Irrelevant to me right now. She can survive this. I know it, she just has to want it. “Allison, you need to fight,” I tell her. “You have to fight for your husband and family. Fight, dammit.”
My own heart is pounding so hard that I worry it’s going to leave my chest. I watch the monitor, thinking of any idea I haven’t tried. A rush of nerves floods me, and I watch the flat line dance across the screen.
If I don’t want her to give up, I can’t either.
“Ren, you need to call it.” Martina touches my arm, but I fling it off.
No.
“Push another round of epi. Someone page Dr. Grant and get cardio in here,” I order one of the nurses. I don’t know why she’s not responding, it could be anything. “Charge it again,” I say, desperate to get her back.
My breathing is erratic as I press the panels to her chest again. “Clear!”
Allison’s body jerks, and I close my eyes as the beep continues to echo in the room. The last shred of hope I had is gone. A tear forms as I wait for God or someone to intervene. I need a miracle.
“Dr. Adams?” Westin’s voice penetrates through the eerie silence in the room.
Our eyes meet, and then I look back to Allison.
“Push another round!” I command.
“We’ve given her the max,” the anesthesiologist says.
“I don’t care!”
How could this happen? The surgery went great, she was perfectly okay and then everything went crazy. I stand here, staring at her lifeless body, and I know people are talking around me, but I don’t hear them. Allison is dead. She’s really dead.
How?
No.
I can’t think. This isn’t real. I didn’t just kill her, right?
She was . . . she was fine.
I shake my head, trying to make this scene disappear.
“Serenity,” Westin’s voice breaks my fog. “You need to call it. She can’t have any more drugs. She’s been gone for too long now.”
“No,” I say. “No, try again!”
He grips my shoulders, stopping me from getting to her.
Westin looks over my shoulder and sighs. “Time of death. Seventeen twenty-two.”
I push the air in and out of my lungs, but they’re burning. Tears fill my eyes and I can’t see. She’s gone. That sweet, caring woman who I promised would be okay, isn’t. She died on my table while I was singing along to some pop song. My heart is beating and hers isn’t.
These are facts.
My eyes meet Westin’s and I start to panic. I can’t breathe. I open my mouth, but no sound will come out.
He pulls me from the room as I begin to break down. “Easy, easy,” he tries to calm me.
“I don’t know what happened.” I shake against his body and a sob breaks out. “I don’t understand.”
Westin’s hands cup my face and he watches me. “You have to calm down. Explain it to me.”
I go over the surgery to him, clarifying the details, and revealing how quickly everything happened. He listens without interrupting me, and nods along. There was nothing that occurred that was out of the ordinary. Each step was handled, until her heart just . . . failed. After that, no matter what I tried, nothing brought her back.
“From what you explained, it wasn’t anything you could’ve done,” he tries to comfort me, but I push back.
“I was her doctor! She was fine!”
“Serenity,” he touches my cheek, but I flinch. “She was bleeding, you stopped it, but there was something else that caused her heart to fail. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You don’t know that!” I scream at him. “It could’ve been anything. What if the medication reacted with her heart?”
Westin moves toward me, but I lift my hand to stop him. “Then that will all come to light, but you couldn’t control that. You know as well as I do that her body was already under an extreme amount of stress.”
I shake my head as he speaks. He doesn’t get it, there’s so much more to this. “None of that matters, Westin. I did this to her. I did this!”
“Stop!” Westin steps closer. “Stop it, you did your best to save her.”
That doesn’t matter. She’s dead and I have to tell him.
“Well, I guess my best just wasn’t good enough. If it was my best, then I need to rethink my life because I suck.”
I glance through the window at her still form, remembering the words she uttered as she went to sleep.
A single tear rolls down my cheek as my heart splinters into a million pieces.
She loved him, and now I have to break him—again.
Chapter 26
The walk to the waiting room feels like trying to escape quicksand. Each step I sink deeper into the abyss. Westin walks beside me, and I don’t try to stop him, even knowing that whatever Bryce might say could be the end.
I don’t even care about me anymore. Let everyone find out, and I’ll go down in flames because I fucked it all up. I destroyed everything, and I killed my patient. A healthy, wonderful woman who did nothing wrong.
Westin touches my shoulder, stopping me.
I look up at him, devoid of any emotion. I feel too much and I can’t possibly prepare for what will happen next.
“Can you do this?” he asks.
“She was my patient,” I say. “I have to be the one to tell her husband.”
“I can tell him,” Westin offers.
“No, I was her surgeon, her doctor, and he deserves to hear it from me.”
Westin shakes his head. “You can barely speak. You’re in no state to do this.”
I’m never in a good place to deliver news like this. No one wants to be the bearer of bad news, but I think of how brave Allison was. She trusted me without reservation. She knew who I was to her husband at one time, and still allowed me to be a part of her medical care. I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone stronger than her. Now I need to be strong too. I have to waltz through those doors and tell him the truth.
“Then maybe I shouldn’t have killed my patient,” I scoff.
“Fucking hell, Ren. Don’t say shit like that,” he grips my arms. “You didn’t kill her. She could’ve had a heart attack or a stroke. You fixed her bleed, you tried everything you could to save her. There is no evidence that any of this is your fault. Do not walk in that room and say something like that, you know better.”
There are no assurances when we operate, I know this, but it doesn’t make the reality any easier to handle. I know he’s worried about a lawsuit, but I’m not. I’m worried about destroying Bryce’s life.
“Can we please stop?” I ask.
Westin runs his hands down his face and nods. “Fine, I’ll be here with you the entire time.”
I’m grateful he is. Westin is holding me up because I’m crumbling, but it’s nothing compared to the break I’m about to cause.
When we get to the door, I take a deep breath, and push through. If I pause, I’ll never walk forward because there’s never a right time to tell a family you lost their loved one.
Bryce gets to his feet as soon as he sees me. I pull my cap off and move toward him. His gaze moves to Westin, back to me, and I watch the hope and happiness drain from his face.