Chapter Eight
Piper sat in the bunk room a full twenty minutes after Emmett left, straining to hold apart the conflicting emotions within her.
Humiliation and resentment gripped her atria, the upper chambers of her heart, and warmth and love had a firm hold of her ventricles, the lower chambers.
Heath on one side and Emmett on the other, in the ultimate tug of war.
It wasn’t a battle of which way she wanted to sway, but of the guilt from being unable to understand which emotion she should be feeling.
She was sure she should be sinking into the humiliation of the phone call and rehashing every embarrassing morsel of her reason for being in Rush Creek to Emmett.
Instead, the comfort of his hug, the thrill of her body held against his, the smell of cedarwood and gingerbread washing over her, had her forgetting why she was upset in the first place. She was so pathetic.
Piper shut the door to her locker and hoisted the strap of her shoulder bag higher.
She was really looking forward to that bubble bath.
Peeking out the door, she sighed with relief when the main waiting area was clear of people and rushed out the front doors.
It was well into evening and the nurses on shift would be settling the people from the emergency department into the main ward.
Or they could be attending to anyone Emmett and Stef could be bringing back in from the callout.
‘About time you came out.’
Piper jumped like an Olympic pole vaulter as Maddie pushed off the wall, her bag over her shoulder. ‘Why haven’t you gone home?’
‘Because I heard my choir buddy wig out at an ex-boyfriend on the phone and my superpower just happens to be waiting until she’s finished burying her head in the sand to talk to me about it.’
Piper gave a small laugh. ‘That’s some superpower. Do you want the shortened version, which I’m sure Emmett would’ve preferred?’
‘Hit me with it.’
Maddie fell into step beside her as Piper walked towards the car park.
‘My ex-partner is a surgeon at the Sydney hospital I used to work at, and I left him to run all the way up here because he’s been stood down from the hospital, under investigation for stealing medication to feed an opioid addiction, which I embarrassingly didn’t find out about until after it had happened. ’
To Maddie’s credit, the only reaction was the bounce of her head that Piper caught out the corner of her eye. ‘Makes sense why you don’t want to talk to him.’
Piper wanted to sigh at the lack of judgement in her friend’s voice, reinforcing her move to Rush Creek as the right one. ‘He said on the phone that he wants to fight for us. There’s no us left to fight for.’
‘But his phone call still upset you?’
‘I’m trying to shut the door on that part of my life but it’s like he keeps sticking his foot out. I guess I feel a lot of guilt for not standing by him. I fell out of love with him a long time ago.’
Maddie remained silent as they reached the car park. Piper’s breath came a little easier at the sight of Connie. She stuck the key in the passenger door to unlock it and threw her bag on the seat. Maddie leaned against the sliding door.
‘Look, I might regret saying this, but maybe you should talk to him? On your own terms. To give yourself some closure from the guilt. I can be with you when you do, if you want.’
‘Maybe.’ Piper’s shoulder jerked up in a shrug, letting the idea marinate for a few seconds. ‘Maybe I should hear him out, so he’ll stop calling.’
‘It can’t hurt. And if it does start hurting, I’ll help you hang up on him, then we’ll block his number. There’s obviously a reason you haven’t blocked him yet.’
It hadn’t ever occurred to her. What did that say about her and her choices? ‘Okay,’ she said before she could overthink it. ‘If you’re really happy to be there with me.’
‘Let’s do it.’ She nodded at Connie. ‘Wanna open her up and we’ll call from inside?’
‘You want me to speak to him here? In a car park?’
‘You got anywhere better to speak to your ex-boyfriend?’ Well, when she put it that way.
Piper opened Connie up, flicking the fan on with the fairy lights.
The van was more than a little stuffy from being locked up in the hot afternoon sun but bearable with the breeze coming through the open door.
Maddie bounced up onto the bed with a proclamation of ‘cool’ and Piper perched on the edge as if ready to leg it out of the Kombi and throw her phone down the hill.
‘Just do it,’ Maddie said, wriggling around and making herself right at home. ‘The more you put it off, the harder it’ll be.’
With a deep breath, Piper pressed the call icon next to Heath’s name and placed it on speaker, holding the phone out between her and Maddie.
‘Piper?’ The desperation in his voice made her cringe. ‘Is it you?’
‘Yes, it’s me,’ she snapped. ‘You wanted to talk, Heath, so talk. I’m giving you five minutes then you’re going to listen to me.’
Maddie’s raised eyebrows and nod said she was impressed with the firm boundaries Piper was putting in place. She wished she knew where they’d come from.
‘Five minutes? After nearly three years together, that’s all you’re going to give me?’
‘I don’t have to give you any time, Heath.
I broke up with you. I left. We’re over.
I’m prepared to hear you out but don’t waste your time trying to convince me to come back, because I won’t be.
