A Fight to Remember

Someone Good to Keep You Going Pt. 1

We've all hit that point of exhaustion, the point where nothing makes sense anymore. Your body hurts, your brain becomes foggy and you feel like you're trapped in a tunnel. When all you want is your bed. So... how do you keep going? How do you not just sit down and give up? Sometimes it's easy, sometimes you play games in your head. You make up someone. Someone good. Whatever you need, to keep you going.

Meredith

"Hey," he said, smiling at me. His jet black hair stuck out from under his ferry boat scrub cap and curled around his ears while he leaned over the railing. Even in his blue scrubs, he still looked sexy.

I half turned to him, unable to stop the smile on my face. "Hi," I said. The cool wind seeped through my sweater, and I wrapped my arms a little tighter to hold in the heat. If he would just come a little closer...

"Classic Seattle weather," he commented, looking up at the cinereal sky.

"Yeah," I followed his gaze to the dappled ashen clouds above that seemed to enjoy spitting rain oh so lightly on our noses, hair, and cheeks.

"We should do this more often, ride the ferryboats, I mean," he said, and his eyes glimmered, with... a certain something that left me wanting and my body rushing with excitement.

Another smile quirked my lips, "What's your deal with ferryboats anyway?" I asked him, fiddling with my fingertips.

But then he was closer. I felt his breath on my cheeks, the warmth of his fingertips as they slid along my temple. His presence beside me was the sun, fire, life. I closed my eyes.

"-How did they meet?"

I blinked slowly to regard the speaker. A younger woman, slim, with long curly hair was speaking to my friend What's-Her-Face. Where did he go? I thought. Scrubcap man was right here...

But my attention was now on What's-her-face and Whose-it. A few feet away from them, my hands on the wet rails of the ferry, I eavesdropped on the conversation.

"They met here, in Seattle. She was an intern, he was her boss. Our boss." My friend said.

You're my boss.

No, I'm your boss' boss.

You're my teacher and my teacher's teacher. And my teacher!

I'm your sister, I'm your daughter...

Scrubcap man leaned in beside me and held my hand, watching the gulls glide beside the ferry.

He was back. Where had he gone?

"You're Meredith's friend?" asked Whose-It.

"Mere? Yeah, she's... my person... she's... Meredith is..." What's-Her-Face sighed and trailed off.

She was talking about me. I recognized my name in the conversation. What was she going to say?

"Mere... she's a pearl, you know? Like she's got this shell. She's been through so much. But if she opens up to you, if she chooses you," my familiar silver haired friend, my person, shook her head, "I can't really..." she smiled, though. "You get something priceless."

A man approached, he was short and wiry with a tanned face. He handed Whose-It a cup of something. "Thanks, Mark," she said, accepting it.

"So, your friend, Meredith, she's got Alzheimer's?" Mark asked.

Alzheimer's? I scoffed. Scrubcap man kissed my forehead, but I ignored him. I didn't need sympathy.

My person narrowed her eyes at Mark.