Page 97 of You Loved Me Once
His mouth falls open and he rubs his temple. “Serenity, please tell me you didn’t!”
“I went into the lab and changed the folders. I altered the paperwork and gave her the trial drug that day.”
“Are you fucking insane?” he bellows. “You doctored the trial? Are you kidding me?”
I shake my head quickly, knowing how bad this is. “I wasn’t thinking!”
“Clearly! Jesus Christ! You put all of us at risk! Do you realize that?”
“I know and I hate myself!” I scream at him. “I hate myself and I don’t know what to do anymore, Westin!”
He continues on. “When did you do this?”
“That day,” I admit.
“Weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
Westin’s body locks and the veins on his neck enlarge. “I’m one of the advising doctors on this. My signature is all over the paperwork,” he moves his hands like he wants to grab me, but drops them. “You didn’t just fuck yourself, Serenity, you fucked every doctor that touched this!”
I’ve never seen him like this. I’ve seen him angry before, but never on the edge of losing it. “I’m sorry! I know I was wrong! Believe me, I know. I came to you that night. I begged you to let me tell you!”
He blows his breath through his nose and I can feel the anger radiating off him. “Don’t you dare put this on me! You changed the medication on a clinical trial. Do you even know what this means? Do you understand you’re going to lose your medical license? Do you?”
“Yes.” I drop my head. “I know, and I deserve it.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “You do. How could you do this?”
“I was broken, okay? I was broken, sad, and feeling like I couldn’t do anything right. There was so much life in that woman’s eyes and I couldn’t watch it go out because of the luck of the draw. She was going todie! I needed to help her and it all happened so fast.”
My breathing is frantic once the truth is finally out. It’s all too much. I’ve spent years bottling things up—and those bottles have finally started to explode.
“You just, what? Walked into the lab and decided you knew best? What were you thinking? And what about the person without the medication you took from them!” he screams. “So you’re okay with helping Allison, because you’re in love with her husband, but not some other patient?” Westin gets in my face, his anger is palpable, and I see the hate in his eyes.
He really thinks that I would take the medication from someone else to give to another?
“I took Lindsay’s drugs, she was the patient who was dismissed from the trial before it began, but her file hadn’t been removed yet. I switched the numbers,” I explain. “I didn’t take a drug from another patient to give to her. How could you even think I would ever do that? And, I’m not in love with him,” I say as a tear falls. “I love you.”
There was no harm done to another to benefit Allison. To give her the chance I thought she deserved while we tossed aside the actual trial drug that no one would get.
“Oh, please, if you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t have done that.”
“You don’t have to believe me, but it’s the truth!”
I’m watching him pull away with each second, taking a part of me with him. It’s killing me to see him look at me this way. He always respected me at the very least, and it’s clear that’s gone.
Westin’s head shakes and then he runs his hands down his face. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
“That makes two of us. I lost Mrs. Whitley. I lost Allison. I lost myself.”
He moves closer to me as my tears fall. “And you lost me.”
I try to hold it together, but I can’t. A loud, agonizing sob breaks from my chest. I knew it would happen, but hearing it breaks the very last shred of control I have. He touches my cheek, watching the tears fall and then his hand drops.
Westin grabs his bag, the file, and then starts to walk away.
“This is why I didn’t want to love you. This is why I kept you at a distance. I knew if I fell for you, I’d lose you.”
