattress, get up, pull on her jacket and leave my room, clicking the door softly to a close. I pushed my face deeper into my pillow as I felt the flood of tears slowly trickle into my pillow, drowning me in reality. Arizona was gone… or maybe she was never really here to begin with.
* * *
I felt like I was in high school again. All morning at SGMV my heart clenched whenever I saw a head of blonde hair, my insides twisted every time I heard a click that could’ve come from a certain blonde peds surgeon’s “wheelie sneaks”. Time and time again I felt the same crushing sensation as I realized it wasn’t Arizona. Teddy and Lexie had both been victimized at least twice as I pushed furiously away from them, disappointed that it wasn’t Arizona. Why were there suddenly so many blondes in the hospital? Ugh. I could feel the sadness and despair seeping into my scrubs as I spent my break standing nonchalantly by the nurses counter up in the peds wing. My odd behavior led to many curious and extremely obvious whispers from the nurses sitting behind the desk as I desperately pretended to look at my clipboard which bore nothing more than some old charts from yesterday’s rounds. I tapped my pen impatiently along the edge of the metal lifejacket which was the only thread of evidence I had to convince people that I wasn’t just a random doctor stalking their hot peds surgeon. How does Arizona even do it!? How does the pediatric head an entire day without walking by the control centre of the peds wing- the counter of frantic whispering, the gossip superhighway, the information system they called the nurse’s counter.
Who was I kidding? She was avoiding me. This thought pierced my gut as I gulped, adding to the anxiety and fear I had been building within me since she left without a word last night. We just needed to talk. Yeap. That’s all this was. A misunderstanding. We just need to talk… I kept repeating this in my head as I tried to push away the other nagging voice, countering bitterly with the reality of the situation “you guys already talked Callie Torres. And look where you are now.”
“Shut up!” I mumbled rather loudly to myself. The nurses glanced up at me with a worried
expression tinted with a hint of amusement. Flustered by my sudden outburst I dug my face inside my clipboard, furiously scribbling nothing as I pretended to turn my inconveniently insane eruption into something work-related, hoping that I could pass it off as having a sudden idea spring up within me on how to deal with a case. With a sigh I felt my shoulders collapse a bit into me in defeat. There was a case. A mental case. And it was me.
My pathetic antic was interrupted by the buzz of my cell phone. I gasped and dropped my clipboard as I hastily flicked open my phone, hoping that it was Arizona. Hoping it was the hint of hope that I had been waiting for the whole day. As I clumsily shuffled the papers that had sprung out of my clipboard at contact with the hard hospital floor, I grabbed my belongings and headed towards the attendings locker room.
* * *
“Hey.” A figure leaning against the spacious lockers greeted me darkly as he stepped out of the shadows.
“Mark…” I began, not knowing what to say. He had texted me to meet him here and I had come fully prepared to deal with the aftershocks of yesterday’s events, but nevertheless the sight of him before me still threw me off. I looked at the bags underneath his eyes and the graying stubble that had sprouted roughly around his normally prim appearance. His eyes looked almost haunted, and the gray lining of his pupils were blurred with a thoughtful presence.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered, looking down at his hands as he blurted out these two words. Two words I had used again and again with Arizona. Two words that elicited such pain and suffering. Two words that I had been on both the receiving and exuding end of. Two words I knew well.
I was lost for words. Here he was, my best friend in the hospital, the most unlikely
companion that I had someone grown attached to over the years. I walked towards him and gave him a look of understanding. The expression in his eyes told me much more than any words could every depict, a picture so ruined with despair that no words could ever paint. I mouthed wordlessly, not knowing what to say. Mark was like my brother. I loved him. But not the way I love Arizona. And as this thought filtered through my eyes, he seemed to hear it all, feel it channeled through my watering brown pupils, whispering words to him that my tongue could not express.
“I shouldn’t have told you what I said yesterday…and we shouldn’t have…well…I shouldn’t have kissed…cause the thing is…I don’t even know if I do. I mean. I love you Callie… you’re my best friend. The only best friend I have. I just…don’t know what I meant it…I don’t know if I love you…or maybe I do…it just came out so easily yesterday…it was like…” Mark muttered, once again looking down in his hands as he folded them together. I could see the confusion in him as he stood there with his shoulders hunched down, averting my gaze as I tried to understand his words.
