Annoyed, the woman stood up and came over to hold the note up to her face. “Aisha, wait for me,” Caleb had written. “I’ll be right back.”
All of a sudden, the woman’s hand struck out and slapped Aisha across the face. “You bitch!” she yelled, her voice filled with fury. “How dare you pretend to be dead?!? There is a fucking grave for you. You’re sick! You are so...” She brought out another hand to hit her, but Aisha caught the hand this time, her gaze burning with hatred.
The woman cried out, screaming curses at Aisha. Aisha could barely contain her rage as she spoke, “You dare to lay your hand on me?” she spat. “After all that you have done? You’re the one who’s sick. You let your father frame me for a mistake that you committed, for a patient that you killed, and then sent me out into the middle of nowhere to die.”
“Lies,” she spat. “Lies!”
Aisha gazed at her with such contempt that her hands began to shake. “I would have returned,” she said. “And for a long time, I was tempted to, just to kill you with my own hands. How could you ruin my life that way? All to save your own? Is your life more valuable than mine because you have a powerful father? I am someone’s daughter also!” she yelled.
The woman chuckled in dark humor. “You deserved it,” she said. “And to think that I felt pity for you when I heard that you had died.”
Swallowing her anger, Aisha started to turn away but just then the door opened and in came Caleb. She brushed her hair from her face as he took note of her disheveled appearance and reddening cheeks.
“Caleb,” Kate cried behind her. “She is really Aisha, and yet you lied to my face. Do not believe anything she has said to you. Never have I met such a contemptuous liar.”
Caleb gazed at both of them, and then sat down on the sofa by his door.
“You’re not just going to let her go are you?” Caleb asked, and Aisha’s eyes widened.
“Have at her,” Caleb said. “You have five minutes before I have to get ready for surgery.”
“What? Are you out of your mind?” Kate asked, amused.
“Do you need me to help you?” Caleb said and Aisha shook her head. “I’m good.”
She turned towards Kate who took a step back in disbelief. “You can’t be serious,” she said, but Aisha continued to approach her. She took off her shoe and flung it at Kate. It hit her on the forehead with a blinding flash, as the woman turned away from her with a scream. Aisha dragged her hair across the room, and with all the shame, and sorrow, and pain that she had suffered at her expense, hurled her to the ground. She kicked and hit her with her legs and hands until the cream suit Kate had on had turned into a mess of blood and dirt.
Aisha straightened when she had had enough, and stormed away from the office.
Chapter 23
Caleb gazed at the beaten woman on his office floor.
He knew that it would take a while for a belief to set in at what had just happened, so he watched as she picked herself up, silent sobs ringing across the room.
She eventually lifted her face to meet his, her neck high in the air. She shook her head slowly, the tears rolling from her eyes as she stared at him, unable to even speak.
“I can’t... Caleb, I will not let this go,” she said. “I will not let either of you go. All my life I have looked up to you and loved you. I can’t believ...”
Caleb rose to his feet, his hands in his pockets. “You’ve been a little sister to me,” he said. “And your father, a guardian. So for me to find out that you did this to the woman you knew I was in love with... I don’t understand how you want me to forgive you.”
“What evidence do you have?” she yelled. “You’re basing your entire judgment on mere suspicion and what that bitch has said. What if she’s lying to you?”
“She has no reason to lie to me.”
“You are insane!”
He turned around to leave, but then he stopped himself. “Why her?” he asked. “Did your father ask you to pick anyone that would cover up your malpractice, or did he specifically ask for her?”
She didn’t respond, so Caleb smiled bitterly. “I’ll find out everything,” he said. “So you can keep it all to yourself… for now.”
She chuckled in response. “If that’s what you’re going to try to do, then you might as well give up right now. There’s nothing to find, as far as my father remains the director of Doldam.”
“You still have the audacity to gloat,” he said. “If I didn’t still consider you as a family, this matter would long be under investigation. Inform your father that his surgery is in three days,” he said. “Consider it my last act of gratitude for all the care I have received thus far. After that, I hope to never see any of you again.”
With that, he turned around and stormed out of the office.
After his surgery, he brought Aisha a cup of hot chocolate and placed it on the table beside where she sat.
She was watching over the toddler that she had treated, an open book on her lap.
“Where are his parents?” Caleb asked.
“They just left for the night,” she replied. “They’ll be back at dawn.”
Caleb pulled up a chair and sat by her. “What about you? Aren’t you going to bed?”
She turned to gaze at him. “I’ll go with you,” she said and Caleb felt his heart come alive. He fought a smile and it earned him a tease.
