TRIAGE | grey's anatomy (ON HOLD INDEFINITELY)

005: "if u wanna stay"

DEAREST ANI,

You know as well as I do that this "letter" will never get to you. It's simply a therapy technique I have been demanded to use since I was 15. I used to write to Beck, but then the whole thing became less about me and more about him, and more specifically the past and how I should've changed it. Which, you know, I would if I could. But I can't, so no use dwelling on it.

So I talk to you, as my closest mentor and the only person in the world who knows as close to the full story as I can let go. Really, thats an accomplishment in itself. Damn your Harper Avery's. And I'm sorry I haven't written in an extremely long time. You'll be pleased to know that my absence isn't because I've fallen into a dark hole that requires a cowboy lasso and plying me with tequila and Indian food like a stray cat. It's because I have actual real living breathing friends! Friends that I work with (so that's 100 hours immediately crossed off my availability right there), and that I live with and that I eat with and shower with-- we obviously know no boundaries here. It's so overwhelmingly nice to meet people that, though our personalities are intensely different, share the same passions as me-- and have the same amount of weirdly dramatic events constantly occurring It's probably rude of me to celebrate the awful events that have happened to Mer or Cristina, but who am I to lie to you or myself or whatever? It makes me feel relieved, because they're still incredibly successful and smart and capable... despite the fact that they're dark and twisty. (That is also another reason I could never send this to you-- I carry more secrets than the goddamn president, it feels like sometimes).

Anyways, I woke up early this morning. Or, well, I didn't really ever go to sleep, I guess. I have a few hours to kill before the rest of the house wakes up for rounds. I had to look back to see when I last wrote to you, and my therapist would probably strangle me if she wasn't so calm and therapist-like creepy peaceful, because it's been almost two months since I've written. I guess I can start there, because I feel almost as if that was when I proved myself to be a worthy contender.

There was this patient, Scott Seibert, whose dad was abusive and in need of a liver badly after a car accident (that was his own fault)-- and Scott was a match. Mostly everyone seemed to be so convinced of the right and wrong of the situation, with the ethics, that they refused to stop and think about how this wasn't a hypothetical, this was this teenage boy's actual life. I think before then, though I had the respect of everyone in the entire hospital, they didn't see me as a trauma surgeon. You always taught me that trauma surgeons needed to be intensely strong, quick on their feet, and assertive. And that is who I am, or I wouldn't want to be a trauma surgeon. But somewhere along the way (and you warned me of this, too), someone decided that nice and pretty girls couldn't simultaneously be that strong. Like my compassion is a weakness. And, yeah, I am the girl who cries at Hallmark pay-per-view movies and cares about how her hair looks and won't eat meat because I've driven past factory farms before, but I am also the woman who will dive elbow-deep into a body cavity to remove clots, or who will curse you out at the top of my lungs if you get in my way or make things harder for my patient.

And Scott Seibert's case helped me prove that I could be both, I think.

Clem crouched in front of Scott's wheelchair, reaching to grip his hand tightly. Alex stood nearby, arms crossed like a type of bodyguard, and an impatient Izzie lingered in the background. The day was surprisingly warm, but Clem felt cold all over. She knew what she needed to do. Alex had shared what he could, and so she trusted him with this. Clem hoped her trust wasn't misplaced.

"You're not just angry at your dad, Scott," Clem whispered. "You're angry at your mom, for trying to convince you to give a piece of yourself to a man who has hurt her in so, so many ways. You're angry that she's let it go on for so long, that she has failed in protecting you, too. But there are some things you need to understand about being-- or, well, thinking you are-- in love with a man who hurts you."