24. Lauren
24
LAUREN
My neck was stiff when I woke up, my pillow on the other side of the bed where David was lying when we fell asleep. The mattress was cold. He'd left a while ago but hadn't woken me up. My alarm went off at normal time, and I swatted at it to silence it. I lay there feeling a bit sorry for myself, however, because I was supposed to have told David about the baby last night, and with his mood all out of whack, I didn't. I couldn’t put more stress on his shoulders when he was going through something serious enough that he didn’t even want to tell me about it.
Forcing myself out of bed, I collected my phone and things to shower and headed to the bathroom. Jason was sleeping on the couch, not in bed where he should have been. I set my things in the bathroom on the counter and went over to him to wake him up, but before I even touched him, I saw the track marks on his arms.
My eyes swept across the table where the rest of the evidence lay. He probably thought he'd wake before me and clean it up, but he'd passed out. A dirty syringe, a few rubber tourniquets, some beer cans, and an empty baggie were lying there, coating his hands with red. I didn’t know whether to wake him up and scream at him, which never worked anyway, or to run away scared and cry. If David had seen this when he left, he'd have woken me up, which meant he'd left sometime in the middle of the night, maybe right after I fell asleep.
There was no point in lecturing a person who was drunk and high, so I picked up all the trash and threw it out, careful not to prick myself with the needle. Then I returned to check Jason's pockets where I found three more baggies of the garbage. I was so angry and scared I cried the whole time but stayed as quiet as I could. My brother was in a world of hurt I couldn't imagine, and there was nothing I could do to help him except get him into that rehab. If I didn't come up with something soon, I'd just have to check him into the hospital again. It would be a waste of money, but he'd be safe for a few days or a week, at least. Maybe enough to buy me time to do something different.
When things were cleaned up, I showered and tried to calm myself down. When my dad was alive, he had a way of handling Jason's mood dips. Jason dabbled a little with drugs and alcohol, but nothing ever this bad. Losing Mom was hard for us, but losing Dad crippled my brother. I should have asked David for the money to get him into the good rehab place, or at the very least, accepted his offer for a loan a long time ago. Now I felt foolish for being prideful and wanting to do it on my own.
The water washed away some of my cares, but not all. Today, I'd make an effort to speak with David privately and ask him if he thought the hospital would help me with a loan even if it was an advance on my salary. I'd heard ways they could give me every penny of what was needed up front and just lower my payment monthly for as long as it took to pay it off. I didn’t have the courage to approach hospital administration about it alone, but David had already offered. I hoped he'd come through for me.
I was dressed and out the door in under fifteen minutes after my shower, but I was running late. I got on the metro, using the express train, but it wasn't going to get me there fast enough to be on time. Dealing with Jason's drug issue put me behind schedule. I felt flustered and frustrated and I was angry with him, but going off on him would only make his emotional issues worse and he'd dive further into the drugs than ever.
My phone rang just as I was exiting the train car and I didn’t recognize the number. I let it go to voicemail as I scurried up the steps onto the sidewalk and hurried the few blocks to the hospital. When I heard the voicemail chime go off, I decided to listen to it really quickly before I got into work. I held the phone to my ear as the recorded message played.
"Ms. Newhouse, this is Sheila Humphries at New Hope Addiction Center. I was calling to check up on your application. We will need the deposit of four thousand dollars if you're going to bring Jason in. The program begins in less than two weeks, and we need to confirm his spot even if you don't have the money up front. I'm holding a spot for him, but if you aren't able to come up with the money, it's better to let us know soon. We can give that spot to another deserving patient. Thank you. Please call me back today."
I swiped to close the message and scowled as I shoved the phone back into the pocket of my scrubs and pushed through the door to enter the hospital. I had to remind myself that she wasn’t being pushy. She was only trying to fill those spots with people who would pay. I hated that my insurance wouldn't cover Jason's care there because he had already done several stints in rehab and they hadn't stuck. I also hated that he wasn’t exactly being helpful when it came to saving money for it. Every time he got a little cash, or stole some, he'd spend it on the next high. The whole situation sucked.
