TWELVE

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'I was just around the river bend; you were the pot of gold at the end. I was your map, your Atlas, you were my pinpoint.' – Dakota by River Atlas Jones

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People often think it's an amazing thing to be a healthcare professional. I thought so too, that's why I wanted to become a doctor from a young age. I wanted to excel, be better than others, and have a status symbol. But then the more I learnt about biology and the human body, the more it became genuinely fascinating to me, and something to strive to do as a career.

My dad is a neurosurgeon, one of those kinds of surgeons who swans in, does the most high-risk surgeries, gets fawned over because he's amazing, then walks out and does a ton of business in his office and clocks off at six in the evening no matter how many people are on his waiting list. All for a six-figure salary and not many twelve-hour shifts.

That's what I wanted growing up.

But then I started working and it's tiring, brain-hurting, feet-numbing, stressful and exhausting – yes, tiring twice – but man is it good.

What it's not is amazing.

Sure, you get a few patients who you cure or get on with so much that it can restore your faith in humanity, but on an average shift in the emergency department, you get puked on, puss on your shoes and hands, and you get verbally abused just because they've been waiting for four hours when they should have gone to the pharmacy.

And that's exactly the kind of shitty shift I need today.

But what I don't need is the constant whispers behind my back: 'Atlas is in a mood today.' 'I wonder what happened to Atlas.' 'I wanted to ask Doctor Jones something, but he's off.'

I wish for the first time in four years that nickname hadn't followed me around. At first, when I thought Dakota was dead, it was a privilege to hear, but now I know the truth, it doesn't. It feels wrong because she doesn't remember. She thinks she is the namesake of my dead sister.

What's worse is she has my sister's name but she's a completely new person. Both Dakota and Montana have been erased, and that's the awful thing.

By rights, I shouldn't be here, I should be banging on doors trying to find her address, giving her all the stuff that I have that might just bring something back, but I'm not. It's safer for her if I don't. I have to do this carefully.

I close the door to Zack's office; he called me in, and I assume to discuss why my brain isn't focusing properly. The room is bland and white, with various anatomy posters on the walls, but it feels as clinical as the cubicles down in the department.

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