𝙓𝙇.
TALK IT OUT

──────

THE DAY I'D broken my rib, Charlie had found me crying in the bath.

"Oh shit." 

He'd stood in the doorway. His eyes were wide, fixing on my torso. I'd winced at his how alarmed he sounded. His steps towards me were slightly staggered, he got down onto his knees, holding the side of the bathtub. 

"What happened?"

I'd glanced down at the large, angry-looking bruises that now patterned my ribcage. 

There were only a few but they were large and prominent, shining out through the clouds of bubble bath like charred holes in a letter someone had unceremoniously failed to burn. 

My face had made itself into this sheepish smile that I knew he didn't like, his brow knotted and I would have shrugged if it didn't hurt like hell. I'd wiped my tears on my wrists and held myself together.

"I had a rough day at work." I'd said.

He tried to nurse me to health like some sort of broken baby bird, but I'd persevered. I'd gotten myself out of the bath, I'd dried myself down and I'd even cooked a half-hearted dinner in the process, all while shaking off the way he shadowed me as if I'd fall apart at any time. 

I'd kissed him and patted his cheek, repeating the word I'd said a thousand times that day: "I'm fine". Charlie had followed, disbelief and concern in his eyes. I had less concern. It was exactly what I said it was: a rough day at work. 

It was only when I sat down to write out the incident report in bed, that I actually resumed the same sadness I'd felt while in the bath.

Charlie had kept his distance.

"I don't know how you do it."

"Hm?"

 I'd even put my glasses on. I never wore my glasses. The light was scarce and my eyes were tired. I'd blinked over at him, hands juggling a few pieces of paper and a pen, staring through the lenses of my reading glasses. 

He'd taken to leaning against the doorframe and smiling sadly at me. When I'd realised what he was referring to, I just cast my gaze down to the floor, eventually returning to signing on little dotted lines.

In a way much like Mark, Charlie was able to stare at me as if he could see straight through me. I'd gnawed on my bottom lip and tried to ignore the way he gingerly stepped forwards, eventually sitting on the beside me. 

His side of the bed had been relatively untouched as he'd taken to sleeping on the couch to not disturb me when he worked late into the night. He'd looked over my shoulder at the legal forms: Seattle Grace Mercy West will not be held liable to blah blah blah... 

I'd just been able to catch the furrow of his brow out of the corner of my eye.

"You're not happy, Beth."

Sometimes, Charlie felt more like my therapist than my boyfriend. It'd been that way from the start and I suppose that that was the problem with dating an accredited therapist. My eyes had closed very fleetingly as if those words harmed me deeply, but he'd stared at me, watching the movement of my face. 

His hand had pressed against my arm. 

It felt like I was in therapy. It felt like this conversation was a professional concern that left a metallic, sour taste in my mouth. Goosebumps had risen on my arms as he laid his head on my shoulder. I'd exhaled loudly, leaning my head on top of his.

"I'm happy." My voice had sounded very unsure. 

Charlie sighed, his breath causing my hair to sway. I had to wet my lips, feeling a burn at the back of my eyes. It'd reminded me of when Charlie had spoken to his brother and had been branded as 'too happy.' Charlie was too happy here with me. Charlie was too happy and I wasn't happy at all. 

"I'm very happy." I said.

"Beth," The way he'd said my name made my heartache. Anxiously, I'd clicked my pen against my palm. He'd reached over and taken it from my hand, stopping me from fiddling. "You were crying in the bath."

"I had something in my eye."

"You had a rough day at a job that you don't like." His words caused my chest to restrict. "You're not happy Beth." Pause. "This doesn't make you happy. This is the second time you've had to fill out one of those forms— You're not doing what you want to do—"

"Charlie-"

"No," He'd made me look at him, searching my eyes for any sign that I was lying. Tirelessly, I'd just resorted to avoiding his eye. "Say the word and I'll have Dom on the phone and we'll be in some hospital and you'll be on a surgical internship in one of his hospitals." My eyes burned with tears. I looked away, feeling very numb and empty. He must've sensed my shift in mood as he cleared his throat. "Or we could go back into the non-profit, we can be doing groundwork— travelling the world—"

"Charlie, I..." I'd paused and then I'd cleared my throat. "We don't need that. I'm happy–– I'm fine. I'm happy, baby. I promise."

He'd looked sad. "You're not. I've seen you happy and this isn't it." He paused for a second. "Look- I'm sorry that I've been busy with work and I wish I could—"

"Don't apologise." I'd cut him off, my heart-wrenching at his words.

 My face had paled and I'd stared him with wide, round eyes that flushed with unshed tears. A sense of horror had gripped me so suddenly that I almost choked with the speed of my interruption. 

"Don't apologise for your career," I'd said, "You've already done so much for me— There's nothing you should apologise for."

