Gentlemen Only

The Road Diverged

*Warning*
This chapter contains depression and self harm. Read at your own discretion. I don't condone hurting yourself in any way, but it is more prevalent than people think and hopefully we can all help raise awareness to get people the help they need!

Meredith's knees didn't shake this time when she stepped into the large brick and mortar building. Now, walking into the club, she felt an uncharacteristic flair of bravado that didn't reflect her usual character. The accompanying emotions she did recognize, however, were excruciatingly familiar. Self-loathing, embarrassment, and a sense of smallness permeated her soul. It was malicious, too dark for her liking, and frightened her a little. Ashamed as she was to admit it, there were moments the last week that she felt it necessary to completely shut down and give in to the suicidal thoughts that plagued her mind.

Fresh cuts were crushing with scabs on the insides of her thighs, every damaged skin cell an echo of the wrenching pain in her heart. Every drag of the glass down her skin as it split the milky white canvas and spilled the salty, iron liquid down her legs quieted the raging maliciousness of her angst. She'd watched in awe, the ugliness of it all like a grotesque, live action painting as the dark red rolled like acrylic down her legs. It blossomed and stained her socks in a sickly satisfying manner, ruining them. But it made her feel... nothing. The physical discomfort cancelled out the pain of her wounded heart.

Jet had broken her.

She hadn't cut in years. Once she broke through her barriers and found solace in that beautiful, day breaking smile, the thrill of knowing she would banter with him every morning gave her a reason to live.

Meredith never noticed how much their relationship meant, and how little time she'd spent on nurturing it. She recognized the issue was within her at her very being and core. The foundation of their relationship had been missing an important part: acceptance. Not with Jet as he was, but rather with herself as she was with him.

She'd been free, freer than she'd ever been in her whole life. The black cup of coffee that waited when her shift began, as if someone had just placed it there, awaiting the moment she would breathe in the scintillating aroma of caffeine; it now caused her tears. The way Jet smiled at her lame jokes, the ones that only they knew and were privy to; she could no longer speak to him except in solemn tones. The laughter had shriveled and faded from their office, and she trudged through the motions just to get by and make it to quitting time.

The look in his eyes when he kissed her and his confession outside of the restaurant had her reeling in the most bitter and degrading thoughts. Feelings she thought were one thing suddenly felt like another, until she didn't know up from down. The constant whirlpool of anxiety that she lived with daily exploded into an ugly, abstract muddle that she didn't know how to deal with.

Meredith hated herself for the first time since she agreed to work for him. She loathed herself for not realizing sooner how he had become a bulkhead, a constant, the most important part of her life. Knowing that everything might have been different, that perhaps they could have been romantically involved if she had acknowledged their friendship sooner, burned like acid in her soul. The deep, bitter finality of it seeped into every fiber of her being, so she cut and cut some more. It was the only thing that made sense to her: everything else blurred into inconsistent nothingness. She needed to feel to keep herself from feeling.

Meredith walked calmly to the bar area, lips quirking when she noticed that Ryan was serving tonight. Something snapped inside of her, and she instantly welcomed the sensation: tonight, she was a new woman. The old one was dead, and the new Meredith needed to fill the dark void that threatened to engulf her.