show you my blueside

The whole Emergency Department knew it, some more than others. Even in his reprimands, and the way he handled the grueling aspects of the job—from the methodology of cutting into human skin, the cutting of life support, to the difficult families—with intent. A quiet respect hung in the hospital's atmosphere, mingling with the sharp scent of antiseptics and industrial-strength cleaning agents. 

For Jack, it was like riding a bike. 

In their decades working in the medical field, their trajectories were parallel. They were both attendings and handled the responsibilities that came with that role. You clock in, you see the absolute worst state a person could be in by a factor of ten, you come home, reflecting on what the hell you’d just been a witness to. Like a routine, they plunged into a world filled with anguish and despair, where they attested to the most harrowing sights imaginable—pain etched in the faces of patients, blood in places that shouldn’t be stained, hopes hanging by a thread. 

When they returned home, the emotional toll would flood over them in an unrelenting tide. It left them shaken and contemplative, as they grappled with the surreal nature of what they had just endured. 

Still, no matter what repulsiveness they saw, they would always find a way home in each other. It hurt like hell, yes, but that’s the beauty of having a rock, something you could lean on during times of hardship.

Until it leaves forever.

When Robby never came back from his sabbatical, the atmosphere was heavy with his absence as the days stretched beyond the expected return date.

Jack’s on the rooftop again after a particularly ruthless shift, able to see the city of Pittsburgh stretching as far as the horizon line goes.

Not a word reaches him, despite his insistent offers to leave the door open for Robby, assuring that he can lean on him whenever it gets dark. The last thing Jack wanted was for his best friend to succumb to the murk that had been taking up residence in his mind, lingering in the form of static buzz, getting louder, as if screaming at Robby, after hell took place at the PTMC. 

Messages and calls were left unopened, unanswered. It started as a gentle question, asking how it was hanging on the way to Alberta. The first few attempts to reach Robby were unsuccessful; Jack brushed it off as his phone being on Do Not Disturb, gave it some thought, then moved on to what was next.

For a moment, something in his mind harkens back to the words he’d said on Robby’s last shift.

“And if it gets dark, you call me.”

Jack had called.

There was no answer.

Robby’s amusement at his words replayed in Jack’s mind like a broken cassette tape. The quiet that came after was foreboding. What a bittersweet torture it was. How could he have denied it? He couldn’t be free from the honeyed madness that had enveloped his mind; all he could do was exhale, a slight, resigned smile appearing on his lips, incredulous to the reality of it all.

The ache in his chest reverberated like his heart had made its very own tunnel. It called for feeling.

The crispness of autumn enveloped the air, a refreshing chill that danced playfully through Jack’s tousled silver curls. His lips, chapped and raw, stung from the relentless bite of the wind. He paused, letting the world settle around him, his weary gaze roaming across the sprawling landscape, now blurred and hazy as fatigue cast a fog over his mind.

He took a deep breath, fighting through the mental haze, each emotion within him a paradox—numb like an anesthetic yet electrified as if charged by a powerful jolt of adrenaline. His senses, once vibrant and aware, felt muted, as a symphony turned to whispers. The absence of Robby beside him left an aching void, as if a silence had dulled the world's colors, rendering everything slightly hollow.

Jack pictured what a morning rooftop pickup would be like, the absence of his (practically) blood brother an endless void. He could almost feel him. A laugh at the edge of the wind. A familiar shrug of shoulders. The slight rumble of a motorcycle he would never hear again. He closes his eyes. A beat.

“You look like hell,” Robby said, setting a paper cup beside him.

“Kid bled out in trauma three.”

Robby didn’t say anything. He just leaned against the railing.

The return to reality was sobering, like a dunk in ice water.

As days passed by, every hour agonizingly slower than the last—by the standards of your average shift at the PTMC—there was still no sign of Robby. No sign of life, no beacon, or any kind of signal. He held onto hope that he’d meet him on the rooftop again, just once more, to no avail. If only there were a smoke trail left from the chugging engine of his motorcycle, though, it wouldn’t be needed anyway; they practically had a thread tied to each other. One that said, Hey. Listen to me. I am easy to find.

Jack wanted to run and look for him–and to escape this feeling. No matter the destination, he would never forget Robby. Every word exchanged was a cacophony as it came and as it was recalled.

Roots of tragedy sprang into the ground, impossible to yank out, try as the most hardened gardeners may. Fate had ripped his only reason with such brutality, as the realization had settled in.

He was left to roam this world alone. 

No one would be there to gently coax him not to take a dive off the roof, this time, and now until the rest of his time. There would be no one to turn to for comfort.

And that’s the funny thing. Death comes quietly, perhaps with a familiar face, one that Jack knew very well. Maybe it was the true friend he had all along. The feeling was worse than he could’ve anticipated. He didn’t want it to be true; he really didn’t, as the inevitability of it all came crashing down like brittle glass shattering. 

“You just had to go where I couldn’t follow you, huh, Robinavitch?” Jack muttered under his breath, the tone coming out cold while yielding. 

Grief was the fury in his head. It seeped into the very depths of his soul, corroding any last bit of peace he had known.

Just weeks ago, everything was different. A wordless exchange of black coffee when their shifts overlapped. An inside joke from years ago. A silent reverie for two on the rooftop. Was any of it real? Memory ripped at him, tearing until all that was left were strands of plastic rippling in the wind. Maybe this was all just a bad dream. He held onto the possibility of it being the murmur or something his subconscious mind had conjured up out of his solitude. An apparition, unkind in its trickery.

The stillness that ensued accompanied him. No longer would his reflection be there to accompany him. Instead, it would merely linger in mirrors and in the limited pictures he possessed. For eternity, there would be a void that tore at his chest, until it transformed into nothing more than an open wound that became infected. As he shut his eyes, flashes of the final shifts leading up to Robby’s final one shot through Jack’s mind, and the fervor raged more heavily.

On the railing, he hung his stethoscope. The metal was still warm from the heat of his skin.

For years, it had meant something. He set it carefully on the railing.

Time went on with a cruel march, every second blending into each other. Likewise, maybe this was what he needed to become one with Robby for one more time.

Afterlife was a terrible thought to Jack. He wanted to believe, for he couldn’t fathom a world stripped of his best friend; the sheer idea of navigating it was unbearable. This was his forlorn vigil, the rooftop a vision they had both become acquainted with for what seemed like ages. This was the place to come if either of them needed to mourn their choices. 

To be with Robby again, to reclaim that deep, unbreakable bond forged in the fires of shared struggles and laughter, was a temptation too intoxicating to resist. Deliciously mortal, like the finest whiskey. Jack’s heart raced, thrumming with a mix of fear and a yearning for the brotherhood that could only be forged through the shared crucible of anguish. 

It was only ever Robby. Jack allowed his eyes to open up, tears daring to streak down his face. He couldn’t find his way through those tattered memories.

And on the rooftop railing, forgotten in the wind, a stethoscope waited for hands that would never return. Into the mystic, it would end up.

In a second, the space had cleared. Jack had arrived at the only place he knew. 

Just wind.