==ARIZONA==
She felt light.
She felt light, as if the largest weight she had not known she was even carrying was suddenly lifted off her body. It was easier to breathe. The panic she had felt in her heart had given way to catharsis, and with a deep breath, she felt her lungs fill with air as if for the first time.
She felt light. As if she were a bow string, pulled back to its maximum tension from months of buildup and resentment, she finally unleashed the arrow. No longer armed with a weapon, she felt light.
Stick out your leg and I will go grab a bone saw and let's even the score!
It was like an out of body experience, as she simultaneously shot these words of hate and felt the horror of their meaning. What do you do when your feelings defy all logic? Callie amputated her leg to save her life. She knows this. Callie stuck by her side and supported her, even in her darkest moments after the plane crash. She knows this. Callie was the light of her life, who had brought her more love and happiness than she had ever known before. She knows this.
I thought, I thought we were past the hard stuff. I thought we were finally good!
We were, we are…
And yet, from the core of her being, she could not suppress the feelings of pure anger and hatred. The raging fire within her could not be dampened by logic, fueled as it was by the incendiary stuff of betrayal, jealousy, insecurity, and sadness. When fires rage, they burn all in their path.
YOU DIDN'T LOSE ANYTHING!
Apparently, I lost you.
Those four words had hit her like a sledgehammer, as she finally recognized the blow she had just dealt her wife.
She didn't hate Callie. She just needed a reason—finally, a real reason—to hate herself. She hated being disabled. She hated her crutch. She hated the constant pain. She hated the nightmares. She hated her body, how...asymmetrical it was now. She hated how she couldn't hop, or skip, or dance. She hated all the pitiful stares. She hated feeling like a shadow of her former self.
The truth is that she hated her life now, and no small part of her wished that she too had died on that plane. Yet, how could she justifiably admit that she hated her new self? When Mark and Lexi lost their lives? When she still had a loving wife and daughter? When she was still head of pediatric surgery, and respected throughout the hospital? When people still admired her, looked up to her, relied on her, loved her?
Well now, she had a real reason—a universally acceptable reason—for hating herself. Knowingly, she betrayed her wife, her daughter, her family, and the greatest love she had ever known. She had finally sunken to her lowest low, becoming the manifestation of everything she deplored. Cheater. Liar. Adulterer. Abandoner. Selfish. Irreverent. Irrational. Stupid. Crippled. Ugly.
She had just destroyed everything. The plane crash destroyed her leg, but she destroyed everything else.
I can't lose you. So please…don't run.
A memory from a seemingly distant time, with a plea that Callie acceded to all too easily. If she could go back, she probably would have told Callie to run, to get away before the inferno swallowed her.
Arizona felt light, like the ashes that rise with the residual heat of the earth after a fire. She could continue to survey the destruction, or she could just float away. She could just float away. She looked at the bottle of pills clutched in her hand. Being a doctor still has its perks. She opened the lid and took two more pills. She felt light, and slumped further down on floor of the hospital bathroom.