As doctors we're trained to identify ailments, disease, and pain.
In ortho, pain is the most important one of the three.
But the thing is...physical pain can be defined; the sharp pressure lingering long after the doctor says you're 'good to go.'
Emotional pain, however, cannot.
Emotional pain is different; the cause of the sweeping pressure over your heart different on every single person. One may have had a death in the family whereas another may just be depressed in general, not knowing the true cause to happiness' downfall.
It's a funny sort of thing, not that you realize when it happens, but that you let another person have such control of yourself. It's quite poetic. Not something a doctor does often. Not something anyone admits to doing often. Letting someone control you so deeply, letting them have such a deep hold on your heart.
I'm that irrational doctor who does so—the one who lets others control their emotions.
George…
Well, I thought I loved George, thought being the key word.
He broke me, because I let him stick his grimy little cheating hands into my chest cavity and grab hold of my heart.
Then Mark came along.
Mark came along and tried his best to pick up the pieces, but the harder he tried, the more the pieces slipped from his grasp.
Then there was Dr. Hahn…
She came along, and with those lovely hands of hers picked up the pieces, gluing the vital muscle back together, keeping it for herself.
And I let her keep it, too.
Dr. Hahn…Dr. Erica Hahn…
She studied it, memorizing each and every crevice, knowing it; inside and out.
She promised to take care of it. A surgeon's care, she'd said to me, so when she dropped it, it was no longer muscle. It was like the china my mother only took out on Christmas and Easter, not even letting me handle the fine porcelain until my first time home from college. She just smiled, and handed me a plate, and I knew the significance of the event, but my heart? No, the sound of my heart shattering on the ground as Erica walked away from me? That was worse than any nerves I felt that evening as I set the table.
For weeks, I walked around, my chest empty, not sure if I was even alive.
Then months…it was sick. I was worried. That's why I sat there that night, crying into my drink. I was worried. I hadn't heard from her for almost four months, and I was just worried, worried about my best friend. It was disgusting.
Then Arizona came along.
She came along, and taught me something.
You see, no one ever made me pick up the pieces on my own.
No one ever made me be strong.
It was…refreshing.
Knowing I had something to work for only made it better, but she made me pick up the pieces.
You see, there's quite a big difference between Mark's 'walk tall,' and her kiss in the bathroom, or at least there is to me.
She taught me how to me strong in the face of unspeakable danger…or at least what counts as unspeakable to me.
She taught me, not only, how to glue the pieces back together, but to add any type of viscid material within my reach. It wasn't something I could do in a day or two; it took time, but time that one Miss Arizona Robbins was happy to take.
I smiled to myself, god, that woman was perfect.