Chapter Text
Meredith
Saturday September 10th 1994, 15:03 pm eastern time
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As I first step onto campus, I am immediately enamored by all of the greenery--the ivy crawling up the walls of the colonial-style brick buildings, the allure of the immense shade trees. The Westover campus truly is beautiful. Maybe boarding school won't be so bad after all. I could certainly see myself curled up under one of those luxurious trees with one of my favorite books, floating away from the real world.
I quickly glance over my shoulder and I see an abundance of preppy-looking students milling around the bright green quad. It's a sea of khakis and polo shirts, plaid skirts and cardigans.
Meanwhile, I'm wearing my favorite pair of mom jeans that have an ugly hole ripped in the knee and and a sweater full of moth-holes that's about three sizes too big for me. And that's without even the mention of my hair, so disastrous that it is certainly making me stand out in the crowd. The natural dirty blonde of my hair is tinted a rosy pink, courtesy of a box of hair dye I bought at the drugstore several weeks ago. Once I learned that my mother was shipping me off to boarding school, I decided that she could deal with me haphazardly dyeing my hair, something I never would have considered doing before. I can't say it looks good exactly, what with the cheap quality of the dye and my reluctance to brush my hair on a regular basis. Suffice it say, my hair is an utter disaster compared to the shiny, well-kept locks of the students flitting around me.
After glancing at all of the other students and their extremely well put together appearances, I'm hit by a debilitating wave of self-consciousness. Not that that's extremely unusual, but still, it's a significant enough occurrence to be noted.
My beaten up Converse clap along the brick pathway as my mother and I trek to my assigned dorm. I'm sweating in the humid east coast heat, and I wipe away the beads of sweat that are falling down my face with the sleeve of my sweater. Certainly, I would be much less sweaty if I wasn't wearing a sweater, but there is no way in hell that I would wear a short-sleeved shirt. The scars are too fresh. Even if they weren't so new, I don't think I could stomach showing them to the world, so I'm pretty much stuck with long sleeves for the rest of my life. Could I primarily harm myself on another part of my body so that I would have the capability to wear more seasonally appropriate clothing? Absolutely. But doing it on my thighs doesn't quite have the same effect in regards to quelling the burning in my arms that surfaces when I feel the need to cut. So I think I'll stick to my arms for now, even if it does limit my clothing choices.
"Meredith, quit dragging your feet!" my mother exclaims, snapping me out of the daze I've been in, stuck in the never-ending loop of rumination about my clothing choices and their implications given my self-harming tendencies.
After a lengthy walk that has left us both dripping in sweat, we reach the entrance to the dormitory building I was assigned to. Suitcases are lugged up the steps and heavy oak doors are pushed open, revealing the relatively grand foyer of the building. There is a woman sitting at a table in the middle of the room, accompanied by a younger girl.
"Here to check in?" the woman says.
"Yes," replies my mother. "Name is Meredith Grey."
The woman ruffles through her stack of paper, searching until she reaches the one that has "Grey" emblazoned on it. She hands it to me while searching for the accompanying key.
"Here you are," she says. "My name is Carolyn Shepherd and I'm the dorm parent for this hall."
She gestures to the girl sitting on her left, "This is my youngest daughter, Amelia. She'll be a freshman this year."
"Hey," the girl says, voice flat and clearly not caring about making a good impression on either my mother or I.
"Hey," I reply. "I'm Meredith. I'll be a sophomore."
I can feel the blush rising quickly to my cheeks, thoroughly embarrassed by this interaction which holds no enthusiasm whatsoever. I suppose we could both work on our zeal for mundane tasks.
Carolyn glances at Amelia, giving her a reproachful look, while simultaneously handing me the key to my room. "Looks like you're in room 318. That'll be down the hall to the right once you make up to the third floor," she tells me.
"Don't hesitate to reach out to me if you need anything at all," she continues, a soft smile on her face. "I live in the suite on the first floor, number 101."
"Of course," I say. "Thank you so much."
We leave the foyer and begin our trek up the three flights of stairs, both of my suitcases in tow. Why did the architects of this building decide that no elevators were a good idea?
The hallways of this building are narrow and quite dark, and it's abundantly clear that they were built in the 1700s. Everything is made of dark brick and the walls seem to impose on the hallway, feeling almost suffocating. It doesn't help that there is no air conditioning and that it is 90 degrees outside. This building is like an oven.
