Chapter 28 #2
This is not how my seizures feel. I don’t typically get dizziness or nausea with them, but I do know that’s not uncommon for a FAS depending on where it originates. Only, I don’t feel like I’m having a seizure. Maybe I needed to eat more lunch? Take more breaks? Drink more fluids?
The dizziness and nausea pass after a few minutes, but the confusion and questions don’t.
Before I can think twice about it, I pull out my phone and text Margot.
Me: Hey, you on?
Thankfully she responds right away. Margot: Just got on. Night shift. What’s up?
Me: I’m coming down for a quick exam. Keep it between us unless we need Drew.
Margot: Done. I’ll be waiting.
I’ll have her run some blood work under a fake name. Check my vitals. Maybe another EEG. First, I have to blow off Carter.
“You look like shit,” Janet hisses, startling me away from the wall.
She’s standing in the middle of the hall, staring at me like she’s one of the twin girls from The Shining.
Scary and creepy as all hell. “I heard you not only have to sneak in surgeries with other attendings but got called out for it in the middle of your surgery. That has to be so embarrassing. Especially after you had a seizure in the middle of the floor in front of everyone.”
“You mean embarrassing like nearly blacking out and breaking your wrist after your patient practically bleeds out because you have no clue what you’re doing?”
Ugh. I likely shouldn’t have gone there. Why, oh why, can’t she just go away? In fact… “Go away.”
“I’m back now. My PT is going great, and Carter is beyond impressed with my work. He tells me so all the time. Or haven’t you noticed the board and how my name is always with his. Yours, sadly, is hardly anywhere to be found.”
“Honestly, I haven’t noticed,” I lie and it’s not even a good lie at that. Obviously, I’ve noticed. It’s what I was just bitching about in the OR.
She reads this flawlessly. A self-satisfied gleam covering her face, her chin lifting arrogantly as she proudly folds her arms. Such a damn peacock. “I overheard him say he’s removed you from surgeries because he thinks you’ll seize during one and kill either the patient or yourself.”
No he didn’t. He’d never say that. Would he?
“Now you have to beg other attendings to take you on. So sad. So pathetic.”
Uneasiness grips my chest along with a healthy dose of insecurity. Something I don’t wear all that well.
Steadying my features, I meet her dark eyes head-on.
“Janet, I don’t know what your play is, but we both know that when you were here before your injury, you did nothing.
Your residents knew nothing. You’re a hoax.
A hologram of a doctor. So how about we stop playing games and maybe I can help you. ”
She scoffs shrilly, squaring her shoulders above her slight frame while pushing her hair back and trying for imposing, falling so short it’s almost comical.
“I don’t need your help. I’ve got Carter all over me.
You’re nothing. Some poor joke of a woman who thinks if she puts out for her attending, she’ll get ahead.
Clearly, that didn’t work out so well for you.
I mean, seizing like that in front of the whole floor?
No wonder he doesn’t want to teach you anymore.
You’re a liability if ever there was one.
A point he’s proving by taking me under his wing while casting you out. ”
She stares at me, waiting, hoping I’ll crack at that. I’m kind of tempted, though I keep that to myself. She’s the cat and I’m the ball of yarn. She pinpointed my greatest fear and is playing it against me perfectly.
“You’re a liar.”
She grins so smugly I can’t help but jolt with her certainty. “You’re ancient history, Grace. You’ll be done in this hospital in no time. As it is, you’re no longer number one, and we both know it.”
I shake my head. I can’t deal with this, with her, right now.
“Maybe. But you’re still a miserable, hateful bitch.
” I leave her behind, my mind spinning, sick, my heart tumbling like an empty dryer.
Her words tonight have a particular lash to them.
A knowledge almost. Tentacles of doubt wrap around my most tender, vulnerable parts, squeezing them until they nearly burst.
She can’t be telling the truth, can she?
But if she’s not, then why is Carter working so closely with her while pushing me out?
Another surge of dizziness consumes me just as I reach Carter’s office.
Luckily, this time, no one is around to see me fold against his door, my forehead pressing into it as I breathe.
I need to figure this out first. Everything else can wait.
I rap my knuckles on his door as he grumbles out a, “Come in.”
“Hey,” I say with a smile I don’t feel.
He sighs. “I hate that you snuck that surgery.”
