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He missed it.
The sun, the smell of the green grass. The sweet tea so sweet it would give you type two diabetes. The days he would spend outside for hours, not worrying anything about a sunburn. Watching his mom garden, potting plants and digging up weeds under the hot sun. The time he found an injured butterfly outside and cried when it died. The times he would pick up a weed that he thought of as a flower and give it to his mom, to which she accepted gratefully, not having the heart to tell him it was a weed. The days he would be outside in the warm air, sweating all day long but not even caring, having the breeze of his swing cool him off. The days where he’d walk to his friends house, breaking out the sprinkler on occasion.
Oh, how he missed it.
His heart ached.
Sometimes, it felt so far he couldn’t even touch it, couldn’t even look at it.
He hated it.
Hated how he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of anything other than the blood on his hands that never seemed to wash off. The blood that stained his whole being.
“Will, it’s too late.”
He screamed as his body was ripped away from his patient. It felt like a part of him was being broken off of him, like that patient was part of him.
“You did everything you could, sometimes there’s nothing else you can do. It was just the time.”
But it wasn't.
It wasn’t ever the time.
If it were, it wouldn’t be so damn painful.
If it were truly just the time for them to leave, then why did he still feel their blood caked under his fingernails, no matter how hard he scrubbed?
Why did he still feel like another ten pound weight was added to his back every time he fails?
“I thought you said you could save her”
He blanked.
Will thought he could save her too.
He was wrong.
When wasn’t he?
Why wasn’t he able to feel anymore? Why wasn’t he able to not feel?
You could look at him while telling him the only person that ever really loved him just died because he couldn’t save them.
And he’d stare at you.
He’d stare at you with nothing in his eyes.
Was he even alive?
If all the people he failed at healing were dead, was he dead too?
If their deaths were on his hands, why wasn’t he dead?
Why did the blood still stain him?
Why did the crimson still taint his soul?
Why did the iron flavor he couldn’t ever escape still dye his being?
He’d scrub and scrub his hands raw into the early hours of the morning.
Until eventually the only blood left on his hands was his very own.
Maybe other people’s blood and death didn’t need to be the only thing that belonged to him.
Maybe it could be his own.