Lost Soul

All I can remember are the bright white lights before the darkness took over again. Everything else was an abyss of blackness, just like when you wake up from a nightmare. I didn't want to open my eyes. It hurt too much, it would only remind me of what happened that morning. If I opened them now, I would be reminded of all the ways in which things could have gone differently. If I had opened my eyes earlier I could have prevented what happened. But I couldn't save him.
The last thing I heard was his voice. That one thing that kept me calm during all those sleepless nights and years since his death. "I Love you," he murmured before he collapsed in my arms. He was warm and alive against my chest as if everything went back to normal.
But there was no life. No heartbeat or breathing. Just an empty space where his life once existed.

It has been two years since his death and it still feels as if it had happened this morning. That same shock, that same fear of doing anything without him, and that same feeling of despair. It never went, it never changed. He was my everything, everyone else was gone. I was 16 when I met my boyfriend. He made me feel like I meant something. He made me feel visible and loved. I hadn't felt this since my dad died. My heart had an empty void where love had once existed. Little by little he was able to fill that void. As the years went on we became even closer. He supported me with everything and never cared for himself because he knew I cared for him, and that was enough for him. I was enough for him.

But now it's all gone.

Incoming sirens distract me from my thoughts. A little girl had survived a car crash with extensive wounds. She was still in shock at what had just happened. She was crying for her parents but they didn't make it, just like my boyfriend. I quickly made a file for her and rushed by her side. I didn't want to be the person she said her last words to. She had to make it. I was her doctor and it was my liability until she was better.  She needed someone who was capable and caring to help her through these harsh times, someone to comfort her and be with her every step of the way. I don't want a repeat of my boyfriend's incident. It's times like these that remind me of him the most, the high stress accidents,  the broken bones and the blood everywhere. I just need to focus. I need to save people, not think about how many deaths I have witnessed. My life that I put on hold to look after others instead of myself. I'm only human.

I took a little detour on the way to the young girls' emergency ward. I went to ask the paramedics that brought her in while they were packing up to see if they knew any extra information that wasn't important at the time they brought her in. I quickly told them what I had already got.
"She's five years old, she is from Cheshire in England, her parents died in the crash, and she is on an overseas holiday in Los Angeles,  California."
They told me that she has no other family left in England as they had disowned the mother when she became pregnant as they didn't want grandchildren and most of her dads' side was in prison. Hearing this broke me. Her parents were her everything, and now, she has nothing. She has nobody to hold her, nobody to teach her, and nobody to love her. I needed to give her the best chance at a good life.

People die everyday and are forgotten by those who claimed to have loved them. But I would never forget him, the guilty look on his face as he left me and the colour that drained from his face as he became cold in my arms beside that wreck of a car.  It haunts me even though I've tried so hard to move on from it. He wouldn't be able to handle seeing me hurt, and the fact that I'm still mourning over the loss of him must  be obvious to him. I know he is watching over me as a guardian angel sent by God. He always will be. The pain is too raw. Every time someone dies or gets hurt in some sort of crash like he did, there is a piece of me that is destroyed. That hole, deep inside me, just gets worse. Maybe someday I'll find closure, maybe someday I'll move on. Just not yet. Not when every day brings new memories, new pain, new despair. Life never has been easy and is never going to be. Sometimes life gets way more difficult than any obstacle that is put in front of me. But it won't stop me from living it, it won't stop me from missing him.

A loud scream by the girl followed by a piercing alarm of her heart monitor brought me back to reality.