Pulse (19 page)

Chapter 25

MIA

I stared
at her. Silent and glued to the floor. There was nothing I could say. I tried
to size up exactly what was going on; to try and place the shattered pieces
together like a water-soaked puzzle. But the gears in my head had slowed down,
freezing entirely.

Blond,
tall, visibly pregnant. She looked familiar. I knew I had seen her somewhere,
but the points weren't clicking. All I could do was blankly stare, the friction
mounting, before finally something came sputtering out my mouth.

“You're
the secretary,” I said. “From the office.”

The woman
looked at me – at first in surprise – but then, she began laughing. Not loud,
or brass-like; there was a soft, treacherous lilt to it.

She
turned to Dr. Greene, eying him sharply.

“Secretary?”
she asked. “Is that what you told her?”

He
appeared in front of the doorway, looking sick, with his face bled of any
color.

He didn't
look at me.

“How
long?” the woman asked. “How long have you been seeing each other?”

Alex
shook his head defeatedly. He seemed smaller, then – as if fear were a spell
that had made him shrink.

“This is
none of your business,” he said lowly.

“You told
me she was
nothing
,” the woman spat. “You said she was just a patient.
This isn't some girl you picked up at a fucking bar, Alex. This is a
patient
.
What the hell is wrong with you?”

I felt
like all I could do was stand there, watching the two of them. It felt unreal;
like watching two actors have it out a television screen. Two very grown adults
standing in front of a child, with hands at each other's throats.

You
told me she was nothing
.

I could
have thrown up. My heart felt wrung out; nothing but shredded tissue paper.

“I...” I
started to say, but the woman heard none of it. “I'm not sure what's going on.”

She had
turned to face Alex completely, throwing blows at him with each cutting glance.
Her fingers curled into her palms.

“I can't
believe this,” she said. “So, if this baby was yours, were just you just going
to keep fucking this girl on the side-lines? Did she even know?”

“What?” I
asked, mouth agape. “”What are you saying?”

The woman
turned to me, her lips pressed together, her body heaving.

“Cait,”
Alex said sternly. “You need to leave now.”

“Oh, fuck
you,” she said. “I'm sorry I'm a terrible human being. I'm sorry I lied to you.
But you were lying to me, too. Neither of us, up until this point, was any
better than the other.”

She
paused, moving straight past me. As she stood in the doorway, she gave me one
last glance, her expression looking like someone had slapped her straight
across the face.

“The only
difference,” she added. “Is that I might have done something shitty, but I was
going to tell you. I swear I was. But this – what you've been doing to her –
what did you think was going to happen? Who do you think you are?”

“Cait,”
he repeated again, weak and unhinged. “Please just fucking leave.”

“I should
go straight to the board and tell them. On ethical principals alone,” she said,
then turned to me. “Did he touch you?”

“Excuse
me?” I balked. I was frightened, to be honest. This woman was frightening. Like
some wicked, frost-haired Ice Queen.

“Did he
have you sex with you?” she asked. “Were you two lovers?”

I said
nothing. I didn't need to. I didn't want to. The woman just shook her head,
hanging heavily in disgust, and raised a hand.

“Wow. Wow,”
she muttered, full of disbelief. “Anyway, I'm sorry. Pregnancy hormones. My
womanly propensity towards irrational behavior. Call it what you want,” she
said. “But I am sorry. I am.”

“I don't
care what you are right now,” he said. “Get out. I'm not going to put my hands
on you. I'm not asking you, either. I'm telling you.”

“You've
officially tossed all reason away,” she muttered. “Good luck with this, Alex.
Goodbye.”

She
navigated around me as I slipped through the doorway, feeling much smaller and
younger and in over my head than I had ever contemplated was possible.

And as I
looked at him, as he looked at the floor, I felt as if I were holding all the
broken pieces of my heart, like shards of glass, in my hand.

When all
was quiet, nothing but dead silence, I finally spoke.

“What is
this?” I asked him quietly.

“Mia,” he
said, barely a whisper. “I'm so sorry.”

“That's
not an answer.”

He sat
down on the white sofa, hands clutching his knees. He still wasn't looking at
me. He didn't even seem to be inside his head; just a husk of the man I knew,
with his mind floating elsewhere.

