Author's Notes: This chapter kinda carries on from the end of the last one. I'm sorry if this is becoming in any way nonsensical, I'm trying to make the relationships realistic. I hope I'm succeeding but am open to any suggestions.
Chapter 21: "The End Of Hope"
Jing-Mei Chen, M.D
"Maybe that's the problem…"
I couldn't stop those words running in my head. I couldn't shut off the fury I felt. I couldn't switch off my mind. I'd run from the room. I'd run all the way home till my muscles were tense and sore and my head pounded to the beat of my heart. And once I shut the door and I was safe, I sank to the floor and I cried. I don't know for how long I cried. I couldn't bear to imagine the apathy I'd seen in his eyes, the blankness, that cut deep into my being and reopened old wounds.
I hoped that tears would be a release, however temporary, but they weren't. Progress so carefully made, a future built on three months of baby steps, I saw shattered. And however I looked at them, I couldn't make the pieces go back together.
I wanted to numb myself to this. But the one bottle of wine I had in my flat couldn't touch the pain I was in, and so I ended up here. I was no better than the alcoholics I saw every day. Correction – that I used to see every day. I wasn't a doctor anymore. The clerk looked knowing. She had doubtless seen all this before so many times.
I paid in silence and walked slowly home. He'd driven me to this. I'd been so close to the edge and his rejection today had just been the push I'd needed to fall. The world had finally closed in on me today, and I couldn't bear it.
The liquor store clerk had noticed my hands. I know she had, I saw pity in her eyes. I couldn't hide them, much as I wanted to. I was scarred. Scarred and useless. I couldn't do what I'd trained my whole life to do anymore, and the only person I had to get me through this was too scarred by his own experience to let me help anymore. I needed him. More than I'd ever realized before now.
My flat was bare and gloomy when I returned, struggling with the key in the lock as I did nowadays. I went straight to my kitchen cupboard to find a glass. Placing the bottle on the counter, I reached up and opened the cupboard door. Though my feeling of touch was irreparably damaged, I could still do things if I concentrated hard enough on them.
Locating a glass, more by blurred vision than anything, I managed to get it to the counter safely. I gripped the bottle top, determined I could do this much by myself. If I wanted to destroy myself, then I would. Insensitive fingers slipped over the lid and I became increasingly frustrated.
When it gave way, I actually sighed, relieved. I spilled more of the drink over my hands than I got in the glass, but what I managed to get in the glass was more than enough to drive away the night. I'd never been a drinker, it didn't take much.
Though it tasted foul, I drank it anyway, holding tightly to the glass for fear that incapable fingers would let it slip. I wandered round my apartment, looking at reminders of happier times. Photo's in dusty frames, piles of age old magazines and newspapers long neglected, the sofa I'd always meant to get rid of but never got round to.
I hadn't cleaned in ages. I'd barely been here since it happened, and when I was I was usually so tired I only slept. The liquor began to have its desired effect after a while, and I stopped moving, for fear I'd hurt myself.
Hurt myself? More than I already have? Pinning all I had on him was stupid. Relying on other people always is. They can't ever do anything but disappoint you. The real reason he meant so much to me was guilt, guilt I couldn't get him out, guilt he had to go through this in the first place. The thought spun in my head.
Guilt. Guilt and so much more. What was all this about? I looked up suddenly, facing the mirror over my mantle, and caught a frightening image of who I'd become. A ghost of the person I had been on Valentines Day. I was, quite simply, a wreck.
I didn't see myself in that image. I refused to believe I had been dragged that low. I looked down at the clear liquid still in my glass, and I knew I had. Unwittingly, I tightened my grip, and I felt the crack as it submitted to the pressure. Shards crumbled in my hand and fell the floor, a painful parallel to the way I felt about my life.
Turning my palms upward to my, I saw they were bleeding. I still bled. I was still alive. Somehow, if I couldn't feel the gash, it wasn't real. But the red liquid staining my hands and carpet told me otherwise.
Those who'd died would have been ashamed of me today. Ashamed of my selfishness, ashamed of my running away, ashamed of me for not remembering them as I should. I was ashamed. Ashamed I couldn't resist his push. Ashamed I'd so willingly stepped over the edge.
I walked to my bathroom, for the first time that evening switching on a light. Carefully, I washed the blood from my hands, watching as it spiraled away down the sink.
I had the truth. I'd needed to hit bottom to see it. I thought I'd lost everything today. Losing my career was a blow, sure, and I had felt as if my world would end. But it hasn't yet. After all I'd been through, I was still here. I could take this. I'd needed him to make me see it. I'd needed the pain to give the future focus. I didn't need him, it was beyond that, frightening as that concept was. I loved him. He was a link to the past I no longer had. And, I knew, I was my only way out.