I shrug unapologetically. “Then you need to give me more OR time. Or, you know, work with me.” Instead of always being with Janet.
He stares at me for a very long moment and I’m trying so hard to read him, but I get nothing more than the usual Carter in return.
“Okay,” he finally relents. “You’re right,” he agrees, running a hand over his head. “I’ve been scared of pushing you too hard, but you know your body and you know what you’re doing.”
I nearly collapse in relief. “Thank you. That means so much to me. What happened is not your fault, Carter. I’ve told you this a thousand times, but I don’t think you believe me.”
He smiles cheekily. “That’s because I don’t. Are you ready to go?”
I shift my weight in the doorway, watching him as I say, “Janet has been working very closely with you since she returned.”
“I know. She’s on tonight.” He tilts his head curiously, like he’s waiting for me to follow that up.
“She thinks you’re pushing me out and she’s taking my place.”
He scoffs dismissively.
“Okay. Good for her. You ready?”
That’s really not the response I was hoping for.
“Um. I’m meeting up with Margot for a bit. I’ll just see you at home?” Damn, I suck at this.
“Sure. I didn’t realize you had plans, or I wouldn’t have waited around.”
“Sorry. I should have said something sooner. It slipped my mind.” I hate lying to him. I hate it so damn much.
He stands, rounding his desk. He’s still in his scrubs, his dark hair messy like he was either running his hands through it or he ripped a scrub cap off in frustration. His arms wrap around my waist, and he pulls me into his office, shutting the door behind me so no one can see us.
His mouth drops to my neck and for a moment, he just breathes me in.
Like I’m his air.
I cannot explain the sensations that flow through me at that.
My eyes close and I succumb to the feel of him holding me.
It’s beyond glorious and yet pragmatically alarming.
Carter has become something I’m starting to believe I don’t want to live without.
And that terrifies me. I had put so much of myself into my relationship with Tony.
Held so much of myself back out of fear he’d stop loving me.
I blame my parents for most of that. Myself too.
It was a lack of confidence or sense of self-worth in so many ways.
I watched as my parents’ love for me dwindled until it died out completely, shifting everything they ever gave me entirely onto my brother.
He became their focus, and I was just the girl with the embarrassing disorder.
I carried the pain and trepidation of that with me because I knew how afraid Tony was of that side of me.
The unpredictable side. The sick side.
Then he went and cheated on me in the most gruesome, self-esteem destroying ways, and it was like… I was right.
Forever the only person I knew I could unequivocally rely on was Oliver.
Then Carter came along.
Saw me at my worst.
And not only is he still here with me, but he’s stealing my heart.
Something I’ve been so reluctant to give him.
Knowing there must be a breaking point for a man like him—one I won’t be able to handle when it comes.
Why else has he stayed single this long?
Why else did he not make a move with that woman he claimed to love?
I’ve been trying to have faith. In him. In us. Sometimes that’s easier than others.
“Maybe I’ll go out and grab a beer or two with Kaplan and Luca or something,” he muses, pulling back and grabbing his phone off his desk, likely texting them. “I haven’t been out in so long.”
No, because you’ve been home babysitting me. “That’s my fault.”
“I like being with you any chance I can get. But it might be fun to see what trouble we can get ourselves into.”
“I can only imagine,” I deadpan with a wry grin on my face. I don’t want to think about it. There will be women all over them—throwing themselves at them. Photographs taken and published on the internet.
“Have you seen Janet? I want to make sure she’s good for the night before I take off.”
Jealousy flares through me. Has he really been pushing me out in favor of working with her because he views me as a liability? No. That doesn’t even make sense. Carter wouldn’t. I need to get my head on straight with him. He’s just worried about me.
Then why is he only working with her and not you?
“Right before I came in here. That’s when she me told you’re pushing me out in favor of her.”
He chuckles derisively, and again, not what I was fully hoping for. It’s almost as if he’s dodging this completely, refusing to meet my eyes when he never does that.
“Is something going on with you and Janet?” I ask point blank.
Another chuckle. But still no direct answer. And still not meeting my eyes.
“Have fun with Margot and I’ll see you later.” I get a chaste kiss on the cheek, but his mind is already elsewhere, and I’m hit with a pinch of not only guilt, but of resentment and nerves.
Thanks, Tony, for instilling trust issues and doubt. Thanks, Janet, for striking the perfect nerve at the perfect moment. Ugh.