’ Did she sound like a bitch? She didn’t want to, but being direct seemed to be the only way she was going to get through to him.
His dejected sigh rang over the line and Piper bit on her bottom lip.
‘I do want you back, Piper. I was prepared to beg and plead because I have no dignity left after what I have been through over the last couple of weeks. These so-called investigators have combed through every inch of my life from when I entered the world to the second I walked into the interview—No. Interrogation room. And all I kept thinking the entire time they asked me the same question, over and over, was that none of it mattered. None of it mattered because all of the lies and all of the secrets cost me the only person who truly meant something to me. You.’
Sadness settled over Piper’s heart at the authenticity in his voice.
She hadn’t expected that. Even Maddie’s face had softened.
‘Are you still there, Piper?’
She cleared her throat. ‘I’m listening.’
‘I’m so ashamed of this addiction. Ashamed of the lies I told you, the way I avoided you and pretended I was coping when I wasn’t.
I took them so rarely in the beginning, just one when a surgery went wrong because it helped me to not feel.
Then the Anderson child happened, and I couldn’t get him out of my head.
I just wanted to switch off, to forget and feel good about myself instead of the failure that I was for not being able to save him.
He was so little. I couldn’t get the image of his tiny body lying on my table out of my mind.
I can hear my voice pronouncing him as dead, over and over.
The tablets made it go away. I thought I had a handle on it, that there was no way I could get addicted.
I was a doctor, for fuck’s sake. I knew the risks, I knew the effect it would have.
I knew what it would cost me, and I did it anyway. ’
Tears ran down Piper’s cheeks as she thought of the little boy and his family.
She’d been on shift and had to watch Heath tell the parents that their little boy had died on the table.
That there’d been nothing he could’ve done to save him.
She’d watched the mother crumble to the floor, the father grip Heath as he cried out in agony.
A sound that still ripped through Piper.
‘What happened to that little boy was tragic, Heath. It plays on everybody’s mind, but why didn’t you get help?
You could’ve talked to your supervisor or the counselling service.
Your friends or family. You could’ve talked to me.
There’s so many people you could’ve spoken to rather than take that stuff. ’
‘I didn’t want you to think of me as weak. I didn’t want anyone to look at me and think that I couldn’t handle my job.’
‘Taking drugs is weak. Lying to everyone who loved you is weak. What’s strong is admitting you’re not okay when you’re struggling with something that traumatic. You’re not invincible. We would’ve helped you, not judged you.’
Heath sniffed and Piper knew he was crying as well. ‘I ruined everything. I’ve lost you. My family doesn’t know how to act around me. My career’s over. I don’t know where to go from here.’
‘Are you still taking the tablets?’
Silence echoed across the line.
‘I’ll take that as a yes, which means your next step is rehab.
If you want to get off them and start claiming your life back, then you need help.
Professional help. Reach out for it, Heath.
It’s not too late, but you have to do it for you.
Not for me or us, because I can’t promise you that.
I walked away because it was too much for me.
I’m sorry that I let you down and disappointed you, but I couldn’t be the person you wanted me to be, and I still can’t.
Our relationship was over long before the lies came out, we just never admitted it to ourselves. ’
‘Piper, it wasn’t—’
‘It was. When was the last time we slept in the same bed at the same time? When was the last time we even had a meal together? Until I walked out of the apartment, we hadn’t even messaged each other anything apart from checking in around what shifts we were on and who could eat what in the fridge.
That’s not love and it’s not a relationship.
You know I’m right.’ Her resolve strengthened as she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her scrubs.
‘You need to do what’s right for you, Heath, and focus on getting yourself back on track.
I need to do the same. I want you to get better, because somewhere out there is someone who’s going to love you the way you need to be loved, but that person isn’t me. ’
He sighed heavily. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Piper.’
‘Goodbye, Heath.’
‘Bye.’
Piper ended the call and her shoulders lowered with the relief of the ties to Heath finally being cut away.
Maddie shuffled across the bed and draped an arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m proud of you.’
Piper nodded. ‘Me too. Thanks for being here.’
‘Do you know what will go a long way in breaking up all the heavy feelings right now?’
‘What’s that?’
Maddie pressed the screen of her own phone and an upbeat tune started playing through Piper’s Bluetooth speaker. She hadn’t realised Maddie had connected. A smile formed on her lips as she recognised the song.
‘“Fancy Like Christmas”?’
‘A Walker Hayes classic. Can you imagine Gloria’s face if we sang this song?’
Piper laughed. ‘Peggy might actually put her knitting needles down voluntarily.’
‘It’d keep Maurie awake.’ They laughed harder. ‘Have you got any food in this place? Some board games perhaps? I’m not ready to leave yet.’
Piper pointed to the cupboard behind the driver’s seat. ‘Grab the Uno cards!’