Then I stepped backward across the hall to the medicine room. I held my breath as I eased my elbow down on the handle, feeling it give.
We didn’t have the tightest security, and I should know. I was on the original committee that helped determine need versus cost effectiveness, and we didn’t have a whole lot of cash coming in. A new security system was low on the list. We had guards in the ER and police on call. But we were a lot more lax upstairs, especially because of the keypads sealing off the restricted areas. People weren’t consistent about locking the outside door to the medicine room because the drawers themselves were locked and accessible only by code, and it was a pain to do both. Part of my role was uncovering and slashing areas of redundancy.
I kept the lights off now, checking out the boxes in the cabinets that lined the walls. While the pharmacy kept strict regulations on the inventory, I knew that the boxes of samples from pharma reps ended up scattered haphazardly in the cabinets above, alongside the non-drug-related equipment—tubes and gauze and needles.
Anyway, if the medicine wasn’t locked up, I assumed, it wasn’t a danger. There must be some sort of generic sleep aid in the mix. Something to knock me out and keep me that way. Reset my internal clock and my sense of stability.
The first cabinet seemed to contain mostly topical ointments and creams. I opened the second, moving boxes around, looking for something that sounded relevant. The labels I could discern highlighted acid reflux, generic painkillers, and allergy treatments. The words were hard to read in the dark, and I leaned closer to see the containers hidden at the back of the cabinet.
The door swung open behind me with no warning, and I pulled back so fast that I scraped the side of my hand against the wooden frame of the cabinet.
It was my reaction that gave me away. My heart racing, my feet frozen. Bennett stood in the doorway; he let the door swing shut, flipping the light. He blinked twice, and I looked down, trying to adjust to the sudden glare.
“What are you doing here, Liv?”
Bennett Shaw was my closest friend at the hospital. Though I didn’t have many long-term friendships throughout my past to compare it to, after more than two years of working on the same hall, of regular lunches and semi-regular dinners, I thought he probably considered me the same. He’d even invited me back to his childhood home in Charlotte for Thanksgiving last year, had said he had a big family, that they wouldn’t even notice the extra seat taken.
He was also a stickler for rules, a man bound by ethics. In medicine, you have to be. There are consequences for missing something, for forgetting, for being late. There are lives in the balance. Concerned more with the logistics of keeping the hospital staffed and the money flowing in the right direction, I had the luxury of removal. If I fell behind, I could catch up. If I sent the wrong information, I could apologize and resend. No mistake was permanent.
Usually, I loved how Bennett adhered to the rules. When you grow up with a lack of predictability, structure feels like a blessing. I knew what to expect of him and what he expected of me.
“Please tell me this isn’t what it looks like.” He took a step closer. I could tell by his voice—deeper, quieter—that he was upset, and I needed to head it off.
“I’m not sleeping,” I said. It was something I thought he would understand.
His volume only grew. “Melatonin. A glass of wine. A hot bath. Take your pick. Just get the fuck out of here.”
I shook my head. “It’s more than that. They’re just samples, right?” A play on naïveté, but he wasn’t having it.
He stepped to the side, arms crossed. Waiting for me to leave. “So talk to Cal,” he said as I pushed through the door.
“Who the fuck is Cal?” I asked, but he’d already pulled the door shut between us, leaving me in a shaky haze, wondering what I had just done.
I’D BEEN STUCK IN meetings all morning, but I kept peeking into the nurses’ lounge every time I passed by. I hadn’t seen Bennett since he’d found me in the medicine room. Each time I replayed the scene in my head, it grew worse.
The dread in my gut was stewing—what would he think; what would he say; what would he do? He was the nurses’ shift supervisor, and I was the wing administrator, comparable roles in different chains of authority. We ended up collaborating frequently, but we reported up separate ladders. Bennett had started working here just a few months after the hospital opened, four years back. He’d seen it develop from the ground up and had a strong investment in its success.
He could report me. That was his job.
I busied myself at my desk by looking up this “Cal” on the personnel database, trying to see where Bennett was directing me. I eventually landed on a name that made sense: Dr. Calvin Royce, specializing in sleep disorders. His bio and credentials were listed beside a directory photo.
“Jesus,” I said out loud. I was glad I’d seen his face before running into him somewhere, so I could desensitize myself first. He was almost unnaturally good-looking.
There was a faint knock on my door. “Come on in,” I called.
The first thing I saw was a cup of coffee, then an arm extended through the doorway. “I come in peace,” he said before pushing the door fully ajar.
My shoulders relaxed for the first time all morning. Bennett set the coffee on my desk and fell onto the sofa against the wall. He’d helped me move it in here in exchange for his unlimited usage. He said he preferred the quiet of my office to the lounge. I rarely locked my office—there was enough security at either end of the wing as it was—so I’d often find him sleeping here, his long legs hanging over the armrest, one arm folded over his eyes, until his watch faintly beeped and he sat straight up like a vampire rising from the dead.
I swiveled the monitor in his direction, my own act of contrition.
He raised one eyebrow. “You’re really not sleeping.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
He rubbed his palm down his narrow face. Sharp cheekbones, sloped chin, light brown hair, and hazel eyes. When he was clean-shaven, he always got carded when we were out. Patients sometimes complained and requested an adult, though I knew he was almost thirty.
Looking at Bennett, it wasn’t hard to picture the child he once was. It was right there, close to the surface, and he embraced it. Didn’t try to dress it up in suits and facial hair. He was the youngest of five siblings and was accustomed to being viewed that way. I knew, even though I’d declined the Thanksgiving visit. He talked about his family constantly, whereas I tried at each opportunity to distance myself from the child I’d once been.
The most distinct feature, in the photos, on the news, had been that head of wavy brown hair, disproportionate on my small frame. So I’d highlighted the color to almost-blond ever since college, had blown it straight each morning. Every year older was another layer of removal between me and that girl. Until this morning, I’d thought she was unrecognizable. I’d thought I had made it, that my real life was now beginning.
“Me, too,” he said. “I overreacted. But things have been going missing from there, and . . .” A gesture of his hand. “Sorry I jumped to conclusions.” An accusation directed at someone else now.
“I get it, it looked bad.”