Asystole ✷ Mark Sloan

𝟬𝟵𝟵 afterglow

𝙓𝘾𝙄𝙓.
AFTERGLOW

the final chapter

oh what a way we've come
(and a taylor title! who would have seen that coming!)

TW for discussion around drugs, cheating and
complex pregnancy themes

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Can you feel it?

It was there, just a small pressure, a shadow or a hunch. A gruesome twisted thing that looped around each teeth, laced through muscle and each nerve. She could feel it, but could you–– if so, for a second of a day, stepped into her skin, pulled her fingers over yours, stepped into the soles of her hardened heels and pulled her lungs flush against your chest–– Could you feel it too?

A moment of peace. A moment of hope. A moment in the rain.

She couldn't allow herself to feel it.

***

NEW YORK

Screw Love.

FUCK Romance.

Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck.

That's what had patterned weeks of their lives in New York: the mutual understanding although it felt good at times, love pretty much unanimously sucked ass. 

It infiltrated the way they looked at each other and the way the room felt; a pressure that neither of them could describe in the moment, but in retrospect they'd both compare to the sort of build up that happened before an earthquake.

They'd fought about it. (About what?) The woman on Mark's arm at the Practice opening. Geraldine, as she'd wormed her way into Beth's subconscious and yelled at him from across the apartment.

That's not fucking okay.

That's how Beth had opened their argument.

She'd proclaimed it as soon as they'd stepped across the threshold of the apartment, freshly out of a tense silence in the back of the taxi. It had come after Beth had stood on the sidewalk, glowering at her boyfriend with every inch of her. A breathy, slightly stilted laugh had chipped out a question as she'd looked over at the man with his hands buried in his pockets and his date a few steps behind: She coming home too? If so, she's not getting in this cab. He hadn't said a word, but the woman... this Geraldine... hadn't dared to follow.

She'd looked at Beth, then at Mark, and said Sorry. She hadn't known he was taken.

Yeah, Beth thought to herself as the apartment door swung behind them, Taking me for granted––

For the record, it wasn't okay. The humiliation that she'd suffered through watching a man who supposedly loved her pretend as if she was a stranger, all in front of their family and friends? No, that wasn't okay at all. She'd spent the evenly holding onto her champagne glass so tightly that she'd feared it would snap. No... No... No––

How could he be such an inconsiderate asshole?

And yet, after that single argument, Beth hadn't had the energy to bring it up again. She was far too busy, far too consumed by everything else in her life to keep up with the drama of this man who made him love her as if he was holding her at gunpoint; she gritted her teeth, prevailed and they tiptoed around every single mention of it. This was just stupid... everything about this whole situation was just stupid––