Numbed (The White Coat Series)

by Parker, D. D.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Silvers?” an older guy’s voice came from behind Ryan. He turned and slid his chair to the side, revealing a man, probably in his mid fifties, come in with a foam roller tucked under his arm. It wasn’t Ally, that was for sure.

  “I’m your new therapist, George,” he said, setting up shop on the counter next to me.

  “Got it, I’ll give you two some privacy,” Ryan said, winking at me jokingly. I flicked him off just as he walked out the door, hearing him chuckle on his way out. I suddenly wanted to get out and just have beers with my close friends, talk about random shit and go to sleep happy. Wake up the next day, save some lives and then do it all again. I didn’t want to be here, stuck on a hospital bed, feeling pain course through me.

  Pain. Oh God. My thumb pushed the button.

  “What happened to Ally?” I asked, curious as to why they would switch my therapist midway. I suddenly began to wonder if they had secret cameras that caught her jerking me off. Or maybe I said something in my sleep thinking it was her when it was some janitor who wanted to get revenge so he ratted us out to the Surgeon General. Long winded and highly unlikely, I know, but these are the kind of things you think about in these situations.

  “I’m not sure, sir. They just told me I was reassigned to you this morning. How have you been feeling?” he asked, stretching his hands in preparation to start warming up my body.

  Or maybe it was the Vicodin? And if it was, would they know that I took them?

  Holy shit.

  I started to run down the list of protocols doctors had to follow if someone was suspected of stealing drugs. Thing is, I couldn’t remember any protocols because we were never given much. So now I had no idea what to look out for if they suspected me. It couldn’t be impossible to tie it to me either. They could just trace her steps from the last few days, find out she was my therapist, interview me and potentially drug screen me. If they did then I would be screwed. My license, my livelihood, my life would all be destroyed.

  “I’m feeling fine,” I said after a deep intake of breath.

  I may have been fucked.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “It was fun having you here, Dr. Silvers. But let’s keep you on the other side of the hospital bed, ok?” Wanda said to me, walking with me to the pharmacy so I could get my medication before I was discharged. As we got closer, I looked down at my prescription and realized it was missing something. It was missing the pain medication. Why weren’t they letting me take home any pain meds? I needed them, I couldn’t function, the pain was too much.

  At least it felt like too much.

  I think it was too much?

  “Wanda, quick question but did Dr. Sanders mention why he’s not sending me home with any pain meds?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound too curious about it. I seemed to have been fine though since Wanda didn’t bat an eyelash.

  “Didn’t really give me a reason, figured you were feeling fine on the pain charts.”

  I wanted to dig further, I wanted to fight for my medication, because frankly I wasn’t sure what I would do without it now. But then Ally shot to my memory and I called off whatever attempts I was planning. If someone did actually suspect me for something then this could have been their way of sniffing me out.

  I looked at Wanda and shrugged it off. Cringing on the inside as I filled out a prescription for some antibiotics, just in case, and walked back to the main hospital lobby. The sunlight casted a beautiful glow on the whole place. The huge green trees that extended to the tops of the ceiling were thriving with the bouncing light, glinting onto the dark blue couches filled with people waiting to hear news about their loved ones. Some of them waited for news that they didn’t want to hear. It was quite a contrast, seeing such a heartbreaking moment play out inside such a beautiful scene. But thankfully, everyone seemed happy now, as if no one had anything serious to worry about.

  It made me feel good about leaving as a patient and returning as a physician. Which was actually becoming a very hard concept for me to grasp, especially now when all I could think of was numbing the pain. The hospital was beginning to provide me everything I needed while I stayed a patient. And that was all in the form of the IV that supplied me with the painkiller. The exact medicine that I was beginning to crave. I felt my mind immediately resorting to pressing that button at the slightest hint of trouble. And now that I was walking towards my brother’s car, albeit a little slowly, I was already beginning to crave that sweet escape. The kiss of sleep that carried the weight of all my problems away and set me in some incredible bliss. It was that good.

  It was always that good.

  And the thing was that I knew I could perform as a doctor while high on pain meds. It was doable and a fucked up part of me wanted to do it. The drugs made me feel invincible. A dragon on top of the world, everyone else was a plaything. That’s exactly how I felt whenever I did a line back before I had my life together. I’ll never forget one night, me and Patrick had locked in two stunningly hot brunettes. They were movie-star good looking, with wavy hair that was just begging to be pulled. Fucking her after a line of coke was the closest I got to experiencing paradise. A complete utopia. Being inside her, having her bent over inside that club bathroom stall, taking her from behind, her moans echoing through the bathroom, her hands slamming against the stall walls as I filled her. I could feel her wetness around my cock. I could really feel it. The drug let me feel how tight she was, how excited she was, how turned on and primal we both were. My hands tightened around her hips, slamming her back onto me, grunting into her neck. It seemed like an eternity. Both of us entwined in a drug-induced heaven where everything was fucking perfect.

  No. Stop it. This isn’t you. You’re a goddamn doctor, not a fucking drug addict.

  I needed to keep reminding myself of that. This wasn’t me. I felt myself losing my grip on everything I had worked so hard to build. I had seen this happen in patients, seen totally perfect lives come crashing down because they decided “oh I can just try it once!”.

