Jolex: Izzie's Return

Chapter Eleven

Alex
At this point in the conversation I was mad. For the first time I let my self feel this way. I had always kept calm around Izzie. I ignored the situation with her entirely because I thought that if I had showed any resentment to Izzie, it would only show Jo that I hadn't resolved that part of my life like I said I did. I felt like it would be another step back in our relationship when I only wanted to go forward. I didn't want to hear this. I didn't want to hear Izzie's reasoning or her apologies. But I stayed anyway. I told myself that I was doing it for my future because if I was ever going to start a new life I didn't want to be like my dad and leave an unfinished story before I started the sequel.

"When did you tell Christina this?" I asked

"When I left the second time. I told her that you were mad at me and then I said that when you weren't mad to tell you to come after me. I said to her that if you loved me you would come to my hospital and we would start our lives together." She paused for a moment and started again. "Two months had passed and I finally gave her a call. She said that she told you a week after I left but that you refused to even mention my name."

I looked at her for the first time since she got here. She was still the same Izzie, a little older and it showed but she was still Izzie. She was wearing bright red lipstick and she was on the verge of tears. For some reason it felt like the room got colder and quieter even though I knew nothing had changed and all the anger and resentment I had for her left. She wasn't happy in her life and she wanted to change it but that doesn't mean she didn't want me.

"Christina never talked to me about you." I stated bluntly.

"I'm really sorry, Alex." she said finally letting a tear fall down her face. "I just needed to hit the restart button back then. Now I finally have my life sorted out and then a little over a week ago I got a letter in the mail about my... our eggs and it made me think of you. So I called Bailey and she said she had a few cases I could work on until I sorted things out. But then when I came here I saw you with... her... and I didn't really know what to do and so I started an argument with you and kept trying to pick fights in hopes that you would get mad and make me hate you enough that I would fall..." She stopped and took a breath. "That I would fall out of love with you."

He abundance of words caught me off guard. I tried sorting through each sentence but all I came out with was "our eggs" and "out of love with you". Hearing Izzie say those things again made me realize how much time had past. And how I wished that I could just stop time.

We sat in a still and comfortable silence. For the first time we had a joint understanding of what was going on.

I made small talk with Izzie after that. There was just so much that I wanted to know about. How she was, where she was living, what has she been doing. And she wanted to know the same about me. A while later it finally dawned on me to check my phone. The time was 12:36am and there were 3 missed calls from Jo.

"Crap." I said

"What's the matter?"

I showed her the time on my phone and then stood up. "I have to go or I'm probably a dead man."

"Yeah me too." She said standing up joining me.

I had just grabbed my jacket and turned back around to tell her goodnight when I felt a warm kiss on my lips. I didn't pull back like I should've because it brought back so many memories. Instead I let her pull was. Then she looked at me, grabbed her stuff, and walked away.

I was stunned at the impulsive action but I didn't have time to think about it and I just chalked it up to a goodbye kiss. In France they do it all the time.

I made it back home around 15 minutes later and I ran up to the loft. I was met in the hallway by Edwards who had just walked out of the loft. She shook her head when she saw me.

"What are you doing here?" I said

"I brought Jo something to eat and some more papers from the hospital because she couldn't get ahold of you. I told her you got paged into the ER Incase she asks." She reached into her bag and pulled out a Kleenex. "I didn't want to be the one to tell her you were at the bar with your ex wife." She handed me the tissue. "You better wipe that lipstick off your face before you go in there. She is already all sad because she is sick."

I took the tissue from her "Edwards you don't-"

"Shhhh." She said motioning for me to stop talking. "I ain't got time for your mess. I have a surgery in the morning"

With that she walked away. I did as she said and wiped my face and then I went inside. Jo was sleeping on the couch when I got in there. There were tissues on the coffee table and she was still covered in blankets. I didn't want to wake her so I just quietly got ready for bed and went to sleep.