DISCLAIMER: Grey's Anatomy and its characters are the property of Shonda Rhimes and ABC. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Goodbye Iowa
By onyx_regret
When Izzie was sixteen she spent a semester in Iowa. One of those student exchange programs. Her parents weren't really proud, for Godsakes, they were hardly around. But she had won that exchange scholarship right out from under Joseph Carbone's nose. And then, Iowa. She liked Iowa, it was warm, for the most part. And sometimes if you were out at the right time, the sunset would bake the cornfields golden, and reflect it right back into your face like you were staring at the sun itself. Izzie loved standing on the back porch with her host family's youngest daughter, an eight year old named Lucy, and just soak up how… not-Washington State it was.
All the country boys followed her around, which was pretty much the story of her life. Not that any of them knew the story of her life. For all they knew, she could be a murderer or an undercover cop. She wasn't oblivious to the fact that she was pretty. That would be kind of conceited. She just didn't talk about it much. She would much rather people remember her for her brains, than her brea… beauty. Beauty.
Luck would have it that the Sadie Hawkins was scheduled for the Friday before she was due to leave. Every available guy in the school was hoping Izzie would ask them, and some even turned down dates, confident that their football/baseball/mathlete credibility would surely make them the one.
Izzie had already asked someone to go to the dance with her, and that person had accepted. Izzie noticed them randomly one day in Chemistry class, sat down and struck up a conversation. The evening of the dance arrived, and the whole school kept glancing at the door nonchalantly, desperate to be the first to see who Izzie Stevens had brought to the dance. Maybe it was someone out of school? Maybe her boyfriend had flown out from Washington State to come?
Then Izzie came in the door, looking as much a goddess as she ever had – that was the general consensus. And by the hand she led… another girl?! Lisa Bright, with her flaming red hair and white skin, and looking for the first time like a woman. Teachers and chaperone's began to whisper. This sort of thing wasn't natural, not in Iowa. The French teacher marched across to the principal, who looked as if he was going to go over there and tell them both to leave. Leaning closely, she whispered, "The rule is that the girl can ask whoever she likes to the Sadie Hawkins. Nowhere did we say it had to be a boy. Come on now, you don't want this getting back to Washington? How our little town is so damn prejudiced?" The principal closed his gaping mouth. He had no choice.
Izzie loved that Sadie Hawkins dance. She spent the night dancing and giggling with Lisa, and on the way home they cut through her host family's fields and stole a kiss under the stars. That's why she loved Iowa. No-one to look at her as though she were crazy, not that she'd care. She never wanted to leave.
But fast forward around ten years, and another redhead was busy undressing Izzie in a supply closet, her pale white hands everywhere at once. Izzie's heart was racing, her eyes fluttering as she desperately tried to claim as much of the redhead's flesh for her own. Now she was kinda glad she said goodbye to Iowa, and that Addison had said hello to Washington State.
The End