Love M.D. (17 page)

He stays put, staring at me for a
moment.

“Morgan, please just leave,” I
whisper. “I can’t do this anymore.”

He slowly turns and walks away. I
keep my cool until he is out of view then collapse on the sofa once I hear the
door shut. Pixie curls up next to me. Peaches rests her head in front of me. Right
now, they might be the only ones I can depend on.

Right now, my life is pure
devastation. I am hurt. I am angry. I am broken.

For a moment,
I sit in the vehicle, contemplating
whether or not I should return inside to Zoë. This couldn’t have turned out
worse. The hurt and contempt Zoë had in her eyes was unbearable. She was angry
and upset, but most of all, my actions hurt her. While I don’t believe I did
anything wrong in Zach’s death, I can’t help but feel responsible for her
emotional pain.

Maybe I should have told her
sooner. At least she wouldn’t have thought I was trying to hide anything. I
understand her thought process after what she’s been through in her life. But
it hurts that after the last few weeks she still doesn’t trust me.

She needs time to gather her
thoughts. Maybe it’s all a bit raw and difficult to handle all at once. It
scares me to leave her alone at such a vulnerable time in her life. Still, I
give her what she asked for. I start the ignition, and slowly drive away. I
check the rear view mirror several times hoping she’ll come out to stop me. She
doesn’t.

I’ll ask Deandre to work on those
autopsy results as quickly as possible. It might put her mind at ease when she
sees that I had nothing to do with her brother’s death. It might help her
regain some trust in me.

When it comes to my work, my
integrity has never been questioned before. To have it come into question by
the woman I am falling for is especially hurtful. However, whatever I feel compared
to her is not important.

Still, I worry about her. I never
realized while I was with Zoë how emotionally invested I had become in her. Now,
the difficulty I face not being a part of her life is sometimes overwhelming.

Over the next
week, I work on my designs from home.

A knock sounds on the door. I
answer to see a woman with a flower delivery. Morgan sends me a stunning
bouquet of I’m-sorry flowers.

He’s called every day for the last
six days, but I never answered. Today, there was no call. I miss him terribly,
and for the last few days, even though I didn’t speak to him, there was still
some type of communication—albeit one sided. Now, that too is gone. By my choice,
I suppose, but gone.

As I make an entry into my diary, I
count the days. Six days in and still no word from the hospital. With every day
that goes by, I get more nervous. Tomorrow, I will make another attempt to
return to work and hopefully get my life back on track.

The next day,
just before I leave the house, I get a
call from Dr. Roberts at the hospital. The results are in. I head straight
there. This time, I am escorted to his office where breakfast and coffee await.
All this show of kindness and their efforts to see that I’m comfortable make me
nervous.

Soon after I sit, a female Dr. Fuente
joins us along with Dr. Francis. She holds a stack of files and folders, which
she hands to Dr. Roberts. She’s probably about my age, with emerald green eyes
and red hair neatly tucked into a ballerina bun at the back of her head. She
also wears a unique looking pair of black Tahitian pearl dangle earrings—oddly
impractical for a doctor in a lab coat.

I barely keep still. As hungry as I
was before I left the house, I have no appetite. My palms sweat profusely, and
my knees can’t seem to stop a quaking dance under the table. Deep down, I hope that
Morgan is not responsible for Zach’s death. And that fact makes me realize how powerful
my feelings are for him.

“Miss Jenkins, this is your copy of
the results,” Dr. Roberts says, slipping me a manila folder. I look inside as he
speaks. “Your brother died due to an allergic reaction.”

“What was the allergic reaction?”

“Amoxicillin. It caused his throat
to swell, blocking his airway. He wasn’t able to breathe.”

As he speaks, I peruse the document
and notice the cause of death listed as
anaphylactic shock
. I don’t know
what it is, but something isn’t right. Something is missing, but I’m not sure
what. The pieces don’t add up.

 Dr. Roberts continues, “He was in
severe distress. Our team attempted an emergency tracheotomy, but it was too
late.”

“A tracheotomy?”

“It’s a surgical procedure where we
make an incision through the windpipe. That way, there is a direct airway
through the trachea or windpipe.”

“Isn’t that a simple procedure?”

“In most cases, yes. But once
anyone goes under the knife, any amount of unforeseen complications can arise.
I’m so sorry your brother died. We tried our very best, but unfortunately,
sometimes our best is not good enough.”

“Did any of you attend to my
brother?” I ask, softly.

“No.” The three chorus.

“Has this ever happened before to
any of your other patients?”

Dr. Roberts replies, “It’s hard to
say without knowing the cause of death for every patient who might not make it.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to determine if a patient is allergic to a drug
unless they know from previous experience. When your brother met with his
surgeon and the anesthesiologist, he did not list any allergies. It seems he
was unaware of this allergy himself.”

I feel some sense of relief where
Morgan is concerned, but I have a nagging feeling about what caused Zach’s
death.

The next evening,
I eagerly try to finish a project
for delivery tomorrow. I am at a client’s house in Seacliff, San Francisco,
trying to put the finishing touches on their new home before they move in from
Italy.

Leo just left, so I’m working alone
to put the final touches in place. I am in their kitchen putting together some
fresh flowers for their foyer when I hear the door shut. Perhaps Leo forgot
something.

