The Disastrous Union

7

I get dressed and have to sit down to work off the nausea and headaches I'm feeling.

I'd only been released from the hospital yesterday but I had nothing to do, no friends to hang out with right now as Indiana was in Canada, no hobbies that I could really do right now as I was still recovering but my only hobbies were going to the gym and other exercise and sports and I had no one to comfort me.

Only death was what I had left.

I get into work and go to my office and sit down, looking at my caseload. There wasn't much here.

It was just to confirm the work that Dr. Shilling had done and she'd done a really good job apart from a small error which Dr. Crawford helped her with.

I get an email for Tara that there is a body for me to examine in the morgue and I go and try to see if I can rule out foul play.

I don't want to work with Rio but I can't do this person an injustice by putting my personal feelings first.

I notice that she's been injected with something even though she's not got the signs of a drug user so whatever killed her likely wasn't an illegal drug, I swab the area and send it off the lab and wait for the results but my preliminary conclusion is that it's a suspicious circumstance.

I go back to my office and read a book by Bell Hooks called 'All about love.' It's very informative but I don't find myself relating or understanding any of it.

I never have been in a relationship with someone. Rio didn't count in my opinion because it was arranged. I had never had sex before either, I had never been to a party or been clubbing.

The only sort of party I attended was my own wedding reception and I had left to go and cry my life away.

My dad didn't walk me down the aisle because he wasn't there and I was heartbroken. I thought maybe he'd come out of his hiding place to let me go.

I read books on love to understand how it felt and how to understand something that I never had, I needed to be more empathetic with the families of those on my autopsy table so I read about all these emotions to become a more approachable person.

I put the book down and search up an exert I liked to read a lot.

It reads. "Love, to me, feels different every day with every person but when I come home to see the person who I want to spend every waking moment of life with, I feel euphoria. Even when we argue, we look into each other's eyes and I know that it'll be alright and the storm will pass and the struggle will fade. I know that I can argue with them but still lie down next to them that same night and they'll hold me tight because they know I'm scared, angry, upset, whatever and they know tomorrow I'll apologise and I'll know they'd do the same. With the love who you want to spend your life with, you must never settle but find your person and it's alright if you fail or decide you don't want to search anymore because sometimes things go wrong. The thing that matters is picking up the pieces and trying your best, not for others but for yourself." I stop reading the exert when Rio walks in and I ignore him until he says something.

"Your prelim says that it's suspicious, how so?" He asks and I look up.

"Read the report." I respond.

"I have, I want you to explain." He retorts.

"She died from whatever injected her, she's got no history of drug abuse, she doesn't have the signs of a drug user, the symptoms she had presents as arsenic and not a drug. I just have to be sure by testing it." I say and I look at the computer screen and read it all again.

Rio wasn't my person, not right now but he wasn't ever.

Maybe that's why he tried so hard to have sex with other people, so he could find his person and get rid of me after those 10 years.

I didn't mind. I didn't want to be around anyone anymore.

I get up and go to Dr. Crawford's office.

I knock and she tells me to enter and I sit down.

"How can I help Missy?" She says and I hand her my badge.

"I can't do this job. I'm sorry." I say and she looks shocked.

"Artemis you're one of my best workers and you've not even been here for a week. Is something the matter?" She asks and I shake my head.

"I just can't do it. I don't know what happened but I don't think I can. Not right now." I say and she nods.

I get up and go back to my office and get my few belongings and put it in my bag and get into my car and drive back home.

I go to the park first and go to the lake and sit by the bench. Not on it but by it.

I stare at my mothers plaque and realise that if I had drowned in the lake, I'd be with her right now.

I'd be in whatever the afterlife is with my mother.

I don't know if I could do that but I didn't want to be alive either.

I go to the playground and sit on the swing and I feel a few tears come out of my eyes and ai can't stop them.

I could barely function anymore, I was so close to not being a person anymore and just existing.

I felt like I was wandering through an empty, dark room where each door I took lead me to more darkness and disappointment but that's how it was, that's how I was.

A disappointment.

I could never do anything right, never make people happy, always crest more problems.

Maybe I was never meant to exist.