I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends (1/2)
Title:I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends (1/2)
Author: asirnay
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: PG-13
Summary: While recovering from chicken pox, Callie is comforted by Arizona and her closest friends. My take on what occurred shortly after episode 6.12
I woke up, pleasantly surprised that Arizona was still laying in the hospital bed with me. We were spooning, as we would normally do back home in our own bed. I would’ve worried if she was comfortable, but Arizona slept like a rock. Her limp arm was still draped over my waist. I slowly reached for her left hand with my gauze paw. As I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb, I felt her inhale deeply. She stretched her arms outward as she exhaled. Propping herself with her right arm, she placed her left hand back in mine. I looked over my shoulder and had a chance to lose myself, gazing into her sea blue eyes. Her dimples revealed themselves as she smiled.
“Hey, you”. Arizona learned forward and greeted me with a kiss.
“Hey, yourself.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah, I slept pretty good. Even better since you spent the night here with me. I feel like I should be asking you that. This bed is only but so big.”
“Don’t worry about me. You’re the patient.”
“I’m surprised I didn’t scare you away. I was acting like a total brat.”
“You could never scare me away, Calliope. Little Grey, on the other hand, is a whole ‘nother story.” We both giggled.
“Aw, poor thing. All she was trying to do was help. And I went and unleashed The Wrath Of God on her.”
“It’s true what they say, that doctors sometimes make the worst patients.”
“Oh, really. We’ll see how you feel about that the next time you’re sick.”
What I said must’ve struck a nerve. Arizona was notoriously silent.
“Soooo...” Clearly, she was desperate to change the subject. “How’s the itching?”
“Not as bad as yesterday. But still annoying and persistent.”
“I’ve got a quick remedy for that.”
Arizona sat up and gently moved my body forward so that my back was completely facing her. Her hands gracefully rubbed my shoulders in a circular motion, working their way downward, and back up again. If Arizona had missed her calling as a peds surgeon, she would’ve made one hell of a masseuse. She managed to outdo Mark’s rubdown from the day before.
“Does that feel any better?”
“Yessss.” I let out a moan that was sure to have anyone passing by my room to do a double take. “Whatever you do, please don’t stop.” I knew saying that was futile, but it felt so good getting a reprieve from what felt like an army of ants crawling all over me.
I felt Arizona’s smiling beaming at me as she continued. Suddenly, an all too familiar sound caused my massage to grind to a screeching halt.
I let out an exasperated sigh after sucking my teeth. “It never fails.”
“911 page. I’m so sorry, Calliope.”
“No need to apologize. Go ahead and save some lives.”
“I promise I’ll come and check on you as often as I can, okay?”
“Okay.”
She leaned forward to plant a long, lingering kiss, intended to last me until she was able to return.
“Love you.” It was so cute the way she said those three words. It made me melt every single time.
“Love you back.” Looking over my shoulder, I managed to catch one last glimpse of Arizona and her dimples before she headed out of my room. She glided out of my line of sight on her heelies, towards the nearest elevator.
If there was anything good about being laid up in a hospital bed with the chicken pox is getting to watch movies all day. I hadn’t seen “Definitely, Maybe” since it had been in theaters. Seeing it the second time around was a totally different experience. I found myself paying less and less attention to Ryan Reynolds, and more on his female co-stars. Rachel Weisz, in particular. As much as I love Arizona, I would’ve traded places with Ryan’s character in a heartbeat. Especially that in scene where Rachel sang to him. She looked so gorgeous in that red dress.
As I was trying to watch the movie, I was distracted by the sound of someone smacking their lips as they were eating. It was the most irritating sound known to man, besides raking fingernails across a blackboard. I stared daggers at the culprit guilty of creating such a disturbance: my wonderful roommate, Cristina Yang. Arizona brought me a box full of comfort food, courtesy of our nearby Dunkin Donuts. Since I was still rocking the gauze paws, she fed one to me before she had to head off to surgery. Cristina helped herself to a glazed, layered with frosting and sprinkles. She kept me company during her lunch break.
