Work Text:
The hospital really is like high school all over again. Meredith and Cristina and Izzie are those freshman girls your whole senior class sort of hates because they got asked to prom instead of you. They giggle and whisper behind their anorexic little hands, and you know that they are mocking you.
Luckily, you are not one of those girls who cries and breaks. Back in the real high school, you shrugged it off and kicked soccer balls in their perfect faces during P.E.; after their shiny hair lost interest, the boys showed back up in your window, and you laughed at them and beat them at mario kart.
You went to Prom with Angela Ashlyn, back from college. The Meredith Greys and Izzie Stevenses of the world were subjected to bad sex and cheap champagne. You and Angela talked about her college sweetheart (big mistake) and astronomy, everything from changing tires to blow jobs.
You weren't in love with Luke Pellas when Kimberly Fitzsimmons and Marcy Greenlin whispered in his ear about how you could stand to lose a few pounds, how you rode your bike instead of driving a car to school, how they had heard that everyone had seen you naked at Darryl Costa's New Year's party Sophomore year. You didn't shed a tear when he dumped you.
You are in love with George O'Malley though, enough in love to run off to Vegas, and enough that Izzie and Meredith and Cristina's snickering registers as more than slightly irritating. George tries to justify, to excuse. So you do the same, try and give them the benefit of the doubt. You cook, and you explain, and you keep their secrets.
It doesn't matter; because, girls like Izzie will always hate girls like you. It is girls in this case. Women wouldn't do this. Women wouldn't need this. So, you give up trying to change history for him. You've never been one to dwell and he's had you dwelling.
Addison Montgomery is beautiful and smart, and she reminds you just a little bit of Angela. When George says something about dinner and Izzie, you call up Addison and suggest drinks at the hotel bar. Let him have his judgmental bitch friends.
At work the next day you hear whispers. Apparently now you're the shunning whore; although, you were not invited; although, last week Izzie screamed to George that marrying you was a mistake, just like she always has been saying. You're done trying to get along with people who don't want you around.
Let George deal with it. The burden shouldn't always rest on your shoulders.
When he calls to say he won't be home for dinner, you call Addison. There isn't any reason at all for the home cooked meal to go to waste.
She tells you the food is wonderful, she says so are you. She's heading back to New York soon, and there is room for you in her practice when your residency is up in a few weeks.
If it were really high school this would be the end. Divorce papers signed coldly through the mail without a struggle. You, if no one else, are a woman now, however. So you tell him how it is; let him know there is a choice to be made.
You are going to New York. Will he? In high school he never would have gotten that option.