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“Seriously?” But his eyes sparkled in the moonlight: kind, not cruel.
I cracked a tiny smile. “Yeah. I never really figured out how to switch off. But helping people is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“What happened?”
I sighed. “One day, I went to the drug lock-up to fetch something and one of the other doctors was there, an older guy called Alec Bryce. He was signing for some Oxy, said he needed it for one of his patients: no big deal. Except…” I chewed my lip. It was getting more difficult to tell, the closer I got to the moment. “Except…I happened to see that patient myself, later that night, and he hadn’t been given Oxy, or any painkillers.”
I looked up to see Gabriel frowning. He was smart: he already knew where this was going.
“All I had to do was leave it alone,” I said tightly. “All I had was a hunch. But I was worried. I checked the drug log, checked with patients…Bryce was signing out a lot of Oxy, and claiming it was for patients who weren’t getting it.”
“He was selling it?” asked Gabriel.
“That’s what I thought. Then I started watching Bryce as he worked.” I met Gabriel’s eyes. “He was high. The Oxy was for him.”
“Jesus,” whispered Gabriel. “What’d you do?”
I closed my eyes and breathed in, long and slow. I was right up against the memory now, and every syllable rubbed my mind against the edges. But I wanted to get it out. “I took Bryce aside,” I said slowly. “Told him I knew. He broke down. Begged me not to tell the hospital admin. He admitted he had a problem, said he’d check into a rehab place that night…” I took a shaky breath. “And I believed him.”
I could feel myself cracking wide open, exposing my vulnerable insides for the first time since it happened. I almost jumped off the log and ran back to the campfire—
But then I lifted my gaze to meet his. And those eyes that were always so full of schemes and trickery and wickedness…they were warm. Honest.
I could trust him.
I kept going. “I got into work the next day and straightaway, I was called in to see administration. And they told me—” My chest quaked and I had to stop and take a breath, dangerously close to crying. “They told me that Doctor Bryce has come to them, deeply concerned that I’ve been stealing Oxy.”
Gabriel leaned forward, his brow creasing in disbelief: what?! I remembered having exactly the same reaction, the day it happened. Then the disbelief turned to creeping, sick dread.
“Bryce told them that he’d discovered the theft the night before, and that he’d been up all night, checking through the logbook,” I said. “What he’d actually been doing was altering the logbook so it looked like I had signed out all the extra Oxy.”
Gabriel’s mouth moved but nothing came out. For once, he was lost for words. But then the rage began to build, first in his eyes and then in those massive shoulders and powerful arms. He leaned forward, his fingers gripping the log so hard his knuckles went white. “That fucking asshole!” he spat.
His protective fury gave me just enough strength to finish. “Bryce had been at the hospital for twenty years: he had a good reputation. They believed him, not me. I would have gone to jail, but the hospital didn’t want the bad publicity. They fired me, and word got around the hospitals that it was drug-related. No one would hire me…”
Gabriel’s mouth tightened. “Except the prison. Jesus.”
My shoulders dropped and I let my head hang forward. Hot tears filled my eyes and started to plop onto the log between us. I gave a ragged sniff, seconds from breaking down completely. It wasn’t just that revisiting it all hurt. It was that he knew now. He knew that— “Jesus, I’m so stupid!” I hissed.
He stared at me for a second. “That’s what you think?!”
“I’m just a stupid, naive—” I shook my head and my voice broke down into sobs. “All I had to do was report him, why didn’t I just—”
“You blame yourself?!” Suddenly, his big, warm fingers were under my chin, lifting my head to look at him. “No. No, Olivia, Jesus…You were just trying to do the right thing. You’re a good person. Don’t ever apologize for that.”
I blinked and looked at him through a curtain of tears, searching his face for deception. But he looked open and honest, his eyes full of concern. I sniffed, unable to speak. I wanted to believe him. Really?
His hands gripped my shoulders and squeezed. Really.
We looked into each other’s eyes and then he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me along the log until our bodies met. His arms wrapped around me and he crushed me to him, one hand cradling the back of my head, my face pressed against his chest. I kept sobbing, but for the first time, it was healing. Each time my chest spasmed and my body jerked against his bigger, stronger one, a little more of the pain left me.
