Trapped in my head

Chapter 32

The next morning Meredith was a nervous wreck. She was terrified of going to work and she had absolutely no idea why. The whole morning she was shivering and freezing and while brushing her teeth she had pathetically cried while sitting under the sink. And even her warm milk didn't cheer her up so that as she was now sitting in the back of Maggie's car right next to Alex it cost her all of her strength to not start crying again.

"You okay Mer?" Alex asked, seeming to notice how uncomfortable she was. Meredith just nodded, scared that if she would try to say something she would actually burst into tears. Today everything had been supposed to be okay again. Because today she would be able to follow her routine properly again. After the past week where she hadn't been able to do a single thing she usually did apart from climbing, she had needed to get back to some structure. But somehow that wasn't happening.

She was still feeling awful. Even though she had slept in her own bed, had had her warm milk out of her favourite cup, she had went climbing yesterday and had had Pizza for dinner. Everything was going okay. Yesterday and this morning everything had been going great. So why the hell was she feeling like this. She had taken her meds right? Yes, she didn't forget anything. She had talked to Dr. Wyatt and she had even tried one of her breathing exercises. But still nothing seemed to be working.

"Mer?" she suddenly heard Alex voice, pulling her out of her thoughts. "We're at the hospital, are you coming? Or would you rather go home again." He asked, getting back into the car as he noticed that she wasn't moving. "Oh I didn't realise we're here." She said, slowly sitting up a little straighter.

"What's going on?" Alex asked concerned, looking at her from the side. "I don't know, something's just wrong." She whispered, looking out of the window. "Are you worried about something? Or scared?" he asked patiently, closing the door of the car again to give them a little more privacy.

"I'm not sure." She whispered in response, closing her eyes to prevent the tears from rolling down her cheeks. She was a little embarrassed although it was only Alex whom she would trust with her life. "I don't know why I'm not feeling well." She said, shoving her hands under her legs to keep them still. "You want me to drive you back home?" he asked, still worried about her since he wanted her to tell him what was going on. He knew that it was hard for her to understand her own feelings sometimes so that it wasn't surprising that she couldn't tell him.

"No. I need to get back to my routine." She mumbled shakily, sniffling quietly. "I just need to start working then the feeling will pass." Meredith added after a few seconds of silence. "Okay, you're going to be okay little one. And you can always come to me alright?" he asked, scooting closer to her and softly kissing her head as she nodded.

"Come on then." He said, getting out of the car and walking around it to work towards the entry next to Meredith who still seemed a little hesitant and shaky. "You got a lot to do today?" he asked as they were walking towards the attendings lounge, trying to distract her a little from her thoughts. "Uhm- two surgeries in the afternoon and I wanted to study in the lab a bit." She gave back but stopped as they ran into Andrew who was standing at the nurse station.

And all of the sudden Meredith knew the origin of her fear. It was Andrew. She was scared of Andrew. But why? "Hey!" he said as he approached her and Alex, who walked away to give them a moment alone. Meredith tried to look up into his eyes but she couldn't so that she looked down again. "You okay?" Andrew asked, immediately sensing that something seemed off. And then as he wanted to take her hand she flinched, pulling it back. It was an entirely unintentional movement and she couldn't do anything to prevent it.

And as their eyes met for a few seconds she could see that she shouldn't have down that although she never wanted to. "Sorry." She whispered, looking down again. "What's wrong?" he asked confused and also a little bit hurt. "I don't know I just- I don't know." She said, looking around nervously. "Come with me Mer, please." He said, leading her into the nearby on call room where he closed the door. Walking over to her he sat down on the bunk next to her, a small space between them.

"Uhm- so- did anything happen? Are you mad at me because of something?" he asked after they sat there in silence for a few minutes. "No. I'm the problem, something's wrong with me. I think- maybe last week was just a little too much. You said- you said we were going to take baby steps but everything that happened felt like- like giant steps. I really liked our date on Wednesday and I'm thankful for how you where there the whole time while I was in isolation but- I- I don't know. I think that- that it was just too much." She explained silently. She wasn't scared of Andrew, she was scared to disappoint him and to scare him away.

"So what would you suggest?" he asked, feeling a little sad about what she had just said. "Maybe we should break up and you should search for someone easier to deal with." Meredith said and Andrew started chuckling, thinking that she was joking. But as she gave him a confused face he realized that she had been serious about this.

"What? No Mer! I- don't want anyone easier. I want you." He said a little surprised. "I love you, alright? And if the sleepover was what had been too much then we can wait a little longer until we try that again. In the beginning you asked me if we could plan our dates and I guess we just didn't take that serious enough. We were maybe just a little too spontaneous." He said, smiling at her encouragingly although she wasn't looking at him.

"No it wasn't the sleepover itself. And I liked being a little bit more spontaneous because it was something new. Just because I need my routine doesn't mean I like it that much. It was amazing. Just in combination with the isolation thing it was too much. I'm just not used to so much change at once. I have a boyfriend now and that was already a lot but I was able to deal with it. But then what happened on Thursday made it a lot harder to process." She explained as suddenly everything made sense to her so that she turned towards him, looking a him directly.

"I know it! If this thing with the tuberculosis patient wouldn't have happened then I would have had the time to process everything but with this happening I just couldn't figure out what I was feeling. You know- I sometimes- well maybe always need a bit until I really know what I'm feeling." She said, smiling at him all of the sudden. He was more than confused but since she seemed to have figured out what was going on with her he was happy.

"And yesterday I missed you which means that I had time to process it now. So I'm okay. I'm great." She said, sniffling nevertheless since she had still tears in her eyes. "But this morning you weren't okay right? The second I saw you I could see that you weren't feeling well. Those feelings don't disappear in a matter of seconds Mer." He said, still trying to smile at her. Of course he was happy that she had figured it out but that didn't meant that she was happy now. Because if she would push her feelings away that would probably not end that well.

She stayed silent, looking down again. "I'm happy you figured out what you're feeling but that doesn't mean that you already processed it okay?" he said, taking her hand and this time she didn't flinch.

"Maybe we really should take things a little slower." He suggested, making her look up again. "But I like spending time with you. And you're part of my routine now. It wasn't easy to integrate you into my routine you can't just disroutinate yourself now." She said, making him smile. "Disroutinate?" he asked confused but chuckling at the same time. "I didn't know how else to say it." She said, smiling through her teary eyes at him.

"Don't worry I am not disroutinating myself. I just think that- maybe because you're processing our relationship and what is new for you right now you don't have as much capacity for the daily things anymore and that's what's causing you to feel like this." He said. "Makes sense." She said after thinking about it for a few seconds.

"So, what are we going to do?" she then asked, starting to fidget with his fingers what made him smile even brighter. "We're leaving space and more capacity for the daily things that you're dealing with." He said, earning a confused look from her. "And how?" she asked, making him chuckle again. She was so cute. "By turning our relationship into a routine. And not in a boring kind of way, we'll make sure it stays exciting don't worry. What about we say that- every Friday evening we go out. Like this we have a routine but to make sure it's still spontaneous we'll only decide where we're going on Friday morning." He suggested, looking at her closely. "Sounds good." She said softly, smiling at him.

"Okay." He said, lifting his hand to stroke her cheek. "Can I kiss you?" he asked, receiving a nod from her. And as soon as he felt her soft lips on his everything was perfect. It was the same, wonderful feeling that both of them felt every time they kissed. "So, we're okay?" she asked shyly, her face still very close to his. "We're better than okay." He replied, kissing her again.