Chapter 3
Raindrops landed on the lenses of my glasses and obscured my view of the casket being lowered into the ground.
And maybe it was for the best.
Because honestly, forcing myself to watch them place Adam’s body in the dirt would have been the final shove to push me over the edge I’d been dancing on the last two weeks.
Everyone said there was nothing more I could have done the day of his death.
His heart failed him before he had even fallen out of his chair.
It was swift. Almost painless. A moment in time that would haunt me forever.
I could still feel his lifeless chest, the warmth draining from his body on the palms of my hands as I tried countless compressions. Over and over, I worked on him, screaming—begging for him to come back to me.
Adam Martin, my mentor, my boss, my friend, was dead.
Yanking at the black tie threatening to choke me, I turned from the burial site, unable to take any more. The priest’s voice echoed between raindrops, but I couldn’t focus on a single word.
All my mind could replay was the moment Adam collapsed in front of me.
The fear in his eyes, the strangled breath he attempted to make, and the sound his lifeless body made when it hit the floor.
Look, I’d been around my fair share of death. After all, it was part of my job. Being a doctor meant working side by side with the Grim Reaper.
But this? This felt different.
He wasn’t a patient.
He was the man who gave me a chance to gain my life back with zero judgment, and for that, I’d be forever in his debt.
And I failed to save him.
Wiping the droplets from my glasses, I took shelter under a tree in the graveyard far enough away from the rest of the grieving party to not be seen. Sinking to the ground, letting wet dirt cling to my rental suit, I pushed the back of my head into the hard bark of the tree.
Every part of me was too tight, like the bones beneath my very skin didn’t fit inside my body. My organs felt like intruders trying to break free from their fleshy prison. The very breath in my lungs didn’t feel right.
Cracking my neck from side to side, I willed myself to count each unsteady breath I took.
I counted each of my trembling fingers on my hands, followed by the teeth within my mouth.
I did whatever it took not to listen to the whisper in the back of my mind, urging me to go to the one place I knew would take the pain away temporarily.
The one place that would shut out the grief with numbers, cards, and odds that stole every part of me away and kept me a prisoner.
But when I was there, I felt nothing but the thrill.
The sweet bliss of shutting the outside world away, to shutting off my own brain for a couple hours and giving myself over fully to the odds that were forever stacked against me.
Because no matter how much I lost, nothing beat the sweet, blissful rush I got from a win.
Fuck!
With shaking hands, I grabbed the amber bottle from inside my suit jacket. The white little salauds stared back at me as I took two out of the bottle and laid them flat on my palm.
It didn’t matter how many times I told myself that this would be my final dose, because the only person I was fooling was myself.
Closing my eyes, I knocked them back dry before I let the unrelenting pain drive me to the nearest casino.
I promised Adam I’d be better. That I’d fight for the life he wanted for me, the second chance at the life he handed me.
But not today.
Tomorrow. I’ll do better tomorrow, Adam, promise.
Thankfully, the extra dose of Xanax kicked in quickly, softening the edges and turning the grief down to a dull hum until there was only numbness.
But as the numbness spread, so did the shame.
Fuck, I shouldn’t need anything to hold myself together, and yet here I was, a fucking shell of the man I used to be.
I was nothing more than an embarrassment.
And honestly, I had no one to blame except myself.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I clocked into work less than ten minutes ago, and somehow, as if she had a damn tracker on me, Minnie found me.
The pity was written all over her sunshine face. Not to mention, she was waiting for me outside the changing room with a piping hot coffee and a slice of homemade peach pie.
My favorite—though I didn’t recall telling her that.
“I’m fine,” I said, looking over the chart before me. “Did you tell them to discharge the patient in bed three?”
“Dr. Martin taught you at university, didn’t he?” she asked. “He practically watched you grow up. He molded you into the doctor you are today. The two of you must have been so close.”
“Minnie, the patient in bed three?” I tried to keep the bite from my words. “Did you ask the team to discharge them?”
“Gosh, I can only imagine how difficult today was for you.”
The paper chart in my hands crumpled. Patience was no longer my virtue.
I offered to cover the night shift at the last minute because I wanted—no, I needed—a distraction from thinking about Adam. Sitting alone in my apartment, staring at the vacant walls until I took enough Xanax and vodka that sleep would no longer elude me, was not how I wanted to spend the night.
I made a vow to myself while leaving the funeral to try to be the man Adam thought I was, and that meant no longer leaning on the crutch of benzos.
Being at work soothed me.
The emergency department never stopped. It was a revolving door of patients needing immediate care, and it allowed my mind to stay hyper-focused on treatment plans, saving the lives I could, and not on all my other shit.
But right now, Minnie was taking that away from me.
I wasn’t someone who yelled at others. Mainly because I hated confrontation. Growing up in a broken household with three brothers and being dealt the hand of grief as young boys, I was no stranger to confrontation and tension.
Yet I shied away from it, believing that there were better ways to handle situations than shouting.
However, tonight was an exception.
Blame it on tiredness, the heavy doses of Xanax leaving my system, or the fact that I had to say a final goodbye to my friend today.
Whatever the reason, I threw the chart down on the workstation.
“Minnie, I asked you twice about the patient in bed three. You are here to work, to learn, to be a goddamn doctor. If you want to talk about feelings and other shit, then transfer to psych.”
Her eyes widened as the tips of her ears reddened.
“So, when I ask you a question, I expect you to answer me. You’re not here to be my shrink. I am not your friend. I am your teacher. Do you understand?”
