This can't be happening.

This can't be happening.


What's going to happen to me?

Am I going to lose my job?


Am I going to lose my license?


Am I going to go to jail?


It's not fair. I didn't do anything --nothing they didn't make me do. If they'd just left me alone, everything would have been fine. Everything would have been like it was.

Of course, "like it was" is short for "when my life sucked, but manageably."

And now... what am I going to do? They want to take away my license and send me to jail. How did it come to this?

I've been fired before. But they always come back, always, because I have what they need. I can do what they can't. It's only one thing, but it's a big thing, it's an important thing.

But they're not going to care about that any more. And I have nothing left to offer.

I'm almost fifty years old. I'm crippled, I'm alone, I spent Christmas morning with puke in my hair. Despair is clutching at me, pulling me down. There are six messages on my answering machine, three from Wilson and three from my mother. I played them but I didn't really listen to them. I didn't.

I couldn't.

I vaguely remember Wilson being here... sometime. All I really remember is the sight of his eyes hard with anger as something broke within him.

God, what was I thinking? It made sense at the time -- I was frantic with pain and nausea, I just wanted it to go away. I wanted it all to go away -- pain, nausea, Cuddy, Tritter, Chase, everything. And I was going to keep on taking that oxycodone until it all went away. Probably not the best prescription I've ever written.

Of course, it didn't do much good for Wilson's patient either; he's still dead. Still.

If I lose my license I might as well be dead.

Is that the only part of me that's still alive?