Ambivalence

Miracles and Tragedies

TW : MINORE CHARACTER DEATH

Camila

It had been a week since our first official date, and I still couldn't get it out of my head. Whatever she'd wanted from me that night, she could have gotten, but instead, we only made out. Yes, it got...passionate, and lust poured off us both in waves, but we just had stripped down to nothing but our underwear and kissed each other. There were times when we talked about random things, like her childhood home and things she enjoyed doing—apparently, she really enjoyed swimming, too. We talked until I fell asleep with her arms around me. Her reason for not sleeping with me was simple: it was our first date. She said you don't sleep with the girl on the first date...at least, that's how it worked for her. People often say that dating is a game, and if it was, Lauren had mastered it into an art form. It was funny though, at least to me: the fact that we didn't sleep together made the night all the more memorable.

"Dr. Jauregui, please do the surgery."

When I turned the corner, I heard a sob.

There stood Toby Wesley, gripping Lauren's white coat.

Her three interns all tried to help, but she just waved them off. "Toby—"

"She's all I have left. She's my little girl, there has to be something else you can try. We've poked and prodded her, we've pumped her veins full of poison! You have to do the surgery!"

"The tumor is—"

"Fuck the tumor!" he yelled, releasing Lauren's coat and pushing her away. "Fuck the damn tumor! I want it out of her, and if you won't do it, I will find someone else who will!" He walked back into the room, the door slamming behind.

Lauren took a deep breath, saying something to the doctors around her before heading toward the stairs.

Only when they were all gone did I head to the patient's door, gripping the painting in my hands. Unsure whether or not I should go in, I put the painting by the door, but before I could leave, it opened again. "Sorry." I backed up quickly. Toby looked understandably worse than the last time I had seen him; the dark circles around his eyes made me feel like he hadn't really slept in years. His gaze shifted down to the painting that had fallen into the room.

"Did you bring it?" Molly waved behind him.

"I made a promise, didn't I?" I smiled, bending down to pick the painting off the ground. Without a word, he moved over for me to enter.

I walked up to her bedside. Her skin looked almost gray, and she couldn't even lift herself up. Her scarf was the brightest sparkling pink I had ever seen, and she wore a bow on her arm where her IV was.

Pulling up a chair, I sat, placing the painting on my lap. "Can I open it for you?" I asked her.

She tried her best to nod.

Pulling the brown paper off, I held it up closer for her to see. "What do you think?"

"Daddy, it's Mommy and the baby." She reached up to touch it and smiled to her dad, who leaned against the window with his hand over his mouth, looking at the family portrait of them. Swallowing a lump in his throat, he knelt by her bed, taking her hand. "Yes...yes sweetheart, it is," he whispered.

Seeing them, I felt my eyes burn.

"What do you say to Ms. Cabello?"

"Can I really have it?" she asked.

Laughing, I nodded. "Of course you can have it. I made it for you...the both of you."

He glanced up at me and stood on his own two feet again. "Molly, you still need to say thank you," he said to her.

"Thank you!"

"You're very welcome. Keep looking at it, and hopefully it makes you feel better, okay?" If only it was that easy.

"I feel better now." She touched her mother's face.

"I'll come visit you later, all right?"

"I'll walk you out," her father said when she nodded.

He didn't have to, but I felt like he wouldn't take no for an answer. The moment I stepped out, he closed the door behind us.

He stood there, fighting back tears, but failing. Taking a deep breath, he smiled at me. "I know you don't know me too well, but can I hug you?"

Nodding, I wrapped my arms around him.

He let out a small cry, but stifled it to the best of his ability.

It felt like he was falling, or just crumbling in my arms.

Finally he let go, then wiped his eyes. "How did you know about the baby she was going to have?"

"I heard a few nurses whispering about it. It's all right—"

"It's more than that. Thank you. Thank you so much." He took my hands and turned back to look into her room. "I'm so scared. I'm not sure what to do. She's suffering so much, and I can't do anything but sit here and watch. She collapsed this morning, she's dying, and her doctors are saying they can't operate. I should go, right? I should try for other opinions, right?"

I wished it was a rhetorical question, but he was really asking for an answer. "Toby, I'm not a doctor, I don't know."

"But if it was your child—"

I sighed. "I'm so sorry, Toby, I wish I could help you. I really don't know what to say. I can't answer that because I don't have children. I can't understand the position or pain you are in. All I can do is tell you to trust yourself. Do what you think is right for Molly. That's all you can do, isn't it?"

He was silent, and it was almost as painful as him speaking.

"Go in, she's calling for you." I waved back to the small girl inside.

"Thank you again," he whispered, his hand on the door.

"Of course."

I stayed there for a little while longer before walking back to my station. If I felt this bad, I wondered how Lauren felt. I couldn't imagine having that much pressure on her shoulders, and that was just one of her patients. How did she do it? How did she deal with it all? When she was home, it was like the hospital her was switched off. She never went into detail about anything. She would always just say 'saved one'...but what about the people she couldn't save?

Does she not tell me because she doesn't think I can understand? I knew she couldn't break doctor-patient confidentiality, and I didn't want her to—I just wanted to know how she was doing.

"Mila!" Chris came up to me, dressed in dark jeans and a pretty nice leather jacket.

I had noticed that after he had declared he wasn't going to be a doctor, his fashion was changing slightly. I guessed he was just finally being who he really was. He'd even gotten his ear pierced.

"Hey, aren't you going on tour?" I asked when he reached me.

He frowned. "Can't wait to get me out of the way, can you?"

"That's not what I meant." I laughed.

"I know. I leave tomorrow. Just came to have lunch with my mother and ask you a small favor."

"What?"

He nodded behind me to the mural. "I won't be back for the unveiling, and it's been killing me wanting to see what you're doing back there. I swear some people have already peeked in."

"Everyone is so impatient. You can't see the full effect of it until you back up some, anyway—"

"Please, Mila."

"You're just going to use it to torture your mother's curiosity, aren't you?"

He grinned. "How do you know me so well?"

Shaking my head, I lifted the curtain, allowing him to come inside.

He looked down at the paint all spread across the ground and the once white shirt I wore while painting lying next to it before glancing up. He took a step back and bent his head as best as he could, looking up at the whole mural. "Is that the—"

"Yep." I didn't want him to say it out loud.

"They are going to love this." He dropped his head and looked back to me. "I love it."

"Thank you. I'm always a little nervous, but if I know you really like it, I can go forward with no fear." At the vibration, I pulled my phone out of my pocket.