Minnie nodded quickly before she took the chart and scurried toward the nurse’s station.
Great. Now I am a total and complete asshole.
Before I could go after her and apologize, my beeper vibrated with an urgent call to the fourth floor.
Not looking back, I headed straight to the office, calling for me, and was met by none other than Dr. Zara Lorenzo sitting behind a desk that was awfully familiar to the one Adam had in his office.
“Dr. Dade,” Zara said between her tight smile. “Thanks for coming, do take a seat.”
“Is there something wrong? Your message said it was urgent.”
She didn’t respond, her gaze dropping to the chair before returning to me. The silent command, the air of authority around her, my chest tightened as I tried to piece together exactly what was about to happen.
Zara waited until I was fully seated before speaking. “I’m not sure if you have received the briefing, but as of this morning, I have been appointed to the position of Acting Chief Medical Officer.”
Of course she had.
Zara Lorenzo was the top trauma surgeon in North and South America. She was as tactical as she was unflinching. Many in the hospital described her as cold, an unfeeling machine, yet her brilliance and raw talent were immeasurable.
People travelled from across the globe to be treated by her.
She’d been Adam’s right-hand woman for years. He relied heavily on her opinion. And I’d worked enough shifts with her to know one thing for certain—she didn’t like me.
Don’t get me wrong, Zara was always civil, a professional through and through with me. But I always felt like her laser-focused eyes were always tracking me as if she were waiting for me to slip up and fail, for the chance to show the hospital I wasn’t worth the job Adam gave me.
Now she had the power to fire me, to take away everything Adam promised me.
“Congratulations on the promotion,” I said with a smile that no doubt did not reach my eyes. “Dr. Martin would have wanted this for you. He always spoke highly of you.”
“Adam didn’t have a bad word to say about anyone, even for those who didn’t deserve his kindness.”
Like me.
Zara clicked her tongue. “The position is temporary, currently. However, if the board is happy with my leadership over the course of the next six months, I expect the position to become permanent by the end of the year.”
Oh fan-fucking-tastic, the woman who hates me is now my boss.
This day truly couldn’t get any worse.
“Elliott, I’m aware that Adam spoke to you about stepping into the senior Attending role for general medicine when Gallagher retires next month.” Zara poured herself a glass of water. “He had mentioned many times before his passing that he had ‘big plans’ for you.”
“We had discussed it prior to my move from Ontario,” I said. “Adam believed that it was the right move, not only for me in my career but for the hospital too.”
She took a long sip of water before saying, “That was his opinion.”
“You don’t agree?”
“I think it was premature of him to make such a decision.”
When did the room get so hot? Also, was it always this small when I walked in? It felt bigger—yet with each passing second, the walls appeared to be moving inward.
“You’ve been here what, six, seven months?”
“Seven as of this week,” I said, calmer than I felt.
“Still new. Still on probation, technically,” she stated without an ounce of malice, just pure detachment that was somehow worse.
“You came in under unusual circumstances. When I requested your file, half of it was redacted. And when I requested the original, there didn’t seem to be a copy. Very peculiar.”
Peculiar wasn’t exactly how I’d put it.
Adam clearly messed with my file to solely protect me. No doubt he redacted the incident that happened during my intern year that resulted in me attending a rehabilitation clinic and being placed on probation for a year upon my return.
A mistake that I’d atoned for.
“What exactly are you implying, Dr. Lorenzo?”
“No implications, Elliott. Simply observations.” She ran the tip of her finger along the rim of her glass. “Honestly, I don’t need to see your file to know about you. I’ve seen enough on shift.”
My stomach twisted. “What does that mean?”
“You work like a man trying to outrun something. You clock in early, volunteer for back-to-back shifts, work through your breaks—”
I cut her off. “Because I am committed to proving myself.”
“Is that what you think? Because from where I am standing, you’re not proving commitment. You’re proving an obsession.”
“I do my job better than most here.”
“Elliott, this isn’t about how good you do your job. Your abilities and your knowledge, none of that I have a problem with. For all intents and purposes, you’re a good doctor.”
The small glimmer of validation was snubbed out as quickly as it came.
“You’re only thirty-one years old, and you have already worked in four different hospitals. That’s concerning and it makes me wonder why.”
Because I made mistakes.
Because running away was easier than facing my problems head-on.
“Not to mention you don’t have a life outside work. No wife, no girlfriend, no partner.”
“I seriously struggle to see how my life outside work is any of your concern.”
“Because you have no grounding force to keep you from burning out outside these walls,” she said flatly. “That’s not impressive. To me, it’s a walking red flag.”
The walls were closing in rapidly around me.
My chest tightened, a bead of sweat trickling down the nape of my neck.
“Being driven isn’t the same as being dependable. A senior Attending position, it’s a big step from being a resident, and honestly, I need someone who has more to lose than just their job. I need someone who isn’t going to jump ship and move to another hospital whenever he feels like it.”
“And you don’t think I’m the right fit?”
“As of right now, Elliott, no. I think you’re too much of a risk to consider.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
This was my only chance to prove I was still worth fighting for, my chance to rectify what I left behind in Ontario before my eldest brother found out, and she was taking it away from me.
She gave me what I believed was her attempt at a sympathetic smile. “The position is open. But I’m considering all candidates. People with long-term ties here and loyal to this hospital. People I can trust not to burn themselves out over a job.”
Not giving me a chance to defend myself, she dismissed me, leaving me standing outside her office with nothing but my own demons reminding me how far I’d truly fallen.