“Mark. It’s okay. I’ll always be here for you. Heck, you’re my best friend! I love you…as…as my best friend you know? And…I’m sorry about yesterday…I shouldn't have kissed you…I was just lost and confused…but I love you as a friend Mark. And no matter what happens, you’ll always be Mark Sloan, the guy that’s worth knowing in daylight! To me, you’ll always be my best friend…” I laid my hands on his shoulder as he lifted his gaze into my eyes. There was so much hurt there. So much confusion. My heart throbbed in pain as I realized that I had hurt yet another person I loved…first Arizona and now Mark….I couldn’t shake away the guilt that hung over me and before I knew it, I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. Mark broke the silence carefully, muttering quietly…
“I…think I’m going to take a month off…what with Lexie…and Little Sloan…and…” Mark glanced up at me as if he wanted to say “you” but seemed to think better of it as he continued, “…I need some time to think…things through… and I think it’s better if I’m not around you and Arizona… my nose can’t take another bashing…” Mark chuckled weakly as he rubbed his bandaged feature. I couldn’t help out but give a weak smile as I looked up at the bandaging smack in the middle of his handsome appearance, even through all of this, Mark was still Mark. My Mark.
“You know…a lot of people know you as Mark the man-whore, Mark the slutty male escort, Mark the disgusting slag who sleeps around…” I began, only to be cut off with an annoyed and slightly hurt voice of the man across from me.
“Is there a point to this?! Because I sure hope this is going somewhere…” He frowned with offense as I continued as if he hadn’t spoken at all.
“I guess I just wanted to say…they say you are those things because, they think they know the real Mark Sloan. They think they get you. But I know better… I know you for who you really and truly are Mark. You’re not Mark the man-whore, you’re Mark…my best friend. And no matter what… you’ll always be that Mark to me.” I smiled as tears rolled down my cheek, I pulled the stunned man in-front of me into a soft hug.
“I resent the whole man-whore affiliation.” Mark mumbled as he awkwardly embraced me in his strong arms, patting me on the back appreciatively.
It was nice to feel like I had Mark back... I knew it wasn’t over, because he was going away and all…but at that moment, it was comforting to know that Mark and I were on good enough terms for a friendly hug.
“Calliope?” the barely audible whisper froze me like an icy breeze of wintry wind. I pulled away from the hug as I turned around to find Arizona staring firmly at the two of us. I am the queen of good timing.
Arizona’s sparkling blue eyes were water clogged but they were different from the last time she had busted Mark and I in the on-call room, there was a subtle defiance and determination that emblazoned her firm expression. I walked towards her immediately, “Arizona…we were just…”
“It’s okay Callie. It’s fine. It’s…fine.” Her voice cracked as she spoke the words, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time, or maybe even the first time today. I cringed at the use of my nick name, but I couldn’t help but fear the truth that crept in her words as she said it’s fine. I felt dread drench my being as Mark quickly maneuvered around Arizona’s unwavering stance and out the door, mumbling a quick goodbye as he left.
The only light shadowing Arizona’s features came from the small light bulb that was perched above the centre of the attending room, I hadn’t understood why the lights were mostly off but I was sure thankful that there were shadows to hide in. Maybe Arizona hadn’t seen us hugging… maybe that’s why she was so calm towards the misleading scene she had just broke in on. I can’t believe the foundation of my love life is now teetering on the hopes of cheap hospital lighting.
Arizona stepped into the attendings lounge and closed the door behind her, carefully clicking it shut. I felt a shiver run down my spine as I remembered the last door she had so gracefully closed not too long ago and anxiety hovered in my lungs as I held my breath, waiting for her to speak.
“I was just... we were just…hugging cause he’s leaving…for a month…and I was just telling him that I see him as a friend…that Mark was just…” I began my suicidal rant. So much for hoping for bad lighting… if she hadn’t seen the hug, she definitely can picture it now.
“Callie. It’s fine. It’s really…fine.” She whispered as she stepped towards me, closing the awkward distance that had previously been in place.
