izzie didn’t answer. not right away. not yet. she stood — still, surgical, statue-like — in the blue-lit shrine of the scrub room, fingers clawed white around the cold lip of steel. stainless. sterile. sanctified. above her, the lights buzzed a low requiem. the vent whispered its secrets. shoes scuffed tile in the distance, ghosts in lab coats. the hospital exhaled. and inhaled. exhaled. and inhaled. never asleep. just pretending. addison’s words hovered in the air like breath in winter. not cruel. not sharp. just… scalpel-honest. that clean slice of truth you don’t feel until the blood follows.
doing something good helps with the self-loathing. a sentence dropped like iodine in water — slow-spreading and unignorable. izzie looked up. not at addison. at the glass. at her own reflection. the too-tight cap choking her curls. the eyes ringed in insomnia. the mouth collapsed inward like it had forgotten how to hope. who was that? when did the armor crack? when did the shine go? she used to believe in good. used to wield it like a sword— i want to help people. said it like a spell. a shield. a promise. but promises dissolve in blood.
“ did i tell you, ” she asked — voice threadbare, thread-thin — “ about the kid from last week? ” no eye contact. no invitation. just mirror confessional. just talking to her ghost. “ barely eighteen. melanoma. stage four. he wanted to go home. said he was done. said he was ready. ” pause. breath. “ i wasn’t. ” she gripped the metal harder. her voice faltered like a flatline. “ i kept pushing. i thought— if i could just explain better, if i could just say it right, he’d listen. he’d live. he’d stay. ” beat. “ he coded in the elevator. ” beat. “ didn’t make it to the icu. ” beat. “ his mother screamed at me. ” the silence folded in on itself like a shroud. “ she said i stole his last breath. that he died in pain. because of me. ” and there it was. the confession. the cut. let it bleed. let it breathe. she stood in it. drenched in it. let the ache crawl up her ribs and settle behind her eyes.
“ doing something good, ” she whispered, barely, “ i don’t even know what that means anymore. ” her gaze dropped. her palms— red, raw, scrubbed to the edge of penance. she had tried to wash it off. the doubt. the dirt. the trailer park. the lingerie. the look on that man’s face at the register. the shame. she had tried to bleach herself clean with ambition. tried to cauterize the past with purpose. tried to rewrite herself in latin and anatomy and long nights and longer surgeries. but shame doesn’t scrub off. it burrows. her laugh came like glass in a throat. not sound. not joy. just fracture. “ you do something good, ” she said, “ and maybe it buys you a second. one breath. one heartbeat where you feel almost human again. ” but the silence always returns. and the pager always screams. and the mistakes pile like charts in the corner.
“ and the self-loathing? ” she said. “ it waits. quiet. patient. like a page you haven’t answered yet. ” she looked up, then. at herself. not addison. just the reflection. just the battle-worn echo of a girl who once believed becoming someone else would save her. “ but maybe you’re right, ” she murmured. “ maybe the answer isn’t fixing everything. maybe it’s just… doing a good thing. ” one stitch. then another. then another. even if the wound never fully closes. “ i don’t know how to be okay, ” she said. “ but i can at least try to show up. ” she let go of the counter, her fingers trembling. but they were open. and maybe— just maybe, that was enough. / @drmontgomery .