“Jesus, Yang. Is the donut that good?”
“Relax, I’m finished.” Instead of using a napkin, like civilized people, Cristina wiped her mouth off with the sleave of her lab coat. I knew first hand what it must’ve been like for Felix Unger while he was living with Oscar Madison. “Besides, you can’t possibly be that into this movie. It’s so boring.”
“Whatever.”
Sometimes, I wonder how she and I had been roommates for so long and not strangled each other yet. We had very little in common. But when it was all said and done, I couldn’t have found any more loyal a friend.
“Callie?” Cristina once again diverted my attention from the movie.
“What?”
“Can I ask you something?”
I aimed the remote at the TV set hanging from the ceiling, pressing the power button to turn it off. Yang was determined not to let me watch my movie in peace. The hospital always ran the same thing over and over in a continuous loop. I would have the chance to ogle Rachel Weisz and her curves some other time.
“Go ahead. Shoot.”
“If you had a choice between love and surgery, which would you choose?”
Immediately, I began to laugh.
“Never mind.” Cristina sprang up from her seat, heading straight towards the sliding door. “I’ll leave you to your precious movie.”
“Cristina, wait!” I had never seen her react so sensitively before. She must’ve been dead ass serious. “Have a seat.”
She stood near the door for a moment before she sat back down in the chair in the corner.
“I didn’t mean to laugh at you. It’s just that, your question made me think of my last surgery before I got sick. I was doing a knee replacement on Tom Cates, the quarterback. I had Karev and one of the residents from Mercy West. You know the one that looks like an elf with the big moonbeam eyes? I can’t even think of her name. Well anyway, the both of them were anxious to grab a scalpel and just dive right in. All I could think about was Tom and his career being over, while those two were knit picking over something so trivial. I told them that there was more to life than just surgery. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job. I can’t imagine doing anything else. But, if it came down to choosing between love and surgery? I’d chose love, without hesitation.”
“You would?”
“Hmph. You don’t know me very well, do you?”
“I figured with all you’ve been through, with George and with Erica, it would’ve left you a little jaded towards love.”
“It did. For a while. But, look at me now. I’m in the most stable relationship I’ve ever been in. If I hadn’t gone through all that bullshit before, I don’t know if I would’ve been ready for Arizona when she came along. And I don’t know what’s going to happen 5, 10 or even 50 years from now, but I hope and pray that she’s a part of it.”
“You love her that much?”
“I do. I most certainly do.” I slowly nodded my head to emphasize my point. My eyes nearly welled up just thinking about how much she meant to me. “What’s this all about anyway? Something to do with you and Owen?”
“I almost did something stupid. I did do something stupid.”
“What? What happened?”
“Well for starters, Teddy has a thing for Owen.”
“Seriously? She just got here and already, she’s starting some shit.”
“I picked up on it right away. I saw them eye-fucking each other at Meredith’s Christmas dinner. I confronted Owen about it. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do. It was more or less coming more from her end than his.”
“Man, I really was starting to like her. Her and Arizona seem to get along pretty good, too.”
“You’re dating Li’l Miss Sunshine. She’s supposed to like everybody.”
“Watch it, Yang.”
“Come on. It was just a joke.” I gave her a glare to let her that she was still treading on thin ice. She sighed in forfeit. “Anyway, Teddy couldn’t handle having feelings for Owen and not being able to act upon them. So, she decided to throw in the towel. Ever since Burke left, I had been struggling to find someone to teach me cardio. We weren’t able to woo Dixon over here. And even if we did, her having Asperger’s would’ve been tough to deal with on a daily basis. I’m not even gonna go there about Hahn.”
“Thank you very much.”
