Chapter Seventeen
Hannah
With days of job hunting behind me, I’m starting to feel anxious again.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, given my record. I know it takes time for employers to work through applications before they start calling people in for interviews, but it’s still disheartening when I haven’t even managed a callback for a cashier or perfume sales position.
“Oh, Muffin, what are we going to do?” I ask the kitten kneading biscuits in my lap.
He answers with a tiny meow before stretching across my legs and collapsing into a fluffy heap.
As I sit there smiling—on the verge of tears over how ridiculously cute he is—something suddenly occurs to me.
I’ve been fighting the wrong battle.
No medical practice is going to touch me while this cloud hangs over my head. Instead of pouring all my energy into finding something new, maybe it’s time to go back to the source of my problems. Treat the disease at its root and hope it doesn’t follow me any further.
I’ll talk to my previous employer and see if they’re willing to give me my job back.
By talk, of course, I mean beg.
Plead.
If that fails, maybe I can at least convince them to go a little easier on me when my name comes up in future applications. There’s no harm in asking.
Besides...
I’m running out of options.
I change into a simple black dress and a pair of heels before heading out the door.
Vik’s nowhere to be seen. I’m relieved. In fact, he’s barely been home lately. Still...
I can’t stop wondering what he’s been doing. The thought lingers at the back of my mind, quietly gnawing away at me.
Then I get annoyed with myself for even caring. The harder I try to push him away... the deeper he burrows into my thoughts. It’s as though Vik has lodged himself somewhere in my mind where I’ll never be able to dig him out.
I grab a quick snack before catching a taxi to the hospital.
When I arrive, around lunchtime, the sting of being ignored by my former coworkers hits harder than I’d expected. They go about their day without so much as a hello. Once upon a time, I considered these people my friends.
Now... I’m not sure we ever were.
I head straight for the medical director’s office, taking slow, shallow breaths to steady my nerves. I’m far less confident than I was sitting at home in my comfy clothes with a kitten curled up in my lap. But there’s no turning back now. I’ll never move forward if I keep running away.
“Hannah?”
Eric Thompson looks up from a stack of paperwork, his nostrils flaring the moment he sees me.
“Mr. Thompson, I’m sorry for coming in unannounced, but—”
He raises a hand, silencing me before I can finish.
“You have some nerve coming back here,” he says. “And barging into my office without an appointment...” He shakes his head. “I should call security and have you charged with trespassing.”
As if acting on the threat, Eric reaches for his phone. He presses a few buttons, but I rush toward his desk, both hands raised in surrender before he has a chance to make the call.
“Mr. Thompson, please wait. I came here to explain myself, and—“
“Then I’ll give you the courtesy of my time until security arrives,” he says, his voice cold and clipped. “You’d better make it good.”
This isn’t going how I imagined. Not that I’d really had much of a plan. I hadn’t rehearsed a speech, and some foolish part of me believed Eric would treat me like a human being.
I’m beginning to think that was wishful thinking.
“I know my actions were against hospital policy, but I was trying to help someone who needed me. He was in pain and had nowhere else to turn. I believed I was doing the right thing.”
It’s all true.
Except for the believed part.
No matter what anyone says... I did do the right thing.
“He was a junkie looking for his next fix,” Eric says. “He was looking for a sucker, and he found the biggest one in New York.”
I lower my head, unable to meet his gaze.
“I’m sorry.” The words leave my mouth before I have a chance to stop them. I don’t mean them. I’m only saying what he wants to hear.
The worst part is, Eric hasn’t even raised his voice. There’s an edge to his tone, but he’s kept the entire conversation painfully professional. I’d almost prefer him to yell. To tear me apart. To get angry so we could get it over with.
But that’s not how the real world works. I’ve spent too long living in a fantasy. Vik stepped in before the consequences of my choices had the chance to catch up with me, and somewhere along the way I convinced myself they never would.
But consequences don’t always come as shouting and screaming.
Sometimes they arrive as whispers. As quiet conversations behind your back. The kind that follow you for the rest of your life.
“What exactly did you think would happen when you came here?” Eric asks, absent-mindedly twirling a pen between his fingers.
“You’d say sorry, I’d forgive you, and you’d be back at work on Monday?