There it was again. The solid conviction that reverberated from the word fine. It really did sound fine. I gulped rather loudly as I felt the dryness of my lips. I stared at her wordlessly, half hoping that she would just push me against the lockers and roughly subdue my thoughts until they were just shattered fears, irrational fears that would mean nothing in the end.
“I love you. I really…really do…but I think it’s important for me to say this…to stop this…because of what’s been happening recently and…” Arizona was ranting a bit but she was cautious in her word choice, so slowly, deliberately, enunciating each word that I felt myself cringe in the solemn seriousness of her tone.
“Oh my god…you’re breaking up with me…” I whispered. Did I just say that? Oh my god. I just said that. It felt…unreal… like I was drifting above and outside my body. Like I was watching the procession of these words exit my mouth like the audience in a movie. A sick, twisted movie where I was the main character. I felt my heart shatter as these words stung my soul. The world came clattering down as my lips formed the words that I never thought I would say to Arizona.
She looked at me with watery eyes, as if these words had slapped her in the face, as if these words had drenched her in sorrow as well. I wanted her to refute my accusation. I wanted her to laugh in her dimple-revealing way and tell me that I was being crazy and that I was totally off. I wanted her to do anything, to punch me and call it even. I wanted the ending to be anything other than what it was now… with Arizona standing in front of me, forcibly keeping her expression firm as she bit down on her lower lip, trembling slightly as she spoke those crushing, words. The irrevocable sentence confirming the execution of my heart.
“I’m sorry Calliope…but last night…” Arizona began as I snapped out of it, I was drowning and all I could do was thrash, try and grab at anything to keep me afloat.
“Last night was wonderful.” I lied, wanting to stop her from finalizing the decision. She merely shook her head before continuing…
“Last night…it just felt wrong…I couldn’t feel you Calliope…I couldn’t feel you even as I was kissing you and running my lips down your body… I was there but I couldn’t feel you…all I could feel was the anger towards Mark and the sadness and hurt that I felt as I imagined the two of you…as I saw the picture burned in my skull of the two of you in the in-call room…” Arizona was crying now, silent tears trickled down her face but she was determined to keep her focus and strength in her words nevertheless. I shook my head, grasping her shoulders as I felt her slip away from me with every expression, every word that escaped her lips.
“No..Arizona..no…no…please…don’t do this..don’t …I can’t…” I slurred out, unable to control the stream of water that now flooded my features, my words were trembling as I forced them out, as I tried to stop her from continuing the inevitable.
“I really…really wish that I could forgive you…I do…but…I” Arizona held her mouth open wordlessly as she looked away, trying to search for the ending to her thoughts, trying to find the right way to end this, “…but I can’t…I can’t forget what happened and I can’t forgive it…because it scares me so much…it scares me so much that you could just throw it all away like you did… and I can’t be with someone knowing that they have the strength and power to destroy me like that…I mean…I kissed you and…and..I was there last night…but…I couldn’t feel you anymore…and that…scares me Calliope…that scares me so much…and so I know…I know… I can’t do this anymore…I can’t do…us anymore…” Arizona’s last words etched into me like a knife in a pumpkin on Halloween. I stood there in shock as she slipped away from me, her stray blonde curls turning swiftly as she strode from the room. I stared blankly towards the spot where she had previously been standing. I was stunned, frozen, numb from what had just happened. And then, before I knew it, I had collapsed onto the floor, overwhelmed by the sound of someone sobbing the most despairing tears, and it only took a moment to realize that it was coming from me.
“Arizona…” I whispered between my cacophony of sobs…I can’t believe it...she just broke up with me. Arizona was gone.
***Arizona’s voiceover: *** Sometimes we become so engrossed with movies that we start viewing our own lives as a movie of its own. We plug in our characters, hum out our soundtrack and we go through the procession of our lives, blissfully unaware. But in life, there are no guarantees. What if Boy doesn’t meet Girl. What if Girl takes a bat and knocks Boy unconscious cause Boy was a little too touchy. What if Boy’s out cold? Dead? What if Girl goes to jail for homocide? Cause the thing about life? Is that it’s not a movie. The person you meet at the beginning may not stick it out to the end. The obstacles you face may not be resolved at the climax. Heck, you might not even be the hero to the story. We become so accustomed to happy resolutions, cheerful endings, satisfactory closure that it really comes as a shock to us, when the velvet ropes come down… and it’s not exactly a happy ending.