“When Teddy came along, I wanted to soak up everything she knew like a sponge. She was willing to teach me.” There was a tremble in her voice that became more evident the longer she talked. “She was willing to teach me, Callie. For months, I thought I was wasting my time here. When she came, I felt like I had a purpose all over again.” Yang took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “I didn’t want to lose that feeling. I was willing to step aside and give up Owen so that I wouldn’t go back to feeling lost again.”
“Cristina. What...why would you do that? He’s your boyfriend. You just don’t trade somebody off like a baseball card. And Teddy’s not the last cardio surgeon in the world. If it doesn’t work out, you can always find another teacher.”
Yang sat at the edge of the chair, looking downward. Her silence scared me.
“I don’t deserve him. As wonderful as he’s been to me, I don’t deserve him.” She finally made eye contact again. “I kissed another guy.”
“Really?” I was dumbfounded by her revelation. This is something she probably never even shared with Meredith.
“Yeah. After Arizona’s surprise party went bust, Jackson kissed me.”
“Those Mercy West kids are nothing but troublemakers, too.”
“I should’ve seen it coming. He follows me around like a little, lost puppy dog.”
“Cristina, it’s not your fault. You can’t help it if he has a crush on you. There’s no need to punish yourself over something you have no control over.”
“I didn’t push him away. I don’t even like this guy, but I actually enjoyed kissing him. Maybe it was all in my head. Owen and I were going through one of our rough patches. I wanted to tell him what happened. But, I was afraid he would’ve went all G.I. Joe on that kid. ”
The sliding door opened as I began to giggle. In stepped Lexie, with her arms folded mysteriously behind her back. This was the first time I saw since I kicked her out of my room. Maybe she was coming back to kill me in my vulnerable state.
“Dr. Yang, Dr. Altman was looking for you. She said it was really important.”
Cristina smirked at me, to which I responded with shrugged shoulders. She sprang out of her seat once again, patting me slightly on the arm. “I’ll stop by before I leave for the day to see if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
Lexie watched as Yang made her exit. She turned towards me wearing that goofy grin that Mark found so endearing.
“So, what’s up?”
“I have some good news. Arizona said I can finally relieve you of you gauze paws.” She unfolded her arms from behind her, brandishing a pair of scissors. Normally, I would’ve been nervous at such a sight. But in that instant, I felt like a leprechaun discovering a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
“Awww. You’re the best, Little Grey. Oops, I mean Lexie.” She smiled when I called her by real name.
I placed my gauze paws on the hospital tray as Lexie sat down beside me on the bed. Gently, she began to cut, starting near my right wrist where the gauze was bound the tightest. As she pulled it off my hand, I relished feeling the air touch my skin again. I looked at each of my fingers as if seeing them for the first time.
“May I?”
“Oh! Of course.” Lexie placed the scissors in my hand.
Immediately, I snipped away, not showing one once of caution that Lexie just did. I could’ve cared less. The paw had to come off, ASAP.
“Careful.” Lexie’s eyes widened as she watched me hack away at the gauze. “You don’t want to knick your hand.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“Cristina said the same thing. I was venting to her about Sloan. N-not Mark Sloan, but...”
I pulled off the other gauze paw as I giggled. I felt like a free woman. “I knew what you meant.”
Lexie let out a slight sigh in relief. “Oh! I have something else for you.” She stirred around in her lab coat pocket. “Ta-Da!”
In her hand was a bottle of black nail polish.
“You’re just too much today.”
“Once again, don’t thank me. Thank your girlfriend.” Just hearing her say that brought a smile to my face. “Besides, I figured it would give us a chance to talk.”
“Before you say anything, Lexie, I am so sorry for kicking you out of my room. I was acting like such a diva. Even with chicken pox, it’s no excuse.”
“I understand.” Little Grey unscrewed the cap off and began applying a fresh coat of polish, starting with my right pinky. “I mean, I get it. I get that you were upset with me. And not just because of you having chicken pox. What I did, it hurt Mark’s feelings. And you being his best friend...and you being more than best friends at one point...I’m not surprised that you would take his side.”