I could appreciate a career-driven individual. I wasn't hurt by the fact that I slept on my own, I was concerned. Charlie was being worked to the bone and I had to watch the weight of his blind loyalty and drive whittle him down. 

A pair of bloodshot eyes were what stared back at me. I pressed my hand against his cheek. Something about his tone and his expression implied that he felt guilty. Charlie was apologising for the hours he was devoted to his brother's non-profit. He was apologising for the charity work that would be virtually unpaid. 

He felt guilty for my sadness but he had nothing to do with it— I felt like an awful human being in that moment. All I wanted to do was hug him tightly to my chest (if that wouldn't leave me in agony)

"Say the word." He'd murmured, pressing a kiss against my palm. Charlie had spoken into it, voice low and husky, breath tickling my skin. "Say the word and we'll leave this place and you'll never have to think about any of this again."

Leaving Seattle was something that danced at the back of my mind all hours of the day. It'd become a friendly warmth almost, something that gave me a push to go forwards. 

Did I like the city? Sure, but I'd always been an East Coaster through and through. The West Coast felt foreign in some many ways— and I could see that it was the same for Charlie.

I didn't exactly believe his statement about not thinking about Seattle. I was always thinking, always exhausting myself with the past. Two weeks prior to this conversation, I'd gotten all worked up over an awkward exchange with a cashier that had spanned over two and a half minutes. 

I couldn't not think about things. But even still, the sentiment of his words had made me feel soft and gooey inside.

A soft smile had bloomed across my face. "I love you, you know that, right?"

For a split second, the most beautiful expression in the world had dawned right in front of me.

"I do." His voice had been soft. "And I love you too."

I'd sighed. "You're too fucking good to me, Charlie Perkins."

"And you deserve the world."

It'd become more real to me over the passing weeks and in his absence how much I cared about him. Fast word through the conversations I'd had with Derek, having a video call with Charlie on Christmas Day as he critiqued the Christmas dinner from afar ("I'm not a professional but— I mean— It looks pretty perfect from here" (Needless to say he was a shit critic)), I'd come to miss him. 

It wasn't until New Year's Eve that he was due to return to Seattle. 

That was three days after Lexie Grey had decided to detonate a bomb in my mental health.

I hadn't mentioned it over the phone but I'd cried in the bathtub that night. I picked myself up and got on with my day, only pausing ever so often when I saw her in my peripheral. She refused to meet my eye and kept to herself, busy with whatever work she had taken on. 

I found myself moving as if on auto-pilot. I didn't see Mark for the rest of the day. Meredith carefully asked me if I was okay when he saw me photocopying some charts in the ER storage closet as she dipped inside to grab some supplies, I just shrugged. She disappeared and five minutes later, Derek entered and locked the door behind him.

"What's going on?" His voice was low. "Are you okay?

I thought about our conversation earlier, about how he'd accommodated me for Christmas and even gone as far as to make mock-tails. 

How, he and his wife, had opened their doors and invited me inside. How Meredith had even offered me a couch and eventually a bed when I'd been fighting for some footing in Seattle. How he'd repeatedly said that he was there if I needed to talk. 

Refusing to look at him, I just watched the copier in front of me, watching as the light zipped from side to side.

"Am I a terrible person?"

The words felt heavy in my mouth, sick on my tongue. 

My voice broke and I winced at it, my shoulders hitching upwards. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Derek's face crumple into a deep frown, his eyes growing stormy. It was when the tears pooled in my eyes and I started blinking madly, that he came towards me and placed a hand on my arm. I moved away, shaking it off like a shiver, and turned my back to him. 

I exhaled heavily, digging my hands deep into my pockets. 

Crying was shit. Feeling shitty was shit. The way Derek was looking at me, with a soft face and soft eyes and a soft inhale as if his heart was breaking— it made me feel shit. 

My wrists came upwards to dab at my eyes. He lingered in the background, reminding me of someone trying to approach a spooked animal.

"Sorry I—"

 I didn't like this. I never cried in therapy. I liked to approach things with a disassociated blankness. I was always indifferent to things. I was always not too bothered, not too caring. My therapist, not Laurel but one of the many ones before, had told me disassociating my feelings from the problem was unhealthy. I'd always considered in strategic. 

"It doesn't matter—"

"You're not." 

Compared to me, Derek sounded human. I was blabbering, inhaling through the phlegm at the back of my throat. He sounded calm, collected. Gingerly, he approached me and before I knew it, he was hugging me. Initially, I was stiff, unresponsive, staring blankly with watery eyes over his shoulder. 

Then very slowly, like a ball of twine unrolling, my chin glazed his shoulder, my body all but collapsing into his. 

"You're not a terrible person."

Addison had once told me that I felt too much. I believed her.

