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This woman who had loved me so passionately, who had cared for me so deeply when things got scary, didn’t really love me. She loved a man.
Or, maybe she didn’t love him like that. Maybe her desire for women sexually was as genuine as my own. Either way, she didn’t love me. Not really. Because when you love someone you don’t keep secrets from them. Especially not a secret life. A secret husband. A secret future that certainly didn’t involve me.
When the truth finally sank in, a wave of conflicting emotions washed over me—anger, betrayal, and heartbreak, along with a profound sense of disillusionment. I felt like the ground had been
ripped out from under my feet, leaving me adrift in a sea of uncertainty and pain.
I couldn’t help but feel betrayed, not just by Sophia, but by myself as well. How had I allowed myself to become entangled in an affair with a married woman? How had I failed to see the signs, to heed the warnings that had been there all along?
“We could, you know, still see each other on occasion- take a holiday together once in a while, be alone together.” She picked my hand up again and my blood felt like ice in my veins. She was still happy to use me to satisfy her desires, clearly. But, I would never be her priority and that wasn’t enough for me.
Amid the storm of emotions raging inside me, there was also a sense of clarity—a realization that I needed to extricate myself from this situation. To distance myself from Sophia and the turmoil she had brought into my life. With a heavy heart and a resolve born of necessity, I made the difficult decision to end the affair before she left, to sever ties with Sophia and reclaim control over my own life.
“I can’t,” I whispered. And I could barely look at her as I said it. It hurt, too much. Everything about this was just too painful. I took my hand back for the second time. And I wished I didn’t desperately want her to reach out for me for a third time.
She didn’t.
The following day felt hollow and I was going through the motions. Sophia went out on patrol as she always did. I stayed back on base and treated the soldiers we had in our medical ward. I felt numb. I felt tears beading in my eyes regularly and I would escape to the bathroom to hide my pain. I felt sick deep down inside. How could I not have known? It turns out most of our friends knew about Martin, but they didn’t want to be the ones to tell me.
I wished one of them had told me.
I stood in the bathroom clutching the sink and staring at my gaunt reflection in the mirror and my pager buzzed with the emergency signal. I felt adrenaline begin to course through my veins. I splashed water in my face and headed back out to find out what the emergency was.
“Right, what is the emergency?” I asked as I breezed through trying to ooze professionalism from every pore. I had to pull myself together. My people were going to need me.
Medical staff were busying around. “ Captain Morley. I’m prepping the OR,” I heard a call from a nurse.
My assistant, Alice Chen had a different look in her eyes. We had worked together a long time and I hadn’t seen this look on her face before.
“The morning patrol has been hit. A rescue team is bringing them back now.”
I felt my whole body freeze in its tracks. I couldn’t focus on anything.
I felt Alice’s hand on my arm as around us everything became more frantic and I knew. Of course I knew, deep down inside somewhere before she said the words.
“Captain, its Lieutenent Clark’s vehicle. It doesn’t sound good.”
Of course Alice knew about my relationship with Sophia. Definitely not officially. But, she was intuitive, she knew me well. She would have seen the easy intimacy Sophia and I had that was exclusive to lovers.
“Do you need to sit this one out?” she asked, kindly.
Of course, hospital on an army base didn’t work like normal hospital. Most of the time, the patients were someone we knew. I had to pull myself together and get on with it and we both knew that.
I took a deep breath. One. Two. Three. In and out. In and out.
“No, of course not. I’m fine.” I heard my own voice as though I was floating above the medical ward.
Alice looked at me full of empathy and we both knew that she knew. We also both knew that I was the most experienced trauma surgeon we had.
“Ok,” she said calmly. “I’ll help you, Captain. ETA is 3 minutes. Scrub in and prepare for surgery. I’ll be right next to you. I’ll do my best for you.”
My body went through the motions of gowning up and scrubbing in. I stepped into the OR and of course the body on the table was her. Sophia. Who else would it be? A mass of dark hair. Her eyes closed, I remember her beautiful eyelashes. Alice hurriedly went to cover her face with a sheet so I could work on fixing her body.
There was blood. So much blood that I will never forget. It pooled on the white tiles underneath the table.
Sophia’s injuries were catastrophic and she died on my table two hours later. I couldn’t save her. I doubt anyone could have.
I staggered out of the OR afterwards covered in her blood and gasping for air. I went outside and screamed into the desert where sand and sky become one.
