I think I need to get away.
I think I need something more real than off-white walls, broken hospital gurneys and fluorescent lighting that makes everything look dead and dying. Or maybe that's my own personal touch of morbid painting my vision.
Maybe its because I feel half gone already, half like I don't matter, half like I'm floating away.
And maybe this half gone feeling is the reason I'm taking the stairs, to feel the strain of my thighs, the burn in my calves, the constant, methodical plodding, keeping me on just this side of pain, just this side of here.
And maybe that's why when I throw open the grey-blue painted steel door to the roof, I feel like I've fallen down, like I can feel every part of myself; the parts I know intimately, and the ones that hide in the darkened recesses of my self.
Like courage. Like hate…like regret.
The stars seem cold tonight, like ice-fire, burning fiercely. So cold – remote, so impenetrable. A wry half-smile touches my lips, and I feel like a jaded thirty-something, making metaphors with the stars, and searching for some honesty behind all the random hurts.
It's a rare thing, the stars coming out in Seattle. There are too many clouds, and too many city lights. So I'll take it for what it is. A rare night, where the wind blows cold, crisp with regret, and a hurt that keeps me here, connected, alive, instead of half gone.
Footsteps pad softly across the concrete. I don't want to turn.
I turn, leaning against the ledge.
"Hi." She says. Her voice is soft. Her eyes are large. She looks as if she's been crying. I wonder if they had another fight.
"Hi."
We stand there like that, three feet apart, and it feels so long. Distance and time stretch, and something has to fill the gap. She looks scared. And sad. And alone.
She's the picture of indecisive, and it's ironic, how we've switched places, how we can drift into roles when things are undone. She's biting her bottom lip, her hands shoved into the pockets of her lab coat.
She looks so sad. So alone.
"Jesus Izzy," I murmur, stepping forward, pushing off from the granite ledge, closing the infinite spaces between us, encompassed in three empirical feet.
"I'm so sorry George," She sobs into my chest, clutching me tight, not even air can fit in between us.
I smooth her hair, kiss her temple, wreath my arms around her, let her know she doesn't need to be so alone all the time.
"It's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault. Things just happened."
"I don't want us to be like this – not talking. I see you, and you walk away, and it makes me want to cry, because you're my best friend George – and Alex, god, I cheated on my boyfriend with my best friend! I'm not doing too good here." She hiccoughed, wiping her nose on my scrubs.
"oh, Izzy, it's gonna be ok, ok? Its not like you're interested in me anyways. Alex has nothing to worry about. And you don't even have to tell him. Things'll be ok. Its just crazy right now, for everyone."
I refrained from telling her how I'd seen her boyfriend making out with a scrub nurse in the change rooms, or how I'd seen the one female attending with her hair disheveled walking out of a closet, and then caught Alex a moment later, following, tying the drawstrings on his pants. I refrained from telling her, like I had the other ten times, and reminded myself that I was a coward.
But this time, something inside of me decided to do something about that.
Something inside of me couldn't refuse her tearstained cheeks, her full red lips, or her tortured expression. Something inside of me took her tiny face in my hands, and leaned forward, to draw it all away, all the poison that threatened all of what was Izzy, in a kiss.
Soft and tender and full of bright, sharp edges, and she felt like glass in his arms, so breakable.
Her hand, resting on his chest, pushed away softly as she stepped back, stepped away.
"We can't do this George."
Something inside of me decided to break the coward.
"We already have."
Her eyes grew large, and tentatively, she stepped backwards. She pivoted on her heel and ran.