I wondered whether Derek was in the middle of a case, whether there was someone out there on the verge of death and I was selfishly robbing them of their life— I blinked. I could feel Derek's sigh against my hair. My head was full of saltwater, it was escaping through my eyes and making my throat burn.

So cruel and so unkind. I didn't feel cruel and unkind. 

On the contrary: I felt like I was drowning very slowly as if my lungs were full of water and I wasn't able to breathe. I could feel Derek's hand on my back and hear his words but everything felt far away as if I was at the bottom of a tunnel surrounded by echoes.

Twenty minutes later, I left the room as if nothing had happened.

Later that night I'd humoured myself with a glass of alcohol-free wine in the bathtub and had let myself just become overwhelmed by it all. If anything, I found this experience to be a learning curve, one that I had learnt long ago but still seemed to need to master: I, Elizabeth Theodora Forbes Montgomery, won't rely on a man to hold me while I'll cry ever again. 

My new motto was going to be getting on with things and popping a Tylenol if needs be. I wasn't going to be crying in bathtubs in the new year, I was sick and tired of going to bed with my fingers looking like old wrinkled raisins.

I had various ways that I could approach this particular, Lexie-sized situation. My brain came up with a million different approaches, zipping around like television static. It almost scared me how quickly I drained my glass; I stared at it with almost reproach as I set it down on the tiled floor.

Idea One: Cause Mark Sloan grievous bodily harm. 

Possibly too messy and for a recovering commitment-phobe, there were too many years in a life sentence for me to wrap my head around. Plus, as ride-or-die Charlie seemed to be, I had a feeling that, like with his critiquing, he'd be shit at hiding a dead body (although, alternatively, a perk would be that I could use his knowledge as the resident son of a domestic goddess for information on the most effective bleach to clean up blood). 

Also, Mark did not deserve to be in the news. He didn't deserve an ounce more attention than he already had.

Idea Two: Cause Lexie Grey grievous bodily h— 

Okay, so I was petty but not that petty. I could sense a lovesick puppy when I saw one. 

Despite how affected by her call-out little speech I'd been, I'd been pep-talking myself to not take it personally for twelve hours and I was almost not breaking out in hives at the thought of her. And again, Charlie would be a shit partner-in-crime.

Idea Three: Manning up and telling Mark Sloan exactly where he could stuff his dumb-fucking-ass truce—

Oh.

I hadn't even realised I'd finished the bottle of fake wine until I'd gone to pour myself another glass. I stared at the bottle for a long while, wondering what Charlie would make of it if he was here. 

Would he still say that it was an honour to be—? 

I blinked, shaking my head and realising that I was just sat in a cold body of water, shivering ever so slightly. I dropped the wine bottle as if it had shocked me and gently yanked myself out of the bathroom and into a towel. 

I left footprints across the bathroom and the bedroom, wine bottle in hand. I chucked it into the recycling bin, not breaking eye contact with it until it was out of sight, disappearing under the lid.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Lexie's words had gotten under my skin. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was incapable of leaving Seattle... not because of my career or my friends... but because of Mark.

It was needless to say, I had an identity crisis that night.

***

My therapist didn't exactly know what to expect.

It was New Years Eve. It was New Year's Eve and I was sat in a therapy session.

Laurel was standing there, smiling wildly as if she didn't have a care in the world. Intermittently, her eyes would bounce between us and she would wait for someone to say something. She twirled the pen in between her fingers, crossed one leg over the other and leant back further in her chair, just biding time away until conversation started. 

Compared to me, she appeared to be perfectly comfortable; my posture was stiff, I felt like a piece of cardboard that was about to bend in half. My arms were tightly crossed over my chest like a rollercoaster seat-belt, my jaw was set and my foot was aching to tap against the floor, but I was scared to move.

Beside me sat a beacon of frustration, looking perfectly at ease in the second armchair. The air of nonchalance crawled under my skin— it was as if they did this every day. 

I felt my throat tighten. The clock at the back of the room bounced through time. My nose twitched with the urge to scratch but I didn't move an inch. If I moved then everyone would look at me and expect me to say something. 

Laurel was leafing through her papers, reading through all of the notes from our sessions, organising her thoughts. Ever so often she'd look at me as if she wanted me to start the session; I just looked nonchalantly over her shoulder. A second glance from the person beside me. 

A game of attention tennis. My lips pressed together even tighter: there was no fucking way I was starting this conversation.

"I don't usually do couples therapy," Laurel said finally after it seemed evident that neither of us was going to speak. My eyes flew to her as if I'd forgotten that speaking was a thing that happened. She extended a hand towards my companion. "But you must be Charlie... it's a pleasure to finally meet you—"

"Oh, no, I'm not––"

He looked at me and then over at the bewildered therapist. 

His eyes were wide in alarm. He had raised forwards to shake her hand but was caught off-guard. He froze in his position, processing what she'd said in mid-movement. I watched as his head turned to look back at me. He hovered in the air.

