Patient Privilege (12 page)

"About damn time."

"It's standard for the shrinks to wait a day or so before harassing you guys. We do all the medical stuff up front. They come in later to play around with your brain." The corner of her lip curled into a half smile. "Look, sweetie. Nothing about this is going to be easy for you. You can play the tough guy all you want, but that strength would be better used for fighting your urges and sticking this out. My job is to do the best I can for you, and I promise, I will. You just have to let me help you. You have to let Dr Daniels help you, okay?"

Angel sunk back down in the bed, curled his one and only pillow under his head and cradled it to the side of his face. He could already feel his eyes getting heavy. The nurse pulled the blanket up to his chin then reached over and dimmed the bedside lamp. She left him alone, content… or rather, high enough that he wouldn't know the difference.

* * * *

Erik saw it coming, he really did. But he really couldn't react in time to stop it. He looked back down at his file, walking the hall while jotting a quick note for the nurses. Roni was doing the exact same thing. With her head down and her pen scribbling notes in Angel's chart, she started in Erik's direction. The path was wide enough for the two of them, and keeping with proper hallway traffic etiquette, Roni should've kept to the left, but she didn't. And with a preoccupied doctor roaming around, the two were a recipe for disaster. They walked right into each other, causing Roni to fall flat on her butt.

"Oh God, Roni, I'm sorry," Erik said with a gasp as he kneeled down to help her up. Her file had emptied, scattering scribbled pages all over the floor. "Please, let me."

He started picking up the papers that had flown across the linoleum when Roni reached out and touched his forearm.

"Erik, I can get this. You have a patient you've been avoiding."

With a sigh, he sat back on his heels and rubbed the back of his neck. "I know I do."

"Is there a problem?"

"Not really. It's probably all in my head."

"Need to talk about it?"

"Not yet. But if I do, I'll be sure to find you," he said with a soft smile.

"Good." Roni removed her hand from Erik's arm and resumed collecting her papers. Without looking up at him, she said, "Go see your patient now, Dr Daniels. I think he needs a moment of your time."

Erik rose to his feet, looked down the hall toward Angel's door then back to Roni kneeling down on the floor. "You're probably right. Thanks, Roni."

"Anytime, Erik." She smiled up at him.

With more than a hint of hesitation, he walked down the hall to Angel's door. Erik's palm pressed against the cold, pale surface. He'd talked to patients a million times before, but this wasn't just any patient. This wasn't some nameless, faceless stranger. He'd spent time with this kid and his partner. He'd gotten to know them and knew what would be on the line if he failed.

He lightly rapped his knuckles against the door. Angel's hoarse, groggy voice called out for him to come in and Erik cracked the door. The room was dark. Florescent lights could be hell on unready eyes and he didn't want to be too invasive, not on their first official visit, so he left the lights just as he'd found them. "It's Dr Daniels," he said from the hall.

* * * *

Angel attempted to sit up in the bed, but the room started to spin and his stomach began doing back flips.

"Yeah?" Angel said as he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

"How are you hanging in there?" Erik asked as he pulled a chair closer to Angel's bed. "Is the methadone helping any?"

"Feels like it," Angel croaked. He scrubbed both hands over his face. "I feel fucking high. Isn't that wrong? I mean, I'm not supposed to be getting high, right?"

"No, you're not, but we
do
want to ease your suffering, help you come down as much as we can without risking relapse."

"Whatever, Doc. At least I'm not freaking out like I was earlier."

"Sorry about that. Policy is to watch new patients for twenty-four hours before giving out the meds." Dr Daniels laid the file in his lap and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "So, do you want to talk about Jon?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

Erik's brow arched. "There isn't?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"The truth? Whatever is on your mind? Why did you tell him to leave and not come back?"

"Look, Doc, you don't know Jon. He's sweet—too sweet. He doesn't need to spend every waking moment worrying about me, and that's what he's been doing for months now. I want him to move on with his life, find someone who deserves a guy as good as him. I'm not that guy."

"What if you are?"

"I'm not."

