Act of love

Chapter Two

Zachary:
Sitting on top of the roof, my legs dangling over the end, I smoke cigarette after cigarette. Not giving a care in the world. While sitting on the edge of the building I stare down. At all those people, they look so small and innocent. Walking down there like small humans, not knowing what is coming next. But whatever comes next, they'll face it, because they're strong humans. Sometimes I wish I could be like the humans down there. But some are not supposed to be.
"You know you're not the first patient who has run away to the roof?" A lady's voice rips me out of my thoughts.
"I hope you're not planning to jump." I scoff as if I would ever do that.
"I don't need another lecture, ma'am."
"Sir I didn't come up here just to lecture a patient, I'm a nurse, not a psychiatrist."
"How come I've never seen you around? I'm a doctor myself." She shuffles in my direction.
"I am a med student, brand new." She lowers herself next to me, her legs hanging over the edge. Very dangerous, but she doesn't seem scared.
"So, a doctor in its own hospital sounds fun." Silently I roll my eyes.
"Sorry, didn't mean to sound like that." Her eyes meet mine, they're shining like gold in a clear blue lake. Eyes that you would be able to drown in.
"What's your name?"
"My name will remain a mystery for now." She smiles, her smile is just as beautiful as her smile. The unknown nurse drops a long silence before sighing deeply.
My eyes inspect her body trying to find what's wrong with her, why she's staring down, into the unknowingness.
"Why are you up here?"
"I could ask you the same question." Her blue eyes scroll from my face, over my body curiously.
"See that guy down there? The one in the blue shirt." She starts, to break the forever-lasting silence. I have to squint my eyes to be able to see him. He looks happy with a girl under his arm, laughing in front of a fancy restaurant.
"That's my boyfriend... And that girl next to him, the one he's half hugging, that's my sister."
"Damn, that must hurt, then my situation doesn't seem as bad." I respond while lighting my fifth cigarette in a row.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome." She starts laughing after seeing my reaction.
She is a total stranger to me yet I care even the slightest if my words hurt her or not. I've never had that before. Quickly I shake off these weird thoughts.
"You're a doctor and you smoke." The nurse says, looking sideways. Unknowingly I raise my shoulders.
"So?"
"You know how bad it is for you, you see what it does to people, yet you are able to smoke so much. Doesn't seeing people in those states do anything for you?" An angry look appears on her face. Again I simply raise my shoulders.
"You'll get used to it, plus it's not always that I smoke, just now since I'm under a lot of stress." A silence follows.
"Why would you even care?"
"I don't." A soft chuckle rolls over my lips.
"Why did you become a doctor? Doctor...."
"Wixx." I fill in for her.
"Doctor Wixx, what an odd name, so tell me, was it a childhood dream? The pressure of parents?"
"Neither, it's the power of being able to help people. We are up here right now, while you see all those people down there, they're walking, doing their own thing, as usual. As we sit up here, no one notices us, and there is nothing we can do from up here. But being a doctor, it feels like I can just jump down and help people. You get what I mean?" She stays silent but nods,
I've never talked so much with a single person. Especially not with someone I just met.
"Tell me something no one else knows about you." I say, making her titter.
"You are one weird man, what will you do next? Kidnap me and throw me off this roof?"
"Maybe." I reply jokingly. She does not seem frightened by my joke, since she still sits beside me, I admire that.
"I killed my first patient today..." She takes a break, and tears form in her eyes. "All because in the heat of the moment I forgot what to do. I gave her the wrong meds and she didn't make it." Tears stream like waterfalls down her face. "That woman was a mother to 3 kids, those 3 kids now have to live without their mother because of me."
"If you think like that all your life you won't complete med school, you won't make it as a nurse, you'll reach nothing." Was I totally wrong for throwing the brutal honesty on her while she was already having a mental breakdown, maybe? But someone needed to tell her.
She lifts her head from her hands to look me straight into my numb green eyes. I definitely shouldn't have said that, but I'm not apologizing for the truth either.
"How was it for you? Killing your first patient?"
"When you say it like that it sounds terrible ma'am."
"Please, call me Zorya, Zorya Darby." Zorya, the name repeats a million times in my mind.
"The first patient I was unable to save... I'm an ER doctor, for emergencies only. And once there came in this little girl, 7 years old. Her name was Ellie, her mother brought her in, the panic in her eyes was terribly painful. Her father had abused her, in inhuman ways, I'll spare the details." I stop to take a deep breath and look away from her. How can I look someone in the eye while telling this story? "It was a busy night that night, the girl was barely breathing on her own and I quickly started CPR. But it didn't help, nothing helped, I tried everything I could but I watched that little girl slip away in front of my eyes. That was 3 years ago..." She falls completely silent.
"She would've been 10 now." Zorya mumbles. I nod, confirming what she just said.
"The look in her eyes while she slipped away, that girl didn't want to die..." She looks into my eyes to see some kind of emotion hiding behind my strict expression. "First deaths suck." Silently I get up and start walking to the nearest wall. "Tell me another secret, something from your personal life." I say leaning my left forearm against the wall behind me.
She stops to think, I can almost hear her thinking.
"Once, when I was 14, I tried to kill myself. Just as I was about to do it my freshly new neighbors walked in to come and meet me, with cookies." Her cheeks light up red from embarrassment. I crack a pitiful smile. Normally I would've laughed hard to myself, but I'm worried for her, worried she felt like she didn't want to be alive anymore. Would she still feel that way? My mind starts to race against my body movements.
"Doctor Wixx?"
"Hmm?" I mumble.
"I asked you a question, what's on your mind?" She turns around to face me openly.
"What do you mean Zorya?" As I say her name, her eyes brighten up and a smile appears.
"You have a... Look on your face."
"Acting as you know me?" I chuckle while stepping closer.
