How it is

Chapter two:

What am I gonna do,

When the best part of me,

Was always you.

Christina's POV:

Before I met Owen, I always thought romance novels and movies were stupid. Sure, I still think they're way too corny and somewhat unrealistic, but I understand where they're coming from now. All that shit about loving someone so much it hurt? I get it now, and I get why the girl always ends up crying halfway through the movie.

I love Owen so much; it physically pains me for more than one reason.

One is that I don't see him as much as I'd like to; of course I'd like to spend time with him. But I just don't have the time, I'm nearly positive once things calm down I will, but for right now, I don't have the time to spend with him.

The second one is more complicated.

He's angry at me all the time; he's hurt and he's angry and screaming at me like I did something to ruin his life. My heart wants to calm him down; I hate seeing him so upset, all I want to do is hold him and tell him it'll be okay, that everything will be fine. And most times, I do say comforting words to try and calm him down before he storms off to bed, because nothing I ever say is good enough for him. But my head, the rational and only trustworthy part of my body, tells me that I shouldn't stand there and allow him to treat me this way. I did nothing wrong to make him so angry and upset; I don't deserve this treatment and I should just leave. Because my head is usually right.

Like now.

It's a few days after the conference, I just got home from work (I was at work all night, so I was tired and sore all over from hours around an operating table) when Owen started in on me.

"Well, look who decided to come home" Owen snapped, as he stuffed crackers angrily into a zip-lock bag for Scarlet's lunch at daycare. This had to be a new record; it was seven in the morning and he was already murderous.

"I had a late surgery; woman came into the ER when my shift was supposed to end with a stab wound to her heart; I had to open her up and sew everything back together. Every time I seemed to be finished she threw a bleed and I had to re stitch" I explain, rubbing my temples as I sit on a bar stool.

"You couldn't let someone else handle that?" Owen asks "I was looking forward to spend some time with my wife. Although these days, it doesn't seem like I have one" he spits, closing Scarlet's lunchbox with much more force than necessary.

"Why should I bother coming home after my shift?" I ask, too tired and weary to give a single fuck what I'm saying "Scarlet would be in bed and it isn't like I'm rushing home to you anymore. I'd rather sleep in an on call room than be home with you!" I would have slept in an on call room today, but I wanted to see my daughter before she went to daycare.

"That's just lovely; you're working to escape me when all I want to do is spend some god damn time with you" Owen's face is red and he looks like he's about to take a stroke.

"I don't want to be home with you, because all you ever do is scream at me!" I accuse.

"Oh, real original; play the victim card Christina, you're doing it so well" he rolls his eyes "I wouldn't yell if you actually made some time to acknowledge that I'm your husband!"

"It wouldn't have mattered if I came home last night!" I scream back "because you would've found someone reason to be pissed off! Whether it was that I came home late or that I worked all day or that I couldn't see you for lunch or the shift I worked late last week!"

"I say these things because I feel like you're not trying hard enough!!"

"Nothing I ever do is enough, Owen! I am never enough!" it's hard for me to say aloud; I'm used to being the best, I was top of my class, top of my intern year, I won a Harper Avery. But yet here I was, feeling like a failure anyway because I never felt like enough and Owen had no problems reminding me.

"You know what, maybe you're right!" Owen yelled "you aren't enough! You don't try hard enough, you keep falling short, and you're never home! I never see you! You aren't enough because you don't care!"

I was silent. Owen, in all the fights and throughout all the yelling, he had never, ever, told me I wasn't good enough. He had never told me I didn't care, yet here he was, listing of all the reasons why I am not good enough.

I don't think this is something anybody should ever have to hear.

Realization dawns on Owen and his eyes widen; but he doesn't get a chance to speak because Scarlet pipes up from the hallway.

"Mommy?" she asks. Her voice was almost a whisper and she looked startled; her eyes looked exactly like Owens did, wide.

"Good morning baby!" I smile, even though I can feel tears welling up in my eyes. I walk over to her and bend down so I'm at eye-level with her. "Why don't you go back to bed? Mommy will stay home with you today and we'll watch movies" I tell her, deciding to take the day to spend some time with her considering I wasn't there to tuck her in last night.

She nods, and I lean in to hug her. When I do, she whispers something so quietly in my ear, I almost miss it.

"I don't like it when Daddy yells at you like that, even though I think that's what Daddy's do, I don't like it"

With that, she runs off to her bedroom.

In that moment, I stand up and turn to face Owen, for the first time since this fighting has started, my heart and my head are in the exact same place. My daughter, my four year old daughter, just said something to me that was as hard as a slap, and she didn't even realize it.

"When you get off work, you can come tuck Scarlet in and tell her that you're sorry for yelling and that Daddy's do not yell at Mommy's under any circumstances because it's not nice and it's not okay" It's physically breaking my heart to have to do this, but it has to be done. The only thing that broke my heart more was hearing Scarlet's words "then, you'll pack your things and leave. Tomorrow we'll work something out, I don't care where you go, you can still see Scarlet, but I think right now we need some time to ourselves to figure this out, because what we're currently doing isn't working"

Owen's face broke my heart; I still believed he was the love of my life, I still loved him so much it hurt me because I'd do anything to make this right, when I'm not even doing anything wrong.

But for the first time, my head was saying leave Owen, and my heart agreed.; because while Owen was my heart, and I loved him dearly, my daughter was also my heart, and she came first, always and forever. While Owen was always the best part of me, he always brought out the best in me and made me feel like nobody else ever could, my daughter was a better part of me. I wanted to be the best for her, she made me feel a kind of determination that nothing, not Owen or surgery could make me feel.

She made me want to be a better person, she made me determined to be the best version of myself all the time.

What was best for her was what I was going to do, and growing up listening to us argue all the time, listening to screaming matches between the two people who loved her most, that wasn't in her best interest. She was the biggest part of my heart.

And my heart was saying 'do you really want your daughter growing up thinking that it's okay to let someone else treat you this way?'

A/N: No hating on Owen, i promise i'll make it better soon!!! Love you, thanks for reading!