Blame

Mila

My heart went out to Ben. Everything seemed to be going wrong for him, and the hits just kept on rolling. First, the guilt from the fire and everything Ben had been struggling with since the fire had taken place yesterday. Now, he’d lost his uncle. I could only imagine how much he had to be struggling.

I knew it was hard, and I had been through enough pain myself to know what it was like to deal with loss. I hadn’t ever lost someone in the sense of the death of a loved one, but I had lost a lot of patients who had felt as personal to me as if they had been family. Ben was going to have a tough time ahead.

I wished I could be there for him the way he needed me. Until now, I had been there, trying to comfort him in his time of need. I had offered to be a shoulder he could cry on, a pillar of strength when he felt like he was swaying in the wind. But with his uncle gone and his sudden trip to New York, I couldn’t be there for him. Not in the way I wanted to.

A part of me hoped he ha