“I wish you would just believe that you’re worth loving,” Enka said. “I feel like all this death and negativity in your life has made you feel like you’re worthless or something. You’re not. Any thoughts you have that try to tell you that you’re worthless are lies. They’re completely false. You matter. You’re worth something.”
“Why?” Will asked.
“Because you’re special,” Enka replied. “You’re you.”
“How am I special?” Will asked. “There’s millions, maybe even billions of footballers in the world. I’m sure that a good deal of the defenders among those footballers are at least as good as I was, but probably even better. There’s nothing about me that isn’t true about at least a couple dozen other people in the world.”
“But none of them are you,” Enka said. “You have the special, unique combination of attributes that makes you. No one else has those.”
“And why is that special?” Will asked.
Enka looked to be groping for words, and not only because she was trying to explain herself in her second language. “Because! The world wouldn’t be the same without you!”
“Seriously?” Will asked.
Uttering a frustrated sigh, Enka looked at him like she didn’t know what he was getting at.
“You seriously think that the entire planet would be radically altered if I ceased to exist?” Will asked. “I doubt anyone would care.”
“I would care,” Enka replied. “And so would your family, and your teammates, and your friends. You’ve touched a lot of lives, and those people would miss you.”
“They hardly make up a worthwhile fraction of the global population,” Will replied dryly.
“What, would you only consider staying alive if you were as famous as… like… Cristiano Ronaldo or something?” Enka asked.
“No,” Will replied. “But something better than ‘I’m special’ or ‘I’m me’ might be nice.”
“What’s better than that?” Enka asked.
“I don’t know,” Will replied bitterly. “Maybe that my life had a purpose or something?”
“Every life has a purpose,” Enka said.
“Well, then what’s the purpose?” Will asked.
“It depends on the person,” Enka replied.
“You’re not helping,” Will snapped.
“Usually part of it is to have a positive impact on the lives of others,” Enka said, hurt clear in her voice.
“How am I supposed to have a positive impact on the lives of others when my life is just a series of miseries?” Will demanded profanely. “How is a person who knows nothing but negativity supposed to make anyone else think or feel positive?”
“Well, you could find the positive in the situation,” Enka said.
Will stared at Enka. He would’ve considered screaming at her, but he was sure that would bring in a nurse chastising him for disturbing other patients.
“Where is the positive?” he spat.
“You survived,” Enka replied, somewhat hesitantly. “And… you’re recovering well.”
“Other people died,” Will said. “People who deserved to be alive. How am I supposed to be happy? That would… desecrate their memory. Are they worthless because they died?”
“No,” Enka replied. “It’s just… fate I guess.”
Will rolled his eyes and placed his hand over them in frustration. Enka’s efforts to go about giving him a reason to live weren’t helping. None of her reasons were reasonable, but she didn’t seem to want to admit that he had no reason to live, and he’d yet to figure out why.
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