“I’m not taking his side.”
“It’s okay that you are. I deserve it.”
“Lexie, stop it.” She wore that classic deer in the headlights look. “Just stop it okay. You had your reasons for ending your relationship with Mark. Whatever happened with Karev, happened after you two broke up. It’s not like you cheated. You’re an adult. Start acting like one. Both of you.”
A look washed over her face, as she realized that the aftermath of a break-up isn’t so black and white.
“You know what’s crazy? He’s mad at me for sleeping with Alex. Yet, he goes off to L.A. and sleeps with Addison the first chance he gets.”
Motherfucker! I told him not to tell her. I made myself specifically clear. Do. Not. Tell. Lexie. And he does the exact opposite. If he wasn’t my best friend, I would’ve celebrated that telling her blew up in his face.
Little Grey looked over at me, probably wondering why I had been so silent. “Wait a minute. You knew, didn’t you? He told you. Of course, he told you. Wh-why wouldn’t he tell you? He tells you everything.”
“Lexie...”
“You know what. I...” She quickly stood up. “I’m gonna go.”
“Lexie, wait!” No such luck. She couldn’t have left any faster. It was moments like that which made me question what Mark ever saw in her. Not that I didn’t like her. Little Grey was very sweet and thoughtful. But on the other hand, she could be such a spaz case. Lexie must have serious mojo going on. She accomplished what no other woman was able to. Not even Addison was able to tame the manwhore.
I was listening to “Little Pieces” by Gomez on my iPhone. The first time I had Arizona over at my place, she and I danced to it. We had such a blast that night. As if right on cue, she entered through the sliding door, holding a small bag in her hand. I couldn’t help but smile when I laid eyes on her. Before flopping right next to me on the bed, Arizona pulled back the curtains to give us some privacy.
“Aw, you’re playing our song.” She put her arm around me, allowing me to snuggle close to her. A peck on the cheek made me smile even wider. “Feeling any better?”
“Still feeling a little itchy. And tired. I feel like I ran the New York Marathon twice in one day.”
“Hmm.” Gently sweeping hair from my face, Arizona pressed her cheek against my forehead. “You’re still a bit feverish.That kind of worries me.”
“Well, what about you? Do you feel like you’re coming down with it too?”
“Mmm. Nope. So far, so good.” She let out what sounded like a nervous chuckle. Maybe, I read too much into that. Being isolated for hours at a time had made me over analyze every little thing. “You’ve been here almost the whole week. Maybe, we’ll keep you here one more day, see if we can get that fever down and then you can finish recovering at home. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds like a plan. Soooo, what’s in the bag?”
Arizona reached over to the tray and grabbed the plastic bag by its handles. “This is for you, from Dr. Bailey.”
Reaching into the bag, I pulled out a small metallic jar. “Shea butter? What am I supposed to do with this?”
“She said it’s for your skin. It’ll help restore your lovely complexion and also with the itching. She used it while she was pregnant to prevent stretch marks.”
“Oookay.” Arizona’s face dropped from the uncertainty that I carried in my voice. “Well, let’s give it a shot.”
“Super!” Her expression perked up immediately.
I lifted up my hospital gown, exposing my back and shoulders, before I laid down on my stomach. Arizona climbed on top of me, her legs straddling my waist. After opening the jar, she scooped a bit of shea butter with her fingertips. She dabbed it on to both of her palms before she began gently massaging it into my back. A kiss planted on my neck sent a shiver down my spine. It took my mind off the fact that I actually let my girlfriend slather Bailey’s wacky home remedy all over me.
“Calliope?” She finally broke silence after a few minutes into my massage.
“Yeah?” I looked over my shoulder when she didn’t respond. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Never mind. It’s nothing.” The fact that she flashed her megawatt smile at me did little to ease my concern.
