I would like to point out now that I am British, and that I've only just seen "Next Of Kin" and so can only write about the show up until that point.
Chapter Two: "What Could Have Been"
Susan Lewis
Her tone says it all really. I don't know what's been on her mind, but she's certainly pressed some buttons in my head.
I'm still raw, I suppose, from losing Mark. Up until the day he died, I can't recall a day in my life where I wasn't able to physically function. I had never spent a day without getting dressed, but the day after news broke of his death I didn't get out of bed.
I feel pathetic for it. I hate myself for it. I wasn't strong enough to ever tell him I loved him. I ran away to Phoenix, left him standing on Union Station broken hearted, knowing full well where I wanted to be was in his arms. It was too difficult to stay, to hard to be with him, so I ran.
I ran back 5 years later, to watch him die. I didn't know when I made the decision to return and if I had I would have stayed away. Am I a coward for saying that? Yes. Am I a liar? No. No for the first time in this 5-year fantasy I'm telling the truth. And I was jealous of Elizabeth. I wanted to be her. I'm not proud of it, it shames me that I grudge either of them happiness. I had my chance and I lost him. I couldn't expect another woman to be that stupid.
I would never have wished him any less than happiness, but I did wish it was me, me who got to go home to him, to see him first thing in the morning and last thing at night, me who had carried his child, but it was all hurtfully selfish. At the end of the day, I was just a friend who didn't call as much as she should have, who didn't care enough about him to admit she loved him. And now I never can, but that's my fault and I got to live with it.
He could have been the love of my life. Pretty much everyone I've ever been out with 'could have been' if I'd given them more of a chance. But, as it turns out, most of them were destined to be the loves of other people's lives. Div Cvetic to name one, and of course Carter to name another.
Was I kidding myself? I don't deserve him and I never have. I just wasted his time, because he was safe. I knew him and I knew how incapable of hurting me he would be. And I needed reliability, having just come out of such a combustible relationship in Phoenix. But we never had any chemistry and it was never going to work. I wanted him to still be that naïve, sweet, slightly clumsy but endlessly caring med-student that had been quite obviously infatuated by me under some pretension I was something special. He wasn't, and that's not his fault. He has been through too much to be that person anymore. Besides, I was hung up on Mark and he was head over heels for Abby. I don't think breaking up hurt either of us, because I think I'm too jaded to bother anymore.
And I'd be happy to be by myself, if I wasn't acutely aware of the possibility of plunging headlong into yet another dangerous workplace dalliance. He's too dangerous. The man should come with warnings attached, to be honest. No good can come of an attraction to a man that good looking. Sure, what red-blooded woman wouldn't want him in their bed? But he's not long-term material, not for someone as weak as me. I'd just be another on his list of recent conquests and even I know I'm more than that. So I must avoid temptation and try not to flirt with him, because when you play with fire you will, as I've learned, get burned.
Chapter Two: "What Could Have Been"
Susan Lewis
Her tone says it all really. I don't know what's been on her mind, but she's certainly pressed some buttons in my head.
I'm still raw, I suppose, from losing Mark. Up until the day he died, I can't recall a day in my life where I wasn't able to physically function. I had never spent a day without getting dressed, but the day after news broke of his death I didn't get out of bed.
I feel pathetic for it. I hate myself for it. I wasn't strong enough to ever tell him I loved him. I ran away to Phoenix, left him standing on Union Station broken hearted, knowing full well where I wanted to be was in his arms. It was too difficult to stay, to hard to be with him, so I ran.
I ran back 5 years later, to watch him die. I didn't know when I made the decision to return and if I had I would have stayed away. Am I a coward for saying that? Yes. Am I a liar? No. No for the first time in this 5-year fantasy I'm telling the truth. And I was jealous of Elizabeth. I wanted to be her. I'm not proud of it, it shames me that I grudge either of them happiness. I had my chance and I lost him. I couldn't expect another woman to be that stupid.
I would never have wished him any less than happiness, but I did wish it was me, me who got to go home to him, to see him first thing in the morning and last thing at night, me who had carried his child, but it was all hurtfully selfish. At the end of the day, I was just a friend who didn't call as much as she should have, who didn't care enough about him to admit she loved him. And now I never can, but that's my fault and I got to live with it.
He could have been the love of my life. Pretty much everyone I've ever been out with 'could have been' if I'd given them more of a chance. But, as it turns out, most of them were destined to be the loves of other people's lives. Div Cvetic to name one, and of course Carter to name another.
Was I kidding myself? I don't deserve him and I never have. I just wasted his time, because he was safe. I knew him and I knew how incapable of hurting me he would be. And I needed reliability, having just come out of such a combustible relationship in Phoenix. But we never had any chemistry and it was never going to work. I wanted him to still be that naïve, sweet, slightly clumsy but endlessly caring med-student that had been quite obviously infatuated by me under some pretension I was something special. He wasn't, and that's not his fault. He has been through too much to be that person anymore. Besides, I was hung up on Mark and he was head over heels for Abby. I don't think breaking up hurt either of us, because I think I'm too jaded to bother anymore.
And I'd be happy to be by myself, if I wasn't acutely aware of the possibility of plunging headlong into yet another dangerous workplace dalliance. He's too dangerous. The man should come with warnings attached, to be honest. No good can come of an attraction to a man that good looking. Sure, what red-blooded woman wouldn't want him in their bed? But he's not long-term material, not for someone as weak as me. I'd just be another on his list of recent conquests and even I know I'm more than that. So I must avoid temptation and try not to flirt with him, because when you play with fire you will, as I've learned, get burned.