Page 39 of Heal Me

"It was a difficult operation," I take off my medical coat and sit down on the couch.

All the new interns were sent home to sleep, but someone had to stay overnight. So for some reason, I was the first to volunteer, followed by Danylo.

"It feels like I've been operating," Danylo plops down on the couch next to me.

Silence hangs between us. I know we have a lot to talk about, but right now I just want to be quiet. It feels so good.

I look at the wall in front of me. There's nothing interesting on it, but for some reason I can't stop staring at it as if it were the most interesting thing on the planet.

"When did you realise you wanted to become a doctor?" I put my feet under me.

"When I was a kid," Danylo replies briefly. "And you?

"I'm still not sure if it's the right decision, but other than that, I'm not interested in anything else."

"Since childhood, my father has been saying that I should be a lawyer, he never bothered to raise me, but always dragged me to his business meetings, and the last thing I should have been was a doctor," laughs Danylo.

"It's ironic."

"There is nothing more beautiful than saving someone's life."

"And there is nothing worse than realising that you cannot save everyone's life."

"This world is unfair," Danylo says quietly.

"Painfully unfair," I add quietly.

"When did you lose him?"

There is silence. I blink my eyes, trying to realise if I heard him right, but Danylo doesn't take it back.

"I lost my mother when I was five," he pauses, "that's when I realised I wanted to be a doctor, when doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with her for months, when I held her hand and she looked into my eyes for the last time, I promised her that I would save thousands of other lives because I couldn't save the only life that was precious to me." Tears come to my eyes. I bite my lip.

"How did you know I had lost someone?"

"I've seen that look in the mirror for years, I know how a person who has lost someone looks."

"I was ten when I lost my father."

I stopped talking. I always filled my thoughts with Denys's death so that I wouldn't kill myself even more by thinking about my father, but now I can't stop. My throat is tight, it hurts to swallow.

"Coronary heart disease," I explain.

"I'm sorry."

I shake my head.

"It's not our fault, we did everything we could for them."

Or not enough. I don't know how a ten-year-old girl and a five-yearold boy could have helped in these situations, but I blame myself all the time for not saving my father. I think Danylo feels the same way.

Danylo looks up at me. He's trying to read me.

"And then?" he continues. "Was there someone else?

I shake my head, and now I am definitely not able to hold back the tears.

"I don't want to talk about it."

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