“Damn it.” He took a step back and reached his arm up to rub his eyes against his sleeve. He was exhausted, emotionally wrecked. Pretty soon, he’d start seeing things, too. “You had me going there for a second.”
Feeling more defeated than ever, he left the room and went to order labs for Mrs. Bronson. Maybe Chakrabarti was right. Wishful thinking in any form was just setting yourself up for failure. Or insanity. Maybe both.
At the end of shift, Sam found himself sitting in the locker room, too tired to change. He must’ve looked like hell, because Brady came in quietly and sat down next to him, instead of engaging in his usual banter. After a few seconds of miraculous, unprecedented silence, he reached over and patted Sam awkwardly on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Buddy. It’ll all work out.”
Sam couldn’t help but laugh darkly to himself.
“Hey Brady, if I tell you something, will you promise not to repeat it?”
“Of course, buddy. What else are friends for, right?”
“Viola Bellerose?” Sam exhaled sharply. “I think I’m the reason she didn’t wake up. In fact, I’m almost sure of it.”
Brady leaned back slightly, raising his eyebrows. “Okay, not expecting that.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
Suddenly, Brady stood up and did a quick lap of the locker room, probably to make sure that no one else could overhear them. When he was satisfied they were alone, he plunked down, straddling the bench facing Sam. He’d never looked so serious.
“Explain yourself.”
Sam did the best he could, recalling all the details he could remember from that night. How distracted he’d felt, what he’d done, and all the steps he could remember taking. At the end, he made his final confession.
“I think I’m going to tell Dr. Chakrabarti the truth.”
“What truth?” Brady scoffed. “That you’re paranoid and delusional?”
“No. That I messed up when I did the initial assessment.” The moment Sam said it out loud, he realized it was the right thing to do. “If I tell him, he can go back over Viola’s records with a fine-toothed comb. Maybe he’ll see what I missed.”
“Sam.” Brady was shaking his head back and forth frantically, like a bobble head. “You can’t do that. Not only does it prove Chakrabarti right—that you’re totally emotionally involved in this patient’s case—but also, seriously? Don’t you think Chakrabarti double checks every little thing we do? Especially on a high-profile VIP case like this one? If you’d made even the tiniest mistake, don’t you think he would’ve caught it? The guy’s basically a robot. Nothing escapes his notice.”
“Still, I,” Sam started to protest, but Brady barreled right over him.
“Remember the time I went commando under my scrubs, because it was laundry day? Yeah. Chakrabarti noticed. And you better believe I got written up immediately for that shit. I’m telling, you man. You did not fuck up on the Bellerose case. You’re just psyching yourself out, because you never do anything but work, and also because I think you kind of have a weird Florence Nightingale thing going on with this girl. Not that I blame you, because she is kind of hot. In a really still, really unconscious sort of way.” He held up his hands, scooting backward on the bench, probably in case Sam decided to take a swing at him. “But hey, I’m not judging. Maybe you’re into that.”
Sam was starting to wonder if, against all previous evidence, Brady might be right—regardless of whether or not he was also disgusting, and kind of a douche bag most of the time. Viola was just his patient. Sam wasn’t her guardian angel, or her boyfriend, or even really her friend. He was just her doctor. Anything else would be totally one-sided and bordering on creepy. For crying out loud, he’d only spoken to her for a few seconds in a darkened bar.
Then again, a tiny voice whispered, there was that kiss. The one you keep trying to convince yourself never really happened. Wishful thinking. Aftermath delusion.
There was no such thing as love at first sight. Or fate. Or miracles. He should know that better than most.
Sam grimaced at Brady. It was the closest thing he could muster to a smile.
“If someone ever hears you joke about that, and I go to jail, I’m taking you down with me. And you’d better believe the first thing I do will be to pimp you out to the biggest, meanest bruiser in the place.”
“Bitch, please,” Brady pursed his lips like a duck. “You know I’ll be the belle of the cell block with my creamy smooth skin and my tight little ass.”