"Do you still feel like you want to die?" I ask, kneeling in front of her, resting my hands on her thighs.
"I mean sometimes, but I couldn't do that to my family. Besides, everyone feels like they want to die sometimes." She has a fair point, I've never met someone who said they're excited to live another day of their life.
"What's your darkest secret out of your personal life?" I blow a calming breath out. She was completely honest with me, meaning I should return the favor.
"If I would tell you, you would never look at me the same."
"I doubt that." She scoffs, her face staying unbiased.
"Come on I told you a secret of mine. It was really embarrassing, you tell me something now. It's not like we will see each other after today." After thinking for a while I got up, using her legs to hold on to. She was right, it would do no harm.
"Four years ago my very best friend fell in love with this beautiful girl. They talked and after a while, they started dating. I never really liked her, not for a particular reason, it was just a feeling I had." A sigh rolls over my lips. Her eyes are darkened in the night light. She's really listening. "When they were dating for a full month she started making sexual comments towards me and looking at my private areas."
"Comments such as?"
"Such as: 'How funny would it be if we hooked up? You're my boyfriend's best friend, would be hilarious right?' Well very funny." I calmly say.
My hands ball into fists, this makes me angry even thinking about it.
"He was my best friend for 3 years so of course I immediately went to him, telling him all the disgusting things his girlfriend said to me."
My voice softens at a breaking point.
"He didn't believe me, he called me a liar and pushed me so hard I smashed my head open. At that point I lost all respect for him, I didn't recognize my own best friend of years. How he just pick some girl he knew for two months over me." The look on her face is sad as she moves closer to me to be able to hear me better.
She stares down, her hands slightly gliding over mine.
"What did you do?" She whispers. Her voice sounds genuinely concerned, something I've never heard before from a stranger.
"I did something I'm not proud of."
"Hit him?" Zorya suggests.
"If you did, he deserved it..."
"I slept with his girlfriend and made sure he would walk in on me and her." I still remember the look in his eyes, the look of betrayal. I did prove my point.
She holds her hands in front of her mouth, glancing up at me, not sure if she heard me correctly.
"I told you, you would look at me differently." Sighing I get up and walk away from her. This night has been so nice, but all nice things must come to an end.
"Wait." She says in a begging voice.
"What?" I question turning around. My voice sounded angrier than I indented it to be.
In fear, she steps back. As her heel gets stuck on the edge of the building I watch her struggle to keep her balance. I shake my head, she can't fall. Without thinking twice, I run to her and rest my arms on her back. Catching her from the four hundred feet fall. Her heart beats so fast, I can still feel it running through my hands. For a long time, I hold her in this position just looking into her beautiful eyes as she tries to catch her breath. It takes a while to sink in. I just saved her. Her expression looks more than scared. Zorya suddenly feels the need to sit down. As she does while panting I take my place next to her.
"I don't know what would've happened if you weren't there." I stay quiet, unknowing of what to say next. I feel nothing whilst I can almost hear her heart pounding in her chest like it wants out. Her eyes meet mine for the millionth time in the last few hours.
"Gosh you're beautiful when you stare like that, are you into one-night stands?" When I thought her look of shock couldn't get more penetrating into my soul, it gets worse.
"Excuse me? Did you really just say that to me?" Her cheeks flush red, somewhere deep down I know she's flattered.
"I shall take that as a no."
I take a single piece of paper out of my pocket and take her pen from her front pocket. Silently I put my number on it and hand it to her.
"In case you change your mind." When I turn around to leave through the same door I entered the roof a man stands there. Seems to be a doctor.
"Sir Wixx."
"That's me." My eyes go from his to his white blazer.
"Psychiatric nurse Waylon Anderson." Fantastic just what I needed.
"Did you send him?" My angry eyes switch from Zorya to nurse Anderson.
"For God's sake, I don't need a shrink!"
"Sir you ran away to the top of a building, letting your legs dangle on the edge. Your parents are worried about you, and so am I. I can't just let you go without having a simple talk with you." With disbelief, I stare at both of them.
"Zorya, please go back to the cafeteria." She does exactly as he asks and leaves me without saying goodbye.
This is one of the reasons why I should never trust random people on top of a fucking building.
Angry I smash my hand into one of the soft walls next to me.
"Sir calm down, or I will have to put you in restraints. All I want is just a simple talk."
"Fine whatever." I roll my eyes and sit down on a chair. The chair must've been up here for a really long time, it looks old and cranky.
I raise an eyebrow waiting for him to say something first.
"What gave you the thought to come here? Was it suicide?"
"No of course it wasn't suicide, I just needed some fresh air."
"So you decided to go to the top of the roof? Why not downstairs?" We're both quiet for a while.
"Why are you questioning me about this? Zorya was just up here and you didn't question her."
"Zorya is not our patient." Angrily I get up and bawl my hands into fists. I hate being called a patient at the hospital I work, I didn't choose to be here, my heart did! I take a deep breath to keep my temper and release my firm grip on my fists.
"This place is quiet, I have a lot on my mind and I just needed a quiet place." As I take a big step away from him to go back to my room he stops me.
"I don't know you too well doctor Wixx, but I do know that you work here. You work here a lot, under a lot of pressure. What is it 60, 70 hours a week?"
"Depends on the week." I mumble to myself.
"Working here can be hard, seeing people come into the emergency room totally bleeding out, and then becoming one of the patients. Can you imagine what kind of impact that has on a person? You don't have to hide that it does have an impact on you, there is help for you. I can help you." The clear words of nurse Anderson hit me hard at that moment. Tears form in my eyes. I lower my head to hide all the possible emotions.
"I'm fine." With a sudden rush, I run past him back to my room as fast as I can.
I think nurse Anderson realized his words made a good impact on me. Was it too visible?