I'd never seen things more clearly.
Chapter 21: "The End Of Hope"
Jing-Mei Chen, M.D
"Maybe that's the problem…"
I couldn't stop those words running in my head. I couldn't shut off the fury I felt. I couldn't switch off my mind. I'd run from the room. I'd run all the way home till my muscles were tense and sore and my head pounded to the beat of my heart. And once I shut the door and I was safe, I sank to the floor and I cried. I don't know for how long I cried. I couldn't bear to imagine the apathy I'd seen in his eyes, the blankness, that cut deep into my being and reopened old wounds.
I hoped that tears would be a release, however temporary, but they weren't. Progress so carefully made, a future built on three months of baby steps, I saw shattered. And however I looked at them, I couldn't make the pieces go back together.
I wanted to numb myself to this. But the one bottle of wine I had in my flat couldn't touch the pain I was in, and so I ended up here. I was no better than the alcoholics I saw every day. Correction – that I used to see every day. I wasn't a doctor anymore. The clerk looked knowing. She had doubtless seen all this before so many times.
I paid in silence and walked slowly home. He'd driven me to this. I'd been so close to the edge and his rejection today had just been the push I'd needed to fall. The world had finally closed in on me today, and I couldn't bear it.
The liquor store clerk had noticed my hands. I know she had, I saw pity in her eyes. I couldn't hide them, much as I wanted to. I was scarred. Scarred and useless. I couldn't do what I'd trained my whole life to do anymore, and the only person I had to get me through this was too scarred by his own experience to let me help anymore. I needed him. More than I'd ever realized before now.
My flat was bare and gloomy when I returned, struggling with the key in the lock as I did nowadays. I went straight to my kitchen cupboard to find a glass. Placing the bottle on the counter, I reached up and opened the cupboard door. Though my feeling of touch was irreparably damaged, I could still do things if I concentrated hard enough on them.
Locating a glass, more by blurred vision than anything, I managed to get it to the counter safely. I gripped the bottle top, determined I could do this much by myself. If I wanted to destroy myself, then I would. Insensitive fingers slipped over the lid and I became increasingly frustrated.
When it gave way, I actually sighed, relieved. I spilled more of the drink over my hands than I got in the glass, but what I managed to get in the glass was more than enough to drive away the night. I'd never been a drinker, it didn't take much.
Though it tasted foul, I drank it anyway, holding tightly to the glass for fear that incapable fingers would let it slip. I wandered round my apartment, looking at reminders of happier times. Photo's in dusty frames, piles of age old magazines and newspapers long neglected, the sofa I'd always meant to get rid of but never got round to.
I hadn't cleaned in ages. I'd barely been here since it happened, and when I was I was usually so tired I only slept. The liquor began to have its desired effect after a while, and I stopped moving, for fear I'd hurt myself.
Hurt myself? More than I already have? Pinning all I had on him was stupid. Relying on other people always is. They can't ever do anything but disappoint you. The real reason he meant so much to me was guilt, guilt I couldn't get him out, guilt he had to go through this in the first place. The thought spun in my head.
Guilt. Guilt and so much more. What was all this about? I looked up suddenly, facing the mirror over my mantle, and caught a frightening image of who I'd become. A ghost of the person I had been on Valentines Day. I was, quite simply, a wreck.
I didn't see myself in that image. I refused to believe I had been dragged that low. I looked down at the clear liquid still in my glass, and I knew I had. Unwittingly, I tightened my grip, and I felt the crack as it submitted to the pressure. Shards crumbled in my hand and fell the floor, a painful parallel to the way I felt about my life.
Turning my palms upward to my, I saw they were bleeding. I still bled. I was still alive. Somehow, if I couldn't feel the gash, it wasn't real. But the red liquid staining my hands and carpet told me otherwise.
Those who'd died would have been ashamed of me today. Ashamed of my selfishness, ashamed of my running away, ashamed of me for not remembering them as I should. I was ashamed. Ashamed I couldn't resist his push. Ashamed I'd so willingly stepped over the edge.
I walked to my bathroom, for the first time that evening switching on a light. Carefully, I washed the blood from my hands, watching as it spiraled away down the sink.
I had the truth. I'd needed to hit bottom to see it. I thought I'd lost everything today. Losing my career was a blow, sure, and I had felt as if my world would end. But it hasn't yet. After all I'd been through, I was still here. I could take this. I'd needed him to make me see it. I'd needed the pain to give the future focus. I didn't need him, it was beyond that, frightening as that concept was. I loved him. He was a link to the past I no longer had. And, I knew, I was my only way out.
I'd never seen things more clearly.