“She's
not some secretary, is she?” I asked.

“No,” he
answered bleakly. “She's not.”

I could
have broke down right then. I could have dropped to my knees, sobbing. But I
tried to remain composed.

“Who is
she?” I asked. “And don't you dare lie to me.”

“An ex,”
he answered. “That's who she is.”

I took a
long, slow breath. Dizzy, I leaned against the foyer wall, begging myself not
to faint.

“And are
you going to be a father, Dr. Greene?”

“It's not
my baby,” he swore.

“But you
thought it was, didn't you?” I asked. “You thought it was. And you never told
me. You were keeping this from me.”

He
nodded, leaning forward as if weak. Hunched over, he looked frail and feeble.

He stayed
that way for a long, long time. Saying nothing. His hands eventually reaching
out to conceal his eyes.

When they
fell, as I still sat there, my backside aching against the polished wooden
floors, I saw that his cheeks were wet.

He let
out a shuddering sob; his breath a twisted, painful noise.

“You told
her,” as I spoke, I felt my own face begin to burn. “You told her I was
nothing
.”

“I'm so
sorry,” he said, his throat straining. “I'm so sorry, Mia.”

“You told
me that you cared about me.”

“I do,”
he choked. “I swear I do.”

“No,” I
told him. I made myself stand, my knees wobbling, and I pressed my hands
against the wall for balance. “Don't you fucking say that to me. You have no
idea what it means to care about someone.”

“I do!”
he repeated. His voice raised with a broken anguish. “I swear to God I do.”

He stood,
walking over to me, his hands recklessly clinging to my shoulders. I fought
against him, but he was stronger, and held me against his chest.

He
smelled like hospital. Like chemicals and earthy sweat and men's shampoo. He
smelled like him.

I felt
warm tears fall down my cheeks in tiny rivers.

I felt
his hands clutching me, both painful and pained. Like he was afraid to let go.

“I love
you,” he said softly. “I love you so fucking much.”

There it
was. There were the words I had been longing to hear. And here they were,
spoken on the same night where all had come to surface that Dr. Alex Greene
wasn't just a fucked-up Cardiologist who fucked his patients, who deceived
them, who kept the notion of fatherhood tucked away like a forged prescription
in his back pocket – but a very vagrantly defiant, damaged man.

“I don't
love you,” I whispered into his shirt. “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

We were
clinging to each other. I began weeping silently; fingers digging into his shirt
while he held me so tightly my bones could have splintered.

He kissed
the top of my head, sending a chill down my spine. When he pulled away, my
blood having reached boiling point, I slapped him.

“Don't,”
I said harshly. “Don't you fucking dare.”

He jerked
backwards, startled, touching a palm to his cheek. The striking noise seemed to
echo throughout the entire apartment. His face was forlorn, stained in red, his
mouth painfully twisted.

His hand
was still clutching my wrist. My right hand was still on his bicep. We were
still touching, but the wedge between us was like the drop of a guillotine's
blade.

When he
moved closer, it was in centimeters. Slow, and I could hear his heartbeat
sounding like the Death drums. Like the Telltale Heart.

He
touched my face, his thumb beneath my chin. I rose to my toes, falling against
him, my arms around his neck.

I hated
this feeling. Every second was more painful than the last. And I hated what I
was doing: drowning in his arms, in his scent, in his everything. He was a
liar, and a fraud, and a senseless, stupid, selfish fool.

But when
he kissed me, his cut lip soft and tasting of copper, I was home.

 
I struggled against him, fighting him and
fighting myself and feuding against my heart and my head. My body craved him.
My mind screamed
leave
. Run away and never look back.

“Little
fox...”

How long
had it been since I had heard those words?

His
breath was hot against my neck. Every touch of his lips to my skin made my
bones go soft. In seconds were were on the floor, tangled, our faces wet with
tears and our moans broken with shared suffering. We were as fragmented as we
had ever been; stripping ourselves of our clothes until we were just two naked
bodies clinging to something that we had already doused in propane and tossed
the lit match.

Alex slid
himself inside me, closing his eyes. He moved slowly, kissing the corner of my
mouth, the slope of my throat, my tear-stained cheeks. His hand reached up to
interlace with mine, our hearts pounding against one another, our skin drenched
in sweat and moonlight.