"That's not for you to decide. If he loves you and you love him—"

"I don't," Angel bit out, interrupting him. "I mean, I do, but not like that. He's my best friend and he'll always be my best friend… I hope." He combed his fingers over his scalp, and turned his head to face the doctor. "I just want him to be happy, no matter what happens to me."

"I suppose that's admirable, or maybe it's cowardly."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Do you think you were being a coward?"

"I think I don't want to talk about it right now." Angel glared.

Erik pressed his palm to the air.

"Fair enough." He sat back, relaxing slightly. "So, why heroin? What pushed you toward drugs?"

"What drove you to drink?"

"This isn't about me."

"Why? You're no better than me, right?"

Dr Daniels stiffened, shoulders squaring. "I would say I'm not, but I kicked my addiction. Now, are you brave enough to do the same? Are you strong enough to overcome the smack or do you want it to keep controlling you?"

Angel thought about the past forty-eight hours: the shaking and sweats, the paranoia and loneliness. He thought about how he'd been living and how he wanted to live. He knew the worst was yet to come and honestly, the idea of being on the streets seemed a lot less frightening.

He bit down on his bottom lip, casting his eyes away from the doctor. Could he overcome his addiction? Did he have the strength?

When he finally spoke again, his voice sounded unsure, even to his own ears, and in a broken whisper, he finally said, "I don't know."

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Look," Erik said as he stood from the chair. Angel had a hard dose of tough love coming his way and he didn't even know it. "You're not going to waste my time and you're not going to take away from my other patients, so you can have one of the nurses call for me when you decide you're ready to actually talk."

He started for the door, hoping Angel would call him back, hoping whatever had pushed Angel down the dark and dangerous road of substance abuse would come out. He never expected it to be blurted at him.

"'It's an abomination, Luke.' That's what my dad said when I told him I was gay." Angel sat up in the bed, his back pressed against the pillow, arms crossed over his chest. Erik slowly turned, went back to the chair, and sat down facing Angel's bed. The kid looked up at the ceiling and Erik could see redness beginning to fill his deep, brown eyes.

"He sounded so damn calm," Angel began again. "But God, I could tell how pissed off he was by the way he glared at me. Had I given a shit what Dad thought, I wouldn't have said anything about it. I would've ridden it out then moved away."

"But you wanted to hurt him?"

"No. Well, maybe, but you don't understand. That conservative jackass has the moral fortitude of a ground slug. He slung a Bible around and quoted scripture with the best of them, just like the other hypocrites they forced me to pray with every Sunday. 'Judge none,' they said. 'God loves all his children,' until those beloved children chose to come out of the closet and tell the world the opposite sex didn't do it for them. Those once precious, beloved children of God were now an abomination, a sin, and God didn't have room for sinners. What kind of message is that for a kid who just realized his sexual preference didn't fit the scriptures, didn't fit in with everything he'd ever been taught was right?"

"So all of this is about religion? Sounds like you just wanted to rebel against him."

"No. Not all of it. I told him to go to hell. He raised his hand in the air and brought it down hard enough to knock me on my ass. My sister just cried and my mother didn't do shit to help me. So I left. I ran away from home and away from his intolerance."

"Why heroin, Angel? What made you start using?"

"Do you know how expensive it is to get from Maine to LA?"

Erik shook his head.

"More money than a runaway can get after pissing off the person who controls his money. I barely made it out of New England. I started having sex for money. Anyone who wanted it, man or woman, I did it. Fucking made me miserable. I got to the point where I couldn't even close my eyes without seeing every disgusting thing I'd done."

"So getting high made you forget?"

Angel nodded.

Erik stared silently for a long moment. He'd heard that very same story a few times before. Not necessarily the coming out part, but the abusive parents and running away from home. This, however, was the first time Erik wanted to pull a patient into his arms and hold him until all the bad stuff faded away. He wanted to stay by Angel's side and ride through the detox and the revelations with the kid so Angel wouldn't have to suffer alone.

Erik had to get out of that room. If he stayed there a moment longer, he might not leave.

