Page 28 of Doctor Bossy

“Hey, it’s Randy,” the person on the other line said.

Randy was an old friend that I had known since my college days. We had worked in the same lab during our undergraduate years, and while I’d gone off to medical school, he became a chemist and was now one of the leading chemists in the analytics department. He also had a position on the FDA, so he was a very useful contact to have. Although we didn’t talk much, Randy was one of the few people I considered a friend, mostly because of our working proximity but also because he gave the hard-hitting truth with no bullshit.

“What’s going on?”

“Listen, I have bad news.”

Dread sunk in my stomach. There was only one thing he could be calling about, which meant I already knew what the bad news was. “It didn’t pass.”

There was a beat of silence before he said, “No.”

There was regret in his voice. As the head of the chemistry department, he knew all about the history of my development of the drug and how many times I had gotten this close, just to be turned down again. He knew how many patients I’d lost while waiting for the drug to be ready.

He knew about Heather.

There was extra regret in his voice when he said, “I’m so sorry, Griffin.”

I sighed, feeling the disappointment weigh heavily in my chest. I should be used to it at this point, but for some reason, the sting was extra heavy this time. I really thought we nailed the formula this time. I thought it would pass.

“What’s the issue this time?” I asked.

He sighed. “I’m not sure. I didn’t really get all the details. We’re kind of backed up here and have a ton of other medications to oversee. I only wanted to…Jeez, man, I thought I would be giving you some good news here. I expected to tell you that it had passed early, but unfortunately….”

“I know, and I appreciate it.” Despite my disappointment, I tried to inject some positivity into my voice. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Man, I—”

I hung up before he could say anything more, barely resisting the urge to sweep everything off my desk in a violent rage. Fuck. I had gotten so close, again, and nothing. And now it looked like I would be breaking my promise once again.

Most people knew I was a workaholic, but they didn’t know the reason why I pushed everyone to their absolute limit to get Terradol ready in time. While I didn’t have many patients as a practicing oncologist, the ones I did have were deathly ill and needed the drug to give them the best fighting chance of beating the disease.

One of my patients, Gladys, was right on the cusp of metastasis, which is when the cancer cells spread and possibly became fatal. I’d gone to see her a few days ago, and her disease was progressing rapidly. While I tried not to get too personally attached to my patients, it was difficult with Gladys. She was a sweet old lady who had been the breadwinner for her family her whole life and was very beloved in her neighborhood. She had already made her peace with dying, but I had assured her that a cure was in the works. I told her I would get her approved for the Stage I trials, set to begin any moment now.

I should have already learned about over-promising. Because now it seemed that whatever the case, the drug would not be approved in time, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Instead of raging, I got up and decided to be productive instead. I began pacing, running the equations all over again in my mind. Where the fuck had we gotten it wrong? The animal trials had been very promising, with only very mild side effects observed. So what was the problem?

I had to figure it out.

I had to go back to the drawing board and figure out where the failure had come in.

I was so fucking sick of failing.

* * *

“There’s a problem.”

Leila’s voice was as grave as her expression as she stood in the doorway.

As my senior lab tech, Leila was the epitome of efficiency, and as such, I rarely ever saw her during work hours. Both of us preferred it that way. She ran the place like a smooth ship and never had to come in to report much to me, except for Fridays when she gave me a general rundown of the week.

Her presence, more than her words, told me that something was very wrong, and her expression spoke to the direness of the situation. The irritation that I kept at bay the whole day spiked with a vengeance. I didn’t have time for this today. The earlier news already put me in an exceptionally bad mood. This was undoubtedly going to make it even worse.

“Who did it?” I asked.

“Sir?”

“Who fucked up?”

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