Sunday on a Saturday Afternoon - 20/20
It surprised Addison how little changed after Alex left. She went to work as usual and she came home as usual. Her days were an uninterrupted flow of complicated surgeries and conversations with patients. The name ‘Alex Karev’ was taboo in her presence and none of her coworkers dared to bring up his name. The mere mention of him brought tears to her eyes or made her hand out particularly vicious assignments to whoever was standing in her vicinity.
The fridge in her apartment still had the leftover cheeseburger from their last dinner together. It was pushed in the back, hidden by pickles and a carton of milk. One of his t-shirts was tucked inside her pillowcase, a reminder of him on the late nights when she felt alone. Any message he left on her machine was saved for several days - she longed for any scrap of him, gleaning every word he said for hidden meaning. She always screened his calls, though, knowing that she wasn’t yet able to sound happy at the sound of his voice, only sad and wistful. She always called him when he was at work, with carefully rehearsed messages, trying to sound casual and breezy.
“It’s not healthy,” Callie told her one night after catching sight of the old burger as she went for a bottle of beer.
“What isn’t?” Addison carefully kept her eyes trained on the television screen, her fingers moving over the buttons of the remote, tracing the pattern in her skirt.
“Having a hamburger that’s over a month old in your refrigerator.” Callie handed a freshly opened bottle to Addison who took it gratefully and decided not to mention that it was Alex’s favorite kind of beer.
“I’ll move it to the freezer,” she said, taking a deep sip and coughing a little, ending the conversation when she turned up the volume on the TV.
---
It took Alex a while to feel like he belonged anywhere. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t unpacked his few boxes, why he hadn’t made an effort to get to know anyone and why he fell asleep on the couch with the TV on instead of alone in his bed.
The work was good and he enjoyed it. He kept himself busy that way, refusing to draw comparisons between the doctors here and a certain surgeon back in Seattle, a place he still referred to as home.
“Just come out for a beer. You don’t have to be our friend, just get a drink.” Alex had shrugged the offer away, guessing that he had a fresh message from Addison on his machine and he wanted to hear her low voice and imagine her expressive face as the words spilled from the speaker. His co-workers started leaving him alone, content to go to bars with people who actually wanted to go with them.
Addison mailed him a letter, once. He had never been much for correspondence, so he hadn’t responded, but her note was always on display, sitting in the middle of his dining room table. Her careful loopy handwriting told him that she missed him, that none of the new interns had the talent he did, that she wished they were together.
---
There was night that Addison, emboldened by several bottles of beer, called Alex unexpectedly and out of the blue. She heard a sleepy ‘hello?’ before she dropped the phone in surprise. Alex hung up after the clatter and Addison didn’t now if he knew that it was her, but she savored that hello and thought of it when she hugged her pillow to her chest and couldn’t quite remember what he smelled like.
There was a night that Alex, of his own volition, started writing Addison a letter, his small cramped writing taking up so little space on the page. He wrote mundane details of his life, his coworkers, his apartment, before he wrote, “I miss you,” then crossed it out heavily and threw the paper in the trash can. They should both be stronger than this and it hurt him that he wasn’t.
---
Eventually Addison threw out the old piece of cooked meat, when it started to make everything in her freezer smell, and Alex put her letter away in a drawer. Their messages to each other were less frequent, with less pauses that clearly declared they were trying not to talk about how much they wanted to be together, to cross the distance.
Addison knew she would never move to Cincinnati, even though a voice in the back of her head told her that she’d said she’d never move to Seattle either.
Alex was certain he’d turn from resident to attending at Children’s and that he couldn’t go back to the life he’d left, even though every time he saw a flash of red hair, his heart would jump, thinking it was Addison.
---
Callie tried to set Addison up on a date and Addison didn’t even show up to Joe’s to meet the guy that was supposedly the next George Clooney. She didn’t often go to The Emerald City, thinking that, without Alex, it’d lost some of its magic, its luster.
Alex went out for drinks and would flirt with his female coworkers, but he wasn’t the Casanova he’d been in Seattle. No one came home with him to his bare apartment, no one pitied him for his empty lifestyle.
---
It was maybe a year later that Addison called him, carefully dialing the numbers. She let out a happy sigh at the sound of his husky voice. “Hi,” she said as her shoulder cradled the phone. Curled up on the couch, she turned on the television, letting the news act as a background to this first conversation.
It was just as the wrap-up music was beginning to play that Addison heard a smothered yawn on Alex’s end. She let out a low laugh, always forgetting about the time difference.
“I’ll let you go now,” she said and there was a sleepy response that she took for some kind of agreement. “Good-bye.”
There was a tone of finality as Addison turned off her phone and the TV, then crawled into bed, nosing into her pillow, knowing that the scent of his t-shirt was now just her shampoo and that she’d accidentally erased all his messages earlier that day. Tomorrow could be a fresh start, but tonight just felt like the end.
Fin
Explanation: The title, "Sunday on a Saturday Afternoon" comes from a John Prine song called "Donald and Lydia" which is the story of two people who have never met, but they are people who dream of love. Lydia "reads romance novels up in her room, and feels just like Sunday on a Saturday afternoon." The end lines of the song are, " The made love in the mountains, they made love in the streams / They made love in the valleys, they made love in their dreams / But when they were finished there was nothing to say / 'Cause mostly they made love from ten miles away" which, along with what it's really saying, made me think of a long distance relationship.