"This is Mark."

 My voice sounded weird. This situation was weird. I shifted in my chair. 

"He's my ex-boyfriend."

Laurel paused. 

Perfect therapist Laurel with her fancy office and her friendly demeanour. It was very subtle but she faltered visibly. 

I almost missed it. Her eyes flickered down to the notes, probably to the novel she had written under the subtitle 'ex-boyfriend'. I could imagine the words she was rereading: asshole, inconsiderate, conceited, scumbag. 

In a small movement, her eyes moved between her notes and then to the surgeon sat in front of her. Meanwhile, Mark was just staring at me, still not quite understanding what was going on.

I'd cornered him, just like Lexie had.

I have to preface: this was my idea.

Of course, it was my idea. 

Mark Sloan didn't believe in therapy, or at least he hadn't for a long time. Of course, that had demanded a little bit of espionage. But to be fair, Mark hadn't thought twice about going out for coffee at an office that had 'psychiatrist' listed in the name; honestly, he was begging to be swindled. He hadn't faltered until I'd lead him into Laurel's waiting room and said airily to the receptionist: "Elizabeth Montgomery... here for the 3 pm session." 

It was when I'd picked up a Men's Health magazine (was, regrettably, the closest magazine to me but was always, not-regrettably, featuring a shirtless Zac Efron on the cover), that Mark started bombarding me with questions. I'd heard it all in the last fifteen minutes ("What are we doing?" "You said coffee?" "Does this have to do with Lexie?" "I have better things to do, Beth.") 

But I'd managed to silence it all with one single sentence:

I'd turned to him with a fire in my eye. "We're going to talk about New York."

New York. New York. Where the fuck do we start? 

Laurel was going to have some hard work cut out for her and I supposed she was starting to figure out why I'd booked an extra-long session this week. She took a few moments and then cleared her throat. She introduced herself to Mark, gave her full "I'm a full accredited psychiatrist" speech while vaguely waving towards her doctorate that was hanging above her on the wall. 

The whole time, at the back of my head, I just prayed to whoever it was listening that Mark Sloan wouldn't fuck my therapist.

It'd happened before but I had high hopes for Laurel.

"So, is there anything in particular that you'd like to achieve in this session?"

Laurel's question was very tender. S

he was sat forwards on her chair. I couldn't have been lower. Shoulders hunched as a loud and rather exhausted breath fell through my lips— it was a preliminary yawn. 

I was tired already and we hadn't even started arguing (sorry, discussing) yet. I looked down at my nails as Mark's head swung around to look at me. The expression on his face was clear: It's your therapy session, he said.

I wasn't sure whether post-break-up therapy was even a thing. Maybe it wasn't and that's why I hadn't given Laurel the heads up. I'd told her that I'd be bringing in someone for group therapy and as soon as she'd seen Mark she'd just naturally assumed, somehow, that he was in fact, Charlie. 

I recoiled at the thought of it— I really didn't like the association of Mark and Charlie. As I'd said before, the two of them in the same space was almost a recipe for Beth-related disaster.

"I want to talk about, uh, our relationship." I almost winced at those words. 

They sounded so pathetic. What they said to me was: I want to talk about an extremely hard and tumultuous time in my life that still fucks me over. 

Beside me, Mark scoffed quietly. 

Great, we were already off to an amazing start.

"I don't understand why we have to do this in front of a shrink?" He said sharply, waving a hand towards Laurel and referring to her with distaste. She barely faltered. I just ignored him and wondered how the hell I'd thought this was a good idea. "We could just talk like normal people."

I didn't know how to communicate it to him. I'd been angry for the last twenty-four hours, ever since Lexie had left me to my thoughts in the canteen. 

I'd been a pot of water that was moments away from over boiling. I'd been feeling particularly violent. I didn't trust myself to talk to him without attempted murder-- Laurel was here as a mediator more than anything.

I also didn't like

"Okay," Laurel said evenly. "Beth, would you like to begin this discussion? What about the relationship do you want to address?"

My fire from the waiting room had dwindled. 

Where was my drive? My determination? I'd long extinguished it with the thoughts that floated around my head. My ears were still full of Lexie Grey's words and I picked myself up in the chair, straightening my back. My answer to Laurel's question was: No. 

I wouldn't like to begin the discussion. Also, everything simply— the whole relationship had been full of holes that we could trip into and fall for eternity, there were too many things to address. Neither of those answers was good enough. 

If I denied speaking then Mark would say something about 'why am I here anyway?' and Laurel would call it a 'personal pitfall' in our next session. So, instead, I just mentally banged two sticks together and hoped they caught alight.

"Well, um."

 I didn't sound as confident as I wanted to. How many years had I spent drafting up this conversation at the back of my head? I'd had a therapist who had made me write a letter to Mark, postage stamp and everything. 