In spite of himself, Sam laughed. “Jesus, Brady. Is there anything you’re above bragging about?”
“Only the size of my Johnson,” he said, standing up. “But that’s only ‘cause I don’t have to. Come on.”
“How do you get so many girls to go home with you?” Sam asked, genuinely mystified. “You’re basically a primate.”
“Uh, huh-yeah. In the sack.” He punched Sam in the shoulder. “Let’s go get you showered up and set you loose on the town. It’s time for you to rejoin the world of the living, my friend. The healthy, nubile, female…scantily clad living. First round’s on me!”
Letting himself feel bolstered—at least temporarily—by the idea that he might simply be overreacting and over thinking things, yet again, Sam stood and followed his friend out into the world of the living. Into reality.
CHAPTER NINE
“Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.” –Sigmund Freud
He’s right behind me.
I can hear his breathing, heavy and guttural as he leaps over obstacles like they’re nothing. He gains. No matter how hard I run, always he gains. Taunting me with his proximity. I can’t see his face, but I know what he wants.
He wants me.
Dead, or alive. Both. It doesn’t matter. Because sooner or later, he’s going to catch me, and I’ll be helpless, powerless against him.
My legs are badly oiled pistons, pumping underneath me far too slowly for the momentum I need to outdistance my pursuer. It feels like he’s been after me forever, only I didn’t see him, didn’t start running from him until it was too late. Until he already had me in his sights.
The things he has planned for me are unthinkable. Despicable.
I want to give up, so badly. I want to cry and scream and beg for mercy, but that would mean I would have to stop. I would have to turn, and face him. The thought of doing that is unimaginable.
In this endless moment of panic, there’s no time for foresight, or planning. There’s no time to analyze my instincts. There’s only the motion of my legs, and the next stretch of ground that lies directly ahead.
The ground ends. A precipice. I can’t slow down. I’d rather fall than stop.
I leap into the air, flailing with my arms. I pretend they’re wings. I can fly, I think. If only I try hard enough, believe hard enough. I flap my wings so hard, every muscle in my body starts to burn.
I begin to rise. Slowly, agonizingly slowly. My momentum stops a few meters from the ground. But I’m not going anywhere, just floating, hovering in the air. I glance behind me, and he’s still coming. I work harder, fly faster. But I can’t rise any higher than the treetops. My toes skim them as I pass overhead. Slowly, with great difficulty, I move forward. Away from him.
It’s come back to a race, but now I’m at a slightly higher level. If I stop to rest, bobbing up and down in the air, he’ll grab hold of my ankles and pull me down to him. So I continue to flap, wanting to scream from the force of my exertion.
“Help me,” I sob, looking at the dark red horizon, as black thunder clouds roll into view. “Someone, please help me.”
Thunder. It’s faint, like a door slamming in another room of the house. But the shockwave hits me like the backlash of an explosion. My body is tossed from the sky like a rag doll from the fist of a petulant child.
I land in the meadow. The one with the purple flowers.
There’s a heavy rolling sound, and I lie on my back, staring up at the sky,
waiting for the bird corpses to start hitting the ground around me. But the sky is wrong. The color is wrong. There are no weeping willows off in the distance.
Something has changed, and not for the better.
A bright bolt of yellow lightening hits the ground, inches from me. I sit up with a start, gasping for breath, and the scent of scorched air burns my lungs.
Or is it something else? Trees, I think. Burning trees. Cedar. Cigars. I know that smell.
Another bolt of lightning hits the trees off in the distance. Sycamores, now burning.
Suddenly, I know where I am. I’m asleep. None of this is real. Or is it?
I close my eyes, blocking out the confusing landscape around me. Instead, I focus everything I have on the familiar smell, on the faint sound of someone breathing. He’s found me. But that isn’t right, is it? He never left me. He’s always been there, watching quietly. Waiting for this chance.
My eyes feel so heavy. They won’t obey my command to open. I try to sit up, try to move my arms and legs or open my mouth and scream for help. But I can’t. I’m paralyzed, helpless.
