“I can say it or not say it; it’s still the reality of the situation,” I said. “There’s too much mystery with the brain and the body for me to say.”
“Well, can’t you do anything?”
“I’m doing what I can.”
“Do more.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply through the nose to center myself. I didn’t care if it looked ridiculous. It looked better than slapping Brock.
“Maybe in your world, ‘do more’ solves all your problems, but in medicine, not only can I not ‘do more’ here, in the spots I can, it sometimes causes more harm than good. So you do your job, and I’ll do mine.”
“Justine, can’t you—”
I snapped.
“First, that’s Dr. Elks to you,” I said. “Second, whatever you were going to say, no, I cannot. I don’t care what you were going to say. We don’t always get good outcomes, but we always provide the most medical care that we can. Maybe, instead of blaming me, you all should look in the mirror. Maybe if you assholes weren’t the way you are, you wouldn’t be in this spot.”
Holy shit. I can’t believe that just came out.
Brock couldn’t believe it either, looking surprised for a half-second. But that surprise faded quickly in favor of anger.
And then he went for the jugular.
“You’re still pissed about what happened when we hooked up, aren’t you?”
My face must have gone red. The last thing I needed was the entire hospital wing knowing my romantic history. That went doubly true for an asshole biker like this douche.
“Imagine that you’re in my shoes for two seconds, Brock. I know empathy is hard for you all, but just try. Imagine that you decided you just wanted to have a fun, casual night. Not even what we did. Just something enjoyable. So you show up, even knowing your three best friends won’t be there. And then you get a little drunk. And then you wind up going way further than you ever imagined. And then you wake up and the person you were attracted to has just gotten up and left without any warning—oh, and on top of that, they got fuckingarrested.”
Judging by the lack of reaction to that, Brock and the rest of the guys didn’t seem as bothered by the notion of getting arrested as I would have. That would have at least put much of my career in jeopardy; for them, it seemed like a signal they were working right.
“I had to get my shit together and clear my head, Justine,” he said, ignoring my request to call me doctor. “It had nothing to do with you. Don’t take it so personally.”
Past his shoulder, I saw Zack starting to walk forward, but he stopped when he saw me. Brock didn’t turn around, preferring, apparently, to keep his eyes locked on me. Maybe he was trying to intimidate me into providing more medical care or something fucking stupid like that.
“Forgive me for taking it personally when I get treated like a whore.”
Brock scoffed at me.
“Tara isn’t this way—”
“Then go take it up with her,” I said.
I was at my breaking point. Five more seconds of conversation with Brock would have caused me to slap him. I didn’t care how much stress he was under because of Cole.
“For now, we follow medical protocol. Make sure Cole is stable, and then wait for him to wake up.”
I brushed past Brock, who at least had the good sense to not follow me. Zack stood in the hallway, a stoic but somewhat empathetic look on his face, and nodded to me.
I ignored him too.
I walked right past him to the break room, this time shutting and locking the door behind me so he couldn’t get in. The whole point of not working in Santa Maria was that I wouldn’t have assholes like this guy coming into my trauma ward. I worked in the city so I could deal with urbanites and other people like them, not biker gangsters and thugs.
And yet, life seemed too rich and too amusing to just let me get off that easily. One domestic terrorist incident was all it took to bring that world back to me.
It was a fucking nightmare. I didn’t call many things that, since being in this part of the hospital let me see what “a fucking nightmare” truly looked like, especially for family members of our patients. But in this particular case?
I felt no shame in using the term.
