I'm constantly surrounded by death. After all, doctors usually are. And there comes a point where it ceases to affect you. For me, that point had occurred much earlier than for many others.

I was thirteen when my father died. The age when I outwardly raged against him yet inwardly longed for his advice and guidance. He was my only parent, my only family, the central figure in my life. My childlike mind couldn't fathom the idea of suicide. At night in the boarding school where I was packed off to live I would go over again and again the things that I had done wrong. The stresses I had caused my father. I had always known that my father loved me though, so this was merely a form of punishment.

Because I hadn't been enough for him.

Naturally, however, I blamed Vanessa. My mother was cold and manipulative. She made men love her and then shut them out. She left when I was a baby and then reappeared periodically, reducing my father to a blithering fool. Sometimes she'd have towed along my brother Leo, whom I detested no matter what he did to try to impress me.

What was it that made her love him so much more than me?

This hateful thought coiled itself into my heart, which caused me to bully Leo something awful. Towards the end, I made myself scarce whenever Vanessa was around, as it pained me to see what she did to my father.

He was mad about her. When she visited, his cool and sane demeanor dissipated, and transformed into something I was at a loss to recognize. He was eager to please, buying extravagant gifts, tempting her to stay. His desperateness made me ill. As did his permissiveness.

Vanessa would speak of her many affaires as we ate dinner, as we were chauffeured to the theatre. She was completely without tact. Her words hurt my father terribly. I sometimes caught him crying, which humiliated me. I knew that she would never stay for good, a realization that always seemed to escape him. I couldn't understand how such a repulsive human being could cause him so much longing. Of course, I was blind to the complexities and intimacies of adult relationships. But not for much longer.

As it were, he died shortly after her last visit. Before she left, I had heard arguing, which was not that unusual. Sometimes it was about money, sometimes about me or Leo, but mostly it was about them, and their utterly fucked-up relationship.

"How can you ask me to live here with you? In this sickening gauche city? It disgusts me." As if she were one to talk. To me, Vanessa was as vulgar as they came.

"But darling, my work is here. Nowhere else could I make such money. David goes to school here, he is happy here. You could be as well." My strong heroic father, reduced to begging. My hate for Vanessa knew no limits.

"If you loved me you wouldn't ask this of me. I couldn't imagine taking Leo out of Europe. He is special-his father is royalty!" At this I remember rolling my eyes. Leo had been, what, five? He would have managed to bounce back. Not that I wanted him to. I wanted Vanessa and her loathsome offspring in Europe where they belonged, as far from my father and I as they could get.

"David is special! He is so clever; his teachers tell me that he could be anything when he grows up. But he needs his mother! He longs for you, Vanessa!" It annoyed me that my father felt he had to lie. I didn't long for her at all. In fact, I wish that she would just die. Besides, if he was trying to convince her to stay, appealing to her non-existant maternal instinct was not the way to go. To her, I was of the same standing as the neighbours dog. Barking all the time to make you aware of it's presence, but beyond that having no other bearing on your life except for the occasional annoyance.

But I still strained my ears to hear her reply. And I hated myself for it.

Then Leo had trailed into my room, to my abject frustration as well as relief, clutching a blanket in his arms and his thumb in his mouth. Our respective parents voices must have woken him. He plaintively asked if he could sleep with me and I disgustedly refused, instead pointing him to the bed on the other side of my massive bedroom. But I could only put up with his sobbing and hiccupping for so long until I relented and allowed him a quarter of my bed. I turned my back to him yet he was undeterred, clutching my shoulders despite my repeated attempts to shake him loose. He fell asleep almost immediately. And his heavy breathing drowned out the voices across the hall, and soon lulled me to sleep as well. Of course, Leo had to ruin everything by wetting the bed, which I discovered in horror the next morning. I had smacked him across the back of the head and had refused, despite my father's several entreaties, to see them off as they left for the airport. Leo's sobs had reverberated throughout the house.

Two weeks later my father had died. The police ruled suicide, and his enormous life insurance policy was worthless. Not that it mattered. My father was a very well off man. Most of the money was left to me but some, I soon learned, had been earmarked for Vanessa and Leo as well. I had seethed with anger.

