"This Ruined Puzzle"
Part: 7/?
Pairing: Derek/Addison
Rating: Harmless this round.
Authors: A new group effort by Hannah and Sarah.
Description: We start with some history, then weave carefully around canon, and finally head completely A/U.
Summary: Fun at work and hard decisions.
Disclaimer: This section contains a lot from canon. We don't own that as we don't own the characters.
1 month and two days later! If you've forgotten about this, as we almost did, previous parts are inside.
1. Bend the pieces till they fit.
2. It's the way she fills my senses.
3. Pick up the fragments and piece them together.
4. My heart feels like it's frozen.
5. I'm glad we broke the rules.
6. How could you have been a fool?
A/N: Well this took a while to get out. Damn canon! But it's done now, we can all move on! Hoorah. From here on out what happens has all been thought out in our little heads. We hope you enjoy our twist on what Shonda gave us.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here I stand, here I stand
All alone, here I stand
Tonight, here I stand
And I wish I was strong enough to breathe, here I stand
Without you, here I stand
In my life, here I stand
I wish I was anyone but me
- Madina Lake, "Here I Stand"
~~~~~~~~~~
Addison took it upon herself to get to the hospital early the next morning. She was determined that the flood of emotions that had escaped her last night would not be repeated. Chances were she would have to see Derek and the twelve year old at work. It had dawned on her sometime during the shower she had taken earlier that she could continue to worry about seeing them together or she could do something about it. Never one to back down from any sort of fight Addison decided to play a role in her fate.
She highly doubted that after the encounter the previous evening in the lobby indicated that everything was just peachy in paradise. Meredith that was her name wasn’t it? She rolled through the thought until she had remembered that Richard had talked about her when she visited with him the night before. Meredith Grey it was and she had vanished into the night as soon as she realized Derek was married. Obviously something he had neglected to mention and if Addison was to be honest about it that fact alone made her very happy. Because that meant that his escape to Seattle was merely that, he hadn’t wanted to think about her, talk about her, or mention her name. It was his escape plan and if he had chosen to forget eight great years, one so-so year, and two horrible years then maybe she could manage to jog his memory.
Addison knew her presence there would make her harder to forget. So she had composed herself well and marched into the hospital as if she belonged there with her 4 inch heels, designer clothes, salmon scrubs and trademark crimson curls. It hadn’t taken her long to locate Dr. Burke and when she introduced herself as Dr. Addison Montgomery-Shepherd his face almost lit up. From the rumor mils she had already heard that he had been given Chief over Derek and Addison could see the cogs turning in his mind as he realized this was yet another situation he could utilize to get one up on Derek. It suited both Preston and herself well in this case and she was going to use that to the fullest of her abilities. As soon as he smiled and shook her hand, she knew her request would not be denied.
~~~~~~~~~~
Derek spent his night with the last bottle of scotch in his sad little trailer making a mental note as it burned the back of his throat to pick up some more on his way home. If Addison was here then liquor consumption would be at an all time high.
He drank to forget the pain, the images, and most of all the loss of her. His heart still twittered when she was around no matter how much he chose to deny it.
He gathered his clothes in a rushed haze trying to look presentable while still noting the image of the fact that he was a different man. Addison knew clothes; she recognized their changes and the effect wouldn’t be lost on her. He hurried in his usual fashion suddenly realizing that without her to drag him out of bed in the morning he was almost always late. Sleeping at the hospital lent him privy to being paged into a good morning but she always had managed to make the screeching blare of the alarm clock a little less annoying.
He draws up short on his way down the hallway seeing Addison coming towards his conversation with Burke. He heard the rumors and on his way up the stairs he had actually managed to convince himself that there was no way they were true. It was sneaky and all kinds of low but the moment he saw the grin on her face as she trotted forward he knew it was indeed the truth. God help Meredith today he thought as he deliberately shifted his weight trying his best to look annoyed.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
“You’re never interrupting.” Preston smiles because he is privy to that special secret that is running through the halls like the wind.
“She’s always interrupting.” He corrects and clenches his jaw as she merely smiles back.
The rest of the silly conversation happens without much of Derek’s knowledge and very little input. He sees Meredith try to muster up the confidence to walk forward and in all of this he is truly sorry that she is going to get hurt. There is no way around it not when his wife is involved.
