Tears Don't Mean You're Losing
Her office door was shut just as tightly as the blinds, letting slithers of light through that were barely enough to illuminate the clinical lead. It was clear that she was neither needed, nor wanted and she wasn't sure what hurt most. All her life she had struggled to fit in, her personality made it hard for her and yet in the ED she felt part of something, or at least she had. Losing what she'd previously had had was tough on her, and now she wasn't quite sure what to do.
From the other side of her desk she heard her phone vibrate. She didn't even move, anything seemed preferable to checking her phone right now, purely because she was pretty sure she knew who it would be that was trying to contact her. For at least a week she'd managed to avoid a conversation with him and she still wasn't sure that she was ready to talk. Sitting back in her chair she contemplated how she'd got to this point. Only a couple of weeks ago she had two people of whom she considered friends, one of whom was now dead and the other who she no longer wanted to know, let alone call her friend.
Her phone buzzed back to life, minutes after it had last finished buzzing. She half wondered what he had to say and then realised that she didn't actually care. Anyway, if he really cared then he wouldn't have been texting her, he'd have rung or failing that, actually visited her office. Connie felt completely lonely, part of her wanted to cry, to reach out to someone and just break down to them but it was the person whom she could do that with that she was now seriously lacking.
She'd been cooped up in her office for several hours and no one had needed her, the realisation that they were not going to suddenly need her hit her like a ton of bricks. Moving from the chair she'd been sat on, she got up and walked over to her filing cabinet to collect some admin that she was going to distract herself with. Her normally chocolate brown eyes were now clouded over with a layer of tears that were ready to fall at any given moment. Suddenly and without warning her chest began to get tight, the sign that a panic attack was impending and that was the last thing she needed, after all she didn't want any forced sympathy, which is what she knew that she would receive from the department.
Eventually curiosity got the better of her and she reached for her phone to make sure that it was in fact who she'd thought it was. After ascertaining that she was correct, no one else ever contacted her, she flicked through her emails for a bit before realising that she'd have to open her unread texts at some point.
Reading through the texts from him, she felt her heart break slightly, this had been one of her good friends, someone she'd trusted. She'd missed him in the couple of weeks that they hadn't been talking but the texts made her surer that she didn't want to talk to him, made her surer that there was no way back for them as friends. Tears pricked at her eyes again, and soon the first couple of tears streamed down her face, despite her wiping them straight away. She didn't want to be crying over her lost friendship, she was determined that this wouldn't bother her yet the tears kept falling. She leaned back in her chair and let her eyes slip shut to quell the tears. The memories of good times rushed into her head, all the times that he'd been there for her and cared for her, causing her heart not just to splinter but all together shatter. The good times were soon replaced with arguments and his interview with the police when she'd been charged with murder. He was supposed to be the one who helped her and yet he landed her in a situation that was worse than the one she'd originally been in. Bubbles of anger rose in her stomach, the tears had all but disappeared leaving a trail of anger in their place. It was then she realised that no matter where they went from here, there was no way back for them, not when she was sure that she couldn't forgive. Part of her was past caring about the situation and the other part ached and grieved for Charlie, the only one who she'd considered her friend.