Fall Out Girl

It’s official. I can’t keep anyone alive. It’s gotten to the point where all my appendectomy patients die (do you know how rare that is?). I stayed in the O.R after my third crash of the day. I gripped onto the table and hung my head. The cadaver was removed a long time ago and my team had left for a lunch break.

“Stop beating yourself up.” a masculine voice said behind me.

“I have lost my gift, what else is there to do?”

“Get back in the saddle and do another operation.” Dr. O’Donnell said beside me.

“And kill someone else? I think not.” I pushed myself off of the table and stripped out of my surgical gown.

“It’s just a run of bad luck. Everyone has it. Even the best surgeons in the world have run into a time where they couldn’t keep a person alive. It’s not your fault. You’ve just hit your slump later than most.”

“Why are you being so nice to me? You’re not even a surgeon.”

“It’s true that I don’t like you, but I figure you’re a hard worker and a decent person who has just run into some shitty times.”

I just washed my hands. “I’m the youngest person to perform neurosurgery. Ok? I worked my ass off to get to where I was! I was one of the best surgeons out there! You said do yourself!”

“How long were you in school?”

“Two and a half years of undergrad school and two years of Med school. Why?”

“To prove a point. You finished seven years of schooling in four and a half years. Hon, you’ve been running so stressed for so long, that you can’t handle it anymore. Go home, back to Georgia. There’s nothing left for you to prove here. Go home and relax.”

“I have another two weeks here.”

“No, you’re boarding a flight today. Take those two weeks and do nothing. It will do you a load of good.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“No, you’ll do it.”

“You just don’t get it. For the past three years that I have been performing surgeries, I’ve only lost one patient until I came here. My hands are golden.”

“Are they really? Because from where I’m standing, they look like everybody else’s hands- nothing special about them. Go home, and start slicing some stuffed animals open- whatever you do to get your confidence back.”

I arrived at the house sooner than I expected. No one was home. Good, this will make it easier I packed all of my bags and called a cab to pick me up. I wrote a quick note so that I wouldn’t worry mom or Pat (or the guys, for that matter) and waited on the porch.

I took one last look around my childhood neighborhood. It was hard to believe that it had stayed the same and that it was me who changed all along. The honking of a car horn brought me out of my daze. Smiling, I grabbed my luggage and met the cab driver. He took the bags from my hands and slid them into his trunk. I took on last glance at the block and noticed that a tour van pulled up in front of Will’s house. I smiled at my childhood friend as we made eye contact before sliding into the cab.