“I wonder how people can see you as cold,” she said, as she twirled a lock of his hair around her fingers. “You’re the warmest person I know.” She lowered her hand to softly brush his cheek, while he picked up the drink and urged it to her lips. A little bit of foam stained the corner of her mouth so he leaned forward to kiss it away. As he did, the door suddenly opened and in reflex, Aisha straightened and leaned away from him, the liquid spilling upon his thigh.
“Oh my God,” she cried and put the cup down. “I’m so sorry, oh my God. Are you alright?”
She retrieved a napkin from the tray and began to wipe away at the warm stain on his scrubs, while Caleb turned around to see the nurses watching them with blinding interest.
“There’s really no need to cause him such pain anymore,” Kevin, the male nurse, said. “The whole hospital already suspects something between you two. Do you need a first aid kit?” he asked Caleb.
“I’ll get you one!” Aisha said and began to run off, but Caleb held unto her hand and pulled her back to her seat. “Get it,” he said to the nurse and then tucked Aisha’s hair behind her ears.
“Your eyes are dancing Caleb,” Head Nurse observed. “I never thought you were capable of such.”
“It’s not that much a feat when you’re looking at the love of your life,” he said, and Nurse Kang burst out in laughter. Aisha gave him a sour look and hit his shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized to the nurse. “He’s not usually this nauseating.”
“I know,” the nurse said.
"Do you really need that kit she asked?” and Caleb looked at the wet patch on his scrub.”
“I don’t. It wasn’t that hot.”
“Alright then, I’ll leave you two alone,” the Head Nurse smirked.
“Thank you,” Caleb said to her, and turned to Aisha’s embarrassed gaze.
“When did you get so shy?” he asked.
“I’ve always been shy. Do you not remember our first date?”
He recalled it and burst out laughing. She held her hand to his mouth to keep him from waking up the child.
“I couldn’t look you in the face,” she said. “So the moment you left me to get the car door...”
He couldn’t stop himself, “You ran into a pole!”
Aisha sighed at the painful memory. “I laid on the ground and asked myself what was the point in ever getting up, what was the point in continuing to live after such an embarrassment. If you hadn’t lifted me into your arms, I would have remained there.”
“Death by shame,�
� Caleb mocked. “You were so adorable.”
“I’ve never asked you this but why did you ask me out? Up until then, we had barely spoken, and every time I saw you and had to pass on an instruction, I was a mumbling fool.”
“That was why I first noticed you,” he said. “I’d seen you around the hospital for a while, but not until you had to speak to me and sounded like a mumbling fool did I truly become curious about you.”
Aisha covered her face with her hands.
“Then one day,” he continued, “the chief of your department chided you over using the ECMO machine on a dying patient without permission, and you had spoken back to him with such conviction. “He was dying. I know that I am not authorized to perform that procedure but he was dying. I am very sorry but I did the right thing. And if I have to be punished for that then so be it.”
“I couldn’t take my eyes off you from that day onwards.”
“Really?” she gaped at him in surprise. “I didn’t know that. But that was months before you asked me to dinner.”
“I’m pretty slow, so it took one other instance for me to make up my mind. Do you remember Chief James’s wedding?”
“Of course I do, it rained so terribly that day.”
“It did,” he said. “But while everyone was scrambling out of the reception, and looking for shade, you just stood there and kept dancing, until everyone came back out to join you, including the bride.”
“That was quite stupid,” she said. “A lot of people fell ill with a cold the next day. I felt so guilty.”
“It was the most pure-hearted, and beautiful thing that I had ever witnessed. Sometimes in life, we get so caught up with everything else, that we see even something as cleansing as rain a hassle, whereas it is a blessing. You forgot about your dress, and your makeup, took off your shoes and began to dance in the rain. Only children are pure enough to do that, and even though you’re far from a child, you do have the heart of one. That’s when I knew you’d be a great doctor, perhaps even greater than I had ever dreamt of being.”
Aisha scoffed. “You obviously didn’t know what a living legend you were perceived as.”
“All that was just talk.”
“Of course,” she said sarcastically, and he planted a kiss on her cheek. She blushed.
“That was also the day that I made the decision to trust you with my heart. Two weeks later, I asked you on our first date, and you bumped into a pole.”
“Stop it!” she hit his shoulder once more and he drew her into his arms. “What did you think of me when you got home?”
“I laughed until the next morning,” he said. “I kid you not. I’d be reading and then I’d burst out laughing; I’d be making a cup of coffee, and burst out laughing, even in the shower. The next morning when I saw you...”
“I ran away.”