  Well, you can’t. You can never just “try it once”. No sane person would ever give up that feeling of absolute bliss, not for long at least.

  But I can.

  I had to keep telling myself that. I needed to keep myself swimming above water because the moment I stopped, I would sink like a stone.

  I walked through the huge glass sliding doors and straight to my brother’s shiny, new black BMW. Our parents spoiled him way too much.

  “Finally, you get to go back home,” Connor said as I sat down in the pristine black leather seats. The bucket shape hugged my broad shoulders perfectly.

  “You’re telling me,” I said, rolling my shoulder and stretching the muscles underneath, a soreness from not going to the gym was starting to creep in. It was weird but whenever I didn’t lift weights, I felt like my body began to protest. And I was clearly not going to lift weights anytime soon, but thankfully I held onto muscle like there was a global famine going on.

  “So how does it feel, being a free man?” Connor asked, throwing his expensive new toy into drive.

  “Con, I didn’t escape from jail. I was shot and in the hospital,” I reminded him, lowering the mirror to block the sun from hitting me straight in the face.

  “Which is still pretty hardcore.”

  “Pretty? I’d say that’s really fucking hardcore,” I said, turning on the radio and realizing I hadn’t listened to music the whole time I was in there. A Drake song played in the background as Connor talked to me about rushing some fraternity and hanging out with Courtney a lot.

  “Courtney?” I asked, my attention once again tuned in. I hadn’t really realized just how close my brother and Courtney had gotten. It raised a question that I immediately squashed. I couldn’t think about that probability of having to fight my brother for the same girl.

  “Yeah, she’s really great, man. She’s been with me a lot these past few days.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said, acting as if I didn’t have t
oo much of an interest but still welcoming Connor to keep talking.

  “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know what I would have done without her. Especially what happened at the beginning of school between us.”

  Holy shit. Could things get any more fucked up? Was my brother really going to come out and say he fucked the one girl that I actually had feelings for? I almost stuck my head out of the window, not wanting to hear it, but I resisted. I would clearly have to choose my brother’s side and just give him… hand him? Gift him Courtney? I wasn’t sure what the proper term was but, point is, I would step aside and let Connor go out with Courtney.

  There it is; go out with.

  “Lot’s of sleepless nights after that,” my brother said, his voice getting a little shaky after that, as if he had something he wanted to get off his chest so bad but couldn’t. I’ve seen him act like this once before, when I had snuck a kitten into the house and kept him in my bedroom for three days without my parents finding out. The reason they found out? Connor. I brought the kitten home mainly for him since he had always wanted a pet, but our dad never liked the idea. So for those three days, Connor barely ever stepped out of my room which really unusual for him to do. Naturally, my mother gets concerned and interrogates him a bit, to the point where he just can’t keep his secret anymore and bursts out.

  “I’m gay.”

  Kind of like that.

  “There, I said it.”

  I looked over at him, his cheeks flushing red as the emotional impact of it all was setting in. My little brother was gay and I loved him the same exact way as before. I reached out a hand and slapped his thigh in the universal sign of brotherly solidarity. I smiled over at him, overwhelmingly happy at him that he was strong enough to come out and say it.

  I was also a little happy that he wasn’t actually having sex with the girl of my dreams.

  “Con, I hope you weren’t expecting some dramatic flip out and family expulsion.” I said, reassuring him that I in fact didn’t see him differently. I mean, I can’t lie, on the inside, I was a little bit shocked just because I hadn’t seen it coming, but it wasn’t a feeling of shame or anger. I knew that at the end of the day I had his back and he had mine.

  “I wasn’t sure what I was expecting,” he said, relief taking place of the fear that was gripping him just moments before. Pride filled me again as I looked at my little brother. And then I felt a little jab in my chest. Nothing extreme, but big enough to remind me of my pain. And as selfish as it sounds, my thoughts shifted from my awesome little brother to the painkillers my body was starting to scream out for.

  My nerves were tickling underneath my skin, ready to wield to the pain but not without giving me a warning; give us what we want and you’ll feel ok. But how was I going to get the drugs?

  “You know, it feels great talking to you like this.”

  Shit. What was I going to do? I had nothing at home.

  “I’m kind of scared how mom’s going to take it.”

  Maybe I can find an old prescription?

  “Dad will be fine though, I’m sure.”

  What if I go back to the hospital?

  “Right?”

  My attention snapped back to Connor. Poor kid was bearing his soul and I was planning on taking me next hit. This was not me. This couldn’t be me.

  “Yeah, bud. Listen, they aren’t going to stop supporting you. Mom is going to be a little off for probably a month, which is usually her reaction time for big news like this, and then she’ll be fine.” I tried to reassure him while my right fingers twitched the slightest amount just as my chest sent another sharp reminder; give us what we want.

  “Well, at least I’ve got you and Sky on my side.”

  “How did Sky take it?” I asked. My sister was very mature for her age and she was also Connor's twin, I wasn’t scared she would take it the wrong way.

  “Really well. She actually wasn’t surprised, apparently she always had a feeling.”