Author: JCapzona
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Disclaimer: All television shows and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings ext. are the properties of their respective owners. This work is non-profit and simply written for fun. Reference to persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be factual.
Summary: The scariest thing about the morning after isn’t waking up to discover who’s beside you; it’s waking up to find that they were never really there to begin with…
Author’s Note: So the good news is that I’m off my writing hiatus for BOYIB (Because of You I’m Breaking), which was midterm induced so my apologies for that. I took some time off to write some nice thoughts. Happy thoughts, which came in the form of Strawberries & Crème. I do have to admit that I’m guilty for purposely avoiding writing BOYIB because of the recent angst in the real Calzona storyline…but somehow I found myself typing this out from 2am-5am…fatal attraction I guess? Don’t know. Never watched the movie. I guess in the end, I came back to BOYIB because it hurts me to leave things incomplete, I need closure with the story and I can tell you guys now that you’re really going to hate me for this one. Like REALLY. It’s not the last chapter though and I plan to continue it for quite a bit longer, so please don’t code out on me. Enough ranting…let’s cut the drum roll & get this party started~*
***Arizona’s Voiceover: *** We like to watch movies. We like to watch movies because they take us away from our lives and for that blissful hour and a half we get to step in someone else’s shoes. We get to experience life through a different set of eyes. Feel what it’s like to be in someone else’s skin. We get to dance in the rain. Soar out into space. Swing through the forest on a brittle vine. We get to be…someone else. We appreciate the comforting difference between movies and real life in that movies hold a specific formula. Boy meets girl. Girl falls in love with Boy. Boy proposes. The freakin’ end. The formula is cheesy. It’s tacky. It’s overdone. But we love it. We love the guarantee. The comforting pledge that at the end of the hour and a half, we’re guaranteed closure, we’re guaranteed explanations, we’re guaranteed a satisfactory resolution. The guarantee that there is some sort of end to the chaos and drama we’ve endured…
I drifted my fingers lightly across Arizona’s sleeping figure, stopping myself from actually making contact as I left my fingers dangling deftly, millimeters away from her soft expressionless face. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, I felt a barrier that persuaded my fingertips from stroking her gorgeously peaceful face. I lay beside her, taking it all in…everything about her was just…perfection. Her blonde curls strewn across her temple, her dimples etched in her cheeks as she breathed deeply, sound asleep from our rough reunion in the hospital elevator which had somehow progressed to my bedroom. I wanted to touch her soft golden hair, its soft glow teasing me to do so. I could see the dark roots ebbing into sight, and I wondered silently whether she was a natural blonde…but this thought was insignificant, pushed away by the image burned into my mind as I looked down painfully at the gorgeous girlfriend who was sleeping beside me; the image of Arizona crying, the memory of her tearing up as I watched her fight away the tears, push away her agony as she walked into Mark and I in the on-call room. And then it hit me. I was scared. I was scared to touch her because I was scared that she would wake up. Scared that if I moved, or made any sounds, I would wake her and she would remember. She would remember Mark. She would remember my cheating on her. She would wake up and leave. And she would never come back. Because as strong as she is, as amazingly brilliant of a person she is, she was hurt. And I thought back to the elevator a couple hours ago, how she had lunged at me with hunger as she crashed her lips onto mine. It wasn’t just lust… it was anger. Pain. Hurt. I could see it in her blue eyes which were dark with suffering, in the way she bit down on my lip, in the way she grabbed me roughly, clutching me as I felt her need to dominate me. Her need to re-claim me. It was in the way she whispered to me, her smile, her touch, her presence. I knew there was something different, something off, something wrong…she was hurt but I needed her. I needed her to be here with me, even if she wasn’t really her…
I saw her scrunch her nose in her sleep and her eyebrows pushed downwards, her breathing was becoming less shallow. I blinked away my tears as I stared transfixed in her appearance, mesmerized simply by her presence, by her closeness, by a proximity we haven’t experienced in such a long time. Arizona began to stir and I swiftly closed my eyes, feigning sleep, breathing deeply as I felt her push off away from the bed. I didn’t have to open my eyes to feel her leave the mattress, get up, pull on her jacket and leave my room, clicking the door softly to a close. I pushed my face deeper into my pillow as I felt the flood of tears slowly trickle into my pillow, drowning me in reality. Arizona was gone… or maybe she was never really here to begin with.
