Page 48 of Alarm Fatigue

“You are asking me that? I thought…I saw Gabriella leaning over you, rubbing your sternum and you—,” his voicing rising in volume now, “you were unresponsive.”

“Mark, come here. Please.” At the word please, he moves back toward me and sits on the bed, but looks reluctant. “It sounds like I had some kind of panic attack. It is going to be okay. I have a psychiatrist, I will get an appointment, I can talk to my therapist about the increase in frequency of my nightmares—it is going to be okay.”

Then, right then, it hits me. This is it, this is the line. We crossed it and he now will admit what I have always known: he cannot handle me. I am too much, too messy, too damaged. It is better he finds out now. This will kill me in a way, but I can stuff it down for now, for his sake, until he is gone. And so this is the moment that I realize something else—I really do love him. And I love him enough to let him go. I wait a few minutes that feel like hours for him to say something and prove me wrong. He does not.

It’s okay, Rachel, you have never died of a broken heart before and you will not start now.

“Listen, Mark, it is going to be okay. I will be fine. You do not have to worry about any of this. It is totally okay and I understand.” He just looks at me, his eyes red and sad. Those gorgeous cognac-colored eyes. “It’s okay and when I tried to tell you, you could not believe me because it is just an experience.” At this I force the falsest laugh I have ever faked. This from a life-long actress. “I am an experience. It is better this way. I understand that you can see now how I am just too broken. Eli put up with it, and I do not know why. I know you love me, you told me and I believe you. But that does not mean you have to anchor yourself to me.” I think I just felt my poor little heart crack right in the middle of my chest.

“Rachel?”

“Yes, Mark?”

He says nothing and takes my face in his hands which are trembling a bit. He does not kiss me, he just looks at me.

“Are the nightmares my fault? Did I push you toward what I wanted and cause the nightmares?”

“You didn’t cause the nightmares, the insecurities, the brokenness…Mark—my father did.”

“That is like telling the gun shop owner who sells a murder weapon that he is absolved.”

“Isn’t he, though?”

Mark gets up and paces the room. I just watch him go back and forth.

“Mark, I have to live with me every day and the truth is I cannot tell you that I will ever get better than this. This may be the best version of Rachel Lazarus that you will ever see.”

At this he spins around to me and surprises me by raising his voice again. “Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to let me down?” He steps towards me. “I love you—” and now he is practically shouting, “I told you I see you and I love you—the broken parts and the unbroken.”

At that I lean back and am exhausted. Closing my eyes, I say what needs to be said. “Mark, I have a headache and I think you should go.”

At this, he kneels down by the side of the bed and takes my hands in his. “Rachel, don’t do this. I was afraid. Of course I was afraid—the woman I love was lying unresponsive the floor. This—” he gestures at himself, his chest, his face, “this is just a human reaction. Please don’t do this. Don’t push me away.”

I look at him askance, “Are you certain? I literally just had a mental illness episode in my sleep. It really does not get more—”

At that he raises his voice again. “Rachel!”

I hear a nurse shush us and now see scurrying feet under the curtain headed our way, likely to tell us off. Her scowling face appears as the curtain is quickly drawn back but she takes one look at Dr. Mark Levy and then me and practically squeaks before she just as rapidly closes the curtain and walks away. His reputation precedes him. He looks back to me after the distraction and lowers his voice.

“Rachel—just stop it. Instead of you reading my mind, how about I tell you how I actually felt and feel? Does that sound fair?” Now he just looks angry, and his voice is whisper-yelling at me.

“That seems reasonable—,” I say, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

He starts pacing again. He runs his hand through his hair. I kind of ache to run my hand through his hair as well. “It felt like my whole world paused—but not like waiting for important news.” He continues pacing. “You were there and Gabriella said you had a pulse, you were breathing but she could not wake you up. It felt like cement was poured over me and I could not move or breathe again until I knew that you could as well. Rachel, you are my future, my world. Do you understand?” He launches himself back to the side of the bed. “I love you. When I didn’t know if you were going to be okay I felt like—it was like an electric shock coursed through me and everything in me was scrambled and then placed on pause until I knew you would be okay.” Now there are tears in his eyes and I feel my own running down my face.

“Rachel, I will try never to tell you how to feel, but do not let your insecurity demons win. They tell you I do not really want to be here, that I do not know what I am getting myself into. That is bullshit, Rachel. I love you—do you hear me?!?” I nod my head in affirmation because if I speak I will just sob.

He launches himself to my side and throws his arms around me. “I am not going anywhere, you hear me?” I hear sniffling from the direction of the nurses’ station and realize we have an audience and that everyone, in fact, hears him.

“Okay.” I say. “I hear you. I love you, too.”

With that the curtain is drawn back revealing one of the staff cardiologists and a grim looking Dr. King. Shit, now what? Tears are all over Mark’s face and I cannot imagine what I look like. Behind the stern-looking doctors, Gabriella and a few of the nurses Mark and I know well are red-eyed, pretending they are engaged in conversation and that they have not just heard everything. When Gavi sees the arrival of the new physician, however, she gravitates back towards us.

Ivy is a caring physician, direct and a bit humorless at her baseline. But she looks more severe than usual and I have a sinking feeling. Plus she is hedging. I say a brief prayer and then decide to wake them from whatever trance they are in.

“Ivy? Dr. Murray?”

“Rachel. Mark.” Ivy says, “I am afraid I have bad news after all. Much to my surprise, your last troponin was positive. Markedly so.”

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