Eccedentesiast

My mother always told me not to ask questions that I didn't want to know the answers to. Growing up, I didn't understand what she meant. We ask questions for a reason....because we want to know the answer. But sometimes the answers aren't always what we want to hear.



"What happened to you? Why do you hate the idea of a relationship so much?" Mark had gotten in the habit of asking me personal questions after we slept together. It was annoying, but I could never get away fast enough. He was genuinely trying to get to know me, and I felt bad because I didn't want anything with him on a personal level.

"Why are you a womanizer?" He hated when I answered his questions with questions of my own, but how else was I supposed to get him to be quiet? I thought men wanted meaningless sex, but as soon as they got it, the story changes. I wanted to know what it was about me that made me so different for him. I knew his track record with the women in the hospital. I shouldn't have been special.

"Ariana, could you be serious for like two seconds?" I sighed, rolling over to place my chin on his chest. If this were another lifetime, I probably would have taken Mark seriously. He was gorgeous, he was funny, he was charming.....but he was also my boss.

"Do I need to stop sleeping with you?" If he wanted me to be serious, I was going to be serious. This wasn't supposed to get out of hand. We were supposed to be stress relievers. I never had any intentions of making him my boyfriend, and I told him that after the first time we had sex.

"Are you incapable of having feelings for someone?" It was definitely time for me to head home. I crawled out from underneath the blankets, not bothering to cover myself up as I picked up my discarded clothing.

"No, I'm not incapable of having feelings for someone. I choose not to." I was attempting to pull on my pants, but he tugged me back toward the bed. Why did things have to get so complicated? Sloan was a good lay, but I just couldn't see him being anything else.

"Why?"

"You really wanna know what happened? I made the mistake of thinking I found the person I would spend the rest of my life with. When I got busy with school, he decided that I wasn't worth it." I wasn't bitter about my situation with Elijah anymore, but I didn't want to jump into another one either. I was enjoying my life. I didn't need the stress of a relationship.

"So you won't give us a chance because of something your ex did?" When he put it like that, it sounded a lot worse than it actually was. I wasn't going to make anyone pay for Eli's mistake, but I didn't want to be in a relationship.

"No. Look Mark, you're great. Despite what most people think, you're a good guy. You're smart, and you're obviously really nice looking. You could charm the pants off of just about anyone, but you're already established. You've put in the work, but I'm still paying my dues. I'm not in a position to properly care for a relationship right now. I guarantee if we tried, you'd hate me about four weeks in." I saw what Meredith went through with Derek. They were just starting to get back on track. Granted, their situation was slightly different, but at the end of the day, he was still an attending, and he was still her boss. It complicated things.

"So we try, and if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work."

"Can't we just keep doing what we're doing? It works." Just when I thought everything was settling down, it blows up in my face.

"Ariana, I've done this for years, and it's not appealing to me anymore." He needed to find someone that could give him what he wanted, because it certainly wasn't going to be me.

"What happened with Addison?" I'd met her a couple times, but I didn't know their story. A part of me didn't want to know, but now I was curious.

"It didn't work out." The look on his face told me that it was a sore subject, but maybe I would understand him better if I knew what happened.

"Did you love her?"

"Yes." I smiled when he said it without hesitation. If he was able to move on from someone that he loved, he would be able to get over me.

"So why didn't it work?"

"Sometimes love isn't enough." Talk about food for thought. That wasn't the answer I was expecting, and it made me a little uncomfortable, but I was the one that asked the question.

"Why me?" I was genuinely curious. I wasn't looking for a compliment. I just wanted to know why I was special.

"If you really have to ask me that, then you don't see yourself the way the rest of the men in the hospital do." If anyone was looking at me as anything other than a colleague, I hadn't noticed. If it weren't for Jackson blatantly saying it, I wouldn't have noticed it on his end either. It wasn't an immediate concern of mine.

"I'm gonna go. I'll see you at the hospital."



"You don't know how happy you make me." It probably wasn't a good idea to invite Jackson over, but I still had to make it up to him for missing dinner, and I needed a male's opinion.

"True testament of a fat kid. I bring you food. You tell me how much you love me." Chinese takeout was my saving grace for nights like this. Rain in Seattle wasn't anything unusual, but it always put me in a dark mood, not to mention my conversation with Mark was still weighing heavy on my mind. I didn't want to stop sleeping with him, but I knew that I should. It was just going to continue to get messy if I didn't.

"I didn't say that I loved you. I said you make me happy. There's a difference." I stuffed a piece of orange chicken my mouth, hitting the play button on Dead Silence.

"Yeah, well I know that's the closest I'm going to get with you, so I'll take it." He smiled, but the double meaning in his words was obvious. He really was trying to be a good friend, but now that the cat had been let out of the bag, it was hard. Being friends with someone you had feelings for was never easy, especially when the person knew.

"I heard someone got to stick his hands inside of a chest today." A subject change was always safe. Medicine wasn't a topic that could be turned into an awkward conversation, and I knew that Jackson was gunning for cardiothoracics.

"Yeah, it was pretty sick. The guy still died though." I knew going into surgery that losing patients was going to be a normal occurrence. People died, and there wasn't much we could do about it. It was our job to save them, but sometimes our efforts weren't enough.

"Don't beat yourself up about it. You're still learning, and I'm sure it wasn't your fault." The chest was a fickle place to operate in. One wrong move could cause irreparable damage, but that was part of what was exciting about it. He was staring at me, and I didn't like it. Sometimes I felt like he could look through me. It was unsettling. "What?"

"Nothing, just....nothing." He turned to face the TV, and we sat in an awkward silence after that. I wanted to know what he was thinking about, but I was also afraid to ask. As the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat.

"Can I ask you a question?" He quirked an eyebrow, only glancing at me for a second before he turned his eyes back to the movie.

"Sure."

"Why me?" I hadn't gotten an answer from Mark. Maybe Jackson would give me one.

"Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to." He sounded like my mother, but I was going to press the issue because this time I did want to know.

"Can you just tell me, please?" He sighed, reaching for the remote to pause the movie. I wasn't expecting that, and nervousness settled in the pit of my stomach. Maybe I didn't want to know the answer.

"Aside from the fact that you're beautiful and brilliant, you have a fire about you. You walk into a room, and people notice you, which I find hilarious because nine times out of ten you're not even paying attention to anyone else. And despite what you want people to think, you have a heart the size of Texas. Your sarcasm can kind of rub people the wrong way, but you're not hard to fall for, Ariana." It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but if he saw all of that, there was no telling what Mark saw. Maybe I just needed to take a break from both of them.