* * *
I felt like I was in high school again. All morning at SGMV my heart clenched whenever I saw a head of blonde hair, my insides twisted every time I heard a click that could’ve come from a certain blonde peds surgeon’s “wheelie sneaks”. Time and time again I felt the same crushing sensation as I realized it wasn’t Arizona. Teddy and Lexie had both been victimized at least twice as I pushed furiously away from them, disappointed that it wasn’t Arizona. Why were there suddenly so many blondes in the hospital? Ugh. I could feel the sadness and despair seeping into my scrubs as I spent my break standing nonchalantly by the nurses counter up in the peds wing. My odd behavior led to many curious and extremely obvious whispers from the nurses sitting behind the desk as I desperately pretended to look at my clipboard which bore nothing more than some old charts from yesterday’s rounds. I tapped my pen impatiently along the edge of the metal lifejacket which was the only thread of evidence I had to convince people that I wasn’t just a random doctor stalking their hot peds surgeon. How does Arizona even do it!? How does the pediatric head an entire day without walking by the control centre of the peds wing- the counter of frantic whispering, the gossip superhighway, the information system they called the nurse’s counter.
Who was I kidding? She was avoiding me. This thought pierced my gut as I gulped, adding to the anxiety and fear I had been building within me since she left without a word last night. We just needed to talk. Yeap. That’s all this was. A misunderstanding. We just need to talk… I kept repeating this in my head as I tried to push away the other nagging voice, countering bitterly with the reality of the situation “you guys already talked Callie Torres. And look where you are now.”
“Shut up!” I mumbled rather loudly to myself. The nurses glanced up at me with a worried
expression tinted with a hint of amusement. Flustered by my sudden outburst I dug my face inside my clipboard, furiously scribbling nothing as I pretended to turn my inconveniently insane eruption into something work-related, hoping that I could pass it off as having a sudden idea spring up within me on how to deal with a case. With a sigh I felt my shoulders collapse a bit into me in defeat. There was a case. A mental case. And it was me.
My pathetic antic was interrupted by the buzz of my cell phone. I gasped and dropped my clipboard as I hastily flicked open my phone, hoping that it was Arizona. Hoping it was the hint of hope that I had been waiting for the whole day. As I clumsily shuffled the papers that had sprung out of my clipboard at contact with the hard hospital floor, I grabbed my belongings and headed towards the attendings locker room.
* * *
“Hey.” A figure leaning against the spacious lockers greeted me darkly as he stepped out of the shadows.
“Mark…” I began, not knowing what to say. He had texted me to meet him here and I had come fully prepared to deal with the aftershocks of yesterday’s events, but nevertheless the sight of him before me still threw me off. I looked at the bags underneath his eyes and the graying stubble that had sprouted roughly around his normally prim appearance. His eyes looked almost haunted, and the gray lining of his pupils were blurred with a thoughtful presence.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered, looking down at his hands as he blurted out these two words. Two words I had used again and again with Arizona. Two words that elicited such pain and suffering. Two words that I had been on both the receiving and exuding end of. Two words I knew well.
I was lost for words. Here he was, my best friend in the hospital, the most unlikely
companion that I had someone grown attached to over the years. I walked towards him and gave him a look of understanding. The expression in his eyes told me much more than any words could every depict, a picture so ruined with despair that no words could ever paint. I mouthed wordlessly, not knowing what to say. Mark was like my brother. I loved him. But not the way I love Arizona. And as this thought filtered through my eyes, he seemed to hear it all, feel it channeled through my watering brown pupils, whispering words to him that my tongue could not express.
“I shouldn’t have told you what I said yesterday…and we shouldn’t have…well…I shouldn’t have kissed…cause the thing is…I don’t even know if I do. I mean. I love you Callie… you’re my best friend. The only best friend I have. I just…don’t know what I meant it…I don’t know if I love you…or maybe I do…it just came out so easily yesterday…it was like…” Mark muttered, once again looking down in his hands as he folded them together. I could see the confusion in him as he stood there with his shoulders hunched down, averting my gaze as I tried to understand his words.
