Somewhere Only We Know • Ruben Dias

Chapter 5: Blood On My Hands

🎶 Everytime - Remastered — Britney Spears 🎶

Usually, I don't put trigger warnings, but I feel like I should put one here for abortion (graphic!) and violence. And I kindly ask you to not turn this chapter into a discussion, but to try and just understand the main character's point of view. 🫶🏼
Thank you and lots of love 🥰

When I was on my way back to my ward, I had to pass the cafeteria and bumped into Ed, who was saying bye to two young women that worked on his OR team, with whom he apparently had just had lunch.
"Oh... hey!" he said and kissed my cheek.
"Hi" I simply replied.
"Dr Moxley told me she had something for you this afternoon" he told me and grinned, making my face light up too.

Ed always got me into the coolest surgeries. On the other hand, he did make sure to let him show how thankful I was when we were back home, but still. I had seen more open hearts and brains than any other of my fellow interns.
"Then... I won't keep her waiting and hurry upstairs" I told him and pressed a kiss on his cheek.
"Good girl" he told me and patted my hip before letting me walk past him.

I took the lift upstairs to the gynaecology station and looked out for my boss. A nurse told me she was in her office and I quickly walked there.
"Ah, Dr Lewis, you're back" my attending said and smiled as she stood up. "Ever performed an abortion?" she asked.
"I attended one during my fifth year" I replied and she nodded as we started walking to an examination room.

"Patient is obviously female, 26, and 18 weeks along. Reason for the abortion is a diagnosed depression" Dr Moxley told me and I nodded before opening the door.
"Good afternoon, Miss Corbyn. I'm Dr Lewis and will be performing the operation today. I can see in your file that you asked for general anaesthesia?" I asked and the woman nodded shyly.

"Do you have anymore questions or concerns?" I asked her and she shook her head.
"No, thank you. Dr Moxley already went through everything with me" she replied quietly.
"Very well. Then our team will prepare you and I will see you afterwards when you're awake again" I told her sweetly and gave her an encouraging smile. That woman must have been going through a lot and I wanted to make her feel as safe and at ease as possible.

Dr Moxley and I got prepped and in my head, I went through all the steps of a D&E, like I remembered them from my textbooks. This was a second trimester abortion, so slightly more difficult as the fetus already had grown to a significant size. After the patient was put asleep, I made my way up close to her, followed by Dr Moxley, who was going to supervise me in case anything happened.

I ultrasounded her first to see the position of the fetus and to make myself a picture of what was going on inside her body, and then I started. Step by step, I followed the steps in my head, until I grabbed the sopher clamp. Only now I realised what I was really doing, I was going to rip a baby out of a woman's womb. I turned around slowly to my attending and she nodded, probably not seeing the terrified face that was hiding behind my surgical face mask.

Get your shit together, this woman needs you, I told myself. And I was surprised, but mostly shocked, by how my brain switched off my emotions and made me proceed, grasping every part of that baby's body and pulling it out. I finished the operation by scraping out the uterus and removing the placenta before looking at the table beside me.
"You have to assemble the parts to make sure there's nothing left inside the patient, or it could cause a heavy and life-threatening infection" Dr Moxley explained to me as I nodded and gulped.

I bit my tongue and did as she said before looking at her for approval. She nodded and started telling something to the nurses and the anaesthesiologist as the operation had wrapped up, but my ears were ringing and I couldn't hear her anymore. In a trance, I walked to the door and out of that room while I tore off the mask from my face. After a minute, I found myself in the staff bathroom leaning over a toilet and puking my guts out.

I heard someone get inside and immediately recognised the person calling my name. I weakly opened my bathroom stall and got out.
"Hey, what's going on? You're not pregnant, are you?" Ed asked and I closed my eyes, almost wanting to cry. Pregnant. I shuddered at the thoughts of what I had just done. And of course he would only think about himself and how inconvenient that would be at this point of his career. He would definitely pressure me into an abortion, I thought to myself, making a tear slip from my eyes.

"No, I'm not" I just replied.
"Oh, thank God" he huffed. "What's going on then? Why are you so hormonal? You don't even cry when a kid dies" he chuckled and now I wanted to really cry. A kid died.
"I had to perform an abortion" I whispered, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.
"Oh. That's why you cry?" he scoffed incredulously.

"I feel like I killed someone" I whimpered with a shaky voice.
"Those were just... cells" he replied, looking confused as to why the hell I was making such a scene.
"How can you say that?!" I shouted. "One minute, I do an ultrasound and hear a heart beating and the next, I do one and nothing's left! You know how it feels! To always hope to find a heartbeat whenever you ultrasound a pregnant woman, you must have done it a million times during your internship too! You move the wand around and around on that belly and hope to find the slightest noise of a beat before you give up hope! And back there, I knew that I was going to find nothing!" I sobbed, breaking down in tears.

"You did what was best for the woman, don't ever forget that" he shouted back between gritted teeth.
"But did I do what was best for that baby? I swore to have respect for the human life and to never intentionally hurt a patient!" I argued angrily. We didn't have to agree, but he could just offer me a shoulder to cry on right now.
"You're an intern and you do what the fuck your attending asks you to do, alright?" he snapped at me.
"I killed a human being" I whispered and that's when I felt it. And heard it. Smack. On my cheek.

"Stop being so damn emotional just because you did your job! Get yourself together and get fucking back to your patient. And if you're that incompetent, crying around in bathroom stalls, you should think about changing specialty. Maybe dermatology, that's where all the pussies go" he yelled before walking away as he shook his head in disbelief. He left me back in that bathroom crying because I really felt like a failure, as a doctor and as a girlfriend. I was leaning onto the sink and looked up to see my face in the mirror - I didn't even see how awful I was looking. All I could see was a loser.

I quickly pulled out my phone and dialled my brother's number, hoping that he could comfort me a bit, but it went straight to mailbox and I remembered that he was playing a game in Sheffield tonight. I didn't really feel like calling any fellow intern because they would probably just laugh at me, like Ed. None of them would have been unprofessional and cried like me.

My finger scrolled aimlessly down my contact list, until it found Ruben. We hadn't called or texted in ages, as we had always verbally agreed on meeting for lunch, and there hadn't been a reason to. Also, I had tried everything to hide any type of contact from Ed. It didn't take him even a ring to pick up.
"Soph?" he asked surprisedly and I winced and cried again at how soft his voice was sounding. That's how I had hoped Ed would talk to me, but instead, I had only gotten some shouting and yelling. And a slap all over my face.

"My shift's over in thirty minutes, can you come pick me up?" I asked with a trembling voice.
"Soph? What happened? Are you alright?" he asked concernedly and if it weren't for my current state I would have melted over his sweet Portuguese accent.
"Can you or can you not?" I asked exasperatedly, wiping my eyes from the tears.
"Of course, I'll be there" he replied and I hung up on him.

I splashed some cold water onto my face before calming myself down as much as possible and walking outside again. I knew that I had to check on my patient now and on my way there, I debated on what to tell Ruben, I already regretted calling him. But I couldn't text him not to come now, because I knew that he would show up anyways. Could I tell him what I did? What was he going to think of me?