Chapter 33 – Aston
ASTON
Isquint at the monitor, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
Or not seeing in this case. The laparoscopic images flicker, blur, then clear for a moment before distorting again.
What the absolute fuck? This is the third time in the last few weeks something like this has happened to me, and it’s a different machine than the last one I had an issue with.
My jaw clenches, and I take a deep breath to rein in my ire. “The image is unstable,” I announce to the OR team, keeping my voice calm despite the frustration building in my chest. “Can someone check the connections?”
The scrub tech immediately moves to inspect the equipment while I hold my position, the freaking laparoscope inside this kid’s belly. It’s a simple exploratory laparotomy following a fall, and I should be close to finished by now.
“Everything appears connected properly,” the tech offers after a moment.
Josh shifts his weight across from me. “Maybe it’s your technique. Or your eyes, perhaps.” His voice drips with false concern. “Have you had your vision checked lately? It appears to me as though you’re putting too much tension on the scope.”
I ignore him, focusing on the screen as the image stabilizes. “There we go. Let’s continue.”
“I’m just saying,” Josh persists, “it seems as though these incidents have happened a lot with your cases lately. Perhaps you should consider—”
“Dr. Wesley,” I cut him off sharply. “I need suction here, not useless babbling and commentary from the peanut gallery.”
The OR falls silent except for the steady beep of the monitors and the soft hiss of the ventilator. I proceed carefully, localizing a bleeder near the spleen, but just as I set up to apply a clip, the applicator refuses to grip.
“What the hell?” I bark, pulling back slightly. “The jaw isn’t grasping.”
Josh sighs dramatically. “We should have been done by now, don’t you think?”
I swear, this motherfucker will die if he doesn’t shut up. I glance up at the clock. It’s been forty minutes, and I don’t like this little guy under this long. I try again, but it’s still not gripping, which means I can’t apply the clip where I need it.
“I’m going to open him up. I’m not going to risk this kid’s safety with malfunctioning equipment. Ten blade, please.”
“Are you sure that’s necessary?” Josh challenges loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Maybe if you try again with the right technique. Going open means longer recovery time, more pain—”
“I didn’t ask for your thoughts, and last I checked, it’s my call.”
The scope is pulled from the abdomen, and everyone gets into gear to switch procedures. I’m handed a scalpel, and given where I saw the bleeder, I make the smallest incision possible that will allow me to get where I need to be to stop the bleeding.
The next twenty minutes are tense. Converting mid-procedure always is, but with Josh questioning my every move, it’s worse.
I feel the eyes of the entire team barreling down on me, but I’m able to locate the source of the bleeding, and with a few sutures, the leak is stopped, and the kid’s vitals are pristine. Thank fuck for that.
“You can close up,” I tell the intern beside me, and I stand over her as she silently works.
“Equipment fails sometimes,” Josh muses with a shrug. “But three times in as many weeks, always during your procedures and no one else’s? People are starting to talk.”
I glare up at him, making sure the light from my headlamp flashes in his eyes. “About what?”
He squints against the light but holds steady. “About whether you’re still at the top of your game. As we all know, stress can affect performance. I heard your home life is… complicated.”
I laugh. “My home life has nothing to do with equipment failures,” I tell him evenly.
“And maybe you should leave your jealousy for my home life outside of the OR instead of spreading bullshit rumors about my performance. As it is, Dr. Wesley, you have yet to show me anything regarding a decent, let alone good, performance. Maybe if you focused more on yourself and less on me, you’d be a better surgeon. ”
Before he can respond, my phone goes off. The circulating nurse checks it. “There’s a problem with some orders for one of your patients, Dr. Hughes.”
That’s been another thing. I look over at the intern.
“Dr. Wesley can help you finish.” Without another word, I walk out of the OR to scrub out, my jaw locked and my shoulders tense.
For how amazing this week started with seeing the baby and being with Skylar, it all feels like it’s going to hell now.
I just want this shift to end. I just want to be with my girls and relax.
But that’s not going to happen right now.
After I scrub out, I read through the text and check the orders on a computer near the nurses’ station.
Holy shit. This has the patient getting ten milligrams per kilogram per hour of morphine instead of ten micrograms per kilogram per hour.
That’s a dangerously high dose and a life-threatening mistake.
How is that even possible that it was put in here like that?
I didn’t order it that way. I’m positive I didn’t.
I always double-check my orders. Always.
Much like the equipment failure, this isn’t the first time my orders have been wrong, or more like they have seemingly been changed.
I rub my hand over my head and remove my surgical cap as ice slithers through my veins.
After what just happened in the OR and now seeing this, I can’t help but think someone is actively trying to sabotage me.
The first few times this happened, I figured it was exactly as it was.
A mistake in orders. Faulty equipment. But no. This is intentional.
Josh. It has to be.
The realization hits me with such clarity that I stagger under its weight.
He’s trying to make me look incompetent, but more than that, he’s putting patients’ lives at risk.
But how did he mess with my orders? The equipment wouldn’t be that tough to do, but the EMR, or electronic medical record, isn’t as easy to manipulate.
I spend I don’t even know how long going through the rest of my patients’ orders one by one, making sure everything is correct and as it should be, including for the little kid I just operated on.