“…the intern you requested..” Is all he hears out of Meredith’s cute little mouth before he feels the knot in his stomach twist again. He knows it will be a long day as he spins free from the insane grin on his wife‘s mouth that declares she just caught her prey.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Define TTTS.” Addison demands as they review their patient’s file. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t here for her husband but she also takes great pride in her job and isn’t about to be stuck with the world’s dumbest intern. She waits patiently continuing to fire questions at the yond blonde, waiting almost begging for her to slip up and then. “Meaning?”
Meredith stands a little slack jawed racking her brain. She knows this answer. She learned this answer years ago. One other thing that Meredith Grey has learned is that nothing in her life is remotely fair when paired against the rest of the world.
“One twin gets too much blood, the other too little endangering the lives of both. I’d expect you to know that Grey.” There’s her shot. It’s cheap and a little low even for her but she’ll take the satisfaction wherever she can get it right now because the look her husband shot her about thirty minutes ago makes her stomach turn.
“Chin up Grey, I’m this rough on everyone not just the women who sleep with my husband.” Another small victory awarded to the taller party and Addison is almost feeling bad. Almost.
~~~~~~~~~~
“What are you doing here?” Derek demands yet again as he pinches his sinuses in between his eyes. It’s his thing, he does it when he grows agitated and right now standing in front of his estranged wife and trying to figure out how in the world she managed to wrangle in Meredith makes him just a little frustrated.
“I told you. Work.” She plainly states again attempting to give him the most incredulous look ever. They briefly stop arguing out of habit when O’Malley walks by simply because they are used to being the power couple and no one should know that they are fighting. It doesn’t matter that they are in Seattle and not New York. It doesn’t matter that everything is still gloriously wrong between them; some things are a force of habit.
“That took a lot of nerve.” He states as finally decides to dive into the icy waters.
“Oh come on. She came highly recommended.” Addison states in a non-defensive manner. She doesn’t have to answer to him on this. And then it happens. Touching, for the first time since what she has affectionately dubbed “that night.” He grabs her arm, not gently and not too rough to lead her around the corner so the senseless fight can continue.
“Right.”
“So you don’t recommend her?” She challenges.
“No, I did not say that.”
“Then just not for her medical skills.”
“Oh, would you shut up.”
“Dr. Shepherd?” Booms Meredith. She isn’t sure what to call her. The wife, the woman who will inevitably make her life so much worse. She knew dating an attending was wrong but my god she wouldn’t be Meredith Grey if she followed the rules of the book ever.
Derek hears her before he sees her and he hates that he can get so engaged with his wife that he doesn’t notice his girlfriend. She watches as she carefully and accurately describes the situation. He gladly rids himself of his wife after attempting to steal Meredith away and heads in the other direction to handle the pressing issues of the day that is if he can get his mind of the leggy redhead that just stormed back into his world after two months.
~~~~~~~~~~
Meredith stands in the corner trying not to notice that her first patient with her quasi boyfriend’s wife absolutely hates her. She takes it in stride because really that’s all she can do. She hears the patient ask for her to be removed and is expecting to be told to leave within seconds but instead the woman in the disgustingly salmon scrubs chooses to announce, “My husband didn’t cheat on me, I cheated on him. So the wronged woman here- Dr. Grey. So I think you owe her on hell of an apology.”
With that Addison takes it as her cue to leave. Meredith watches as she floats from the room like divulging the secret wasn’t that big of a deal. She glances over at Ms. Phillips who looks guilty as sin and waits for her apology so she can leave. This is almost worst than being sent back to Bailey. Why does she have to make it so hard? All Meredith wants to do is hate her; hate her and to finally have someone to blame for ruining her life.
~~~~~~~~~
He spends the evening after Joe’s surgery avoiding his wife by heading out into the woods. He cracks a beer and sits on his deck. His handmade deck. It felt good to finally be doing something. It felt amazing to not be suffocated by the city’s lights, sounds, smells, and heats. So what if it is the woods, he can breathe out here. And it is hard to put a price on what it takes to keep from drowning even if it is some dingy trailer in the middle of nowhere.
Meredith pulls up and he had a feeling he was going to have to explain something sooner or later. So he pours his heart out. He explains the gut wrenching implications of that night and takes a deep swig as he feels his nose begin to clutter and his eyes begin to water. He steadies his breath and finishes. It’s been a lot of sleepless nights with which he has tried to find out the best way to tell someone, should they ever be important enough, about what happened that night.