Standing from the chair, he gathered the file and tucked it under one arm. He could feel Angel's eyes following his every movement. Erik could feel them, as if the kid's stare could sear his flesh.

He patted Angel's lower leg and said, "Get some rest. Let the meds do their magic. We'll talk again soon, I promise."

Heading toward the doctors' lounge, Erik thought he would hide out in there for a little while. Everything about Angel overwhelmed him and he just needed a moment to find his focus again. He couldn't deny that he had an unwavering need to take care of the kid, and not just as a doctor would their patient, but more as a friend. That gray line came back to haunt him again, that mythical wall of ethics he'd been teetering on since he'd met Jon and Angel. If it kept up, he'd have no choice but to hand Angel off to another doctor, and that was the last thing Erik wanted to do.

He sat down at the table in the center of the doctors' lounge. The pink Formica veneer was sticky with God only knew what. The moment Erik's palm touched the surface, his stomach tied in knots and his face curled in disgust. People could be such slobs.

The florescent light overhead began to give him a headache, and if it wasn't for having to write out his notes in Angel's file, he might've said "Screw it" and escaped the entire bleak world of West Clinic for an hour or so.

Pen in one hand, his forehead propped against his other, he stared down at the file as he tried to piece together something clinical and logical, intelligent, and educated. He had just put the pen to paper when his cell phone began to vibrate in his pocket. When he saw the name on the screen, his heart beat a little harder, a smile stretched his lips, and the dark, dreary world of West Clinic seemed a little brighter.

"Hey you," Erik said with a grin as he held the phone to his ear.

"You're in a good mood," Marshall responded.

"No. Just glad to hear your voice. What's up?"

"I want to meet you for lunch. I have to head back to San Francisco tonight, but I didn't want to leave town without seeing you first."

"It's time for you to go already?"

"I'm afraid so, baby." There was a long pause, like Marshall wanted Erik to say he would go with him or maybe beg him to stay. When Erik remained silent, Marshall continued. "So meet me for lunch, will you?"

"Of course, but can we meet on this side of town? We'll get to see each other longer. There's a great hibachi grill just around the corner from the clinic. I can text the address to you. Want to meet me there?"

"Sounds perfect."

"Good. See you soon."

They both waited for the "I love you" that never seemed to come anymore. It was sad, really. They both loved each other—never stopped loving each other—but the idea of saying it after a phone call just felt weird. Sure they'd said it after making love, but after a conversation? Only couples did that sort of thing, right?

Erik ended the call and finished jotting down his notes. It would take Marshall a good twenty, maybe thirty minutes to get to the restaurant, so he had a little time. He finished writing what he had to say about the troublesome, heroin addict known simply as "Angel," locked the file away so prying eyes couldn't steal a peek, then tore out of the clinic like the place had caught fire. If Erik didn't disappear quickly, someone would surely stymie his plans to meet his beautiful, beloved ex-partner before the man left town.

Pulling into the restaurant's parking lot, Erik felt an excited flutter in his heart at the sight of Marshall's Land Rover. He parked his beater next to Marshall's modern ode to wealth and hauled ass into the restaurant.

Marshall's sprigs of dirty-blond hair poked up from a booth in the back. Erik was half-thankful he'd picked something private and not the open seating around the hibachi grill. He snuck up to the back of the booth and stole a quick peck at Marshall's cheek before taking the seat across from his ex.

"You smell good," Erik said.

"Thanks. It's the cologne you bought for me our last Christmas together."

"Ah."

"Yeah." Marshall shifted in his seat and picked up the menu. Erik noticed the red hue covering his ex's cheeks and almost laughed. Marshall had always been too cute for words. "So, I assume you want sushi."

"Sounds good," Erik said. "Just order a bunch of rolls and some sashimi. We'll share."

Marshall grabbed the order form and placed a little slash next to each type of roll he wanted. They had the same taste, so no matter what he chose, Erik would enjoy it. Once finished, he handed the slip of paper over to the waiter and thanked her with a genuine smile.