With the bouquet of flowers in my
hand, I fix one or two unruly sprigs as I head toward the foyer.

Suddenly, it feels like I’ve walked
straight into a wall. The bouquet and I crash to the floor. The crystal vase
shatters, and my shirt immediately becomes wet. As I try to rise to my feet, a
sharp pain shoots up my hand. Blood drips against the marble floors.

“Oh Zoë, shit, you’re bleeding.”

“Morgan,” I gasp. “What are you
doing here?”

He helps me up to my feet, enclosing
my hand in his, and escorts me to the kitchen sink nearby.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t see
you coming.”

My hands tremble. I’d like to say
it’s because of the piece of glass poking out of it, but it’s mostly because I’m
nervous.

“I’ll be right back,” he says. He returns
with his medical bag and sits me on the countertop. “Stay still,” he says, as
he prepares to remove the glass with a pair of tweezers.

 I really do miss him. Seeing him,
being in his presence, makes me realize how much. I’m tempted to run my fingers
through his hair. As he works on my hand, the energy between us is tense. It is
silent, and all I hear is the
tick-tick-tick
from the wall clock nearby.

He turns my hand over and looks at
my nails. “You’ve lost a lot of weight. When was the last time you had a proper
meal?”

“I’m fine,” I say softly. The truth
is, from the day Zach died, I mostly fill my body up with fluids. I have no
appetite, and when I do eat, it’s just a yogurt, a banana or a bowl of fruit.

He finishes wrapping my hand.

“You’re not fine. You’re anemic.”

“Thank you for treating my hand.” I
slip off the counter and pull a broom and dustpan from the closet. “You don’t
need to worry about me. You’re not my doctor.”

I am about to start sweeping the
shattered glass when he yanks the broom from my hand.

“Give me the dust pan. I’ll do it,”
he demands.

“It’s my mess. I’ll clean it up,” I
say, pulling the broom back from him.

“No.” He pulls the broom from me.
“You need to rest that hand of yours, or it will start bleeding again.”

I yank the broom back. “You’re
getting in the way of me doing my job.”

“No, you’re getting in the way of
yourself. You’re beginning to piss me off,” he says, glaring at me. “Now stop
being a pain in the ass and go relax while I get this mess cleaned up, before
someone else gets hurt.”

“You—”

“Zoë, don’t push me. Just go.”

“You don’t get to just appear on my
job site and tell me what to do. That’s rude.”

“You and I need to talk,” he says, gazing
down at me.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I’m worried about you. I called
your office, and Lisa told me you’d be here. I came to speak to you.”

“I have nothing to say.”

“Can you at least listen?”

I walk out onto the deck
overlooking the ocean. Moments later, he joins me. He stands, facing me.

“Zoë, I know I should have told
you, and I’m sorry. But you were devastated by your brother’s death. I didn’t
want you to worry any more at that time. You were heartbroken. Can you imagine
me burdening you with something so heavy at a time like that?”

“You had plenty opportunities to
tell me and you didn’t.
Two weeks
, Morgan. I could understand if you
waited until after the funeral, but not a week beyond that. I don’t believe you
ever had any intention of telling me about this, at least not until you were
sure that
you
were in the clear. And now that the results are out, you
can feel vindicated. Let’s just let it be and move on with our lives.”

“You’ve seen the results?”

“Yes. Doctor Roberts gave me a copy
yesterday. Zach died from anaphylactic shock. Apparently he was allergic to
amoxicillin.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that. Evidently,
he didn’t know that either, or he would have told me. I don’t return to the
hospital until Friday. I asked them to call me when the results were in, but I
haven’t heard from them yet.”

“Well you’re in the clear, so you
don’t have to bother about it anymore.”

“By any chance, do you have it with
you? Can I take a look?”

“It’s at home.”

“Zoë, I want to give us another
try.”

“Why? There’s nothing left between
us.”

“You and I both know that’s not
true. Zoë, I’m deeply, deeply in love with you. I know it might seem crazy, but
it’s true.”

Goose bumps cover my skin.
Thankfully, I’m wearing a blazer that covers it.

“Don’t mix up love with infatuation
and amazing sex. That’s all it was.”

“I’m not a child. I know the
difference,” he says then grins. “So you think the sex was amazing?”

I want to smile, but I stop myself.
“Do you have any clue how much your lies hurt me? I was so disappointed in you.”

“Zoë, I’m not perfect. I’m human. I’m
going to screw up. I’m going to make mistakes. Are you just going to cut people
out of your life every time they don’t live up to your unrealistic, high
expectations?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you won’t let anyone
get near you. The moment anyone gets too close, you’re so afraid of losing them
or getting hurt again, you push them away.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? You think I don’t
understand, but I do. You’re afraid of losing someone, but that doesn’t mean
you shouldn’t love. Zoë, that’s no way to live. I’m sure your brother believed
that, otherwise he wouldn’t have proposed to Megan.”

The tears sting, because I know he’s
right—at least about Zach. He slips his hand over mine, and I want to lace my
fingers through his, but I resist and pull away.

“I have to go,” I eventually have
the guts to say. “I can’t do this with you right now.”

“Zoë… baby, I miss you,” he says
cupping my face in his palms.