Instead of his predicated outcome he gets, “It‘s not enough.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Immersing herself in cases wasn’t working; the need to know was becoming all consuming. Derek's apparent foul mood and dismissive attitude wasn't solely because of her presence, she refused to believe it. He had been absent before, true, but never harsh and dismissive as he had been this morning. It was obvious to her that even after an explanation Meredith hadn’t forgiven him for breaking her heart, for his lie of omission. But she needed confirmation. She rounded the corner chart in hand, and there she was. She was everywhere, in her head, in the hall, in her husband's bed. She had to know.
"Dr. Grey, may I speak with you for a moment?" The younger doctor froze, looking to her resident for confirmation; she must have received it as she approached Addison with trepidation. "I assume he told you, why he left me?"
"Dr. Shepherd, with all due respect this is nothing to do with me." And to the younger woman's credit she tried to end it there and walk away. But it would have been her business if she was still involved with Derek, wouldn't it?
"Really? So you didn’t take him back?" She paused briefly but the blonde kept walking, "Good girl." Addison tried to not smile. She was almost proud of the younger woman for not falling for his charms.
"And in the future, I'd appreciate it if we could keep our relationship strictly professional."
"Meredith." She paused again, the young woman turned to face her. The look on her face was one of disdain and Addison could almost here her wishing to not be there; anything to not be having this conversation, to not be 'that' woman.
"Sometimes people do desperate things to get someone’s attention." She explained, hoping that it was sufficient to explain her behavior to a complete stranger. Hoping that it conveyed that she didn’t throw her marriage away on a whim. It was a relief to say it out loud, as though saying it had lifted a weight from her shoulders. Meredith almost rolled her eyes before she turned and walked away.
"There are two sides to every story." Addison called after her, hoping it hit home. This mess of a marriage wasn’t all her fault; she just had to hope that Derek would eventually realize that.
~~~~~~~~~~
The last few days at Seattle Grace had been full of tension and apprehension. It was all his fault, which the Chief and Burke consistently liked to point out. Just in case he hadn’t gotten it yet. Now he sits alone in the waiting room hoping for God to send down some answer to him.
Bailey was right when she said that he was trying to use the hospital to give him the answer. Really, he would take anyone giving him some sort of sign; a good inclination to pick one or the other. Meredith had kissed him the rain because she was fighting for her own life; Addison in the NICU in front of children that were fighting for their lives. The similarities and differences were endless. He liked her kiss; he responded to it. There was always something comforting about Addison’s lips on his own and she had initiated the first step and then promptly followed it by divorce papers. One hell of a power play, if you ask him.
He retorted in like, as only he could that he wanted her gone as soon as possible but the truth is the damage was already done. Things could never go back to being how they were now that the cat was out of the bag. Picking Addison, while painful, was a sure thing. There was a marriage there, a home and a family which after his discussion in the stairwell with Meredith it had become apparent that she didn’t understand in the slightest. She followed up the supposed understanding with an ultimatum in the scrub room which he has never dealt well with. At least this way Addison had seemingly given him the upper hand.
He pauses again seeing Bailey stroll towards him in a dress and smirks.
"You haven’t signed those divorce papers yet, have you?"
"Bailey tell me what to do." And she laughs because he has been pleading all week for someone to give him the heads up.
"God why does this have to be so hard?”
"It’s not hard. It’s painful but it’s not hard... Come on you know what to do already. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be in so much pain.” He nods because she’s right. She’s always right; just like Addison. And then he is back at square one again.
A few more moments and the culprit of all the pain and agony catches him in the act. He closes his eyes and envisions his equal pen strokes writing out his name above hers on the paper. He tried earlier; he sat with his favorite pen and visualized what it would look like to see his name. What it would feel like to see her scrawl. He was unable to actually follow through with the action, the gravity of putting pen to paper too much to bare. He thinks it is funny that two simple names can end an era; a decade that once was the best thing in his life. He realizes that maybe if she had signed first it would be so much easier, but he couldn’t put his name to it. He couldn’t be the one who put the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. He watches as she places her hand on her hip and pretends to scowl.
"I have been looking everywhere for you."
"Well you found me."
"So you gonna sign those divorce papers or not?" He already knew the answer. He supposes he knew it all along; it was merely a choice of how much he wanted to hurt and how much he wanted those around him to suffer.
~~~~~~~~~~
Part 8. As he rips you from your skin.
