The Price of Love

Dizzy with Time

Alright so I mayyyy have lied a lil bit about the day the chapter would be up, but it's better late than never, right??

Let me know your thoughts :)

~

By the time George makes us breakfast, him being the least hungover of us all, I'm finally sober enough to see Addison's texts and voicemails she's left me on my phone, and actively ignore them.

But it seems like I can't ignore her for very long.

"Meredith!! The mail's here!" Izzie calls from the kitchen. I leave my phone and find everyone eating breakfast, while sorting through the mail. I flip through the stack of envelopes, looking for anything that might belong to me, and my hands freeze at the bottom of the pile; over a large, Manila envelope, screaming my name.

Everyone stops when they see where it's from.

"Aren't you gonna open it?" George asks after a moment of silence.

"...I don't know."

"You have to open it," Izzie says, reaching for it to open it herself. I hold it out of her grasp.

I look over to the envelope, addressed from Dartmouth, and slowly open it.

Everyone else pretends to go through their letters while I pull out everything from inside.

My eyes skim over it, and I can clearly see the words "accepted," and "excited to have you join us."

I flip to the other pages, where I'm instructed on class registration, a bunch of legal stuff, and my itemized bill.

My hands start to sweat, knowing that whatever total I find wouldn't be good, but I'm even more taken aback when I see that it's been paid in full.

"What are you making that face for?" Cristina asks.

"I got accepted," I say slowly, "and my entire bill was paid off yesterday."

Cristina takes the papers out of my hands and flips through them all, looking for any clues as to why.

"I found it," she mutters. "Addison specified yesterday that she would be paying upfront. All her contact information is here, instead of yours."

~

I find it easier to navigate around the hospital, now that I've been here a few times. I get on the elevator, and angrily slam the button for the third floor. I've been up here once or twice while Addison was in surgery, so I found the OR's easily.

Luckily enough, she was standing outside of the OR in her scrubs, talking heatedly with Derek.

It's like she can feel my presence, because she suddenly looks at me over his shoulder and flashes me a small smile. When I don't return it, she frowns and pushes Derek aside.

"Hey, Mer-"

"What the hell is this?" I show her the envelope. She clears her throat and looks around. Everyone's started to look over at us in interest.

"Congratulations."

"I don't fucking care about that. You paid off my fees??"

"I just thought-"

"No, you didn't think. You didn't think about this at all."

"Can we please just talk somewhere else?" She asks me. She grabs my arm and pulls me into an on-call room. She swiftly locks the door and glares at me.

"I just wanted to be nice," She defends.

"Really?! You, nice? This is just your attempt at winning me back."