Page 76 of Lily In The Valley
I used to be like that once.
Before I learned that some people walk away not because they stop loving you, but because loving you hurts too much.
Karter filled a space I didn’t know I needed filling. Whereas before, we interacted with him in his cage and me on the couch. He slowly became my couch companion. One night, after cooking and eating dinner, I curled up on the couch, phonein my hand, Karter asleep beside me, and scrolled through the pictures of us on my phone.We are so cute.
I kept scrolling, looking at old pictures. I stopped at one. Me, blurry in a hoodie. Khalil, shirtless, brushing his teeth, smirking in the mirror. I scrolled to another. A photo of the chicken soup he made me when I had the flu last year. I stopped at another. We were tangled up on his couch, me asleep, him staring down at me as if I were his entire world. I’d snuck and shared the picture from my phone to his.
I tried calling again.
Voicemail.
I picked up Karter and nuzzled his head, placing him on his puppy bed to sleep for the night. I got into the shower, rinsed the day off, and fell into my own slumber.
Things started picking up at the hospital. I started showing up better. Not because I was okay, but because I had to be focused to survive the day. I dove into charts, into rotations, into everything except my feelings. Dr. Sayegh noticed.
“You’re sharper this week,” she said, nodding after rounds.
I nodded back. “Trying to be.”
I was surviving. The feeling lasted for five seconds.
Because my first patient died.
His name was George. Six-years-old. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He loved Spider-Man and wore him on his socks every day. He insisted on calling me “Dr. Kelly Belly” because he thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Every time he said it, he burst into a fit of giggles like it was brand-new. I never corrected him.
His numbers had been slipping for days. We knew that. I knew that. But there was nothing emergent. His vitals were stable. He’d just been cleared to move from ICU back to the oncology floor. He’d been coloring with his mom that night. Laughing.
The next morning, he was gone.
Massive intracranial hemorrhage. Sudden. Irreversible. No warning. No time. I stared at his chart for ten minutes after they called time of death, flipping through labs, notes, med logs, vitals, looking for anything I might’ve missed. A decimal. A flag. A feeling. I’d followed protocol. Double-checked everything. I did all the right things. And it still happened. I didn’t realize I was crying until a tear hit the page.
I don’t remember how I ended up in the stairwell. I just remember the cold concrete against my spine and the sting of salt on my cheeks. I was folded in on myself, arms crossed tight over my stomach like I was holding my insides in place.
Dr. Sayegh found me there. She didn’t knock. Didn’t announce herself. Just sat down beside me like she knew I’d be exactly where she’d been once.
“You can’t win them all, Dr. Reid,” she said quietly.
I shook my head. “But he deserved to live.”
“They all deserve to live. There was nothing you could’ve done.”
My voice was weak. “Then why does it feel like I failed?”
She looked at me, eyes steady and soft. “Because you’re the kind of doctor who takes it personally. That’s a gift and a burden. It’s why I picked you.”
I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my white coat, which suddenly felt heavy. A weight I hadn’t earned. “I did everything right,” I said. “I charted, I escalated concerns, I followed protocol. I knew he was fragile. I didn’t miss anything.”
“You didn’t,” she said. “Sometimes, things still go wrong. And that’s what no one tells you when you sign up for this job.” Dr. Sayegh reached over, touched my wrist gently. “You’re one of the best fellows I’ve ever trained. You’re sharp. Precise. Intuitive. But you’re cracking under the pressure, Kelly.”
I stared ahead at the stairwell, my jaw clenched so hard it ached.
“I’m fine, Dr. Sayegh. I just–”
“You’re trying to outrun the break. I can see it. The perfection. The overcompensating. You think if you hold everything together, you can avoid it. But it’ll still happen. It always does.”
“Dr. Sayegh, I promise I’m fine.”
She held a hand up to silence me. “You’re not fine, Kelly. You’re hanging on by a thread. I need you focused in this hospital. Fully. I can’t have you here operating through a fog. So, I’m asking. No. I’m telling you to take some time off.”