I'd shredded it and watched my feelings get mangled with the shredded metallic jaw because it felt like a nice distancing, a nice disassociation from the contents of the letter. Best $0.55 I'd ever wasted. 

I cleared my throat and started again. Dear Mark... "I'd like to talk about Lexie."

"Lexie?"

 Mark's brow furrowed and I saw the hint of an unresolved heartbreak in his eye. His tone with incredulous. 

Great going Beth, I thought to myself grimly, you're bringing up the ex he's still hung up on.

"Yep." I breathed out. "I told you I'd speak to her... so I did." There was a noticeable shift in his expression. Laurel noticed it and wrote quickly on her notes. My eyes dropped to my fingers. I felt bashful and unsteady like a kid trying to be stern to a teenager. "And... um, I wasn't exactly thrilled about what she told me—"

"Beth-"

"How did Lexie's words make you feel?"

Laurel had no idea who Lexie was but she was running with it. She fed off of vulnerability and emotions, she could smell it in the air like a shark sensing blood in the water. 

My bloodshed happened to be in the form of a few verbal pauses and the look that crossed over Mark's face. Her eyes came alive and she leant even further forwards in her chair.

"Shit," I replied simply. I shook my head tightly. "The shittiest I've felt in a long time."

"And how did that emotion make you feel?-"

"I'm sorry you felt shit." Mark's tone was very tight and he didn't sound very sorry at all. "I tried  to tell you not to speak to her—"

A hollow laugh fell through my lips. "Oh, so that makes it okay, then?"

I looked over at him, noticing how his body was very tense. 

He'd never been very good at communication and something told me that, despite his sudden ability to apologise as often as he breathed, he wasn't going to master it now.

Therapy, Mark Sloan in therapy? I was surprised he hadn't broken out into hives. 

I'd dragged him here completely oblivious and this was his wake up call. There was a tenderness in his eyes, a guilt that was fuelling some level of rage in him. His jaw locked and he was the first to look away— the last time that had happened he'd just come back from tearing apart Addison and Derek's life. 

Our life.

The two of us sat in a momentary pause that seemed to last a long time. Across from us, Laurel was scribbling furiously, as if we said more with our silence than our words. 

When she was finished, she looked hopeful. I gazed back, lips turned down at the sides and thoughts more on the pessimistic side. Why the hell had I thought that this was a good idea? There was a reason why I'd been avoiding this conversation for a decade.

"Maybe we should take this back to the beginning," Laurel attempted to start some rapport, clicking her pen rhythmically against her thumb. In my peripheral, I saw Mark shift uncomfortably. I just leant to the side, chewing the inside of my cheek. "Where did you guys meet?"

"Meet?"

"Yes."

"You mean like," Mark squinted at her, "The first––?"

"Where did you guys first meet?"

A pause.

Shit.

"Uh," I frowned, "New Years? '91?"

Mark let out another scoff. "The opening of the Montgomery clinic."

I froze. He was right.

"Why even bother if we're not going to get it right?" He asked, pointedly.

I swallowed uncomfortably.

"Okay..." Laurel trailed off, looking between us. "And when did you start dating?"

"'02." I knew that one. 

Mark glanced at me but I didn't return the look. 

I moved around a bit more in my chair.

This felt like some sort of trivia game: The Mark and Beth Trivia Game. 

I wondered what she'd ask next. The first time you did it? First kiss? The first time you broke up? The second time you broke up? I knew why Mark kept glancing at me.

 There would be certain questions in this fucked up trivia Rolodex that I wouldn't be able to answer. Answers buried in times I just didn't remember and not due to repression. I had a sour taste in my mouth and washed it out with a glass of water Laurel's secretary had each given us in the waiting room. 

Idly, I wondered what the grand prize of this shit show would be.

"If you could use one word to describe the beginning of your relationship, what would you choose?"

Her question made me want to vomit. Not in a horrified way but in the 'Jeez... this is what I'm paying for' way. This time, I did glance at Mark from out of the corner of my eye. He looked as though he was close to holding his head in his hands.

"Optimistic," I stated plainly. It was impersonal. I could almost hear the roll of Mark's eyes.

"Painful." Was his reply. Asshole. Laurel raised an eyebrow. "I mean— she kept organising dates when I was trying to ask her out. I've never had problems like that before and it was problematic from the start—"

I just closed my eyes briefly, shaking my head. God help me.

"It was one date," I said very sternly. "Out of all of the things we could talk about you choose to talk about a tiny miscommunication from before we even started dating?" I could fill a set of hands with the number of miscommunication we'd had had in the first year of our relationship. "Plus, it seemed to resolve itself very quickly when you paid the guy to stand me up, didn't it?"

"He was a sleazeball anyway."

