29. David
29
DAVID
My morning was slow, my heavy heart making it hard to be motivated. My feet were heavy too, and each step felt like walking in wet concrete, collecting more and more of the sludge with each stride. I'd been so self-absorbed, so focused inwardly on what I'd tell detectives or the board that I hadn’t stopped to consider Lauren or her feelings. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping this all from her.
But now when I felt like I needed her most, she was absent. Her phone was off. Every time I called, it went straight to voicemail. She called in sick but didn't even tell me herself. She told Henry. The emotional upset from just that small act of rejection was so painful it crippled me. I wanted to be clingy and call her a hundred times until she finally answered the phone, but I knew it would do no good. It would only make me look desperate and weak—I was, but she didn't need to see me falling apart.
Rain pounded the parking lot where I parked. I should have taken a spot in the garage where there was cover and I could remain dry, but something about the melancholy gray sky called to me. I slogged through the puddles and arrived at the front door damper than I was comfortable with, but it didn't faze me. Nothing did now. The husk of a man I'd become in the past seventy-two hours was hollow and aching to feel anything besides emptiness. Even anger would do.
My phone buzzed and I ignored it. I rode the elevator up to diagnostics and on the way realized I'd left my tablet at home. My mind had become so fogged with worry and despair that I was forgetting things, and the tablet wasn't the only thing. I'd also forgotten to pay my car insurance bill which lay on the counter in my breakfast nook waiting for me to deal with it later this evening when I got home. It wasn't like me, though I wasn't used to going through stuff like this, either. My gift for compartmentalizing was being put to the test, and it was failing.
As I approached the diagnostics office, I noticed my team minus Lauren seated around the table, speaking with Henry. I checked the time on my phone to see it was still fifteen minutes until eight, which meant I still had fifteen minutes to prepare for the day before they all were supposed to have arrived. I was instantly frustrated and upset that I'd been cut out of whatever was going on. Judging by their appearances, they'd been awake all night.
Pushing open the door, I noticed the trash can filled with empty coffee cups and plastic snack wrappers. The interns glanced up at me and offered weakly compassionate expressions as Henry straightened and barked out orders.
"That's it, then. Go get the tests done. Dr. Cooper, you speak with the patient's family?—"
"But it's just doctor?—"
"Enough, Dr. Cooper. Just do as you're told." Henry seemed to be in a very sour mood this morning. His forehead had more creases than a dog-eared book. He buttoned his lab coat and scowled at them, and they scurried out the door to do his bidding as if he were in charge of this department and not me.
They passed by me with grumpy expressions in a very silent manner, polar opposite to when I was fully in charge of things. It irked me. I had done nothing wrong and the board was acting like I was a disease to be rid of.
"What's the meaning of this?" I asked, moving closer to Henry. No one had told me anything, not that there was a patient or that my team was called in. Until I was fired, it was still my department, and I deserved to know what was going on.
"There was a patient this morning and I handled it without you." Henry picked up his tablet and strolled toward the door to my office. My name was still emblazoned on the door in gold and black lettering, but he walked in like he owned the joint. Sat down at my desk too.
I followed him, feeling the frustration and anger building now with each step. The previous heaviness was merely fuel to the fire. He couldn't walk all over me like this, at least not without an explanation.
"You took my team into differential on a patient you never informed me about?" I stood over him as he reclined in my chair and set his tablet on my desk. My name plate still sat on the corner of my desk next to the image of Lexi there, smiling at me. She was off to her internship now, and I was thankful for that because it meant she wouldn't have to know about the trouble I'd gotten myself into.
"You got the alerts to your tablet like any other day. Why weren't you here at three a.m. when our team was called in?" Henry steepled his fingers in front of his chest and scowled. "The board is doing some housekeeping, David. We tried to be reasonable, but you've given us no choice. We'll have to terminate you for ethics violations. I'm not supposed to tell you, so you can consider this a friendly warning to put your affairs in order."
"What?" I was confused. The trial hadn't even happened yet. No one had found me guilty of anything and my work performance had been stellar. "They're just waiting until the day of trial and they're going to can me? You're going to can me?"
Henry sighed. "It's not personal. Dave, we've known each other a while now and you know how these things work."
I drew a hand through my hair and shook my head. So that was it. They weren't even going to see what happened in court, either. I was already cut loose. They just didn't have the guts to do it before trial. Or perhaps they were just extending me grace since the lawyer I was working with was on payroll too.
