Page 10 of Scorched Hearts
She remembered particularly vividly one night from that period?—
A patient she’d been tasked to operate on called her in, seemingly to consult something regarding the surgery. She’d come in alone. The patient was an elderly woman, though younger than Maya’s grandma. Maya quickly recognized the woman was in a state of delirium, progressing rapidly. She called a nurse and another doctor. Before she’d managed to do anything herself, the woman began violently gasping for air and reaching to hold on to something, her heartbeat thudding like crazy. Maya knew the woman was experiencing a heart attack, but before she’d managed to take a hold of her, the patient had fallen from the bed and had hit her head hard against the rim of her nightstand. She’d suffered a fatal bleed on the brain.
The experience had left Maya in shock. The fellow doctors had sent her for a consultation with a psychologist, the first one in her life. Her family came from too poor a background to afford any mental health services. Sitting in a wide leather chair, he announced her unable to continue practice until she got proper therapeutic help. She went home shattered, unable even to cry. There was nothing that could help her afford therapy.
That night, Elle had been on duty until two in the morning, and Maya sat on the couch unable to move. The sight of the blood on the floor replayed continuously in her mind to the point of complete numbness. She was afraid she’d lose her senses.
Elle finally came home, her sweat-soaked tank top and defined muscles constantly in movement, bringing such a strong wave of life into the room that Maya’s eyes welled with tears. Elle came up to her with her casual what’s the matter? expression. She’d been a great partner to lean on in those situations because she never made an unnecessarily big deal out of anything, providing sober and stable support.
“What’s up?” She took Maya in her arms, enveloping her in the familiar scent of her skin, the sweet familiarity of her sweat, and the faint odor of fire that always clung to her.
For a long time, no answer emerged from Maya’s lips. They simply stood in the middle of their shabby flat, Elle gently rocking them both side to side. After a while, Maya started crying.
“A woman died today right in front of me,” she said, sobbing. Elle only nodded in response.
Maya gestured for them to sit down, exhausted both mentally and physically. For a long time they sat glued to each other while Elle kept stroking Maya’s hair. Elle’s chest’s steady rhythm reassured Maya in some subtle but vital way.
“I broke down. I’ve never seen anything so bad before. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t save her. There was blood. So much blood,” she finally found the words to say.
Elle’s chest kept rising and falling, the eternal rhythm of life against Maya’s cheek. They both knew there wasn’t much to say to that, no words that could remedy something so very innately human.
“They said,” Maya continued after a while, “that I need psychological support if I want to continue practice.” She looked at Elle. “I can’t afford that.”
“But you want to continue?”
“Of course.”
“Even if it keeps being like this? It will keep being like this, you know.”
“I know.” Maya inhaled deeply. “But it’s worth it. Because I’ll get better at what I do. And I’ll save people.”
In the weeks following that night, Maya had contacted every single friend who specialized in mental health she could think of, only to learn that she couldn’t have an acquaintance as her therapist. Miraculously, it turned out that one of Elle’s old friends had switched careers and was a practicing psychologist. After a few meetings, he couldn’t refuse – no one could refuse Elle’s charisma, after all, especially at that time.
Maya could still remember the smug smile on Elle’s face when she broke the news to her.
“Your therapy sessions start at 7 p.m. Wednesday, the same time each week, so you’d better break it to your superiors that they need to clear your schedule for the time slot,” she casually mentioned while frying eggs on their crusty old pan.
“What? That’s not funny, Elle, I--”
“I’m serious, Maya. You’ve got this,” she grinned. “Remember Albert?”
“No?” She crossed her arms, sure this would turn into a joke, and into an unfunny one at that.
“Sure you do. He was it high school math classes with me.” Elle made fake glasses out of her fingers, “the really geeky one who was in love with me, remember?”
And it had indeed turned out not to be a joke. On said Wednesday, Maya started her mandated therapy for free, thanks to some long-forgotten high school admirer of Elle’s. Or so she’d believed, until she found out that Elle was secretly paying for it (although at half the price), and the information infuriated Maya.
A hand gently touched her shoulder, and Maya realized she’d been thinking with her eyes closed, in a state of half-sleep. The driver kindly pointed to her house.
“Here we are, ma’am.”
She dragged herself out of the low-set car and climbed the steps to her temporary apartment like a person who’s half-alive. The vivid memories still popped up in her thoughts from time to time, and she almost expected to open the door to her old studio flat she’d shared with Elle in their early twenties.
She knew she should be calling her agent to check the state of the paperwork before his office closed for the day, but nothing seemed less appealing to her at the moment, so she decided to finally shower, eat something, and simply go to sleep.
Upon opening the fridge, she realized she hadn’t gone shopping. The carton of half a dozen eggs, zucchini, and a bottle of ketchup constituted such a sad image that she closed the fridge. In the freezer she found a pack of ravioli and settled the matter.
While waiting for the ravioli to cook, she remembered what a great cook she’d once been. On the rare occasions when both she and Elle had been free from work, she could sit for hours in the kitchen accompanied by Elle and often some other friend or two. She’d revived her old family recipes, experimented, and had, overall, had incredible fun.