Author: asirnay
Pairing: Callie/Arizona
Rating: PG-13
Summary: While recovering from chicken pox, Callie is comforted by Arizona and her closest friends. My take on what occurred shortly after episode 6.12
I woke up, pleasantly surprised that Arizona was still laying in the hospital bed with me. We were spooning, as we would normally do back home in our own bed. I would’ve worried if she was comfortable, but Arizona slept like a rock. Her limp arm was still draped over my waist. I slowly reached for her left hand with my gauze paw. As I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb, I felt her inhale deeply. She stretched her arms outward as she exhaled. Propping herself with her right arm, she placed her left hand back in mine. I looked over my shoulder and had a chance to lose myself, gazing into her sea blue eyes. Her dimples revealed themselves as she smiled.
“Hey, you”. Arizona learned forward and greeted me with a kiss.
“Hey, yourself.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah, I slept pretty good. Even better since you spent the night here with me. I feel like I should be asking you that. This bed is only but so big.”
“Don’t worry about me. You’re the patient.”
“I’m surprised I didn’t scare you away. I was acting like a total brat.”
“You could never scare me away, Calliope. Little Grey, on the other hand, is a whole ‘nother story.” We both giggled.
“Aw, poor thing. All she was trying to do was help. And I went and unleashed The Wrath Of God on her.”
“It’s true what they say, that doctors sometimes make the worst patients.”
“Oh, really. We’ll see how you feel about that the next time you’re sick.”
What I said must’ve struck a nerve. Arizona was notoriously silent.
“Soooo...” Clearly, she was desperate to change the subject. “How’s the itching?”
“Not as bad as yesterday. But still annoying and persistent.”
“I’ve got a quick remedy for that.”
Arizona sat up and gently moved my body forward so that my back was completely facing her. Her hands gracefully rubbed my shoulders in a circular motion, working their way downward, and back up again. If Arizona had missed her calling as a peds surgeon, she would’ve made one hell of a masseuse. She managed to outdo Mark’s rubdown from the day before.
“Does that feel any better?”
“Yessss.” I let out a moan that was sure to have anyone passing by my room to do a double take. “Whatever you do, please don’t stop.” I knew saying that was futile, but it felt so good getting a reprieve from what felt like an army of ants crawling all over me.
I felt Arizona’s smiling beaming at me as she continued. Suddenly, an all too familiar sound caused my massage to grind to a screeching halt.
I let out an exasperated sigh after sucking my teeth. “It never fails.”
“911 page. I’m so sorry, Calliope.”
“No need to apologize. Go ahead and save some lives.”
“I promise I’ll come and check on you as often as I can, okay?”
“Okay.”
She leaned forward to plant a long, lingering kiss, intended to last me until she was able to return.
“Love you.” It was so cute the way she said those three words. It made me melt every single time.
“Love you back.” Looking over my shoulder, I managed to catch one last glimpse of Arizona and her dimples before she headed out of my room. She glided out of my line of sight on her heelies, towards the nearest elevator.
If there was anything good about being laid up in a hospital bed with the chicken pox is getting to watch movies all day. I hadn’t seen “Definitely, Maybe” since it had been in theaters. Seeing it the second time around was a totally different experience. I found myself paying less and less attention to Ryan Reynolds, and more on his female co-stars. Rachel Weisz, in particular. As much as I love Arizona, I would’ve traded places with Ryan’s character in a heartbeat. Especially that in scene where Rachel sang to him. She looked so gorgeous in that red dress.
As I was trying to watch the movie, I was distracted by the sound of someone smacking their lips as they were eating. It was the most irritating sound known to man, besides raking fingernails across a blackboard. I stared daggers at the culprit guilty of creating such a disturbance: my wonderful roommate, Cristina Yang. Arizona brought me a box full of comfort food, courtesy of our nearby Dunkin Donuts. Since I was still rocking the gauze paws, she fed one to me before she had to head off to surgery. Cristina helped herself to a glazed, layered with frosting and sprinkles. She kept me company during her lunch break.