“You ran away… but I watched you run and my heart began to pound within my chest. I’d never felt that way before, except when I was with my mother. It was as warm as love, but it was also something else. I felt safe, protected in a way as though you were… home. You were my home, and I swore that I would never let you go.”
“Wow”, she said. “While all this was going on, I was hitting my already bruised forehead against a door for embarrassing myself into eternity. I thought you’d never call me again.”
“But I did.”
“You did,” she said. “I thought you were insane.”
Silence.
“Maybe it would have been for the best… if you hadn’t called,” she said quietly.
He turned to her and she met his eyes. “Don’t you ever say that,” he said. “You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I am so sorry, but I don’t think so. I’ve brought you so much pain.”
“And joy,” he said. “Never forget that. Moreover, you have a lifetime to make up for it all.”
“Do I?” she sobbed and he pulled her into his arms.
“I’ll make sure of it,” he said. “I swear to you.”
Aisha smiled and for a while, there was silence between them.
“What happened after you left the hospital?” Caleb finally asked.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and sighed heavily. “I was told that the director wanted to see me in his home, in out of state. Up till then, I had been trying to get my case heard, but no one would listen to me. They accused me of killing a patient, when I had never even met the patient, and no one would back me up. My name appeared in all the records, and I was so confused.
I was going to be thrown out of the hospital, my license taken away from me, and I had no idea what I had done wrong. So when I got the message, I instantly drove out to present my case to him. However, as I was going, I came to that bend by Highway 96 and realized that my car had run out of gas. It surprised me because I had filled it the previous day. My car stopped, and I was about to get out, but suddenly there was this collision behind me and I screamed in fright as my car was flung away from the road. The car tumbled and tumbled down the hill, and eventually crashed into a boulder.”
“I was close to the unconscious and couldn’t even believe I was still breathing. But then I somehow managed to drag myself out of the car and under a bush. It was there that I heard them. I heard footsteps through the woods as a couple of men seemed to be searching for me. I wanted to scream out for help, but then I could barely open my mouth.
‘Is she dead?’ I heard one of them ask.
‘She has to be, there is no way she would have survived that crash. Let’s find her body to confirm.’
They searched for a while but when they couldn’t find me, they decided to leave.
‘Let’s burn the car,’ they said. ‘We’ll find another body from the hospital to replace hers with, and explain it all to the director. We can come back tomorrow to search again. Hopefully, the cops won’t be swarming around here like flies by then.’
I fell asleep to that…” Aisha recalled, “and then someone found me. It was an older couple that lived just a few miles away. They brought me home and treated my wounds, but then it was too late to come back.”
“Why didn’t you ever talk to me when all this was happening? We were in the same goddamn hospital! I had to piece it all together after the news came that you had died. For Pete’s sake, we got engaged that afternoon.”
“I know,” she said, “and I am so sorry. I was just so terrified, that if I spoke up… that if I tried to solve the issue that I would end up dragging you down also. I didn’t want you to end up dead, and there was no way that the director would ever allow me to live or work as a doctor anywhere again.”
“So you decided to run.”
“It was best for everybody.”
“Everybody except the both of us.”
Her gaze was filled with remorse, and his with the scars of a broken heart. “You’re such a fool,” he told her.
She leaned forward and kissed him deeply. He then pulled her into his arms for a crushing hug.
When he released her, she ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing it away from his face. “Why did you move here?” she asked.
He sighed. “I couldn’t remain there any longer. After the initial shock had passed, I began to ask around about what had happened. Although I couldn’t find much, I heard enough to piece two and two together, and suddenly I hated that place.”
“You could have gone to a different hospital, why come here?”
“A different hospital wouldn’t have you in it,” he said. “Losing you forced me to reevaluate everything in my life, and I truly asked myself what I was living for…
I couldn’t come up with an answer that consoled me, so I left and bought the Lakehouse. About joining the hospital, I was in town one day when someone collapsed from a stroke. I treated him there, and then joined the ambulance to rush him over here, but when I arrived there was no doctor to operate on him. So the directo
r convinced me to jump into the OR, and since then he’s refused to let me leave.”
“You didn’t want to leave. Don’t blame it on our kind director.”
“Perhaps,” he smiled. “In here… things are different. There is no unnecessary bureaucracy or politics, and the people here do exactly what we were trained all those years to do. To save lives. As simple and as complicated as it is.
I’ve had to learn to be… more, here. My specialty is General Surgery, but here, I have to be much more than that. I have to be a general surgeon, a cardiovascular specialist, and even a thoracic expert. It wasn’t easy at first, but I was so overwhelmed with grief that there was nothing else I could do.”
Bad Boys Rule Page 22
