THE BILLIONAIRE'S PRIVATE NURSE

hink people go

t for them before their passing? Or is the whole memory

it that I've loved and cherished more d

a n

vitals and changes IV bags-t

home, who holds the hands of those too weak to speak, w

s not glamorous. It's not even

t's more like a mirror. It reflects everything back at us,

ften speak with a clarity that li

's where

sit. I hold hands. I listen. I carry words that will never be repeated

metimes mine. I am a witness to th

sing. Morbid, even.

there are nights when that pri

is father stopped breathing mid-sentence. Or when I smell lavender, and suddenly I'm back

, like someone scooped the empathy out o

No bonus for emotional labour. No hazard pay for

a soul's worth if mine keeps splinteri

, there a

l, fleeti

human again." A teenager telling me, "You're the first adult who didn't lie to me

d I get to stand at the edge of them-not as a nu

self. Whatever pieces of my personal life I had left behind some

ex life. There is n

d of "action" was with a pat

profession

s all of t

e human than anythin

me was

nd he'd already gone through a failed transplant, two roun

upposed to b

ks, mayb

we start

se-patient chatter, pain s

stories he never told his family

ake me feel

e feel lik

dn't even realize I was fa

someth

t wrec

uring a sh

't in t

even on

went peacefull

im I'd be there. He

someone had handed me his chart

't cry

til I g

n I coul

r gave me weeks earlier. Said it h

wo the ne

ights af

stopped

o get high. I just

e rerun of his

ling like I'

empty bed every ti

grief come

was a flood th

d showing

patien

eaks just to cry

supervisor. Sa

hide the shado

fee to fa

hide the scream s

ill kept

line of work, you don't get

cracks with guilt, caffein

believe

. Light. Optimism, even. But hope... real, clinging, desperate hope-has always e

f I was part of the curse. If there's someth

pects to. That's the cruel joke, isn't it? We all k

nd say "see you tomorrow" like

k that'

y grip my scrubs with trembling fingers, eyes wide

to die. As if I have

ce somehow grant

n't. And

. I'm not a saviou

ragile, scared, uncert

in peace. Now, I

ence of my apartment, the only li

the room feel

wanted to leave, whose last words still

ing my resign

. It swallows the parts of me I used to recognize, my laughter, my

me, my heart, my sanity. And for a while, that fe

. Not to run away-b

er what it feels li

e myself. Not heroism, but a ch

just surround

here I be

y thumb as if sealing in all the quiet confessions it held

oday. But I will. Maybe

dn't ask for anything. It didn't try to comfort me. It just

time in years,

dn't lie