“Mark. It’s okay. I’ll always be here for you. Heck, you’re my best friend! I love you…as…as my best friend you know? And…I’m sorry about yesterday…I shouldn't have kissed you…I was just lost and confused…but I love you as a friend Mark. And no matter what happens, you’ll always be Mark Sloan, the guy that’s worth knowing in daylight! To me, you’ll always be my best friend…” I laid my hands on his shoulder as he lifted his gaze into my eyes. There was so much hurt there. So much confusion. My heart throbbed in pain as I realized that I had hurt yet another person I loved…first Arizona and now Mark….I couldn’t shake away the guilt that hung over me and before I knew it, I felt a tear trickle down my cheek. Mark broke the silence carefully, muttering quietly…
“I…think I’m going to take a month off…what with Lexie…and Little Sloan…and…” Mark glanced up at me as if he wanted to say “you” but seemed to think better of it as he continued, “…I need some time to think…things through… and I think it’s better if I’m not around you and Arizona… my nose can’t take another bashing…” Mark chuckled weakly as he rubbed his bandaged feature. I couldn’t help out but give a weak smile as I looked up at the bandaging smack in the middle of his handsome appearance, even through all of this, Mark was still Mark. My Mark.
“You know…a lot of people know you as Mark the man-whore, Mark the slutty male escort, Mark the disgusting slag who sleeps around…” I began, only to be cut off with an annoyed and slightly hurt voice of the man across from me.
“Is there a point to this?! Because I sure hope this is going somewhere…” He frowned with offense as I continued as if he hadn’t spoken at all.
“I guess I just wanted to say…they say you are those things because, they think they know the real Mark Sloan. They think they get you. But I know better… I know you for who you really and truly are Mark. You’re not Mark the man-whore, you’re Mark…my best friend. And no matter what… you’ll always be that Mark to me.” I smiled as tears rolled down my cheek, I pulled the stunned man in-front of me into a soft hug.
“I resent the whole man-whore affiliation.” Mark mumbled as he awkwardly embraced me in his strong arms, patting me on the back appreciatively.
It was nice to feel like I had Mark back... I knew it wasn’t over, because he was going away and all…but at that moment, it was comforting to know that Mark and I were on good enough terms for a friendly hug.
“Calliope?” the barely audible whisper froze me like an icy breeze of wintry wind. I pulled away from the hug as I turned around to find Arizona staring firmly at the two of us. I am the queen of good timing.
Arizona’s sparkling blue eyes were water clogged but they were different from the last time she had busted Mark and I in the on-call room, there was a subtle defiance and determination that emblazoned her firm expression. I walked towards her immediately, “Arizona…we were just…”
“It’s okay Callie. It’s fine. It’s…fine.” Her voice cracked as she spoke the words, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time, or maybe even the first time today. I cringed at the use of my nick name, but I couldn’t help but fear the truth that crept in her words as she said it’s fine. I felt dread drench my being as Mark quickly maneuvered around Arizona’s unwavering stance and out the door, mumbling a quick goodbye as he left.
The only light shadowing Arizona’s features came from the small light bulb that was perched above the centre of the attending room, I hadn’t understood why the lights were mostly off but I was sure thankful that there were shadows to hide in. Maybe Arizona hadn’t seen us hugging… maybe that’s why she was so calm towards the misleading scene she had just broke in on. I can’t believe the foundation of my love life is now teetering on the hopes of cheap hospital lighting.
Arizona stepped into the attendings lounge and closed the door behind her, carefully clicking it shut. I felt a shiver run down my spine as I remembered the last door she had so gracefully closed not too long ago and anxiety hovered in my lungs as I held my breath, waiting for her to speak.
“I was just... we were just…hugging cause he’s leaving…for a month…and I was just telling him that I see him as a friend…that Mark was just…” I began my suicidal rant. So much for hoping for bad lighting… if she hadn’t seen the hug, she definitely can picture it now.
“Callie. It’s fine. It’s really…fine.” She whispered as she stepped towards me, closing the awkward distance that had previously been in place.
There it was again. The solid conviction that reverberated from the word fine. It really did sound fine. I gulped rather loudly as I felt the dryness of my lips. I stared at her wordlessly, half hoping that she would just push me against the lockers and roughly subdue my thoughts until they were just shattered fears, irrational fears that would mean nothing in the end.