I’m going to need to speak to my supervisor about this, but without any proof, that can be tricky.
Especially given the social situation Josh and I are in with each other.
I need to find Skylar and talk to her.
I head for the elevator and make my way to the MSICU, which is its usual busy self. I spot Michaela talking to a resident, and she turns when she notices me, giving me a wave that I simply return with a head nod, only to have her suddenly come over to my side.
“Everything okay?”
“Huh?” I draw back, surprised she’s asking me that in such a way as if we’re close, which we’re not. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I heard about your patient today, and now Skylar’s talking to Josh.”
“What?” That pulls me up short. “She is?”
“Yes. I assumed that’s why you were storming down here.” She gives me a bewildered look as if she hadn’t realized she was dropping a bomb on my lap. “Sorry, I thought you knew. They’re in room twelve.”
What the hell is happening today?
I blow past Michaela and head straight for room twelve, and sure enough, Skylar is in there with Josh.
“—not safe with him,” Josh states emphatically. “I told you what happened in the OR today. It was a routine procedure, and he had to open the patient up. He’s being reckless, Skylar. I’m going to have no choice but to go to my supervisor over this.”
“Go away, Josh. You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snaps, her voice tight.
“Don’t I? Ask around. Equipment failure and medication errors.
Those aren’t small things. All of them started after the two of you got together.
He’s distracted, and it’s making him careless.
They’ll fire him, and then he’ll be gone.
He’ll likely have to leave Boston. Then what will you do? Your job is here. Your family is here.”
“Why are you saying this to me?” she asks, looking flustered, her arms folded over her chest, her hip popped out. “No one is firing Aston and he’s not leaving Boston.”
“You deserve better than someone who is careless and cocky with his work. I know your marriage is bullshit. I just don’t know why you did it.”
“It’s not bullshit,” she defends.
“It is. I know it is,” he says with assurance. “You didn’t want to break up with me. You told me so. I know you love me. You only left me because you felt I wasn’t good to you.”
“That’s not how it was, and that’s not how it is. Not anymore.” She shakes her head and starts to walk away when he grabs her and holds her steady. “Let go of me.”
“I can’t. I love you, and I won’t stand to see you throw away your life with a loser like him. You’re nothing more than a glorified babysitter for his kid. Can’t you see, he’s using you.”
She pulls her arm free of his grip before I can manually do it for her.
“What do you know of his daughter?”
Something crosses his features. “Only that he’s never home with her because he’s too busy fucking up here.”
My heart pounds. Has he been following Skylar? Following me?
“You need to leave. I’ve told you I don’t want to see you.”
He moves in on her. “Tough shit. Because I’m not going anywhere.
He is. I love you. He doesn’t. I’m the real deal, and I’ll do whatever it takes to prove that to you.
You needed me to change, and I’ve changed.
I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me.
So cut the bullshit with him and come back to me. ”
“What’s all this?” I step into the room, unable to listen to another second of this.
Skylar’s head snaps over toward me, relief washing over her features. “Dr. Wesley and I were just—”
“Having a private conversation that doesn’t involve you,” Josh interrupts. “Doctor to nurse.”
“Funny because it sounded like it did involve me. In fact, it seems like you sought out my wife to make up lies about me and my work.”
His eyes narrow. “I’m concerned about patient safety. Something you used to care more about before you got careless.”
“Patient safety?” I laugh bitterly. “That’s a fucking riot coming from the guy who is actively sabotaging my procedures and changing medication orders under my name.”
Skylar gasps and takes a step back, color rising on her cheeks as her eyes bounce back and forth between the two of us. “What? Is that true?”
Josh’s expression doesn’t change, but something flickers in his eyes. Surprise, maybe. “That’s a serious accusation, Dr. Hughes. One you’d better be able to prove. As it stands, you’re the one making mistakes. Not me. Everyone’s seen it.”
His smug look has my fists clenching, and I have to blow out a breath through my nose so I don’t knock him out right here. He’s fucking with my life, and that’s not something I take quietly or lying down.
“Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? It won’t exactly be tough to prove if you’ve been logging in and changing orders, and when I do, your career will be finished. Is all of this really worth it to you?”
His chin lifts defiantly. “You don’t know anything about me.”
I give him an arrogant as fuck grin. “I know you’re after a woman who will never be yours again. A woman who wants nothing to do with your weak, pathetic ass.”
Josh flies at me, and Skylar jumps in between.
It pisses me off that she just did that.
Josh is unpredictable, but he manages to hold himself back when she puts her hands up, outstretched toward him.
Seeing that, I realize how fast my heart is racing.
How tight my chest feels with this barely contained rage.
Everything right now feels like it’s spiraling out of control. Again. The world I know and love is slipping through my fingers once more.
“You will not fight in my ICU. Dr. Wesley, you need to leave and cool off.”
“Me?!” He points to his chest. “Tell that to your asshole husband who’s spreading lies.”
“Coming from the master of lies himself. Fine. We’ll go.” She spins around, takes my hand, and leads me out of the room. I glance over my shoulder and give him a look. One he doesn’t mistake. He has no clue who he’s fucking with.