Just Close Enough to Burn (station 19)

Louder Than a Bomb pt. 1

Dear Diary,

Today was such a long and draining day.  It definitely didn't help that I was up until all hours of the night drinking with the crew at the houseboat. It was a full fledged party and it was awesome... until I woke up this morning slightly nauseous and extremely exhausted. But in the moment, it was great. We were all dancing, everyone else took a bunch of shots and it was hilarious to watch their drunken escapades. I mean to be fair I definitely wasn't sober either, but I was nowhere near their level. I was dancing with Maya and Vic when I noticed Andy had gone outside. She looked kinda miserable all night and didn't want to talk about it, but I figured I should check in on her.

Walking out, I saw her hang up her phone and sigh in defeat. I asked again what was going on with her, but she said she didn't want to talk about it. I agreed for the moment, but said that at some point she should talk to somebody cause it was getting to a point that I was concerned. She nodded, like she kinda understood, but I could tell she still didn't want to talk about any of it with anyone. I linked my arm through hers and rested my head on her shoulder as I reminded her that I love her and am always there for her no matter what. She said she knew as she rested her head on top of mine, then said she just wasn't ready yet.

A minute or so later, Maya came out so I pulled away and headed back inside. Things have been getting a lot better with them lately, but still aren't totally normal so I wanted to give them some space to talk and hopefully get closer to where they used to be. Back inside, I danced over to Vic and hung out with her for a little while before Maya and Andy came in and they both joined us on the dance floor (aka the kitchen haha). It got pretty late and we were all pretty drunk, so everyone just crashed at Dean's. I slept on the living room floor (not ideal but whatever) and got up early and left before anyone else was awake to get to the hospital for clinicals.

I was on the peds floor when I got a text from Meredith. She asked if I was in the hospital and I told her I was rounding with Hayes. A minute later, he turned to me and said that Grey was paging me down to the green room. All of my classmates turned to me, wondering what in the world was happening, and why Meredith Grey paged Dr. Hayes asking for me. They were even more confused when Hayes actually let me go. Just 20 minutes earlier he told some dude he couldn't leave to go to the bathroom so it was a pretty big shock to everyone. I didn't know what was going on, but made my way down to the green room as fast as I could. I knew Mer wouldn't page me out of clinicals unless something major was going down.

As I was heading down I remembered that Sullivan had his surgery this morning. I got worried that something had gone wrong and ran the rest of the way to the green room. When I got there, Mer was sitting across from Andy who was in tears and looked panicked.

Mattie immediately went over and sat on the arm of Andy's chair, putting an arm around her shoulder, and pulling her into a hug.

"What's going on? What happened?" She asked, fearing the worst. "Is it Sullivan?"

Andy buried her head into Mattie, not saying anything, so Mattie turned to  Mer for answers.

"Sullivan's fine, don't worry. It's..." Meredith said before Andy cut her off.

Still crying Andy said, "I keep thinking about the week before my mom died, just playing it over and over and... I think she might have killed herself." Hearing it out loud only made her sob more, and she fell back into Mattie's embrace.

Mattie held her tight and stroked her hair, trying to comfort her friend, all the while desperately trying to process what Andy had just said.

My heart sank as I talked to Andy. The more she cried, the closer I pulled her in. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't take away all of her fear, and pain, and grief; all I could do was hold her and try to remind her that at least she wasn't alone. She calmed down after a few minutes and the three of us just talked for a while. She was talking about her aunt and cousin and the rest of her extended family. They were really close when she was little, but disappeared after her mom died. Then she went on to say that she kept looking back on her childhood and remembering moments when her mom seemed so sad and things between her parents were rocky. She thought she might just be paranoid, but Mer validated her, saying that she was probably remembering things she tried really hard to forget.

As we talked I couldn't really find the words I needed, I was still trying to wrap my head around everything, but luckily Meredith knew exactly what to say. I know that she has a lot of experience figuring out a parent's past and what that means for her. I guess that probably helped. Anyway, eventually Andy said that everyone around her keeps saying that she sounds crazy. Meredith and I both told her right away that she didn't sound crazy. Mer said that a breakthrough can look an awful lot like a breakdown.

I took a beat then said again that I don't think Andy sounds crazy, and told her I was so sorry if I made her feel that way. I tried to explain that she just didn't seem like herself and I was worried. But I only ever wanted to make sure that she was okay, I didn't think she was crazy; she's just my family. Meredith backed me up, saying that it sounded like Andy had her person, and that she should lean on me or talk to me instead of just spiralling in her head. With that, Andy leaned back, resting her head on my shoulder and told Mer that she was right.

It was strange hearing everything Andy said, especially about her Tia Sandra and "cousin-sister." I've known Andy so long, and she's practically my family, so I thought I knew her whole family, but I guess not. And hearing everything about how Pruitt might have kept them from her, how he was controlling and made her mom unhappy, it just didn't sit right. That man was like a father to me, he was kind and generous and loving; he was my hero. But he was also a person; I know he was flawed, I just didn't imagine it could be like that. Anyway, I just had to write for a bit to try to process everything, but now I have to get to the station; there's a 5 alarm fire and now that my clinicals are over (or at least they were scheduled to be) they're calling me in.

-Mattie