Page 72 of Last Chance Love

“That’s…wow, that’s a depressing system. You’re kind of fucked either way.”

“Name a system that isn’t like that.”

At that, he smiled. “The ranch.”

His answer surprised me, but I couldn’t help but laugh. “Alright, well, I suppose you have me there. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot that’s cursed about this place, does there?”

“No,” he said, busying himself rearranging the pens on the desk. “Is it normal to know so much about the system?”

“Which one?”

“You seem to know a lot about, like, the errors and the kind of trouble people usually avoid.”

“Well, it’s pretty standard to know. And when you’re working on the floor, you see your fair share of screw-ups and mistakes. And you see people get in trouble for it, and when peoplereallyscrew up and go down in flames,” I said with a derisive snort. “They’re the ones people show off to make sure you really know the score.”

“A sacrifice or an example?”

“The only difference between the two is the person's willingness.”

“Yeah, okay, that definitely sounds like first-hand knowledge.”

“Does it?”

“Maybe.”

I rolled my eyes, knowing it was probably his inner voice talking again. “Maybe I do know something about it. Maybe I made the same mistake so many people before me made, and it cost me just about everything I had.”

“But not everything?”

I sighed. “I didn’t have my license revoked, if you can believe it. Well, I can’t practice while I’m a convict, and I’ll have to take a series of tests, probably go before the board. More hoops than I’d like, but it’s not permanently revoked, so that’s something.”

He stared at me momentarily before leaning in so his body pressed against my thigh. “How bad?”

“Well, it’s a lot of work, and I don’t even know if that’s something I want to do at the end of the day, but I have time to?—”

“No, the mistake. The one that cost you so much.”

“Oh, it uh?—”

“You’ve never talked about it, have you?”

“Your insightfulness continues to be as annoying as it is accurate.”

“It’s a gift.”

“Uh-huh,” I said before sighing and leaning back. “The thing is, it was stupid. I was ignoring a problem.”

“What sort of problem?”

“The kind of problem where I realized medication was disappearing but kept pushing it out of my head. First, because it happens sometimes, and then I realized it wasn’t just happening. It was intentional.”

“Someone selling pills?”

“Turns out. Up until the end, I had almost convinced myself it was just a coworker self-medicating. Except he wasn’t or wasn’t just doing that, he was making money on the side. It was unbelievably stupid of me to ignore it for as long as I did, and then, well, he ended up killing someone…someones.”

“Shit, like, poisoned them?”

I sighed, not feeling the smile I gave him. “How fucked up would it be to admit that I wish it were something as simple as blatant murder? That it’s somehow worse that he did it because he was greedy and not thinking about what he was doing.”

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