“Jesus, Yang. Is the donut that good?”
“Relax, I’m finished.” Instead of using a napkin, like civilized people, Cristina wiped her mouth off with the sleave of her lab coat. I knew first hand what it must’ve been like for Felix Unger while he was living with Oscar Madison. “Besides, you can’t possibly be that into this movie. It’s so boring.”
“Whatever.”
Sometimes, I wonder how she and I had been roommates for so long and not strangled each other yet. We had very little in common. But when it was all said and done, I couldn’t have found any more loyal a friend.
“Callie?” Cristina once again diverted my attention from the movie.
“What?”
“Can I ask you something?”
I aimed the remote at the TV set hanging from the ceiling, pressing the power button to turn it off. Yang was determined not to let me watch my movie in peace. The hospital always ran the same thing over and over in a continuous loop. I would have the chance to ogle Rachel Weisz and her curves some other time.
“Go ahead. Shoot.”
“If you had a choice between love and surgery, which would you choose?”
Immediately, I began to laugh.
“Never mind.” Cristina sprang up from her seat, heading straight towards the sliding door. “I’ll leave you to your precious movie.”
“Cristina, wait!” I had never seen her react so sensitively before. She must’ve been dead ass serious. “Have a seat.”
She stood near the door for a moment before she sat back down in the chair in the corner.
“I didn’t mean to laugh at you. It’s just that, your question made me think of my last surgery before I got sick. I was doing a knee replacement on Tom Cates, the quarterback. I had Karev and one of the residents from Mercy West. You know the one that looks like an elf with the big moonbeam eyes? I can’t even think of her name. Well anyway, the both of them were anxious to grab a scalpel and just dive right in. All I could think about was Tom and his career being over, while those two were knit picking over something so trivial. I told them that there was more to life than just surgery. Don’t get me wrong. I love my job. I can’t imagine doing anything else. But, if it came down to choosing between love and surgery? I’d chose love, without hesitation.”
“You would?”
“Hmph. You don’t know me very well, do you?”
“I figured with all you’ve been through, with George and with Erica, it would’ve left you a little jaded towards love.”
“It did. For a while. But, look at me now. I’m in the most stable relationship I’ve ever been in. If I hadn’t gone through all that bullshit before, I don’t know if I would’ve been ready for Arizona when she came along. And I don’t know what’s going to happen 5, 10 or even 50 years from now, but I hope and pray that she’s a part of it.”
“You love her that much?”
“I do. I most certainly do.” I slowly nodded my head to emphasize my point. My eyes nearly welled up just thinking about how much she meant to me. “What’s this all about anyway? Something to do with you and Owen?”
“I almost did something stupid. I did do something stupid.”
“What? What happened?”
“Well for starters, Teddy has a thing for Owen.”
“Seriously? She just got here and already, she’s starting some shit.”
“I picked up on it right away. I saw them eye-fucking each other at Meredith’s Christmas dinner. I confronted Owen about it. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do. It was more or less coming more from her end than his.”
“Man, I really was starting to like her. Her and Arizona seem to get along pretty good, too.”
“You’re dating Li’l Miss Sunshine. She’s supposed to like everybody.”
“Watch it, Yang.”
“Come on. It was just a joke.” I gave her a glare to let her that she was still treading on thin ice. She sighed in forfeit. “Anyway, Teddy couldn’t handle having feelings for Owen and not being able to act upon them. So, she decided to throw in the towel. Ever since Burke left, I had been struggling to find someone to teach me cardio. We weren’t able to woo Dixon over here. And even if we did, her having Asperger’s would’ve been tough to deal with on a daily basis. I’m not even gonna go there about Hahn.”
“Thank you very much.”
