The First Reaper

“So, this is how you want to end it?” spit flung off his tongue, misting his annoyance with her into the air. His towering figure hovered over her as she remained slumped on the navy sofa - barely able to make eye contact and still silent since the moment she had walked through the front door. She was exhausted and her muscles ached. Since the very first day she started the job, it had been nothing but heartbreak and frustration and honestly, busted knuckles too. One after another and another and another... And this last forty-eight hour shift- that last call - had really gotten to her, she was almost ready to call a quits. How many more times can her heart take such unfortunate endings?

She ignored Dominic’s presence, lost in her thoughts about last night and how empty she had felt. Cold during the silent ambulance ride back to Station. Hollow when she went to shower off the blood, numb when her drenched uniform went into the wash and indolent the following morning when she sat in the wooden chair in front of her captain.

“How are you feeling?” Cap had asked this question repeatedly. Once when they had just walked out of the hospital doors, a second when she grabbed the door handle of the box, its red and blue lights still flashing from when they arrived at the emergency bay. They had been in such a hurry to get inside that the EMT had forgotten to shut them off. And a third before they had all gone to bed beneath a starless night. When they were in his office, surrounded by the variety of trinkets and memorialia of all the captains before him and the ones he shared the space with on offset days, he asked again with a hint of worry in his tone.

His tan face was riddled with wrinkles, primarily frowning ones it seemed these days. When she had been first assigned to his crew, she remembered thinking how lively and fit he had looked for someone twenty-something years in the service. Well, how the whole crew had appeared- all spirited and though they had consistently interrupted nights, well rested.

Now, the bags under his eyes were a deep hue as if he hadn’t slept for years. The tension that was once miniscule in his shoulders whenever the alarms went off were now permanently prominent throughout the remaining shift days. It made her wonder what his wife thought of his new stature. Did she notice the change? Did the tension subside once he drove away? Or did it completely evaporate when the Station was no longer in his rearview mirror? Most noticeably, she thought about how he always looked defeated at the end of each call... just like the rest of the crew.

“I’m good,” her voice was dull, unlike the knife that struck her pregnant patient at least a dozen times. Unlike the knife that took the life of said patient and their unborn child.

“Dred? Dred, are you even listening?” he grunted through clenched teeth before throwing his hands up in defeat. The movement had pulled her back into the reality before her. She wasn’t at Station still nor was she sitting in Cap’s office. She was home where she thought she would be safe from the hauntings and misery of work. Instead, the room hummed in the tune of his anger that oozed out his pores.

His once warm and inviting chocolate eyes that wrapped her around in security and adoration were now cold and hard - nothing left but regret and anger, maybe a little hatred too. She wondered when all those emotions took over. Where was her Dominic? The one that was patient and caring and understanding?

Her frosty eyes couldn’t help but stare at his belongings- all neatly sorted into a variety of boxes around what was once their apartment. Two boxes labeled “clothes” in black marker sat beside the bedroom door frame, three marked “kitchen” on the island and a duffle bag sat on the end of the L-shaped couch. He had always been the organized one between the two of them. She remembered when they had first moved he had packed her books in multiple small boxes- “so the box isn’t too heavy and breaks,” he had claimed. “My thought is...” she retorted. “If it’s too heavy I’d have to take some out and those that did would get donated or something,” she winked. But he knew her too well. “You would never part with any of your books,” he chuckled and continued on repacking them.

She remembered the sound of his laugh specifically from that day- the one that made her heart swell and her chest warm. It was then that she realized she couldn’t recall the last time she had heard it. The last time he had given her the feeling of home. But that was five years ago and now, he was packing up without her. There was no laughter, no nonsense or fun silliness or books being repacked.

“I can’t do this anymore with you. I can’t keep waiting around for you to do life,” he lingered. She couldn’t help but stare at his chest - thinking about the warm beating heart just beneath, one that she had once loved listening to when her head laid upon it.

As if he were listening to her thoughts, he tensed. “I need you to be here,” his voice cracked and she shifted in her seat, guilt panging her chest from the sound of desperation on his lips. She could feel the heat of his watery eyes analyzing her, waiting patiently for a reaction or something from her. But the air remained dead and she remained lifeless - like she had been since she had left the hospital. Like all her patients she desperately yearned to save.

For a brief second, she thought “maybe, ‘please don’t go’ would stop him”. And she contemplated it, she thought about how it would be for the both of them. For a moment, it would hinder whatever the painstaking news he was trying to deliver. But, deep down she knew this coming. They hadn’t been intimate for months, almost a year. Their conversations that were once full of excitement and dreams had dwindled into nonexistence. It had become an endless cycle of her focusing on work and he focused on his. Whenever she was on shift, he was doing things - hanging out with friends, going to concerts and doing things. And even when she was off, she resorted to staying home and he would still adventure out without her - annoyed that she opted to remain put instead of “doing life”.

She was too tired, too burnt and too sad to go out anymore. They were two separate places, living two separate lives and for once she agreed, it was time. She was being selfish for keeping him here - surrounded by her darkness and sorrow.

“Okay,” she licked her lips, they suddenly felt dry as if she hadn’t taken a sip of water in centuries. With a deep sigh, all his anger vaporized. He just looked disappointed in her - he had wanted her to fight. Fight for what they were, fight for what they had built and been through but he saw the defeat in her eyes. His Mildred was long gone. She was replaced by an empty shell of a beautiful person.

His shoulders sagged as he took a seat next to her - wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his chest just like old times. Times where he had engulfed her in love, in comfort and happiness. In habit, he laid his stumbled cheek on the top of her blonde head and from afar, to a stranger it appeared that they were in a loving embrace.

With her ear against his chest, she took in the throbbing beat of his heart. The scent of his sandalwood deodorant filled her nostrils, instinctively she gripped the hem of his shirt to pull herself closer - to truly bury herself in his essence - to remember the smell of love. She had missed these moments with him, the way she could be vulnerable and he would guard her. Three years ago, it felt like a daily ritual when she would return home from her internship upset and defeated.

People are always dying. Some from sickness, some from stupidity and others from sheer bad luck - simply the wrong place at the wrong time. Just innocent victims that she would scrape up from the cement and throw into an ambulance in hope that they’d make it. But it always seemed that the latter would be the end result no matter how hard she tried, no matter the protocol they always just seemed to have given up and died.

She recalled the days when she would get home from interning and as if on que, his arms would be spread wide open for her to fall into- ready to hold her up and carry her burden. He would just hold her like this and everything in the world would be okay. She didn’t realize that this is what she longed for all this time, for all these months, just a moment of comfort - a moment where she can allow all the walls to fall. And she sobbed.

She sobbed for the end of her relationship. She sobbed for the soon to be mother that was on her gurney. She sobbed for the unborn baby in her patient’s womb. She sobbed for her coworkers who endured it with her. And she sobbed for all the souls she’ll have to put to rest that night.

Dominic had left shortly after loading the rest of his belongings into his old Chevy truck. While she had been on shift, he had been packing and moving out. He had initially wanted to be out of the apartment prior to Mildred getting home, but either way he would have to confront her. Either way, he had to be the one to end it. He had thought about leaving for months, but it wasn’t until last Thursday morning when he decided to take his time and that he believed that maybe, having her watch him leave would actually get her to react. Maybe, just maybe, it would snap her out of this mechanical behavior. That she would wake up and realize the haze she was in and ask him to stay and everything would go back to how it was.

But she didn’t and he wasn’t going to beg for her love.