We pass a series of doors, one being the entrance to a bathroom, and finally locate the door to my room. The door creaks open slowly once I insert the key into the lock and turn it, revealing a small room with wooden-framed twin beds and doubles of every other piece of furniture. There's a window in the center of the room, although it is not much lighter in here than it is in the hallway. It appears as though my roommate has not yet arrived, as both sides of the room are still empty.
I plop my suitcase down on the right side of the room and my mother does the same. We stand there awkwardly, just staring at each other, not quite sure what to do next. My brain can't help but be plagued with the will-she won't-she of whether or not she'll stay to help me unpack.
"Well, Meredith, I guess I'd better be going," my mother's voice breaks through the silence.
Well, there you have it. My answer. Of course she isn't staying. I don't know how I could delude myself into thinking she would stay. Have I lost my mind? Maybe. Probably.
I feel the heat of white-hot embarrassment descend upon my body, a heavy blanket coming down to smother me. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes as I look towards the floor in an attempt to quell them.
"Okay," I respond meekly, my voice barely getting past the huge knot that has formed in the throat. My words burn as they come out--I shouldn't be so surprised that my mother, the Ellis Grey, is disappointing me once again. I should be used to it by now. I guess I'll never learn.
My mother turns on her heel and begins heading towards the doorway, pausing for a moment. "I expect you to be in touch at least once a week, either by letter or telephone," she says.
"Okay," I repeat. I can feel the disappointment descending into the pit of my stomach, making its home and festering there. My whole body feels heavy. It feels as though my vision is warped, the room closing in on me in almost a spherical way. I blink in attempt to get rid of the strange quality my vision has taken on, but it doesn't seem to work.
"Goodbye, Meredith," my mother says as she exits, closing the door behind her.
As soon as the door closes, I crumple onto the nearest bed, hitting it with a swift plop. My breaths are coming faster now and the tears have broken free from the prison of my eyes, now streaming down my face rapidly.
God. I can't do this here. I don't want to do this here. My yet-to-be-identified roommate could walk in at any second. Chest hitching, I force myself to stand up and make my way over to the door, shaking hand barely able to grasp the doorknob and pull the heavy door open. Through the tears that are clouding my eyes, I frantically search for the door to the bathroom that my mother and I had passed earlier. I dart diagonally across the hall, into the bathroom, my breathing becoming more labored by the second.
I quickly lock myself in a stall and try to slow my breathing and the streams of tears, but am minimally successful. Over my increasingly labored breathing, I hear the bathroom door swing open. There are rapid footsteps to the stall adjacent to mine and I almost immediately hear the sound of violent retching. This gives me pause. I may be on the verge of a full-blown panic attack myself, but I am still worried for the person in the stall next to me. I mean, I've grown up with a doctor as a parent-- the minute someone seems even a little sick I jump into action, even if I'm in the middle of some sort of personal turmoil.
I hear the person vomit a few more times before they go silent, only the sound of twin ragged breathing left in its wake.
"Are you okay?" I ask timidly, my voice coming out surprisingly clearly for how much I've been trying to suppress my tears.
The person next to me clears their throat roughly, "Um, yeah, all good," they respond, their voice strung high and tight. I could recognize the sound of panic anywhere.
"Are you sure?" I reply. "You don't sound okay."
The toilet flushes and I can hear the person standing up. I quickly wipe the tears off my face and take a deep breath, opening my stall door. I hear the person next to me do the same. Suddenly, I am face to face with a tall girl who is absolutely stunning, despite the obvious tear tracks and the occasional hitch of her chest. She smiles at me, trying to be genuine, but I immediately pick up on how it looks like more of a grimace-- a mere attempt to convince someone that you're okay when you're very far from it.
"Y-yeah," she stutters out. "Promise. Think I just ate something bad for lunch, or I'm just nervous about moving in, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," I reply. I can tell she's lying to me, but I decide to let it go for right now. I just met this person for god sakes. I don't exactly need to be analyzing the state of her mental health upon our first meeting.
'It's because you so desperately want someone to notice how badly you're struggling,' a voice in the back of my head says. I quickly squash that thought with a shake of my head.
"Sure you're okay?" the girl questions, tilting her head slightly, having noticed my similarly tear-stained cheeks and intermittently hitching chest.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just sad to leave my mother," I lie, crossing my arms over my chest in an attempt to cradle and hopefully soothe myself, if even minimally.
"Okay," she says definitively. "Sorry we had to meet like this. I'm Addison, by the way."
She holds out her hand to me, and I shake it, slightly taken aback by the formality of the gesture, seeing as we were both just breaking down in a dormitory bathroom of an all-girls boarding school.
"Meredith," I say. "Nice to meet you"