Pairing: Derek/Addison
Rating: Harmless this round.
Authors: A new group effort by Hannah and Sarah.
Description: We start with some history, then weave carefully around canon, and finally head completely A/U.
Summary: Fun at work and hard decisions.
Disclaimer: This section contains a lot from canon. We don't own that as we don't own the characters.
1 month and two days later! If you've forgotten about this, as we almost did, previous parts are inside.
1. Bend the pieces till they fit.
2. It's the way she fills my senses.
3. Pick up the fragments and piece them together.
4. My heart feels like it's frozen.
5. I'm glad we broke the rules.
6. How could you have been a fool?
A/N: Well this took a while to get out. Damn canon! But it's done now, we can all move on! Hoorah. From here on out what happens has all been thought out in our little heads. We hope you enjoy our twist on what Shonda gave us.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here I stand, here I stand
All alone, here I stand
Tonight, here I stand
And I wish I was strong enough to breathe, here I stand
Without you, here I stand
In my life, here I stand
I wish I was anyone but me
- Madina Lake, "Here I Stand"
~~~~~~~~~~
Addison took it upon herself to get to the hospital early the next morning. She was determined that the flood of emotions that had escaped her last night would not be repeated. Chances were she would have to see Derek and the twelve year old at work. It had dawned on her sometime during the shower she had taken earlier that she could continue to worry about seeing them together or she could do something about it. Never one to back down from any sort of fight Addison decided to play a role in her fate.
She highly doubted that after the encounter the previous evening in the lobby indicated that everything was just peachy in paradise. Meredith that was her name wasn’t it? She rolled through the thought until she had remembered that Richard had talked about her when she visited with him the night before. Meredith Grey it was and she had vanished into the night as soon as she realized Derek was married. Obviously something he had neglected to mention and if Addison was to be honest about it that fact alone made her very happy. Because that meant that his escape to Seattle was merely that, he hadn’t wanted to think about her, talk about her, or mention her name. It was his escape plan and if he had chosen to forget eight great years, one so-so year, and two horrible years then maybe she could manage to jog his memory.
Addison knew her presence there would make her harder to forget. So she had composed herself well and marched into the hospital as if she belonged there with her 4 inch heels, designer clothes, salmon scrubs and trademark crimson curls. It hadn’t taken her long to locate Dr. Burke and when she introduced herself as Dr. Addison Montgomery-Shepherd his face almost lit up. From the rumor mils she had already heard that he had been given Chief over Derek and Addison could see the cogs turning in his mind as he realized this was yet another situation he could utilize to get one up on Derek. It suited both Preston and herself well in this case and she was going to use that to the fullest of her abilities. As soon as he smiled and shook her hand, she knew her request would not be denied.
~~~~~~~~~~
Derek spent his night with the last bottle of scotch in his sad little trailer making a mental note as it burned the back of his throat to pick up some more on his way home. If Addison was here then liquor consumption would be at an all time high.
He drank to forget the pain, the images, and most of all the loss of her. His heart still twittered when she was around no matter how much he chose to deny it.
He gathered his clothes in a rushed haze trying to look presentable while still noting the image of the fact that he was a different man. Addison knew clothes; she recognized their changes and the effect wouldn’t be lost on her. He hurried in his usual fashion suddenly realizing that without her to drag him out of bed in the morning he was almost always late. Sleeping at the hospital lent him privy to being paged into a good morning but she always had managed to make the screeching blare of the alarm clock a little less annoying.
He draws up short on his way down the hallway seeing Addison coming towards his conversation with Burke. He heard the rumors and on his way up the stairs he had actually managed to convince himself that there was no way they were true. It was sneaky and all kinds of low but the moment he saw the grin on her face as she trotted forward he knew it was indeed the truth. God help Meredith today he thought as he deliberately shifted his weight trying his best to look annoyed.
“Sorry to interrupt.”
“You’re never interrupting.” Preston smiles because he is privy to that special secret that is running through the halls like the wind.
“She’s always interrupting.” He corrects and clenches his jaw as she merely smiles back.
The rest of the silly conversation happens without much of Derek’s knowledge and very little input. He sees Meredith try to muster up the confidence to walk forward and in all of this he is truly sorry that she is going to get hurt. There is no way around it not when his wife is involved.