“When Teddy came along, I wanted to soak up everything she knew like a sponge. She was willing to teach me.” There was a tremble in her voice that became more evident the longer she talked. “She was willing to teach me, Callie. For months, I thought I was wasting my time here. When she came, I felt like I had a purpose all over again.” Yang took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “I didn’t want to lose that feeling. I was willing to step aside and give up Owen so that I wouldn’t go back to feeling lost again.”
“Cristina. What...why would you do that? He’s your boyfriend. You just don’t trade somebody off like a baseball card. And Teddy’s not the last cardio surgeon in the world. If it doesn’t work out, you can always find another teacher.”
Yang sat at the edge of the chair, looking downward. Her silence scared me.
“I don’t deserve him. As wonderful as he’s been to me, I don’t deserve him.” She finally made eye contact again. “I kissed another guy.”
“Really?” I was dumbfounded by her revelation. This is something she probably never even shared with Meredith.
“Yeah. After Arizona’s surprise party went bust, Jackson kissed me.”
“Those Mercy West kids are nothing but troublemakers, too.”
“I should’ve seen it coming. He follows me around like a little, lost puppy dog.”
“Cristina, it’s not your fault. You can’t help it if he has a crush on you. There’s no need to punish yourself over something you have no control over.”
“I didn’t push him away. I don’t even like this guy, but I actually enjoyed kissing him. Maybe it was all in my head. Owen and I were going through one of our rough patches. I wanted to tell him what happened. But, I was afraid he would’ve went all G.I. Joe on that kid. ”
The sliding door opened as I began to giggle. In stepped Lexie, with her arms folded mysteriously behind her back. This was the first time I saw since I kicked her out of my room. Maybe she was coming back to kill me in my vulnerable state.
“Dr. Yang, Dr. Altman was looking for you. She said it was really important.”
Cristina smirked at me, to which I responded with shrugged shoulders. She sprang out of her seat once again, patting me slightly on the arm. “I’ll stop by before I leave for the day to see if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
Lexie watched as Yang made her exit. She turned towards me wearing that goofy grin that Mark found so endearing.
“So, what’s up?”
“I have some good news. Arizona said I can finally relieve you of you gauze paws.” She unfolded her arms from behind her, brandishing a pair of scissors. Normally, I would’ve been nervous at such a sight. But in that instant, I felt like a leprechaun discovering a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
“Awww. You’re the best, Little Grey. Oops, I mean Lexie.” She smiled when I called her by real name.
I placed my gauze paws on the hospital tray as Lexie sat down beside me on the bed. Gently, she began to cut, starting near my right wrist where the gauze was bound the tightest. As she pulled it off my hand, I relished feeling the air touch my skin again. I looked at each of my fingers as if seeing them for the first time.
“May I?”
“Oh! Of course.” Lexie placed the scissors in my hand.
Immediately, I snipped away, not showing one once of caution that Lexie just did. I could’ve cared less. The paw had to come off, ASAP.
“Careful.” Lexie’s eyes widened as she watched me hack away at the gauze. “You don’t want to knick your hand.”
“You sound like my mother.”
“Cristina said the same thing. I was venting to her about Sloan. N-not Mark Sloan, but...”
I pulled off the other gauze paw as I giggled. I felt like a free woman. “I knew what you meant.”
Lexie let out a slight sigh in relief. “Oh! I have something else for you.” She stirred around in her lab coat pocket. “Ta-Da!”
In her hand was a bottle of black nail polish.
“You’re just too much today.”
“Once again, don’t thank me. Thank your girlfriend.” Just hearing her say that brought a smile to my face. “Besides, I figured it would give us a chance to talk.”
“Before you say anything, Lexie, I am so sorry for kicking you out of my room. I was acting like such a diva. Even with chicken pox, it’s no excuse.”
“I understand.” Little Grey unscrewed the cap off and began applying a fresh coat of polish, starting with my right pinky. “I mean, I get it. I get that you were upset with me. And not just because of you having chicken pox. What I did, it hurt Mark’s feelings. And you being his best friend...and you being more than best friends at one point...I’m not surprised that you would take his side.”