You made a serious mistake, Hannah. You’ve proven yourself untrustworthy.
I can’t have that in my hospital, and I certainly don’t want another hospital taking that risk either.
It’s irresponsible. And it’s dangerous.”
I clear my throat, gathering every ounce of courage I have left. But the words don’t come.
“Now, if that’s all, would you kindly leave my office so I can get back to work?” He sighs. Long. Weary. As though this entire conversation has been an inconvenience.
I do as he asks. In fact, I rush from the office and make straight for the exit. If the last few days of job hunting hadn’t already changed the way I see the world... this meeting certainly has.
Maybe I broke the rules. But I’m not the problem. The system is. I did my job. I helped someone who needed it. And, somehow, I’m the one paying the price.
I’m not a bad person. I’m just an idiot for believing a hospital cares more about its patients than its reputation.
As I pass the front desk, several familiar faces from my time here are gathered around a doctor, reviewing charts and discussing patients. I keep my eyes down and try to slip past unnoticed.
No such luck.
“Hannah?” Dr. Andrew Jensen calls after me.
I offer an awkward wave but don’t return the greeting. I’ve had enough. All I want is to go home, curl up with Muffin, and pretend today never happened.
“Wait up a second,” he calls, handing his clipboard to one of the nurses before hurrying over. “How’ve you been?”
“Emotionally distraught, but physically in good health.” I try to pass my misery off as a joke.
Andrew chuckles.
So maybe it wasn’t a complete failure.
“Well, if you’ve got your health, you can climb your way back to the top of the hill, right?” He offers me a reassuring smile before pushing open the door and stepping outside with me.
Here, the sun beats down from a cloudless sky. If my visit inside had gone better, today would’ve been perfect for lounging by the pool. Soaking up the sunshine. Letting myself forget everything else for a while.
“And what about you?” I ask, more out of politeness than anything.
I’m surprised he even stopped to talk to me. We’d only worked a handful of shifts together, and out of everyone at the hospital, Andrew wasn’t the person I’d expected to come after me. Not that I’m complaining.
Tall, lean, and easy on the eyes, Dr. Jensen is a welcome distraction from the disaster waiting behind me... and the one waiting back at Vik’s house.
Speaking of Vik...
I suppress a groan as I pull out my phone and find a string of text messages from him. The last one irritates me the most.
Got dinner covered tonight. I’ll treat you to something nice.
He’s trying. But it isn’t enough. I needed this a week ago. When I was trembling. Crying. Trying to make sense of what happened in that alley.
Now...
It’s too late.
It’s time to put on my big-girl pants and stay strong. Which makes me even more grateful Andrew is standing beside me.
It’s nice talking to someone normal...
...instead of being stuck in a house with my psycho stepbrother.
“Good,” Andrew says.
His smile fades and is replaced by something more serious.
“I want you to know I hated the way they treated you, Hannah. They couldn’t see it, but I always believed you were trying to do the right thing.”
“You really think so?”
I don’t know whether to believe him. It’s easy to say the right things after the fact.
“I do. But my opinion doesn’t carry much weight with the higher-ups, and they ignored every argument I made on your behalf.”
Maybe he’s telling the truth.
Maybe he isn’t.
Either way...
It doesn’t change anything.
“I’m just happy someone fought for me at all.” Without thinking, I brush my hand against his shoulder. His eyes immediately drop to where my fingers touched.
I pull away with a sheepish smile. Andrew chuckles and leans against the concrete barrier overlooking the drop-off zone.
“If you ever need anything, give me a call, Hannah. I’ll help however I can.”
My mind immediately starts racing. This is wrong. I know it is.
But maybe...
...this is exactly what I need.
Maybe it won’t get me away from Vik completely. But it could remind him what it feels like to be hurt. While he’s busy playing the perfect house husband and expecting one home-cooked meal to fix everything...
I can show him the same indifference he showed me. This is my chance to make him feel what I felt.
“How about dinner, sometime?” I ask as my taxi pulls into the hospital driveway.
“Sure. Just tell me when.”
“What about tonight?”
He hesitates. For one awful second, I wonder if I’ve misread everything.
Then a slow smile spreads across his face.
“It’s a date.”