“…the intern you requested..” Is all he hears out of Meredith’s cute little mouth before he feels the knot in his stomach twist again. He knows it will be a long day as he spins free from the insane grin on his wife‘s mouth that declares she just caught her prey.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Define TTTS.” Addison demands as they review their patient’s file. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t here for her husband but she also takes great pride in her job and isn’t about to be stuck with the world’s dumbest intern. She waits patiently continuing to fire questions at the yond blonde, waiting almost begging for her to slip up and then. “Meaning?”
Meredith stands a little slack jawed racking her brain. She knows this answer. She learned this answer years ago. One other thing that Meredith Grey has learned is that nothing in her life is remotely fair when paired against the rest of the world.
“One twin gets too much blood, the other too little endangering the lives of both. I’d expect you to know that Grey.” There’s her shot. It’s cheap and a little low even for her but she’ll take the satisfaction wherever she can get it right now because the look her husband shot her about thirty minutes ago makes her stomach turn.
“Chin up Grey, I’m this rough on everyone not just the women who sleep with my husband.” Another small victory awarded to the taller party and Addison is almost feeling bad. Almost.
~~~~~~~~~~
“What are you doing here?” Derek demands yet again as he pinches his sinuses in between his eyes. It’s his thing, he does it when he grows agitated and right now standing in front of his estranged wife and trying to figure out how in the world she managed to wrangle in Meredith makes him just a little frustrated.
“I told you. Work.” She plainly states again attempting to give him the most incredulous look ever. They briefly stop arguing out of habit when O’Malley walks by simply because they are used to being the power couple and no one should know that they are fighting. It doesn’t matter that they are in Seattle and not New York. It doesn’t matter that everything is still gloriously wrong between them; some things are a force of habit.
“That took a lot of nerve.” He states as finally decides to dive into the icy waters.
“Oh come on. She came highly recommended.” Addison states in a non-defensive manner. She doesn’t have to answer to him on this. And then it happens. Touching, for the first time since what she has affectionately dubbed “that night.” He grabs her arm, not gently and not too rough to lead her around the corner so the senseless fight can continue.
“Right.”
“So you don’t recommend her?” She challenges.
“No, I did not say that.”
“Then just not for her medical skills.”
“Oh, would you shut up.”
“Dr. Shepherd?” Booms Meredith. She isn’t sure what to call her. The wife, the woman who will inevitably make her life so much worse. She knew dating an attending was wrong but my god she wouldn’t be Meredith Grey if she followed the rules of the book ever.
Derek hears her before he sees her and he hates that he can get so engaged with his wife that he doesn’t notice his girlfriend. She watches as she carefully and accurately describes the situation. He gladly rids himself of his wife after attempting to steal Meredith away and heads in the other direction to handle the pressing issues of the day that is if he can get his mind of the leggy redhead that just stormed back into his world after two months.
~~~~~~~~~~
Meredith stands in the corner trying not to notice that her first patient with her quasi boyfriend’s wife absolutely hates her. She takes it in stride because really that’s all she can do. She hears the patient ask for her to be removed and is expecting to be told to leave within seconds but instead the woman in the disgustingly salmon scrubs chooses to announce, “My husband didn’t cheat on me, I cheated on him. So the wronged woman here- Dr. Grey. So I think you owe her on hell of an apology.”
With that Addison takes it as her cue to leave. Meredith watches as she floats from the room like divulging the secret wasn’t that big of a deal. She glances over at Ms. Phillips who looks guilty as sin and waits for her apology so she can leave. This is almost worst than being sent back to Bailey. Why does she have to make it so hard? All Meredith wants to do is hate her; hate her and to finally have someone to blame for ruining her life.
~~~~~~~~~
He spends the evening after Joe’s surgery avoiding his wife by heading out into the woods. He cracks a beer and sits on his deck. His handmade deck. It felt good to finally be doing something. It felt amazing to not be suffocated by the city’s lights, sounds, smells, and heats. So what if it is the woods, he can breathe out here. And it is hard to put a price on what it takes to keep from drowning even if it is some dingy trailer in the middle of nowhere.
Meredith pulls up and he had a feeling he was going to have to explain something sooner or later. So he pours his heart out. He explains the gut wrenching implications of that night and takes a deep swig as he feels his nose begin to clutter and his eyes begin to water. He steadies his breath and finishes. It’s been a lot of sleepless nights with which he has tried to find out the best way to tell someone, should they ever be important enough, about what happened that night.