  “She was always really intuitive about those things,” I pointed out, remembering the one time she figured out our estranged uncle was gay even while he was married to a bitch masquerading as a flight attendant.

  “Yeah, it’s weird, being open about it.”

  “I can’t even imagine. How long have you known?” I asked, wishing I could relieve some of the burdens he had to have been carrying his whole life. Maybe offering him a painkiller would help?

  Fuck. No.

  “Since I could remember. I guess that’s why I hung around girls when I was little.” Connor always had a posse of girls when he was younger, so much so that our whole family thought he was such a little player, bringing different girls to Christmas and Halloween parties, always rotating his roster of friends. Then in high school he joined the football team and turned into an annoying bro for a while. Thankfully that phased passed. Well for the most part, seeing as he was still pledging a fraternity.

  He assured me it was a good one though.

  “I’m proud of you, Con.”

  “Thanks,” he said, his voice breaking towards the end. I squeezed his shoulder and ruffled his hair up a bit, just like old times.

  “So dad got you this?” I asked, deciding that Connor being gay was going to change nothing so a different topic of discussion was due.

  “Yeah, just last week,” he replied, stroking the sleek black leather on the steering wheel that stood out against the dark mahogany accents and paneling. It was one sexy car. My brother was going to drop lots of.... well, boxers with this one.

  “How do you like it? I read up on this model and it gets pretty beastly. Kick up the speed a bit,” I said, I wanted to see how fast this beast went, I really did. But there was also a tiny piece of my brain that was happy we were going faster. That meant getting home faster which meant figuring out something to do.

  My little brother stepped on the gas, making the engine roar out in power and streak down an empty street lined by the mansions of Beverly Hills. Lavish driveways surrounded by immense and perfectly trimmed emerald green shrubs leading into the most extravagant entrances made for royalty. In the front were parked the Bentlys and Mercedes that blurred passed my window. We kept driving until we got further into the hills and stopped at my place, a two floor bachelor pad that was everything I wanted.

  The outside was a smooth concrete with modern architecture that incorporated a lot of rounded corners. It was also tucked further up into the hills, avoiding the traffic that built on Beverly Boulevard at any hour of the day.

  “Thanks, Jason,” my brother said. I felt sad that he thought he needed to say thanks, as if it was some inconvenience for me to keep supporting and loving him. It broke my heart once more and also reminded me I needed to numb these pains.

  “You don’t have to thank me. You’re still my little brother regardless of whether you like to take it in the butt or not.” We both laughed, finally feeling comfortable with it all. What else was there to do but laugh and just be fucking happy?

  “Alright well, off that note, I’m gonna head inside. Love you, bro,” I said, giving him the other type of awkward hug; the side car hug where arms go whichever which way and mouths try their hardest to avoid contact.

  “Wait! Before you leave, Courtney wanted me to tell her when you were home and feeling ok, but maybe you should tell her?” My brother was playing the matchmaker, I could smell it a mile away.

  “Yeah sure, what’s her number?”

  With Courtney’s number in my phone, I said bye to my brother and watched him drive off the bumpy driveway and back down the hill. I looked at my phone and found myself smiling, but then I remembered; I needed to numb the pain.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I hurried into my house, closing the door behind me like I was hiding from the police. And then I looked around my living room and realized I was really fucked. There was nothing in here, I would never have kept anything that would be too tempting to use. I wouldn’t have just kept old pill bottles that I didn’t need, like sou
venirs whispering for me in the night. No, I threw all that shit out with my old life.

  Except now, that bullet brought out more than just my blood. It brought up everything I was harboring. And that nightmare, Jesus that fucking nightmare still gave me cold sweats every time I brought the memory back up. It was another reason why I needed the codeine, the morphine, the Ambien, the whatever else I could get my hands on.

  I stormed over to the sofa, punching a hole clean through the wall on my way there. The impact was so hard that it left raw, scarlet red skin on my knuckles and it caused an Andy Warhol painting to come crashing to the floor, shattering the glass casing.

  I crashed onto the couch and gripped the armrest, breathing through the newfound pain that came with my outburst. It was more than my body could have handled post-gunshot and my body was sure as fuck telling me. I tried to count my breaths, distracting me from the pain that was slowly creeping up, like a clawed hand crawling across the corner of a dark hallway. Ready to grip me by my throat and thrash me around, threatening to end me.

  Fuck. I needed to get out of here.

  I grabbed my phone and dialed the one person I knew could get my mind off of this.

  “Hey, Courtney? It’s Jason.”

  After a moment of silence, “Dr. Silvers?” Courtney asked, sounding a little confused.

  “Yeah, Connor gave me your number,” I said. I realized she probably would have been more comfortable with a text at first, but oh well, we live and we learn.

  “Oh… That crazy Connor... So... how are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling great, which is why I wanted to see if you were up for grabbing a nice steak?” I said, hoping to all hope that she would say yes and take me out of the prison that my home was becoming. The walls were already closing in on me, reminding me how much I wanted the numbness.

  “I… umm…. yeah, you know what, that sounds great! Meet me at my place and we can head out from here? I live in the Oxford Manor Apartments, number forty-five.”