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As soon as Frank returned to his apartment, he collapsed into the giant pile of blankets that made his rock-like bed somewhat tolerable. Today had been completely shitty and he had never felt so alone in the Pitt.
Somewhere deep inside, he realized, he had hoped that Robby would’ve forgiven him by now. Somewhere deep inside, he still sought Robby’s approval. Somewhere deep inside, Frank had hoped that people would have missed him and would have been excited to see hm back. But no one was, except maybe McKay.
We were supposed to be a family, Frank thought, eyes stinging. But they have given up on me and moved on.
But he was very aware that familial love was, in his case, always conditional. No one loved Frank Langdon, chronic pain sufferer and former addict; they only loved Doctor Langdon, the third-year medical resident and one of the best in the Emergency Department. They only loved him as long as he was making them look good and wasn’t causing a fuss.
His parents and Abby had made that very clear. So had Robby and everyone else in the E.D that Frank loved and had once tried so damn hard to impress and befriend. If he wasn’t the perfect, prodigal son, he was worth nothing as a husband or a son or a father or a friend.
Divorced, disowned, disgraced; none of that hurt so much as the distrust.
I deserve it, Frank knew.
This wasn’t on anyone else. He’d done this to himself. He’d brought all of this pain and misery onto himself. But it hurt so fucking bad, doing all of this alone. He thought of the addicts he’d treated in the emergency room, remembered the support or lack thereof they had, and a jealous pang echoed through his body. At least they had somebody who’d mourn their death should it happen, or help them out, even if it were a roomful of strangers; Frank didn’t even have that luxury.
Frank’s eyes stung and he buried himself deeper into the blankets, the soft feeling of them against his skin the only comfort he had save the exhaustion in his bones.
“Amor fati,” he mumbled to himself, thinking vaguely of one of Robby’s tattoos.
Love your fate. You chose this. You did this, Frank. No one made you steal benzos from the hospital to cover up your chronic pain. No one made you ruin everything good you had in your life, and yet you did. So suck it up. You have to atone, so accept the fucking pain and shut the fuck up.
Frank’s grip on his blankets tightened. He could do it. He could accept all of the cold glances and hostile stares. He could be a responsible, functional adult and accept the consequences of his damn actions. He could get up in a few hours and go through another day of the hostile hell the Pitt had become, a twisted version of the home it had once been months before. He could.
Because if he couldn’t…if he couldn’t accomplish the one thing that had been his lifeline all those months in rehab…where would that leave him? He was no Gregory House; surely no other hospital would take him with his record? He would be stuck, trapped, lost, even more so than he already was.
Frank laughed to himself at the thought, the sound as dark and bitter as black coffee.
God, if only things were as simple in real life as they are in medical dramas. If only I were as brilliant as House. Then my addiction wouldn’t matter and I wouldn’t be a fuck-up, just a brilliant yet difficult doctor.
But things were not that simple. Not here. Not for Frank, and not for just about every other addict in the world. Addiction was a pervasive, perverting word, and in reality it carried a stigma that destroyed whatever it felt free to. It was supposed to just be yet another illness and yet it was anything but: it was a condemnation of one’s character and judgment, and it was a prison that forced consecutive life terms on every inmate.
For the rest of my life, no matter what I do, everyone who I care about (and everyone I don’t) will look at me and only see an addict. I’ll never be free, no matter how long my sobriety streak goes. It is damnation. It is purgatory.
He couldn’t blame them, however. When he looked at himself in the mirror, that was always what he saw as well. But the world would never see beneath the addiction to the broken shards of a man beneath.
My name is Frank Langdon. I am an addict. I am a doctor. I am a father. I am selfish and stupid and far too self-reliant. I am human.
If only anyone else could see that, then maybe Frank would get through this. But that seemed as likely as the sky being red.
Stop complaining, Frank told himself. You have a second chance. That’s something many people don’t get. So don’t waste it. And don’t bitch about how cruel the world is being to you; you did this to yourself.
But no matter how many times he repeated that, no matter how many times he accepted the responsibility for his actions, it always stung like hell that he was alone. Frank knew this wasn’t a fight that was supposed to be fought alone; rehab and Narcotics Anonymous and years of experience with addicts had taught him that. However, he was completely and utterly isolated- not in a physical sense, but very much so in a social and emotional sense.
None of his friends were still his friends. They were colleagues now, nothing more. Abby wasn’t his wife. Tanner and his sister could very possibly wind up no longer being his kids in the eyes of the law.
Frank had no one. Frank was nothing, now, except for his job and his addiction. As he closed his eyes and let his exhaustion finally sweep him away, he wondered just how long it would be until what his addiction had left of him was entirely consumed by the Pitt. And he wondered if anyone would even notice, let alone care.
No. Who’d cry for me, the prodigal son? No one cares. I don’t matter. I’m just yet another faceless addict, just another set of hands in the E.D. And this is what I deserve.