I dug my
fingers into his back. He groaned against my neck. We were both panting,
loathsome; craving some kind of catharsis to release us from the pleasure, from
the pain.

He came
inside me, deep and swollen. I tightened around him, sighing softly, tilting my
head back. My eyes were on the window, on the towering buildings. Everything
was slashed with shadowy nightfall.

This was
a mistake.

Letting
him have my body was mistake.

Letting
my hands touch him was a mistake.

Alex
stroked my face, looking at me, absorbing the way my mouth parted, trying to
catch my breath. Trying to sift through what exactly had just happened.

And the
orgasm, still slowly flooding over me, hadn't helped. The pain was still there.
Each throb of my heartbeat was like a razor digging deeper and deeper into
calloused skin.

“I love
you,” he whispered.

“Don't,”
I repeated.

He looked
at if I had just slapped him again. But he didn't move, he didn't slide out of
me. He stayed, hovering over me, studying the writing inked across my face in
red-blotched teary streams.

“I love
you, Mia Holloway,” he said. “Why won't you let me?”

I pressed
my hands against his chest; he slid out of me, rolling over onto his back.

“You
don't even know what you're saying,” I told him. “I'm sorry, Alex. I shouldn't
have let this happen. I should have left along with your ex.”

“Why?” he
demanded. His tone changed; like a fourteen-year-old who had just suffered his
first break up. Spurned, sullen. “Why won't you let me?”

“Because
you don't know what those words mean. And neither do I,” I told him. “Because
you were my doctor, and I was your patient, and this was a mistake of massive
proportions.”

Suddenly
aware of my naked frame, I pulled on my shirt, my underwear. He slid back into
his boxers.

“You
don't mean that,” he said.

“I do,” I
said, swallowing another stone that was starting to form in my throat. Forcing
myself to not start sobbing again. “You're too old, Dr. Greene.”

“Mia.”

“You're
too old,” I repeated. “And I'm too young for you. For Christ's sake, you're
over a decade older than me. I'm like a kid compared to you. What do you even
see in me?
 
You need to find someone
else.”

He sat
there, looking blankly at me, gobsmacked.

“But I
don't want anyone else,” he said softly.

“Well, I
don't want you.”

I didn't
believe a word that I was spilling. Not a single word. And I knew that he knew
it, too. He knew I was lying, and I knew that he was hoping that any moment I
would stop, and run into his arms, and tell him that I forgave him and that all
I wanted was to live with him, and die with him, and all the poetic, Nabokovian
prose with him.

But I
said nothing else. I grabbed my sweater, my bag, and I left him there, folded
like a child in a cold puddle.

Aimee was
sitting in her car, half-asleep, the AC rattling. When I slunk inside and shut
the door, she straightened up.

“What
happened?” she asked. Her face was full of words I didn't need to say.

“I'm so
stupid,” I whispered. “You were right. I'm such an idiot.”

I curled
up, head against the window, wanting nothing more than to disappear. Wanting
nothing more than to forget him. If there was some kind of drug, some kind of
memory eraser, I would have taken it in a single dram. No hesitation.

“You're
not,” Aimee said gently. “You just saw something, a spark of something, and you
fell into it. That's all. That's all it ever is.”

Chapter 26

ALEX

In the
wake of the proverbial crash, the following week was a mix of whiskey and
late-night talk shows and little sleep. The sound of the alarm at six o'clock,
sharp. The sound of pen against paper, the wheels of gurneys against the
sun-speckled floors, the chatter of doctors and nurses and families in crowded
hallways.

But I
barely felt as if I were a part of it at all. Inside, I was drifting; exhausted,
depressed, and completely drowning.

As a
doctor, though, you can't let others see this. You have a part to play.

Standing
in the hallway, flipping through one of my assigned files, Grace approached me
with a look of concern.

“I
heard,” she said. “About Cait. I'm so sorry, Dr. Greene.”

I nodded.
She slid a second file into my arms, and I glanced at her.

“What is
this?” I asked.

“Do you
remember Mr. Moulton?” she asked. “Mid-seventies. Congenial heart failure.”

