every ship must sail away (PG)
There was a boy once.
Once upon a time, there were smiles and gestures and stolen glances. Eyes met over plastic boxes of salad at lunch and hands held tighter to the styrofoam cups of coffee. There were promises and whispers of sweet hope and reconciliatory dinners and a series of coincidences that no one pretended to notice.
She thinks they could’ve fallen in love. All the signs were there. She’d listed and cross-listed and cross-referenced all the symptoms to reach the hypothetical diagnosis. She is a doctor.
They could’ve fallen in love and they could’ve held hands while roaming in the park on the first day of spring. But hers was a real life and there were no fairytales.
-
She watches the surgery tapes again and again. It’s the only reminder she has left, the only place where she can go just to remember what he felt like.
So she stays up till dawn watching his hand move, fingers in continuous random motion again and again and again. Cut, suture, close.
He finds her staring at the television at five in the morning. He doesn’t ask questions anymore; all he does is snake his arms through her until the warm feeling of human touch is comfort enough for her to talk.
“It’s his birthday today, Mark,” she whispers. “I just don’t want to forget, you know?”
He nods even though he doesn’t really follow but that’s enough for her.
They stay like that for a while and slowly everything balances again.
-
She thinks she might’ve hit the jackpot this time.
He’s caring, smart, funny and screwed-up just about enough to not make fun of her and her paranoia when it comes to relationships. So she allows herself to think about France and a seaside wedding and an elegant ring and them. They will have a candlelight dinner where he will slip the ring in her dessert and there won’t be any eloquent proposals of love because neither is really sure what it really is all about.
But people die. She knows that; she sees that every day. People die and change and interests change and things break. They create and they destroy and try desperately to fit the pieces according to a semblance of logic.
She’s a scientist. She knows that.
So she tries to live in the present. She tries to not dream when Mark is kissing her right at that place just below the neck and she’s holding on to him with her tiny arms. He breathes her in deeply and she whispers Mark; a strangled cry of hard-found ecstasy.
-
“We’re going out for lunch today,” he mentions when they’re walking for rounds.
She expects a little cozy café overlooking the ferryboats but he brings her to a cemetery.
His face is set straight ahead and his eyebrows are crinkled by the sunlight falling directly on him. He has a brown bag in his hand that smells of mac and cheese.
“Why are we eating here,” she asks, looking up to him as the sun casts a shadow.
“It’s O’Malley’s birthday,” he exhales suddenly. “No one deserves to be alone today.”
She doesn’t know what that means so she uses her hands to explain further. “You don’t think this is morbid?”
He shrugs. “We’re doctors. Morbid is a part of our job description.”
So they eat. They light a candle on a brownie and sing happy birthday to a block of stone. They sit down on the grass and stretch their legs on the smooth moisture that it still retains. She turns to look at Mark, leaning on the grass with his shoulder for support and taking a piece of brownie without dropping any on the grass.
He’s smiling now.
-
In an ideal world, she thinks she wouldn’t know how to choose. In an ideal world both would give her presents and roses and scented bath oils and she wouldn’t be able to know which one’s better.
But this. This she is sure of. This is reality and here there are no rose petals and glances and accidental touches that send sparks through your skin.
She watches him work from the nurses’ station. He’s bent over, writing something in a file and looking over at some X-rays of a patient she doesn’t know about. His face is set in concentration and deep in work, all the worry, the fatigue, the uncertainty is gone.
She ties her hair back and decides to give love a chance.
-
They walk back together that day.
“Rough day?” he asks her, etching reassuring circles on the small of her back.
She holds on to his arm as they walk. It’s comforting, the way they manage to fall in sync with each other; her step matching his in a perfect rhythm.
“No,” she smiles and shakes her head. “It was a good day.”
Together, they walk hand in hand.
End.