"Oh," I said as if that made everything perfectly fine. My eyes narrowed. "And you're not?"

He didn't have anything to say to that.

"Okay," Laurel interjected before we could argue even further. "How about we go later on into the relationship. Beth, I know that from previous sessions that an area of contention has been Mark's relationship with your sister. Is there anything you'd like to say about it?"

Is there anything you'd like to say about it? 

Oh! Is there!!

My brain exploded like a supernova.

Dear Mark you fucking douchebag... Dear Asshat... 

The letter my previous therapist had told me to write had had many drafts, some PG and others not. I'd done everything in those drafts; everything from cussing him out for having an affair with my sister to maliciously confessing that I'd hidden a pregnancy from him just to spite him. I'd even told him that his dick was tiny and that I'd faked every-fucking-single orgasm I'd ever had. Those drafts, regrettably, had succumbed to the shredder too. 

But here, I had a moderated platform where I could, if I chose to, berate his dick even further. I could lie and tell him that I'd never loved him and that he and Addison deserved each other and that he could take his truce and shove it up to his ass alongside his head— actually, that last bit didn't sound so bad.

I felt a rush of energy. In my head, I was spitting fast insults like some sort of Eminem track. In reality, I just very coolly turned to Mark, anger in my eyes and crossed one leg over the other:

"Addison, really?"

Suddenly, Mark seemed to find the ceiling extremely interesting. Of course. He was gazing up at the lighting fixtures as if he couldn't imagine

"No, really," I tried again. "Addison— my sister?" When Mark didn't reply, I just kept on. "What? Would Archer not put out so you just had to go for Addie?"

Nothing.

"Out of every single person in the world," I said, "You chose the one person in the fucking universe that made me feel like that?"

He didn't speak a single word.

"Give me something to work with here," I said very loudly, growing tired of the lack of communication.

 I looked over to Laurel. She was giving me very encouraging looks, long sensual nods that felt more in tune with Regina's Mom during the Mean Girls Christmas Performance.

 "This was the problem," I said in exasperation, "He never fucking says anything when he needs to. Every single argument is one-sided and I'm always made out to be the bad guy. It's like he enjoys watching me suffer-"

"I speak." He interrupted, scoffing as if I didn't know what I was talking about. It was very patronising. I was not amused.

"Oh really?" My voice went a little pitchy and my eyebrows almost merged with my hairline. "You must've been too busy having sex with my sister to remember that then."

It was a low blow but my chest ached. I was staring lines into his face as he looked straight ahead. I needed some sort of communication. 

I needed air to out all of this. I needed to talk it through before I found myself drowning into my own thoughts. My conversation with Lexie had put more pressure inside my skull and now I felt like I was going to burst. 

My palms were clammy and I kneaded them into my thighs, wondering whether I was ever going to voice the screaming in my head. I felt the need to get to my feet, to pace or to kick something. I was stock full of energy, nervous sticky energy that clogged my nose, ears and throat. Instead, I just pressed my hands into the arms of the armchair, trying to ground myself.

"I speak," Mark repeated as if I hadn't listened to him the first time. He rubbed his chin. "But it's pretty hard to talk when you keep running away from everything."

"Would you have rather I stayed?" I asked, my voice catching at the back of my throat. "Is this all a— pointless argument that you think we would have just made up and had sex and continued hating each other? Can you tell me that if I'd just brushed it off like another argument.. you would have stopped seeing Addison?"

It was an honest question that I needed the answer to. But, like everything, Mark decided to plead the fifth. It left an angry burn on my face, I flushed completely. 

If I'd stayed then he would have eventually found out about the pregnancy. Would we have made up? Or, would we have continued in the toxic cycle that we'd tumbled through? I'd never, ever considered staying. 

A New York with just Mark and Addison felt like one of the circles of hell.

"What is it with women and arguing about hypothetical situations?" 

He had the audacity to look to Laurel as if to garner a sense of sympathy. I couldn't decide whether he was joking or not but he damn better have been. 

"I don't even know why I'm here," Mark said, "You said that you didn't want to talk about this. That's why we had the truce-"

"A truce?" It was my turn to scoff.

"Yes, a truce." Mark was talking a lot with his hands. He did that when he was unsteady. "I thought it would help you move on from New York—"

"Move on?" I echoed. "Move on?"

"I spoke to Addison and we agreed—"

"Addison!"

I was stuck in a pattern of repeating everything he was saying, my temper gradually flaring. Laurel was scribbling away furiously, documenting every single word that passed between us.

Oh, he spoke to Addison, did he? 

Nice to know that they were keeping each other updated on my doings. Idly, I wondered whether there was some sort of Beth Montgomery Quiz that I wasn't aware of, one that they studied for in secret behind closed doors that suspiciously looked like the front door to the Montgomery-Shepherd brownstone in New York.

