There are small things that haunt us in life.
We shouldn't think about the needless crap that holds us down - but sometimes it just comes at you, in full force - relentlessly.
It ends up haunting you.
Not the huge things, things that end up screwing you over - the empty side of the bed as you lay there sleeplessly - recalling the girl that lifted your heart and tore your world apart.
Or the huge successes you've gained and lost - Africa, Hopkins.
No, it isn't the huge crap.
It's the small things.
"It's the leg," she says to me, her eyes glazed with fear.
"It's the leg," I repeat, confirming the inevitable.
"Cut it off," she orders.
It's the small things that haunt us forever.
"Scalpel," I say.
My heart skips a beat as I make my first incision. I thought she moved for a moment, I thought the unconscious blonde opened her eyes momentarily. To stare. To stare at me with those eyes that know.
God, she knows. Everything.
"You made me," I said to her. Did she hear it? Did she hear it? I ask myself, digging deeper into her flesh.
"You remind me of me," she told me, comforting words of reassurance - confirmation that I was doing something right. God, if I had reminded her of herself then I must have been doing something right.
To be like her? All I've ever wanted.
And now I'm destroying it. Destroying her.
My stomach churns, her blood pours out. I feel her listless blue eyes peering at me. Knowing, knowing everything.
It churns again, I hear her voice.
"You ungrateful crapdog," she yells.
"...he's so selfish and thoughtless..."
"...he's still a horrible person," she hisses - and though I am cutting into her, her words cut through me - not like scalpels, like knives - something so sharp, it hurts.
"Doctor Karev?" I hear.
"Wait, take over, give me a minute, wait," I tell them.
Her bone. I see it. And makes my stomach churn, I feel something sting my eyes. I don't have to say anything and soon my forehead is wiped. But that's not the problem, god, it's not the problem.
I have to look at her face, but I can't. I think if I did, I would puke.
That's the problem. I take a deep breath.
I finish up the procedure, with her eyes looking at me - seeing something I couldn't even see in myself. I wonder if she still sees it? Or maybe she looks at what everyone else does.
Her leg is off now. It doesn't even look like her leg. I don't know what it looks like. It's infected, imperfect - rotten, deteriorated.
Assessing the leg enlightens me.
It looks like me. It should have been my leg.
Maybe it's her punishment for liking me so much.
"Waste," I tell them.
I stitch and stitch and now there's just a stump left. I make sure of detail, placing each suture accordingly - some of them are tiny, but I've been trained well. I've been trained well by the body I am sewing back together.
"Okay," I tell them.
It's over now. I still can't look at her because I know she's looking at me.
I tear off the paper-thin material over me. My scrubs are soaked, they seem to stick. I'm sweating, everywhere. I feel the churning again, I can't escape it.
I can't escape it.
And then I see them wheel her off through the glass windows as I puke my insides out in the sink.