You are in Love

i know

Owen sat at the bar, watching his surroundings and thinking about Cristina. He had to make a decision, he could give her up and let her be happy with Cole, or he could win her back. He had had quite a few glasses of bourbon when he heard Cristina's voice at the desk. He stumbled to his feet and began to approach her, but she saw him first.

"Hey..." she said hesitantly, and walked closer to him. She could smell the alcohol on his breath, which worried her slightly. "Are you okay, Owen? You've acted strange ever since we got to L.A."

"I listened to your voicemail."

"What?" She hadn't considered that he hadn't heard it, "What do you mean?"

"I was confused when you mentioned it because I hadn't heard it. So, I came back here and I-"

"What do you mean you hadn't heard it? Owen, that was almost two years ago, are you that unorganized?" Her tone of voice changed, and she got slightly louder. Her head was spinning, trying to remember the exact words she used. She had had two years to make sense of it in her mind, to come to terms with the fact that she would never love someone like she did him again; two years to slowly accept her life without him, but this was all new to him.

"I had over a hundred voicemails from Jordan. I saved them in a file and planned to listen to them after I got back to work, but when I got back things were hectic and I never got around to it." He ran his hands through his hair, "but now I've heard it and I understand."

"You understand what?"

"You only let me go because you didn't see us together again, you needed to move on because we were so far away, but-" He paused to think though these next few words, "but Cristina, we're here now and we're together again and we can be together." 

She stood looking at him wide eyed, "Owen I said all of those things before I was married, things are so different now."

"You said in that voicemail that you would always love me," he took both of her hands, "and now you're back and we've fallen right back together, you can't love Cole how you love me or we wouldn't be here in a hotel lobby talking about this."

"I need to sit down," she made her way to a table in the bar and took a seat. 

"Cristina," Owen followed her, "Cristina, when I kissed you that night at the dinner party, and then told you I would leave you alone if you told me you didn't love me, you said you couldn't. I can't be with anyone but you."

"Stop talking, Owen." She put her head in her hands and tried to process all of this, "You're right. I don't love Cole the way that I loved- love you, but he does mean something to me. I can't just leave him and fall back into my old life with you."

"But you have, Cristina. We're still doing the same things, but in secret now. That's not fair to Cole, and it's not fair to me, but it's especially not fair to you. Your brain and your heart have to be so confused and-"

"I know that, I know all of this. I know what I have to do, and I know what the right thing to do is, but I don't want to do it."

Owen's eyes got wide, "and what's the right thing to do?" He looked at her, hoping her answer would finally make things simple for them.

"I have to leave you behind. I know that sounds harsh, but that's the reality. I wish we had our old life, but that's just impossible and that's the reality. I should've told you the minute you kissed me, but you sounded distraught and I wanted to let you in and swallow your pain because that's what I always did. But, I made a pact when I married Cole, and I keep my word. The promise that I made, that's my reality." Her words became quicker and her tone more irritated, not with him but with everything. "I can't keep blurring the lines and bending the rules to make myself feel better." She paused for a long time, "What I know is, I still love you. You know, I'd give anything to wake up with you next to me. I've spent the last few months of my life lost in your eyes, far from reality, and it felt like a dream- because it was. I can't do this to myself again, I have a husband who loves me and it might not be what we had, but I love him too. I can't imagine rebuilding my life with you, everyone's judgements and the mess we would make."

"So what are you saying?" Owen ask her with clenched fists, fighting back tears.

"We have to stop."

"Cristina-"

"No, Owen. We really have to be done. We gave it a good run, and we really tried everything, but we're just not meant to be together. Things that are this hard, aren't right." 

Owen watched as Cristina walked away, and his world spun. He released the tension in his body and fell back, limp in the booth they had been sitting in. He could't feel angry, he couldn't feel sad, he couldn't feel anything. His body was numbed with devastating loss.

Cristina kept it together long enough to get out of Owen's sight, but as soon as the elevator doors closed she hit the emergency stop and fell to her knees sobbing. She knew she wouldn't be truly happy without him, because the fact is she hadn't felt this alive since she left him that voicemail. I'm married, she told herself repeatedly. I'm married to a good man, who loves me, and he would be devastated if I left him. I can't leave him, he deserves better than that. She rested her head against the elevator wall, because it had become heavy with thought. She reasoned with herself in her head for nearly an hour, pacing around the hotel and then whispered to herself, "is that really enough reason to stay?"