With no one to take care of, the loss of my mother did leave me with way too much time on my hands, though. My life’s purpose was gone and those final months of high school loomed in front of me like a death sentence. When my guidance counselor pulled me into her office the Monday after her death to offer her sympathy and comfort over my loss, I cut her off and asked her if I could graduate early. I had enough credits, I had the grades and there was a full nursing scholarship waiting for me, all I lacked was her permission to take my finals six months early. I was ready to leave that shitty apartment and all of its memories behind. I wanted to go to college and get started on my nursing degree sooner rather than later.

My counselor looked over my transcripts and gave her permission. Within a month, I’d managed to pack up my meager belongings, secure housing on campus along with a part-time waitressing job closer to school and sublet our apartment to a single mother with a five-year-old daughter. When I saw the track marks on the woman’s arms and the unfocused look in her eyes and as I handed over the keys, I looked at that child and hoped she wouldn’t burn her little hands the first time she had to make her own pot of Ramen noodles.

I’ve taken care of people for twenty-seven years. It’s what I know; it’s in my blood. Having my nursing license almost taken away from me was like someone cut off one of my limbs. I don’t know how to do anything else. I don’t WANT to do anything else. Even though I was initially adamant in my refusal to work with Cole, I knew I would do it. No matter how much pent up anger and sadness I had inside of me, I would never turn down the opportunity to help someone. Taking care of someone you love is a hell of a lot different than taking care of a stranger. You want what’s best for all of your patients, but when your heart is involved, it turns into an obsession. It happened when I took care of Parker a few years ago and it’s happening now with Cole. Working in the ICU, you see plenty of people come in who never regain that spark of life. No matter what you do, no matter what miracles modern medicine can provide, they just didn’t have the will to go on. It hurts and there are moments you feel like you failed them, but there’s always someone new coming in to switch your focus to. The ICU is a revolving door of people afflicted with every malady you can think of. These people come and go and you move on to try and do something different, better and more effective for the next person.

With someone you love, that’s not an option. They are a part of your life, your heart and your soul. If they don’t make it, if they don’t thrive with the help you give them, you yourself might as well die.

It never really bothered me that I didn’t have a family of my own. How can you miss something you never had? How can you dream about something, crave something you know nothing about? I put myself through nursing school, I got a good job, bought my own home, dated men who I never even considered settling down with… and then I met Cole. I packed up my life once again and left DC for good to be with him. He was everything I never knew I wanted. He represented stability and comfort and, for once in my life, I had someone taking care of me. We built a life together, we made plans for the future and I pictured myself being welcomed into his family. I dreamed about having a mother figure who would fuss over me, go shopping with me and give me the love I never had from my own mother. I thought about having a father for the first time in my life, someone who would be firm yet kind and dole out advice. Even after meeting his parents and realizing my childish dreams would never come to light, I still felt complete because I had Cole. He filled an empty space inside me that no parental substitute could ever match. Cole was everything to me and, as long as it didn’t bother him that his family didn’t welcome me with open arms, I wasn’t going to let it affect me. Even now, after I finally understand why he left, there’s still a giant, gaping hole in my heart that not even the truth can fill.

As I sit here under the covers with Cole’s medical records on my lap, I realize that I might not be able to save him and that scares the shit out of me. Not only does he have a shattered knee that he may never be able to fully use again no matter what kind of physical therapy I torture him with, his mind and his memories are filled with nightmares and horrors that I’m not sure anyone can heal. Despite the lies I told myself while he was gone, I know I never stopped loving him. He’s owned my whole heart from the first moment I saw him and when he left, he took it with him. Coming back to me and finally sharing those missing pieces of his life was like giving me back a piece of myself. I never thought loving Cole would be dangerous. How could something that came so easily and so naturally hurt so much? I’m finding it hard to stay angry with him now that I understand exactly why he went on that mission, but his leaving was the catalyst for everything that went wrong in my life.

I can’t hold him completely responsible for what I suffered when so much of it was my own doing, but I know it wouldn’t have happened had he been with me. If he’d just explained things to me beforehand instead of walking away, I would have had something to hold on to, something to keep me strong when Vivien tried to tear it all away from me. Leaving me alone and vulnerable created the perfect opening for Vivien to swoop in and sink her claws into my life. In the end, loving Cole brought me nothing but pain, but how the hell do I keep my heart closed off from him now? The walls I so carefully built started crumbling the moment I heard his voice again. The sound of my name on his lips put the first crack in my armor and every second I’ve spent with him since has made it spread. Six weeks of physical therapy and what, I’m supposed to just walk away when it’s done? It would be fitting payback considering that’s exactly what he did to me, but that’s not who I am. I’m not a vindictive, mean person. I can tell he wants me back, wants our life back exactly the way it was, but he doesn’t understand that won’t ever be possible. I am not the woman he left a year ago; life has broken me beyond repair. I suspect he’ll change his tune about wanting to pick up where we left off once I tell him what happened while he was gone. Maybe that’s exactly how it needs to be. If I tell him, he’ll walk away on his own and I won’t have to.