“I love you. I really…really do…but I think it’s important for me to say this…to stop this…because of what’s been happening recently and…” Arizona was ranting a bit but she was cautious in her word choice, so slowly, deliberately, enunciating each word that I felt myself cringe in the solemn seriousness of her tone.
“Oh my god…you’re breaking up with me…” I whispered. Did I just say that? Oh my god. I just said that. It felt…unreal… like I was drifting above and outside my body. Like I was watching the procession of these words exit my mouth like the audience in a movie. A sick, twisted movie where I was the main character. I felt my heart shatter as these words stung my soul. The world came clattering down as my lips formed the words that I never thought I would say to Arizona.
She looked at me with watery eyes, as if these words had slapped her in the face, as if these words had drenched her in sorrow as well. I wanted her to refute my accusation. I wanted her to laugh in her dimple-revealing way and tell me that I was being crazy and that I was totally off. I wanted her to do anything, to punch me and call it even. I wanted the ending to be anything other than what it was now… with Arizona standing in front of me, forcibly keeping her expression firm as she bit down on her lower lip, trembling slightly as she spoke those crushing, words. The irrevocable sentence confirming the execution of my heart.
“I’m sorry Calliope…but last night…” Arizona began as I snapped out of it, I was drowning and all I could do was thrash, try and grab at anything to keep me afloat.
“Last night was wonderful.” I lied, wanting to stop her from finalizing the decision. She merely shook her head before continuing…
“Last night…it just felt wrong…I couldn’t feel you Calliope…I couldn’t feel you even as I was kissing you and running my lips down your body… I was there but I couldn’t feel you…all I could feel was the anger towards Mark and the sadness and hurt that I felt as I imagined the two of you…as I saw the picture burned in my skull of the two of you in the in-call room…” Arizona was crying now, silent tears trickled down her face but she was determined to keep her focus and strength in her words nevertheless. I shook my head, grasping her shoulders as I felt her slip away from me with every expression, every word that escaped her lips.
“No..Arizona..no…no…please…don’t do this..don’t …I can’t…” I slurred out, unable to control the stream of water that now flooded my features, my words were trembling as I forced them out, as I tried to stop her from continuing the inevitable.
“I really…really wish that I could forgive you…I do…but…I” Arizona held her mouth open wordlessly as she looked away, trying to search for the ending to her thoughts, trying to find the right way to end this, “…but I can’t…I can’t forget what happened and I can’t forgive it…because it scares me so much…it scares me so much that you could just throw it all away like you did… and I can’t be with someone knowing that they have the strength and power to destroy me like that…I mean…I kissed you and…and..I was there last night…but…I couldn’t feel you anymore…and that…scares me Calliope…that scares me so much…and so I know…I know… I can’t do this anymore…I can’t do…us anymore…” Arizona’s last words etched into me like a knife in a pumpkin on Halloween. I stood there in shock as she slipped away from me, her stray blonde curls turning swiftly as she strode from the room. I stared blankly towards the spot where she had previously been standing. I was stunned, frozen, numb from what had just happened. And then, before I knew it, I had collapsed onto the floor, overwhelmed by the sound of someone sobbing the most despairing tears, and it only took a moment to realize that it was coming from me.
“Arizona…” I whispered between my cacophony of sobs…I can’t believe it...she just broke up with me. Arizona was gone.
***Arizona’s voiceover: *** Sometimes we become so engrossed with movies that we start viewing our own lives as a movie of its own. We plug in our characters, hum out our soundtrack and we go through the procession of our lives, blissfully unaware. But in life, there are no guarantees. What if Boy doesn’t meet Girl. What if Girl takes a bat and knocks Boy unconscious cause Boy was a little too touchy. What if Boy’s out cold? Dead? What if Girl goes to jail for homocide? Cause the thing about life? Is that it’s not a movie. The person you meet at the beginning may not stick it out to the end. The obstacles you face may not be resolved at the climax. Heck, you might not even be the hero to the story. We become so accustomed to happy resolutions, cheerful endings, satisfactory closure that it really comes as a shock to us, when the velvet ropes come down… and it’s not exactly a happy ending.