Someone is in my room.
I try to calm my racing heart, try to breathe more silently so I can mark where he is. He circles me, breathing loudly. In the sudden stillness, it sounds like dry leaves rustling in the wind. There’s a dragging sound, then a heavy thud. I can feel heat on my face as he leans closer. The smell grows stronger. Nauseating. Unbearable.
Cigars, burned cedar. Something sour and stale. I know that smell.
There’s not much I’m sure of anymore, but one thing I know with an absolute certainty. He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die.
Fabric rubs together, and a hand touches my neck. I recoil inside my mind, but my body doesn’t flinch. I scream, but my throat smothers the sound before it begins.
The hand moves across my face, gently, like a lover’s caress. Or the cool touch of a mother’s hand to a sick child’s forehead. But it might as well be the scales of a snake sliding over my skin, for all that it comforts me.
Suddenly, something worse than death occurs to my panicked mind. No. Don’t touch me, I scream inside my head. Don’t you dare touch me.
But his hand doesn’t trail any lower. He stops at my lips. His fingers are all that I smell as he tightens his hand over my mouth and nose. The smell is stringent, like rubbing alcohol.
I can’t breathe. This isn’t a dream. I’m dying, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
The thought fills me with a burning, blinding rage.
For the first time, my body starts to move. My fingers clutch at nothing, scrabbling for purchase but too weak to take hold of anything substantial. My legs kick feebly. My lungs burn.
Please, God, don’t let me die. Not like this. Oh, God. Sam, where are you? Save me.
The smell begins to fade. The sounds, too. The whole world fades into darkness. I’m being sucked under the water all over again, drowning all over again.
My arms and legs tire and go still. The thunder crashes through me. Once, twice, three times. The echo of it pounds in my ears, and I finally recognize it for what it is: the last few beats of my heart. I can feel myself letting go, resigning myself to oblivion. But not without saying goodbye.
With my dying breath, I whisper, “Sam.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.” –Sigmund Freud
“Oh my God, I can’t believe your dad is Dr. Bel-Air!”
Sam rolled his eyes and took another swig of his beer. If he’d been counting—and he hadn’t—this probably would’ve been about the ninetieth time he’d heard that exact phrase tonight. Number one had been right after the first girl of the evening had confessed to being an actress, and Brady had oh-so-modestly replied, ‘Really? That’s cool. I was on camera a lot, growing up. My dad is on this TV show, back in LA.”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe your dad is Dr. Bel-Air! I have to call my friend Anastasia. She absolutely loves that show!”
That’s how the bar crawl had started. Brady’s new actress friend had dragged them across town to see her friend Anastasia, who was a cage dancer at some club in the Meatpacking District. Then she called one of their other friends, whose name Sam couldn’t remember, but who knew of a party in the Garment District. After Brady had pissed off the actress, he’d followed a different girl and her friends to this random bar in SOHO with a very puzzling Bluegrass meets Irish pub theme.
And thus, the New York City Saturday night mating ritual began anew.
At midnight, Sam found himself parked at the far end of the bar, nursing a steady supply of domestic beers handed to him by the sympathetic—and kind of cute—bartender, as Brady paraded a series of likely bedtime playmates in front of him, one after the other. Each time, Sam found a reason to pass. And every twenty minutes or so, the bartender would wink and give him a countdown of how many hours she had left on her shift.
“This is my colleague, Sam.” Brady headed toward him again, herding a short—very short—blonde with a hairdo that provided another three or four inches. With the glowing spray tan she was rocking, Sam thought she looked like the paler twin of that girl from Jersey Shore: Skanky, or whatever her name was.
“Oh, is he a doctor, too?”
Sam bit down on a tortured sigh. If he was being honest with himself, the bartender’s implied offer was getting more and more attractive with every vapid party girl Brady brought over. If for no other reason, it would give him a solid excuse to leave—but only to get laid, which apparently in Brady’s mind, was the only way Sam was walking out of this bar alive.
