Salvation ► GREY'S ANATOMY [2]

EIGHTEEN

COURTNEY HATED THE WORD "NOTHING". That word insinuated that it was over and done with. There was nothing left to do anymore. All the options were no longer viable. There wasn't any to give anymore. She found that dumb, because there was always something that could be done. She much more preferred those words like anything, something, everything. There was still hope and a future there. That was also the reason why when giving news to patients, they never used nothing. "We did everything we could" sounds different than "There was nothing we could do", right?

In her personal life, she also liked getting something rather than nothing. She would rather get a "Sorry I can't make it" than total radio silence. However that last one was what Mark had given her that entire night. He hadn't called her once, didn't reply and didn't even come to see her after. It had been like he had disappeared off the face of the earth. She didn't like that one bit. Not even close. It gave her too much of a flashback to her father leaving her and her sister.

One day he just wasn't there anymore. For months on end, little Courtney would wait in front of the door for her father to come home and give her a hug. That didn't happen. Eventually, she had to give up. All hope of her father one day returning had left her little body. The night before had given her that same feeling. Instead of waiting in front of the door, it had been frantically monitoring her phone. She had even fallen asleep with her phone in her hand.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

So, had she been excited or even happy to see her boyfriend standing in front of her apartment that very morning? Not really. Courtney had just wanted to slam the door in front of his face, but he had managed to sneak in. She sat in front of him at the table, angrily munching on her cornflakes. Her eyes wandered around the room, trying not to make eye contact with him.

"Who ended up getting the solo surgery?" Mark asked her. It had been oddly quiet ever since he arrived, which didn't happen usually.

Courtney let out a scoff, "Me."

"How did it go?" He reached out for her hand, but she purposely moved it. Mark had left her standing in the cold, so now he could get treated the same way, she thought. She wasn't about to welcome him back with open arms, while he hadn't done the same for her. No way. She wasn't that nice.

"It went fine. Alex scrubbed in with me."

"That's good. See, I told you that you would get it."

"Mmmh." Courtney pushed her chair backwards. She grabbed her bowl and her glass to go put it in the sink, which was starting to get a little crowded. She had planned to do the dishes last night, but had put it off again.

Mark suddenly appeared behind her and softly touched her waist. Courtney however quickly turned away to grab her coat. It wasn't her habit to arrive at work so easily, but that way she could put some distance in between them. Maybe that would help him see what he had done wrong. The way he was acting right now made it seem to her as if he was just sweeping it under the rug.