“You don’t sound okay.”
I rubbed my forehead, feeling the headache that had been creeping up since I left the hospital.
“I watched somebody die last night,” I said reminded her in a low tone. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to sound.”
The line got silent. Not the awkward kind of silence where neither person knew what to say. It was the kind that only happened when somebody who loved you wished they could take your pain away and realized they couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, Milan.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “So am I…”
“I know you’re blaming yourself.”
I stared at the ceiling for a second. Then asked, “How’d you know that?”
She gave a soft laugh, but there wasn’t any humor in it.
“Because I know my sister.” She didn’t give me a chance to response before continuing “You’ve been trying to save people your whole life. That’s why you became a nurse. So, of course, you’re sitting there wondering what you could’ve done differently. You’re probably replaying every second of last night, trying to find something you missed.”
My chest tightened. She was right.
“I keep seeing his face, Mariah,” I admitted. “Every time I close my eyes, I see him looking at me. I keep wondering if there was something… anything… I could’ve done.”
“Milan.” Her voice softened until it almost broke me. “I don’t mean to sound inconsiderate when I say this, but… some people just can’t be saved.”
I stared out the window, blinking back the tears burning behind my eyes.
“I know,” I whispered. “I just wish I didn’t have to learn that like this, and the crazy part… the nurse in me understands that. I know what those bullets did to him before he ever made it to me. I know I wasn’t standing in an operating room with a team behind me. I was in the middle of a damn parking garage trying to keep him alive with my bare hands.”
“But...”
“But I still keep thinking maybe there was something else I could’ve done.”
Mariah let me get everything out, which was one of the things I loved most about her. She never rushed to fill the silence just because it got uncomfortable.
“You remember Mrs. Dawson?” she finally asked.
I laughed. “The lady with the cat that hated everybody?”
“The same one.”
“What about her?”
“You stayed up all night studying for that anatomy exam because she told you she was scared to have surgery. You went back to the hospital on your day off just to sit with her before they rolled her into the operating room.”
I smiled and nodded as if she could see me.
“I remember.”
“You’ve always carried people home with you, Milan. It don’t matter if they’re your patients, your friends, or complete strangers. You carry everybody.”
“I guess I do.”
“You can’t…” Her words hung with me for a second. “If you keep doing that, this job is gonna eat you alive.”
I rolled over onto my side and closed my eyes.
“I don’t even know if I want to go back tonight.”
