[HM] "And it's me who is my enemy" - Me, Paula Cole
He never thinks to ask.
He never acts on impulse, but he never thinks to ask how he’s affecting other people either. It’s a vicious circle, one that always gets him into trouble in his relationships, but he’s never thought to question it before now. Before now, he’s always chalked it up to a difference of opinion-or, on the more likely occasion, them just flat out being wrong-and never saw himself as the one pushing the options before they got too far. This time, he knew he was in the wrong. He knew that he was making the wrong choice with regards to his medical career, and if he got caught, it would be the end of his career as a doctor.
He never thought he’d actually be killing her.
He’s lost patients before. He’s even lost a patient due to his own negligence, and that was something he hadn’t coped well with at all. This time, the life of someone he cared about-possibly even loved-had been his hands, and he had an opportunity to make it better. The medicine was working and the side effects were minor. True, he was compromising the integrity of the drug trial by doing this, but he hadn’t seen the harm. He hadn’t seen the harm, and therein lied the problem, because he never thought to ask her what she thought of the situation. Never thought to ask whether she wanted him to take this risk and the harm that it would do to their relationship, let alone the harm that it would do to her.
He just liked seeing her happy. He liked seeing her look forward to things in the future, things that she thought she couldn’t have before and now she was thinking that she could. He liked waking up next to her, and thinking that they could have a long, happy future together, regardless of her disease. He didn’t anticipate, didn’t think of her, and because of the stupid, bullheaded move he made, he almost lost her. That wasn’t the future he wanted, and now, there was nothing he could do to get that one back again. For the time being, he was just going to have to live with that, and to live with himself. After all, most of the time, it wasn’t the world that was out to get him.
Most of the time, it was just himself.
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