"7 p.m. on a Thursday - Danton, Wisconsin" - Raffle Snippet #1
Dr. Grey's POV
You hate the apartment.
You hate the newness of it, the glass, the steel. You hate the sterility of it, the just-bought furniture, the hush in the space - like a showroom. There's parts of you here that you brought from the house (your father's record collection, now that you had moved out immediately), but there's so much you left behind - too much.
You miss mowing the lawn in the mornings.
You miss cleaning your fishing rods in the garage.
You miss Charlie - Charlie eating breakfast at the kitchen table, Charlie reading next to you on the couch, Charlie looking up at you as you tucked them in, kissed them goodnight.
It was, of course, only fair for Erika to have the house. Charlie would be spending the most time with her after all, and the last thing you'd want was to rip another thing away from them - the promise of a happy family, you think, was enough (more than enough).
And, maybe the two of you could've worked it out. In another life, you - the patient, kind, reasonable Peter - might've gone to marriage counseling, might've had some kind of breakthrough, and there'd have been progress and there'd have been setbacks, but you'd have learned to live with Erika again, to see her, to understand her the way she wanted you too.
But the truth is, you are not patient, and kind, and reasonable. You are angry, hurt, and bitter - and what makes it worse is, you know that she's partly right. You did lose her in your marriage, you chose to turn a blind eye, and when she had told you that night what had happened in San Francisco - there was the shock of it, but also no shock at all.
Then again, if she heard this, she'd probably roll her eyes. She always thought you had a habit of martyring yourself.
You open your fridge and take out a beer, consider this apartment you hate - the fact that you were married, and now...you're not. Somewhere, Erika is having dinner with Charlie, Charlie still in their soccer uniform, straight home from practice - it's selfish, you decide, that you hope they miss you, that you hope they look at the empty chair to their left and think about what it used to be like when you were there.
You put the beer back in the fridge. You will not sit alone in your apartment, drinking a beer and wallowing. You will not be a 43-year-old cliché. You will put a record on and force yourself to relax. You will read, and then you will sleep, and then when morning comes, you will go on a run and - habits are habits.
In the OR, at least your mind is quiet.
