Page 104 of You Loved Me Once
I stand outside the hospital, staring up just like I did the day before my trial started, only this time, I’m filled with dread. This will be the last time I enter those doors as a doctor. There’s no way I won’t be fired.
“Hey,” Julie says as she comes up next to me. “You okay?”
“No,” I reply honestly. “But I will be.”
She takes my hand in hers. “Yeah, you will. You have a lot of people who love you.”
“Are you one of them?”
Julie squeezes. “Of course I am. I know you’re hurting and I can’t imagine what having Bryce back around was like, either. He was the one that got away, and we all have one. They have this innate ability to screw with our heads and make us do incredibly stupid things. Welcome to the club.”
I smile and rest my head on her shoulder. “I told Westin last night.”
“Yeah? How did that go?”
“I kissed him, started crying, and ran out.” I shrug.
“So, it went great?” she laughs.
“I wish you would’ve kicked my ass earlier when it came to him,” I tell her. “I could’ve known I loved him a lot longer and cherished it.”
Julie wraps her arm around my shoulder. “Isn’t that the way life is? We don’t know what we have until it’s gone.”
It’s the truth. So many things I’ve taken for granted, expecting they’d always be there, but nothing is guaranteed, and I knew better than to think Westin was permanent in any way. Julie walks with me down the halls and toward the boardroom. We talk a little about Westin buying my farm, which still blows my mind.
“Well, my train stops here,” she says as we come to the fork. I have to go right and face the music. “I’ll come by after work, okay?”
“Okay,” my voice trembles.
My God, I’m going to do this. All the years that I’ve built my career—they’re all going to come down to this moment where it disappears. I won’t be the doctor who has saved countless lives, I’m going to be the disgraced woman who doctored a trial.
It doesn’t matter, though. This is the right thing and it’s the only way to make sure no one I love gets hurt.
I take a few deep breaths, standing outside the boardroom where I’ve sat on the other side, listening to doctors go over each step, rolling my eyes at the choices they made at the time.
Now, it’s my turn.
I push my nerves down, square my shoulders, and march in.
“Dr. Adams, please take a seat,” Dr. Pascoe instructs.
“I’d rather stand, if that’s okay.”
No point in delaying this. I scan the room, where some of the colleagues I respect are staring at me. I give them small smiles back, nods, and other forms of acknowledgement, looking for the one who matters most.
Westin isn’t here though.
I keep scanning and gasp when I see Bryce sitting there. He looks at me with sad eyes, and then gazes back down to his feet.
“Mr. Peyton asked to be here for the reading of the autopsy. He was adamant that he have the opportunity to speak, and so we’ll change things up,” Dr. Pascoe begins.
My eyes shoot to Bryce because that’s never the order in which we’ve done it, but I’d like to hear what he has to say, for my own sanity.
Dr. Pascoe clears his throat. “Once I read this, Mr. Peyton has agreed to let the review board meet without him, so, let’s begin with the autopsy.”
The slide shows up on the screen and it’s all there. “The official cause of death is a pulmonary embolism. The embolus was seen in the left main pulmonary artery with extension into the lower lobe,” he explains. “The autopsy reports that her iron was low, but the surgery was not the cause of death.”
There’s a swell of relief inside me, but even as it floods through me, it ebbs back out because Allison is still dead.
