Echoes of Resilience

38

The next day Meredith was in Dr. Wyatt's office while Addison checked in with Richard. She started down at her hands, anxiously tapping her foot. Dr. Wyatt watched her closely, noticing the bandages on her arms. "What happened there?"

"I had a flashback." Meredith confessed in a small whisper. "I really tore at my arms, but Teddy said they weren't bad enough for stitches."

"What was the flashback of? Was it anything specific?" Dr. Wyatt asked, keeping her voice soft as to not scare Meredith who already looked ready to take off running.

"I was having a really hard day." Meredith sighed. "I didn't want to see anyone, but Cristina, Arizona, and Teddy came over when neither Addie nor I answered our phones to make sure we were okay. When Cristina walked into my room I got up and ran into my closet, the darkness sent me back to the shed. I guess it took me a while to get me out of my head and back into the present moment, everytime Addie tried to get me to stop scratching my arms I just started screaming and begging for her not to hurt me." She paused to wipe the tears that had started collecting in her eyes. "Teddy heard and came to help. It took a bit, but eventually I came out of it and then Teddy bandaged my arms for me."

"Was that the first time Teddy saw you like that?"

"Yeah." Meredith whispered with a small nod.

"How do you feel about her seeing you like that? Were you embarrassed at all?"

"At first, but then she told me that she has PTSD from her time in the army and used to have flashbacks constantly, so then I wasn't as embarrassed because I knew that she understood." Meredith explained.

"It can be good to have someone in your corner who truly understands PTSD." Dr. Wyatt nodded. "You said you were overall having a hard day, do you want to talk about it?"

"Richard told Addie she had to go back to work, I told her that I would be fine but in reality the thought of her leaving terrified me." Meredith admitted. "She's not going back to work whether Richard likes it or not, which made me feel better but also makes me feel guilty. She said that she's just not ready to go back because her patients won't look at her the same after everything with Derek, and while that may be true, I also know that part of the reason she's not going back is because of me. Whether she admits it or not. On top of all of that, Burke's trial is coming up and we still don't know if they're going to call me to testify. Oh, and did you hear about the Dateline special they're doing on me without my consent? The one titled 'The Girl In The Shed'? I guess that's just who I am now." She chuckled darkly. "The world only sees me as a kidnap victim. That's my legacy."

"That certainly is a lot." Dr. Wyatt agreed. "I did hear about the Dateline special, the crew tried interviewing hospital staff that worked on your case, but Richard threatened to fire them as he knew you wanted nothing to do with it. Also, you are a lot more than just a kidnap victim. That's just a very small part of who you are, even if it doesn't seem like it."

"They wanted to do a sit down interview with me, but I'm just not ready. I don't know if I'll ever be ready." Meredith sighed. "Doing the press conference for my lawsuit was hard enough and I didn't have to answer questions for that. The thing is though, they're offering a lot of money for the chance to talk to me and although I really don't care about money, I do feel bad that Addie has been financially supporting me for the past eight months."

"It sounds like you're considering it."

"If they're going to talk about what happened to me, wouldn't it be best if what they were saying was the truth? I could pay Addie back at least for some of what she's done for me." Meredith explained. "I don't know, I just don't understand why so many people are interested in the case in the first place."