“With a
refusal to listen to any of the dietary advice I gave him,” I muttered, opening
the file. “And roughly eighty pounds of extra weight that he needed to lose.
Yes, I remember.”

I skimmed
through the ink. He was back. Cardiac arrest. And now, his heart was giving
out. Pumping blood in little spurts.

“What do
we do?” she asked, hushed.

“He's
stable,” I said. “But the EKG indicates that his heart is weak. Has he been
given a shot of Epinephrine yet?”

She shook
her head. My eyes widened.

“I'm
sorry,” she sputtered. “I just – I wanted a consult, first. I didn't dare do it
without your consent. I spoke to Dr. Weisman, but I'd rather hear it from you.”

“It's
adrenaline,” I told her. “We aren't giving him horse tranquilizers, Grace. This
is standard protocol.”

Grace
wrung her hand nervously. I sighed softly, turned, and marched down the bright,
morning-washed halls. I grabbed a syringe, and a glass vial of Epinephrine, and
Grace pitter-pattered behind me as I walked with a rapid pace – feeling
admittedly irritated – towards Mr. Moulton's room.

There, I
knocked. I entered. He was watching some shit program on TV. A paunchy-looking
guy was dancing around on stage after having been told that he was
not
the
father.

Mr.
Moulton turned to me, looking exhausted and vaguely ashamed. Like a little kid
caught red-handed with his sibling's bucket of Halloween candy.

I clasped
his hand briefly, a congenial gesture, before slipping on a pair of latex
gloves.

Mr.
Moulton eyed the syringe.

“What's
that for?” he asked.

“For your
heart,” I answered. I watched the lazy line dance across the screen of his EKG
for a second or two before filling the syringe. “Just a bit of adrenaline to
get your heartbeat perked up. Not to worry, Mr. Moulton.”

I wasn't
about to lecture the guy. There was no point. He was old, and nothing would
have changed. All I could do was what little I had available, and hope for the
best.

Grace
swapped the fleshy patch of his arm with an alcohol wipe. I gave him the shot,
watching the clear liquid slowly dissipate. When finished, we bandaged him up,
I shook his hand again, and said:

“I'll be
back in half hour to check on you,” I told him. “Enjoy whatever this is you're
watching. It looks informative.”

In the
hall, I tore the gloves off loudly, tossing them in the trash. Grace thanked
me.

“Does Mr.
Moulton have any family?” I asked her. “He's not married that I can see. But
what about a girlfriend? Next of kin?”

“He's
seventy-eight,” Grace said. “He's all by his lonesome, Dr. Greene.
Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately,”
I agreed, but I didn't feel much of anything.

I raked
my fingers through my hair, stressed. I needed air, or a minute alone to get
myself together.

“Why
don't you grab some coffee?” she suggested. “I'll keep an eye out on Mr.
Moulton for you.”

I gladly
took her offer. Quickly beforehand I made a point to check on my other patient,
but they were sleeping soundly.

“I'll be
back,” I told the woman's husband. “We'll let her sleep for now.”

I quietly
dipped out of the room, finding some solace in the noisy tranquility of the
cafeteria. I had a table to myself. I had some time alone with my screaming,
cluttered thoughts.

Mia.

Mia in my
arms.

Mia,
sprawled out on the floor, her eyes towards the window.

Did you
know that was possible to die of heartbreak? In my profession, it's very
cleverly known as Broken Heart Syndrome.

But I
wasn't dying yet. Not today.

Spinning
the empty paper cup on the table, like a dreidel, I spotted Grace as she came
sprinting around the corner. Her eyes were wired, as if she'd absentmindedly
grabbed hold of an electric fence.

“Dr.
Greene,” she said frantically. “We need you. Now.”

In his
room, Mr. Moulton had gone into a second fit of Cardiac arrest. Grace had found
him, completely flat-lined. And less than an hour had passed.

“Fuck,” I
hissed. “Oh, fuck.”

I grabbed
the defibrillator as Grace watched, covering her mouth. Pulling up his shirt, I
applied the electrodes to skin that gleaned with an unhealthy sweat. My stomach
knotted.

“Clear,”
I commanded, sending a jolt through him. His body rose, then fell.