I took the elevator up to diagnostics and was surprised to see everyone seated around the table in the office looking up at a man who was most definitely not David. Dr. Park sat to the man's left, also looking up at him. I tried to sneak in quietly, but the other interns whispered things I couldn’t make out and the new man, who wore a white lab coat, scowled at me.
"Dr. Newhouse, this is a hospital where we work with sick and dying individuals. Do you think any of them would appreciate being five minutes late to a cure if it meant costing their loved one's life?"
I glanced at David, who didn't even look at me. His face was stoic and fixed on whoever this man was who acted like he was in charge. Something was very wrong, and I didn't know what it was, but I had a suspicion it was related to the reason David was so grumpy last night.
"No, sir." I swallowed hard and walked up to the table to sit down. Dr. Cooper looked startled and a bit unnerved. Doctors Baine and Holt both gave me a nervous glance before hushing their chatter and paying attention. "My brother just?—"
"I've heard all about the brother, Ms. Newhouse. Please keep your personal struggles out of this space." The man whose name I didn't even know gave me a hard glare and continued speaking about what I could only assume was a patient waiting on us downstairs. I felt shocked and left behind as the others spouted off conditions and tests they could run to determine the cause of the patient's suffering.
Multiple times, I'd hoped David would look at me, but he stayed focused on the differential too, though I had no clue what they were talking about. I searched my bag for my tablet and realized I left it on the charger at home in my haste to get out the door on time. Something else I was certain to get another lecture for later. I was confused and worried about why this man was acting like he was in charge.
Had someone told on us? Informed the board that David and I were in a relationship? That couldn’t be the case, though. If they knew about us, they'd have come to me too, punished me somehow. But only David was under the gun and I had no idea what was going on.
When everyone was dismissed to go run tests and draw blood, I waited a moment hoping for a second to speak with my boss, but the stern, dark-haired man stood over him, waiting. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he offered only a stern expression as I eagerly looked to David for some sort of reassurance.
"Dr. Newhouse, can I help you with something?" the man asked, and I shook my head. He was intimidating and scary, and I wanted my David alone. I just knew that wasn't going to happen at work. At least not today.
"No, sir." This was the reason I couldn’t even approach the board on my own about a loan. I couldn’t even speak my mind about needing to speak with my boss privately.
"Then I suggest you go run the tests you were instructed to run. And you should probably borrow a tablet and brush up on the patent's case file."
I felt my confidence shrinking and my cheeks warming as I turned to walk out the door. My heart sank as I stepped onto the elevator behind Dr. Cooper and a nurse she was speaking with. The doors slid shut and the two jabbered like gossiping teenagers. I couldn't help but listen in.
"I heard he was in legal trouble or something…" the nurse said, and she glanced over her shoulder at me.
"She's fine," Ginny said, waving off the nurse's concern. "She's one of us."
The nurse's shoulders relaxed and she continued. "I heard the board is going to be shadowing him and Dr. Miller will be in charge until this investigation is over. And I heard it could be really bad for him."
"What? For who?" I asked, now feeling absolute panic, which I hoped didn't show on my face.
"Dr. Park, of course." Ginny shook her head. "The board is asking everyone questions about him. I'm sure they’ll get to you too. If you weren't late, you'd have known some of this."
She turned back around, and they kept gossiping, sharing ‘what ifs’ back and forth, and all I could think about was how things might get very tricky for me now. I was pregnant with the man's baby and now the board was investigating him? How would we ever convince them we would do the right thing and abide by the rules now if they'd found out about us and it was this far along already?
I felt like this was all my fault. Like I should have pushed him to go to the board and not wait that full year. Now I'd never get a chance to ask the board for the money to put Jason through rehab. In fact, I might lose my job. And in fact, I might lose David too. He wouldn't even look at me during differential. Things were really bad now. I felt like I was waiting for the blade to drop and my head to roll. I had to fight the tears until the others were out of the elevator, and then they flowed. What was I going to do now?