“I’m not taking his side.”
“It’s okay that you are. I deserve it.”
“Lexie, stop it.” She wore that classic deer in the headlights look. “Just stop it okay. You had your reasons for ending your relationship with Mark. Whatever happened with Karev, happened after you two broke up. It’s not like you cheated. You’re an adult. Start acting like one. Both of you.”
A look washed over her face, as she realized that the aftermath of a break-up isn’t so black and white.
“You know what’s crazy? He’s mad at me for sleeping with Alex. Yet, he goes off to L.A. and sleeps with Addison the first chance he gets.”
Motherfucker! I told him not to tell her. I made myself specifically clear. Do. Not. Tell. Lexie. And he does the exact opposite. If he wasn’t my best friend, I would’ve celebrated that telling her blew up in his face.
Little Grey looked over at me, probably wondering why I had been so silent. “Wait a minute. You knew, didn’t you? He told you. Of course, he told you. Wh-why wouldn’t he tell you? He tells you everything.”
“Lexie...”
“You know what. I...” She quickly stood up. “I’m gonna go.”
“Lexie, wait!” No such luck. She couldn’t have left any faster. It was moments like that which made me question what Mark ever saw in her. Not that I didn’t like her. Little Grey was very sweet and thoughtful. But on the other hand, she could be such a spaz case. Lexie must have serious mojo going on. She accomplished what no other woman was able to. Not even Addison was able to tame the manwhore.
I was listening to “Little Pieces” by Gomez on my iPhone. The first time I had Arizona over at my place, she and I danced to it. We had such a blast that night. As if right on cue, she entered through the sliding door, holding a small bag in her hand. I couldn’t help but smile when I laid eyes on her. Before flopping right next to me on the bed, Arizona pulled back the curtains to give us some privacy.
“Aw, you’re playing our song.” She put her arm around me, allowing me to snuggle close to her. A peck on the cheek made me smile even wider. “Feeling any better?”
“Still feeling a little itchy. And tired. I feel like I ran the New York Marathon twice in one day.”
“Hmm.” Gently sweeping hair from my face, Arizona pressed her cheek against my forehead. “You’re still a bit feverish.That kind of worries me.”
“Well, what about you? Do you feel like you’re coming down with it too?”
“Mmm. Nope. So far, so good.” She let out what sounded like a nervous chuckle. Maybe, I read too much into that. Being isolated for hours at a time had made me over analyze every little thing. “You’ve been here almost the whole week. Maybe, we’ll keep you here one more day, see if we can get that fever down and then you can finish recovering at home. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds like a plan. Soooo, what’s in the bag?”
Arizona reached over to the tray and grabbed the plastic bag by its handles. “This is for you, from Dr. Bailey.”
Reaching into the bag, I pulled out a small metallic jar. “Shea butter? What am I supposed to do with this?”
“She said it’s for your skin. It’ll help restore your lovely complexion and also with the itching. She used it while she was pregnant to prevent stretch marks.”
“Oookay.” Arizona’s face dropped from the uncertainty that I carried in my voice. “Well, let’s give it a shot.”
“Super!” Her expression perked up immediately.
I lifted up my hospital gown, exposing my back and shoulders, before I laid down on my stomach. Arizona climbed on top of me, her legs straddling my waist. After opening the jar, she scooped a bit of shea butter with her fingertips. She dabbed it on to both of her palms before she began gently massaging it into my back. A kiss planted on my neck sent a shiver down my spine. It took my mind off the fact that I actually let my girlfriend slather Bailey’s wacky home remedy all over me.
“Calliope?” She finally broke silence after a few minutes into my massage.
“Yeah?” I looked over my shoulder when she didn’t respond. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Never mind. It’s nothing.” The fact that she flashed her megawatt smile at me did little to ease my concern.