Instead of his predicated outcome he gets, “It‘s not enough.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Immersing herself in cases wasn’t working; the need to know was becoming all consuming. Derek's apparent foul mood and dismissive attitude wasn't solely because of her presence, she refused to believe it. He had been absent before, true, but never harsh and dismissive as he had been this morning. It was obvious to her that even after an explanation Meredith hadn’t forgiven him for breaking her heart, for his lie of omission. But she needed confirmation. She rounded the corner chart in hand, and there she was. She was everywhere, in her head, in the hall, in her husband's bed. She had to know.
"Dr. Grey, may I speak with you for a moment?" The younger doctor froze, looking to her resident for confirmation; she must have received it as she approached Addison with trepidation. "I assume he told you, why he left me?"
"Dr. Shepherd, with all due respect this is nothing to do with me." And to the younger woman's credit she tried to end it there and walk away. But it would have been her business if she was still involved with Derek, wouldn't it?
"Really? So you didn’t take him back?" She paused briefly but the blonde kept walking, "Good girl." Addison tried to not smile. She was almost proud of the younger woman for not falling for his charms.
"And in the future, I'd appreciate it if we could keep our relationship strictly professional."
"Meredith." She paused again, the young woman turned to face her. The look on her face was one of disdain and Addison could almost here her wishing to not be there; anything to not be having this conversation, to not be 'that' woman.
"Sometimes people do desperate things to get someone’s attention." She explained, hoping that it was sufficient to explain her behavior to a complete stranger. Hoping that it conveyed that she didn’t throw her marriage away on a whim. It was a relief to say it out loud, as though saying it had lifted a weight from her shoulders. Meredith almost rolled her eyes before she turned and walked away.
"There are two sides to every story." Addison called after her, hoping it hit home. This mess of a marriage wasn’t all her fault; she just had to hope that Derek would eventually realize that.
~~~~~~~~~~
The last few days at Seattle Grace had been full of tension and apprehension. It was all his fault, which the Chief and Burke consistently liked to point out. Just in case he hadn’t gotten it yet. Now he sits alone in the waiting room hoping for God to send down some answer to him.
Bailey was right when she said that he was trying to use the hospital to give him the answer. Really, he would take anyone giving him some sort of sign; a good inclination to pick one or the other. Meredith had kissed him the rain because she was fighting for her own life; Addison in the NICU in front of children that were fighting for their lives. The similarities and differences were endless. He liked her kiss; he responded to it. There was always something comforting about Addison’s lips on his own and she had initiated the first step and then promptly followed it by divorce papers. One hell of a power play, if you ask him.
He retorted in like, as only he could that he wanted her gone as soon as possible but the truth is the damage was already done. Things could never go back to being how they were now that the cat was out of the bag. Picking Addison, while painful, was a sure thing. There was a marriage there, a home and a family which after his discussion in the stairwell with Meredith it had become apparent that she didn’t understand in the slightest. She followed up the supposed understanding with an ultimatum in the scrub room which he has never dealt well with. At least this way Addison had seemingly given him the upper hand.
He pauses again seeing Bailey stroll towards him in a dress and smirks.
"You haven’t signed those divorce papers yet, have you?"
"Bailey tell me what to do." And she laughs because he has been pleading all week for someone to give him the heads up.
"God why does this have to be so hard?”
"It’s not hard. It’s painful but it’s not hard... Come on you know what to do already. If you didn’t you wouldn’t be in so much pain.” He nods because she’s right. She’s always right; just like Addison. And then he is back at square one again.
A few more moments and the culprit of all the pain and agony catches him in the act. He closes his eyes and envisions his equal pen strokes writing out his name above hers on the paper. He tried earlier; he sat with his favorite pen and visualized what it would look like to see his name. What it would feel like to see her scrawl. He was unable to actually follow through with the action, the gravity of putting pen to paper too much to bare. He thinks it is funny that two simple names can end an era; a decade that once was the best thing in his life. He realizes that maybe if she had signed first it would be so much easier, but he couldn’t put his name to it. He couldn’t be the one who put the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. He watches as she places her hand on her hip and pretends to scowl.
"I have been looking everywhere for you."
"Well you found me."
"So you gonna sign those divorce papers or not?" He already knew the answer. He supposes he knew it all along; it was merely a choice of how much he wanted to hurt and how much he wanted those around him to suffer.
~~~~~~~~~~
Part 8. As he rips you from your skin.