"What does Addison have to do with this?" I couldn't comprehend what he was saying to me.

"—We agreed that it would be best to just try and move on—"

I stared at him wordlessly. "You'll speak to Addison about this and not me?"

"Because you run away—"

"I'm not running away now, Mark." My words were fully grounded and I made sure that he understood every single syllable. "So if you have anything to say... say it now. Hell, fucking scream it if you need to— prove to me that you're not a spineless bastard who will avoid communication and instead end up arguing through his ex-girlfriend." 

When he didn't immediately reply, I felt like screeching. 

So my next question was simple:

"Do you remember what you said to her or do you need me to refresh your memory?"

He sounded tired. "What I said to Lexie was said privately while we were in a relationship." I watched with slight disbelief as he acted as if I was blowing the whole situation out of the water. "It was actually in the middle of a very private argument— it wasn't even supposed to be about you... I just kind of—"

"Decided to air all of my dirty laundry?"

I didn't like it. 

The way Lexie had spoken had made me feel exposed and vulnerable. Mark must've been talking for a long time to her. Talking... imagine that. Just venting off ten years of frustration, crackling away like a live wire ripped from plasterboard. I could imagine him, wearing floorboards thin and pacing back. To and fro. 

He'd done that to me back in New York... but it had never been about me. Only about his career, only about Petunia and about little stupid shit like a barista getting his coffee order wrong after a long shit. It felt like a slap in the face for him to pretend that everything was fine. To just go along with what little Addie had recommended. 

I was suddenly rethinking every single conversation I'd had with him in New York.

"It wasn't malicious." Mark's denial made me want to laugh, but I just sat there with bated breath. "Not everyone is out to get you, Beth. You get these ideas in your head and suddenly you think the whole world is against you— If you really want to know.. Lexie and I were arguing about Sloan. We broke up because of Sloan. We argued about Sloan and you came into the conversation because you seem to come up in every single conversation I have in this fucking city."

There was a hint of heat in his voice, a sense of emotion. 

Wow, I'd almost forgot he had those. I stared, he avoided my eye. Laurel, who was still watching from the sidelines, decided to interject with some pointers. 

She talked in a perfectly calm voice. "I'm sensing tension in the air around Lexie, maybe we should bring it back to the conversation that you had with her."

"This is about our relationship," Mark said very sharply. "Not mine and Lexie's. We're, apparently, trying to resurrect stuff that died five years ago."

He said five years as if it was ten.

"I meant Beth's conversation with Lexie," Again, she was barely fazed by slight aggression in Mark's tone. She looked between the two of us, eyes shining with optimism that made me want to vomit. "Remember— this conversation isn't supposed to be an argument. It's more of a discussion of your emotions. We all have a common goal in this room and it's to work through the tension surrounding what happened. I'm hoping this can open a collaborative effort to voice the issues you both have—"

"Beth knows the issues I have," He spoke to the therapist exclusively, making me sigh. I "I've made them very clear. I made them clear five years ago."

t was as if the loss of air deflated my whole body. 

I, too, felt tired. I was reminded of why I took the truce in the first place. To be free of all this, to not have to bicker constantly and feel uncomfortable in every situation. But Mark had ruined that for me. He'd gone and made Lexie hate me and exposed the fact that this truce had all been a false ploy set up by my sister of all people. 

Addison Fucking Montgomery always had to get involved. 

Clearly, she wasn't finished with manipulating me.

"Is there anything you'd like to get off your chest that you didn't then?" 

Laurel's question had dangerous thoughts running in my head; it seemed the same with Mark as he let out a long breath, looking suddenly extremely comfortable. My train of thought suddenly veered to: Oh, here we go, he's going to unveil another one of my 'friends' he'd slept within the earlier two-thousands to make me feel bad. However, when Laurel's eyes reached me, I felt my whole body freeze. 

"Either of you?" She asked. I'm sure that five years is enough for personal reflections."

I hadn't told Laurel about the baby. Only a few people in the world knew about my pregnancy. I could count everyone on my hand: Charlie, Calum, Rose and Amy. 

I had a feeling that Dom had figured it out somewhere along the line, but he'd gone off-the-grid years ago. As I glanced at Mark out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly wondered what would happen if I told him. 

How would he react? What would he do? And would I be alive to tell the tale afterwards? Laurel looked perfectly at ease, the silence in between us filled with the ticking over of time. She was a stark contrast against the chaos flashing through my head. Inside, it felt like all of the Tylenol in the world wouldn't end the panic attack that was building up.

Eventually, and to my surprise, Mark cleared his throat.

"I slept with Addison."

My chuckle was dry.

"Oh, I think that's already been well established."

"No," He continued. "I slept with her in LA. Four days ago."

Confessing a pregnancy was very suddenly the last thing on my mind. 

