He scoffs and moves around the room. “You don’t know what love is!”
“Don’t,” I beg. “Please don’t.”
Don’t leave.
Don’t say that.
Don’t give up on me.
“Fuck this. You want to screw your life up, fine.” Westin jerks the drawer open and removes his things. My chest is aching with each item he removes. “I’m not going to let you take me down with you. I tried for years and I thought you were changing.”
“What are you doing? You’re leaving?” I start to panic. “Please, believe me, I didn’t do anything like that. He just lost his wife and he’s alone.”
“You’re fucking your dead patient’s husband!” he screams at me.
He has it all wrong.
“I never slept with anyone! Stop!” I grab the shirt from his hand to stop him, but he rips it from my grasp. “Westin!”
“No, I can’t believe you. I came here thinking there had to be a mistake because the Serenity I’m in love with wouldn’t do something so fucking stupid, she wouldn’t, but then it was all there, right in my face, but I wouldn’t believe it.”
My head is spinning, trying to figure out what led him to assume I slept with anyone. “You’re not making sense!”
“Look at the fucking file.” He rolls his eyes.
I move over there, and it clicks. Allison Brown’s file sits on my bed. He put the pieces together, but they’re the wrong ones if he’s concluded that I cheated on him. I did something worse.
“I didn’t sleep with anyone.” I move in front of him. “Stop, damn it!” He tries to shift around me, but I can’t lose him too. I can’t handle it. I need him. “Please, just talk to me, please let me explain!”
“Explain?” he rages. “Explain what? That you have some kind of relationship with your patient’s husband! The same patient that died in your surgery? Not to mention, whatever the hell you did to the medications. I haven’t figured that part out, but I will. You know . . .” His jaw is tight and hands shake. “I thought something was up, but I was trusting. Then, when he called you Ren, I knew it. The way he looked at you, the way you were so broken. Was I just some game to you?”
I stand in front of him, his hot breath blows on my face, and I start to cry again. How many more tears do I have inside of me? “No! God, no.”
“You used me to cover up whatever it was that was happening, didn’t you?”
“Westin, please,” I sob. “Stop. It’s not like that. I dated Bryce when I was in college, but I haven’t done anything inappropriate with him. I hadn’t even seen him until he showed up at the hospital with his wife.”
“Do you know how much I wish that were true?” There is defeat laced in each word. “But coupled with the damning evidence that is in that file, I don’t believe a word that you’re saying.”
Even if that’s the case, I’m not stopping now. If he wants to crucify me then it’s going to be for the real crime. I never betrayed him. I’ll lose him tonight, but at least he’ll know it all and if he walks away, I won’t blame him.
“There was nothing between him and me. Yes, I was in love with him for a long time. His wife was selected for my trial, and I tried to walk away. I knew that it was a mistake to treat her, but he begged me to help her. So, against my better judgment, I decided to keep her on,” I sniff and wipe my tears. “If I hadn’t, the trial would’ve been stopped because I lost that first patient.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want to hear any more of this.”
I push against his chest, my heart racing, desperate to get the rest out. “Bryce figured out that Allison was given the placebo. He saw it in my eyes or something. The day you saw us outside the bar, he confronted me, begged me to change the medication, but I said no. I wouldn’t do it because of everything it would mean.” Westin looks down at me with disappointment, but I continue on. “Did you see the letter in her file?” I ask.
“The one stating her wishes about treatment?”
I nod. Good, maybe now he’ll grasp the gravity of what I was facing. “Yes. That night, I got the call that Mrs. Whitley was dying and I lost her. I was out of my mind, I know this, Wes. I know I was wrong and stupid and everything else, but after that, I saw Allison. She was happy, in love, smiling, and I knew I had to give her the best medical care possible. I knew that her having the placebo wasn’t giving her that care. She was going to die if I didn’t . . . she would let herself die just for a chance at the life she was desperate for. When I looked at them, at Allison and her husband, I saw my father and mother cuddled up on that bed, and I snapped.”
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 to die! 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.