The fridge in her apartment still had the leftover cheeseburger from their last dinner together. It was pushed in the back, hidden by pickles and a carton of milk. One of his t-shirts was tucked inside her pillowcase, a reminder of him on the late nights when she felt alone. Any message he left on her machine was saved for several days - she longed for any scrap of him, gleaning every word he said for hidden meaning. She always screened his calls, though, knowing that she wasn’t yet able to sound happy at the sound of his voice, only sad and wistful. She always called him when he was at work, with carefully rehearsed messages, trying to sound casual and breezy.
“It’s not healthy,” Callie told her one night after catching sight of the old burger as she went for a bottle of beer.
“What isn’t?” Addison carefully kept her eyes trained on the television screen, her fingers moving over the buttons of the remote, tracing the pattern in her skirt.
“Having a hamburger that’s over a month old in your refrigerator.” Callie handed a freshly opened bottle to Addison who took it gratefully and decided not to mention that it was Alex’s favorite kind of beer.
“I’ll move it to the freezer,” she said, taking a deep sip and coughing a little, ending the conversation when she turned up the volume on the TV.
---
It took Alex a while to feel like he belonged anywhere. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t unpacked his few boxes, why he hadn’t made an effort to get to know anyone and why he fell asleep on the couch with the TV on instead of alone in his bed.
The work was good and he enjoyed it. He kept himself busy that way, refusing to draw comparisons between the doctors here and a certain surgeon back in Seattle, a place he still referred to as home.
“Just come out for a beer. You don’t have to be our friend, just get a drink.” Alex had shrugged the offer away, guessing that he had a fresh message from Addison on his machine and he wanted to hear her low voice and imagine her expressive face as the words spilled from the speaker. His co-workers started leaving him alone, content to go to bars with people who actually wanted to go with them.
Addison mailed him a letter, once. He had never been much for correspondence, so he hadn’t responded, but her note was always on display, sitting in the middle of his dining room table. Her careful loopy handwriting told him that she missed him, that none of the new interns had the talent he did, that she wished they were together.
---
There was night that Addison, emboldened by several bottles of beer, called Alex unexpectedly and out of the blue. She heard a sleepy ‘hello?’ before she dropped the phone in surprise. Alex hung up after the clatter and Addison didn’t now if he knew that it was her, but she savored that hello and thought of it when she hugged her pillow to her chest and couldn’t quite remember what he smelled like.
There was a night that Alex, of his own volition, started writing Addison a letter, his small cramped writing taking up so little space on the page. He wrote mundane details of his life, his coworkers, his apartment, before he wrote, “I miss you,” then crossed it out heavily and threw the paper in the trash can. They should both be stronger than this and it hurt him that he wasn’t.
---
Eventually Addison threw out the old piece of cooked meat, when it started to make everything in her freezer smell, and Alex put her letter away in a drawer. Their messages to each other were less frequent, with less pauses that clearly declared they were trying not to talk about how much they wanted to be together, to cross the distance.
Addison knew she would never move to Cincinnati, even though a voice in the back of her head told her that she’d said she’d never move to Seattle either.
Alex was certain he’d turn from resident to attending at Children’s and that he couldn’t go back to the life he’d left, even though every time he saw a flash of red hair, his heart would jump, thinking it was Addison.
---
Callie tried to set Addison up on a date and Addison didn’t even show up to Joe’s to meet the guy that was supposedly the next George Clooney. She didn’t often go to The Emerald City, thinking that, without Alex, it’d lost some of its magic, its luster.
Alex went out for drinks and would flirt with his female coworkers, but he wasn’t the Casanova he’d been in Seattle. No one came home with him to his bare apartment, no one pitied him for his empty lifestyle.
---
It was maybe a year later that Addison called him, carefully dialing the numbers. She let out a happy sigh at the sound of his husky voice. “Hi,” she said as her shoulder cradled the phone. Curled up on the couch, she turned on the television, letting the news act as a background to this first conversation.
It was just as the wrap-up music was beginning to play that Addison heard a smothered yawn on Alex’s end. She let out a low laugh, always forgetting about the time difference.
“I’ll let you go now,” she said and there was a sleepy response that she took for some kind of agreement. “Good-bye.”
There was a tone of finality as Addison turned off her phone and the TV, then crawled into bed, nosing into her pillow, knowing that the scent of his t-shirt was now just her shampoo and that she’d accidentally erased all his messages earlier that day. Tomorrow could be a fresh start, but tonight just felt like the end.
Fin
Explanation: The title, "Sunday on a Saturday Afternoon" comes from a John Prine song called "Donald and Lydia" which is the story of two people who have never met, but they are people who dream of love. Lydia "reads romance novels up in her room, and feels just like Sunday on a Saturday afternoon." The end lines of the song are, " The made love in the mountains, they made love in the streams / They made love in the valleys, they made love in their dreams / But when they were finished there was nothing to say / 'Cause mostly they made love from ten miles away" which, along with what it's really saying, made me think of a long distance relationship.