I wasn't exactly sure where the argument really began, but I was sure that it was after that revelation. 

At some point, I accused him of using our whole relationship as a farce to get closer to my sister and then I really had Mark Sloan by his temper. 

Serenely, Laurel took to documenting every single insult that was exchanged and finally, Mark was actually discussing things. 

He was angry. I'd never seen him so angry. He was cussing and on his feet and pacing as I'd always thought he would, and I was gripping the armchair as my only anchor to this world. 

I felt like I was going to spin into orbit at any moment.

He just went on and on about how this didn't need to matter anymore, that he didn't see why I had to 'hide' behind a therapist to have these discussions. 

He didn't understand why he was here and why we couldn't have this conversation 'in the real world like grown-ups.' 

I'd poignantly flipped him off. 

Mark scoffed at that and called me immature but I'd blown it back on him. 

I couldn't get why he felt as though it didn't matter. 

How the fact that he branded the whole situation so significant made me feel shitty because it had taken me so long to get over. 

I didn't know why he was so indifferent to everything and why he didn't seem to care.

"I do know one thing though," I seethed as Mark finally collapsed back in his chair. "You can tell Addison to fuck off— and then you can take your dumb truce and shove it up your ass. There must be a lot of room up there seeing as your head is already wedged up there."

"Kindergarten." He mumbled, head in hands. "It's like talking to a kindergartener."

I wished that I had a Rolodex of people that I could maliciously use against him. 

I wished that I'd been mean enough to sleep around and then be able to whip it out as a way to show him that nothing really mattered. 

I wished that I could get people to hate him as Lexie Grey hated me, but it was never that simple with Mark Sloan.

I've always been very slightly dislikable. That was the consensus when my parents had attended school meetings; my teacher would sit down, eye me in the corner of the room and sigh. I'd listen vaguely as my teacher's voice dropped to a whisper and they'd say in the kindest way possible; "Elizabeth's just a little bit... a little bit mean." 

Mean? Mean. A five-year-old was mean. 

Five-year-old Elizabeth was already inclined to sarcasm and pulling other girls pigtails. 

Six-year-old Elizabeth was arguing tirelessly and chasing said arguments half to death. 

By seven, Elizabeth was showing signs of bitchiness and by eight, she was a child capable of making a grown man cry.

Through my teen years that translated a hormonal inclination for rebellion, smoking cigarette under bleachers, sneaking out to go to parties and getting drunk in the middle of suburban Connecticut (oh how edgy). 

I'd never been maliciously mean to my family, never outright argued, for home life had always felt like navigating a minefield. I was silent at best. 

Mean Elizabeth was subdued when she reached New York and suddenly all energy was funnelled into building a career in the shadows of the far more successful siblings. Locked tight behind a door, key thrown away. Calum never suspected anything. Derek was surprised when everything fell apart. 

Mean Elizabeth made a surprise return when she slipped and slid into addiction. 

Mean Elizabeth said lots of things and did a lot of things and wasn't locked away until she left New York.

I could be mean if I wanted to be. I could be petty. But I didn't want to do either of those things.

It wasn't a surprise to anyone that Mark was the one who stormed out of the therapy session. He left with an angry vein throbbing in his temple and a screaming pager clutched in his hand. 

He'd been given an out, but I knew that it wouldn't have been long before he'd left by his own emission. That was the funny thing with Mark. 

He was always quick to pin me as the one who ran away from things, yet he'd done his fair share over the years. In fact, hadn't he been the one who'd run away and just happened to fall into my sister's bed?

Laurel eyed me once the door slammed shut. "Do you feel as if you've accomplished what you wanted in this session?"

She didn't sound dubious, just concerned. 

It'd been a very heavy conversation but, in retrospect, I realised that we hadn't really talked about anything at all. Mark had managed to get all worked up on Lexie, really. He'd thrown the whole situation around to make it look like I was still hung up on him and that I'd been jealous of his relationship with Lexie all along. I blinked over at my therapist, realising that the therapy session was probably coming to an end. 

This was a classic ending question that made me want to die inside. Instead, however, I took a long refreshing breath and sat up straighter in my chair. With a small smile, steam practically funnelling out of my pores, I grabbed my purse.

"I think so."

What had I concluded? 

That I was perfectly capable of this conversation and it was Mark that wasn't. He wasn't as resilient as he thought. Addison had probably been spoon-feeding him his little apologies and truces this whole time. 

The man was a farce and it filled me with a little bit of pride to realise that. He wasn't unbothered by the situation, he'd just deeply disassociated from that whole part of his life, much as he had with Petunia. 

Now, his whole focus was Lexie and Sloan. 

His focus had been Seattle until I'd arrived.

Maybe Lexie had been right. 

Maybe it was the unfathomable:

Maybe Mark Sloan was still hung up over me and maybe I was very much not over him, either.