A tear falls down her cheek and my heart breaks for her. “I really hoped . . .”
“I know. I did, too.”
Of all the patients I met today, Lindsay was one I most wished I could help. She’s young, and I thought her case would show the most promise. Most of my patients are in their late thirties to early forties, married, and some already have kids, but Lindsay doesn’t. This could’ve possibly given her the life she envisioned.
Lindsay doesn’t look back at me. She stares out the window with tears streaming down her face. I pat her arm once, and quietly leave.
Feeling helpless sucks.
I walk to the nurses’ station and fight back my own wave of emotions. Today has drained me in so many ways, but seeing the pain and devastation in Lindsay’s eyes was the icing on the cake. How can this job be so rewarding and utterly heartbreaking at the same time? When it’s good, it’s great, but when you have to deal with the ugly parts . . . it’s too much.
“Schedule Lindsay Dunphy for exploratory and possible hysterectomy surgery tomorrow morning at eight, please,” I tell the surgical nurse on the desk. “Ensure the reproductive team is available as well. Also, she is to be removed from the trial.”
My phone dings with a text.
Westin: Are we still doing dinner?
Shit. I look at the time and hunger hits me in the face. I didn’t even realize it was past eight and I haven’t eaten a thing all day. The last thing I want to do is see Westin tonight. I haven’t even considered what it will be like seeing him. I’ve never lied to him, and it’s not something I’m looking forward to doing now if he asks about my patients. I’m not ready to talk to him about what all of this means.
Coming face to face with Bryce has brought up everything from my past and I worry that I can’t do this. On the other hand, how the hell do I cancel on Westin after dinner . . . and whatever more came with it . . . was my idea?
My life is a shit show.
Westin put his neck on the line for me and I owe him this much. I’ll have to find a way to put my crap aside.
Me: I’m leaving in a few. Your place?
Westin: I have a pizza waiting.
Me: Great. I’m starving and today has been stressful.
I’m hoping he reads the warning and will understand if I’m not myself.
In so many ways, today has been awful. But it’s not over yet. I have one more blow of bad news to deliver. Putting Allison off is wrong, and I need to deal with it now. My chest tightens because this isn’t medically necessary, but it’s mentally and—at least in my head—ethically required. Treating her, lying to her, and knowing that I might not be able to be objective, is never going to work.
There’s no easy way to do this. I’m going to have to look her in the eye and tell her that I can’t treat her, and let her husband explain why.
I put Lindsay’s file down and start to walk toward Allison’s room with heavy feet. Dread fills me with each step I take and I wonder if I can really take her out of the trial. Can I walk in there and admit that I’m too weak to do the right thing and tell her the truth about my relationship with her husband? Will she understand that what she asked of me is impossible now? I know in the pit of my soul that this is the right thing, but then why does it feel wrong? I stop walking, press my back against the wall, and breathe.
Damn it. Pull it together, Serenity. You have to do this. You don’t have a choice, because you know this will ruin everything you’ve built. It’s a conflict that will keep you weak and unable to give her the care she needs.
I’m weak when it comes to him, though.
I always have been.
I always will be.
There is a line and I can’t cross it. I made the choice years ago to let him go, and I have to do it again.
Pushing myself off the wall with the determination to get this over with, I gather all my strength to say the words. When I turn the corner, I come face to face with Bryce, and all my plans disappear.
I gasp with my hand over my pounding heart. The years and distance have done nothing to stop the ache that seeing him causes. Having him here right now has brought that to the forefront. Looking into his blue eyes stirs things inside me I never thought I’d feel again.
My life has been steady since I left Duke University. I had to make a choice that day, and I chose to come home to my mother and attend med school close to home. When I did that, it was the end of my love story with Bryce.
Sure, we tried for a few months, but absence didn’t make our hearts grow fonder. I closed the book on us and when I needed him most, he wasn’t around.
Now here we stand, with the pages flipped back, and I’m reliving it all over again.
“Bryce,” I breathe his name and try to get control of my pulse.
“Chick,” his deep voice practically croons my name.
That name. No one has called me Chick since him. No one even knows about the stupid name. Hearing his voice caress over the nickname, my chest is tight and I want to scream.
Instead, I go to what matters . . . getting answers. “What are you doing here?”
“Allison . . .” he pauses.
“I don’t mean the hospital, I mean standing here, now,” I clarify. “I figured you’d be with your wife.”
I’m trembling inside, but using every ounce of control to keep my outward appearance together. How can I look at this man after fourteen years and still want to cry? How can he bring me to my knees with a single look? It shouldn’t be this way. I’m a goddamn doctor who has faced incredible odds with grace and poise, but Bryce Peyton is the lynchpin that could destroy everything.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I came looking for you.”
“Why?”
He rubs the back of his head and looks away. “Why do you think, Serenity? It’s been damn near fifteen years, and now I see you again out of nowhere? I thought maybe we should talk before all of this goes sideways.”
No, I’ve been here since the day I left, it’s him who showed up out of nowhere. Which makes no sense. Why would he ever think this was a good idea?
“Sideways, you mean like lying that we don’t know each other?”
Bryce looks up and releases a heavy sigh. “I didn’t know what to say.”
I huff. “So your first instinct was to lie?”
“It’s not like I thought I would ever see you as her doctor. So, yeah, I lied.”
Well, that’s a great way to function in a marriage. Not that what Allison is doing is any better. Still, it doesn’t even make sense, this web of lies. Why not just tell her and then we could all make sense of it? She’d never want me to treat her and I wouldn’t have to.
“How could you not know it would be me as her doctor? You’re at my hospital, in my trial, you had to put two and two together. I don’t know any other Serenity Adams, do you?”
He rocks on his heels. “I never knew the doctor’s name when she mentioned this trial. Allison has seen countless doctors and tells me about every trial under the sun. There are so many details involved in these things, and the doctors’ names usually aren’t pertinent. I learned to let her lead with this and don’t ask questions. When she told me she was accepted into this one, I came with her without hesitation.”