A second
time.

A third time.

Nothing.

Heart
pounding, I looked up at the EKG. A solid line, a steady shrill.

“No,” I
said softly. “No. We gave him the Epinephrine. This isn't right.”

As I went
to send a third jolt, Grace grabbed my arm. And Mr. Moulton lay there,
lifeless, his blue eyes staring emptily towards to the ceiling.

“Dr
Greene...” she said. “You need to pronounce him.”

I shook
my head. My throat constricted. I could have started sobbing.

I had
already seen my fair share of patients die. As a doctor, this is expected. You
will witness at least one death in your time spent in medical practice.

But
watching Mr. Moulton, as Grace covered him with a white linen sheet, something
haunted me. Maybe it was the scant traces of whiskey still in my blood. Maybe
it was the lack of sleep, or lack of human contact – but as I stood there,
stone cold, I had become completely despondent.

“Time of
Death: 10:52am.”

Dr.
Weisman pressed a hand to my shoulder, squeezing. I turned to him, thanking him
with a silent nod.

We both
watched with a mutual solemnity as Mr. Moulton's body was wheeled down to the
morgue. Soon they'd strip his bedding, and a new person, a new body, would fill
his spot.

“You
never get used to it,” he said.

“Yeah,” I
said, my voice breaking. “You're right.”

Whenever
a death of a patient occurs, a formal council is held. It's kind of like a
trial, except held around a large, circular table in a room surrounded with
leather chairs and men in exorbitantly nice suits.

When I
entered, I seated myself at the head of the table, clasping my hands. And even
though I knew exactly why I was there, somewhere in my self-destructive line of
thought, I imagined that I had suddenly been found out – maybe Weisman had said
something, or maybe Grace knew more than she'd let on – and I was about to lose
my job, my license, my life.

Every
little glance felt incredulous.

We
know what you've done.

We
know what you are.

Now
hand in your badge, Dr. Greene.

But when
the meeting was called, and I opened the file, Mr. Moulton's name dragged me
back into the present reality of things.

“John
Moulton has died,” I confessed. “But I followed standard procedure. The
Epinephrine injection is commonplace when dealing with heart failure.”

A shared,
collective murmur of voices followed. All joined in agreement:

He was
old.

Advanced
heart failure.

A history
of neglected health.

Sitting
silently, I waited for them to give their concluding remarks.

“As
such,” the head of the Cardiology department ended. “We are sorry for the loss,
Dr. Greene. We know these are never easy. But all indications are that the
death of John Moulton was a rather inevitable unfortunate event. You are a fine
asset to the department. I hope you are aware of this.”

“Thank
you, sir.”

And then
they let me go home, as usually done. After a death, any death, a doctor needs
to breathe.

I was
entirely numb by the time I crossed the threshold into my apartment. It was
mid-afternoon, and the room was harrasingly bright.

I drew
all the blinds, making a dark haven for myself. I was riddled with anxiety. I
was riddled with loss.

Mr.
Mouton was dead.

Mia was
gone.

Cait's
baby was not mine.

What the
fuck did I have going for me now?

After
four shots of Jameson, laying on my couch, I held my phone mere inches from my
face, studying the photo that Mia had sent me. In a towel, wet hair clinging to
her covered breasts, her red smile slant.

“Little
Fox,” I said gently. I was already more drunk than I should have been.

I
scrolled down until her name was highlighted on my contacts list:

I miss
you. I'm so sorry. Please come over. I need you
.

I studied
the words, heart clenching, then deleted the text. The last thing she needed
was a blubbering, pathetic excuse for a man-child.

I closed
my eyes, and all I could see was her face.

I hate
you
, she had said.
I hate you so much
.

You
told her I was nothing.

I
don't want you.

Hot tears
trailed in crystal-sized droplets. It was hard to breathe. And the only person
that I wanted to be with then, to have, to hold, despised me.

With my
whiskey glass filled with nothing but air, I threw it against the window and
sent shards scattering all over the floor. They glinted like razors in the dim
darkness.

And then,
crouching over the mess, I covered my face in shame. In fury.

“But I
don't want anyone else,” I repeated aloud.

But there
was no one there to hear me. The dead hear nothing.