"We could really use your help on this case, though," he said, tapping the screen of his tablet. "Teenage patient overdose. He's having complications following Narcan. It's been twelve hours and he hasn't woken up. We've given him all the normal meds, fluids, you name it, and he's still out."
My shoulders drooped. It made me think of Lauren's brother, the struggle the boy was having with drugs, and then of her, and how she'd been so distant. I knew she was only putting up a wall so it didn't hurt so bad. I never meant to hurt her, but that pain was inevitable with the way things were unfolding. I regretted not telling her immediately and letting her help make choices about what we'd say. I regretted not going to the board immediately when I realized how much I cared for her.
Now it was all too late. Henry Burgeon sat in my seat, owning my department, and my team was taking his orders. My life was slipping through my fingers like sand in an hourglass, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I could, however, protest and at least try to slow it down.
"This is ridiculous and you know it," I growled. "You don't own that chair yet, Mr. Burgeon. I do. I'm going to check on my patient now, and when I get back, I will thank you for being out of my office. If you think you can just waltz in here and take over, you're wrong. I'm in charge, and I have a contract to back that up. If you want to control my team, you're going to have to publicly terminate that contract. Until then, stay out of my way."
My tone left no room for interpretation. I stormed out of my own office into the hallway, seething with rage. I just told off one of the men responsible for protecting or destroying my career, and I didn't even care. I was unhinged, stomping headfirst into a future so uncertain it scared me. The only thing I wanted was to have Lauren by my side. The rest could melt away and I'd survive. But I'd blown my chance with her the minute I chose to be safe instead of committed to her.
I didn't even know where I was going, either. I had no tablet and no update about the patient, only that it was a young male overdose. So I texted Dr. Baine to see where they were and he sent me the room number. Critical care unit made sense to me since the patient wasn't waking up. I had a few thoughts about what was going wrong, but I needed to get my hands on one of the interns' tablets to confirm it.
When I walked into the room, I knew something was off instantly. The woman seated by the bedside was familiar to me. I'd seen her somewhere, though I couldn’t place the face. Her eyebrows went up and she sat a bit straighter as I approached. The interns, all busy with their various orders from Henry, avoided eye contact with me as they worked.
"I apologize, I haven’t seen the chart yet. My name is Dr. Park, and I'm—" My hand reached toward her as my eyes swept over the bed. "Jason?" The simple utterance of his name gave away too much, yet nothing, all in the same breath. Lauren's brother was here? Overdosed?
The woman took my hand as my mind reeled, and she shook it, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from Jason's pale face. Until I did, until I frantically looked around the room to find no Lauren. Not even a trace of her here, not her purse or a jacket I'd recognize. Only her brother, whose face I'd never forget. He looked just like her.
"Dr. Park, we've run the tox and his liver is struggling, but the Narcan worked." Dr. Holt's words couldn't even break my trance.
"Where is she?" I asked, turning toward the woman in the seat who was most definitely not Lauren.
The pained expression in her eyes told me she knew what I was feeling, which meant Lauren had said something to her. "She had a meeting upstairs, she said… Asked me to sit with him."
"Dr. Park?" Dr. Holt said, but my mind was racing.
"So this is why she called in sick for a few days?" I thought I was losing my mind while simultaneously seeing the pieces fall into place.
The woman nodded. "I'm Amber, her neighbor. Jason and I are friends. It's okay if I'm here, right?" She squirmed as she took her hand away from mine and clasped around her phone in her lap.
"Yes, of course… What meeting? Did she say?" I knew I had to take a step back on this one. It was probably good that Henry took over. If I'd have known it was Jason to begin with, I'd have lost it. Now all I could think about was getting to Lauren. She had to be so scared.
"Just that she had to go upstairs to a boardroom… Is Jason going to be okay?" Amber looked as worried as I suspected Lauren would be. Her lips pressed into a frown, and I glanced at the comatose teen on the bed.
"My team is going to do the best job for him, okay? I have to go. Dr. Holt?" I called, and he was all ears instantly. "You're in charge. If you need something, feel free to page Dr. Burgeon."
I darted into the hallway without another word, my phone already in my hand. I called Lauren's cell only to get sent directly to voicemail three times in a row. Why hadn't she told me? Or maybe she had tried but I'd been too busy? My chest physically hurt with the emotion. What had I done?