After the funeral, which was attended by hundreds, mostly people I had never met before, I was sent to boarding school. The rules that were forced upon me seemed pointless and inane, and at first I struggled against them. However, I soon found ways around the them. I did exceedingly well in all of my classes so I was meted no special attention. I preferred to spend time alone, but I was forced to make friends out of necessity, as it gave me an excuse to leave the school grounds on the weekends. And the other boys were drawn to me, I suppose, because of my broad knowledge of alcoholic drinks, which we capitalized on every chance we got. One of my roommates, James Goldsnift III, had carved a panel in one of the walls, which was where we hid most of our contraband. Therefore, school was bearable, which was just as well since I remained there until I was eighteen.

Now, as I sit here in the operating room, the ticking clock providing the only noise, I wonder how I can be thinking about my schooling, when someone has just died, in this room, by my hands, their life splattered on my clothes and splashed on the floor beneath me. Shouldn't I be thinking about them? The young teenage girl who had behaved so stupidly, so recklessly, goaded on by her friends, fueled by alcohol. And the young man who had been in the passenger seat beside her, presumably her boyfriend. Had he been trying to get her to stop, to pull the car over? Or had he been as oblivious as her, the music blaring, not seeing the transport truck until it was right in front of them? I should be thinking about them. But I can't. I've seen this too many times before.

And for some reason, it reminds me off my relationship with Greenlee. The utter destructiveness of it all, I guess.

I haven't spoken to her for weeks. I haven't seen her either, but that can only be expected, as I rarely set foot outside the hotel unless it's to go to work. I've sold the cabin. I have no idea who bought it, and all the furniture is in storage. The bed that Anna and I shared. The crib that Leora slept in for such a short time. I don't know what to do with those things so they sit, immobile. Like me.

I don't really talk to anyone. I have no desire to. The only people I have regular contact with are the maitre d's at the restaurant and Maxie Jones.

Now she's a weird one. The night after I met her I twigged to who she was. Her father, the police chief, had been in that huge hotel fire in Port Charles. I had been flown in to deal with some of the survivors and if I think hard enough, I can almost convince myself that I remember seeing her at the hospital there, white-faced and white-knuckled, clutching his gurney as he was wheeled by me. I gather she throws that bullshit about him being in Alaska at me because she's run away. I feel like telling her there's no need to put so much effort into lying to me, as I don't really give a shit. She seems responsible enough and besides, it's certainly none of my business.

But she's an interesting person, and I like her. I imagine the only reason she hangs around me is because I'm the only person she knows, in a distant and detached way. In the morning we sit in the lounge downstairs, reading the paper together. I read about politics and global events and she rummages around until she locates the fashion and entertainment sections. Once in a while she comes to my room, telling me her television is on the fritz but probably just feeling lonely. So we order room service and I let her watch American Idol or The O.C or any other shit that's on. Although I kind of like The O.C.

It's strange talking to someone so young. When we eat dinner together, I'm reminded of all the things she can't yet have experienced, the places she must not yet have seen. Maxie's life has been the opposite of Greenlee's, and yet, her voice is touched with the same sort of bitterness. And it makes me long for Greenlee all the more. Not that Maxie doesn't make for good companionship. She's a nice girl. But she just reminds me of everything I don't and can't have.

Maxie's lonely though. So I try my best to be friendly, not that it's very difficult. Maxie is mature for someone her age, which she says is twenty, but which I'm sure must be nearer to seventeen or eighteen. It makes me wonder.

What has made her so old?

"Doctor Hayward!" A nurse is standing breathlessly in the doorway. She's very pretty. In fact, I think that we once may have-

"Doctor Hayward, the front desk has been paging you for twenty minutes." Shit. What now?

"So?" I mutter, getting wearily to my feet. The nurse looks around her, understanding colouring her features.

"This must have been a rough one. I'm sorry, David." She says softly. I glare at her, first in confusion, and then irrationally annoyed that she's misinterpreted my rudeness. Also daring her to call me by my first name again. Just because we may or may not have slept together (I can't quite remember if the actual act was performed, as I was pretty drunk that night) does not give her the right to act so informally around me at work. Then I realize that I'm being ridiculous and give her my best attempt at a smile.

"Yeah, well, you can't win them all." She pats my arm.

"That's life, I guess." She cringes, as if realizing the seemingly inappropriate irony of her words. "But you better mosey on down to the front desk. The woman waiting for you has been very impatient." My breath catches.

So she's finally come to see me.

I realize as I reach for the door my hand is shaking. I wrench my surgical gloves off, tossing them into the garbage, and rub my hands together, trying to still them.

I forget about the blood, because all I can think about is her.

Author's Note--I'm completely clueless about David's background, so if this goes against what the show has told us I apologize!