I haven’t been to work in three days. It’s the first sick time I’ve taken in the five months I’ve been working there, and when I tell them I have a stomach bug, they don’t question me.

The pain of losing Shane is barely tolerable, but the shame of what I’ve done screams in my mind every waking second, tainting every single perception I have of myself.

How can I go to work and be a healer, when I’ve done something so myopically, selfishly wrong? When I’ve been weak enough to be ruled by anger and inescurity, and perverted an act that should have been done in love, or at the very least, friendship and attraction. My mother wants to visit in October. How can I face her, after what I’ve done? Every friendship I’ve built here is probably destroyed, and if it’s not, it should be, because I don’t deserve a single one of them.

But, self-pity gets old, and returning to work on Thursday provides some respite. It does me good to get out and be productive, to help people. When we get a sweet old lady who thanks me for lancing her boils, I feel better for a minute.

Then I remember that crazy volatile look in Shane’s eyes, and it comes crashing down.

I spend my lunch break sitting by the fountain, alone. I listen to the whirr of traffic in the night, watch the way the lights ripple at the bottom, textured by a foot and a half of water. I feel a bubble in my chest, bigger than my heart, bigger than me, bigger than the mist thrown into the wind by the fountain. I’ve never felt this kind of emptiness before.

Im startled by a presence at my side. Girl, what the ***** wrong with you? I look up, see Louise, one of my co-workers. Shes very abrasive and it took me about four months to realize that underneath it all shes actually quite cool.

“I’m still not feeling well.

Youre moping, and you need to snap your ***** out of it.

And just how do you propose I do that, Lou? Tell me, cause Id like to know!

Just do it.

Well, sorry if Im not as resilient as you, but Ive lost my best friend, so ***** off.