Easy Silence

41.

She was going to kill him.

If he wasn't already dead, and she was pretty sure that he wasn't because she kind of figured Mark would have called her, she was going to kill him. The night before he had definitely told her right before she fell asleep to call him around lunch time.

Lunch time.

Now it was supper time and she had left three messages on his phone, too many text messages to actually even think of admitting to even her own head. And she hadn't heard a word from him, not one single word. If it was anyone else she'd probably think he had lost this cell phone but her boyfriend was kind of a freak and she was pretty sure the man hadn't lost anything in his life so he probably hadn't lost the cell phone. And he probably hadn't died. So she wasn't exactly sure where the hell he was but she was definitely going to kill him.

He was dead to her.

Well probably not quite dead dead because she loved him and she wasn't sure she could live without him but he was dead to her for the week or something.

She was going to try one more time. She dialed the number quickly and swore to herself that this would be the last time she called him. He could call her or something when he decided to pull his head out of his ass. She was not going to let herself become the pathetic girlfriend who called a billion times when he clearly wasn't answering.

"Hello," her boyfriend's voice came over the phone, sounding smaller and sadder than she was pretty sure she had ever heard it before.

"Derek!" she gasped. "It does appear you're still alive."

"Yeah...a...yeah," he responded.

Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong with Derek. Because all he said was yeah. And Derek was kind of really chatty and he definitely should have said more than just yeah.

"Der...what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Okay...you...you didn't answer your phone all day, Der. I called because you told me to call and then you didn't answer and I wasn't, I had no idea what to think but now you answered and you don't sound right. You don't sound Dereky and I don't like it, so what's wrong."

"Nothing."

"Did you cheat on me?"

"What? No!" he said quickly, his voice louder than it had been a second before. "Of course not, never."

"Okay," she breathed. "Is...did something happen? Did you get injured again? It is Mark? Your mom...is your mom okay?"

"Everything's fine."

"Except something definitely isn't fine because this...this is not fine. This is not Derek fine, this is like...I don't know what this is. I don't think I've seen this before and something is wrong.

"I miss you..."

"No. Don't get all McDreamy and try to distract me. What's wrong?"

"Mer..." he sighed. "That's what's wrong. I miss you."

"I...you miss me?" she frowned and then laughed. "You miss me so you don't talk to me all day? Der, that doesn't make sense."

"It's...talking to you makes me miss you more."

"Oh...did you hit your head at practice yesterday?"

"Meredith!" he groaned.

"Okay, bad question," she sighed. "It's just...how does talking to me make you miss me more? Wouldn't it...if we're talking, we're talking and that's...taking means we're kind of together...spiritually or whatever."