“This guy,” Brady said loudly, draping his arm around the latest candidate, “This guy is the reason I made it through med school. Dude had the highest GPA in our class. Go ahead. Ask him to calculate your blood alcohol level. He can do that shit in his head. Go ahead, it’s awesome.”
Sam smiled obediently, and asked the girl how much she weighed. As usual, the girl looked startled and mildly offended by the question. Then she blurted out a number that was more than likely about 15 pounds off. Then, Sam asked her what she’d been drinking, and how much.
“Um, I don’t know…like, three Cosmopolitans?”
Closing his eyes, Sam ran through the Widmark formula—ounces of alcohol ingested times 5.14, divided by the girl’s weight times 0.66, minus 0.015 times how many hours it had been since the girl had started drinking—to calculate the girl’s BAC, or blood alcohol content.
When he told her the number, the busty blonde looked impressed. But not ‘I want to sleep with you’ impressed. More like, ‘I want you to take the SATs for me’ impressed.
For some reason, though, this wildly geektastic party trick had been a huge hit during their med school years, and it remained one of Brady’s favorite segues into buying said girl another drink.
“Your level is obviously too low,” he said, as he ushered his latest victim to the bar. “We need to remedy that, STAT.”
Now that he thought about it, Sam heard that term most often outside of the hospital setting; usually either on TV or inside a bar. It was one of those phrases that attracted the wrong kind of attention, from all the wrong kinds of people.
“So,” he turned back to Johanna the bartender, as Brady left the blonde in Sam’s line of sight—in case he changed his mind, or got drunk enough to settle, more likely—and waded out in search of a bigger fish. “You were saying that you’re thinking of going to law school? That’s really cool. What kind of law would you practice?”
“I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully, as she polished a glass.“Maybe family law. Or mediation. I like the thought of bringing people together, you know? Instead of putting people away or tearing them apart.”
Johanna’s best quality so far was that she was nothing like Viola. She had bright red hair and way too much makeup, but seemed genuine in all the ways that really counted. It wasn’t enough, though. In the back of his mind, the thought of
his Sleeping Beauty lurked like a ghost.
“I kind of know what you mean,” Sam said. That was one of the reasons he’d chosen internal medicine as his specialty, instead of the more glamorous fields of surgery or neurology. He’d been interested in both, and his grades had been good enough, but there was something about those fields that made his palms sweaty. Too many things could go wrong at a moment’s notice. “I think being comfortable with what you do, morally speaking, is really underrated.”
“Like working in a bar, for example,” she said, with a laugh. “Thank God I’m a huge believer in the power of the holy spirits. Our Father of Captain Morgan, may he grant us an everlasting buzz and a ready excuse for bad behavior.”
Sam laughed genuinely, for what felt like the first time all night. He was really starting to like Johanna. She seemed like one of those people who felt completely comfortable in her own skin, which was something Sam had only ever aspired to.
“You must see a lot of crazy things in this job, though.”
“Oh, I’ve seen my fair share of hasty hook ups and staggering douche bags, if that’s what you mean. Matter of fact, your friend over there barely rates a five on the scale.”
As he glanced over at Brady, who was regaling a group of older women with a story, something caught his eye. For a brief second, he could’ve sworn he saw her, sitting alone at a corner table. But it was just an empty table, with an unattended wine glass.
Something prickled at the back of Sam’s neck, a deeply-rooted instinct. He rolled his shoulders, trying to get rid of the sensation. But it wouldn’t go away.
“Johanna, can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, Sam.”
“Do you believe in love at first sight? Or, I don’t know, fate?”
She raised a pierced eyebrow. “I hope that’s not a line, because if it is, I really think I’ve misjudged your sincerity.”
“No, it’s not,” he said, unable to tear his eyes away from that wine glass for some reason. “I just mean, as a bartender, you must see a lot of people meeting for the first time. Right?”
Wake for Me (Life or Death Series) Page 6
