Closer to the Edge

by Tara Sivec

  Olivia did something else with the money. All I have to do is ask her about it. She probably put it in a savings account for me for when I got home or some stupid shit. She didn’t tell me because I’m sure she was embarrassed. Hell, maybe she even spent the money to pay the mortgage since I wasn’t there to help. I don’t care what the fuck she did with the money as long as it isn’t what my mother is trying to say.

  “Look at the next page, Cole,” my mother tells me quietly, a hiccup in her voice as she cries harder.

  I look away from her and snatch up the next page in the file, quickly scanning it and my blood runs cold. It’s a medical report, Olivia’s medical report, and it’s dated two days after the check was cashed. After being around people in the medical field all my life, I know enough to understand what the fuck I’m looking at right now. My first thought is that it’s fake. I mean, for fuck’s sake, my parents run a damn hospital, my mother could easily forge a document like this. Then I see the signatures of not one, not two, but three different attending physicians. As much pull as my mother has at UC San Diego, not even SHE could force three well-renowned doctors to lie about something like this. There are checks and balances in place at every hospital to make sure things like that never happen. With a large sum of money, she might have swayed one of them to commit medical fraud, but not three of them. It would never happen.

  Even with the proof staring me right in the face, I still want to deny it. She wouldn’t do this. GODDAMMIT, she wouldn’t do this!

  “I didn’t want to do it on my own.”

  “I wasn’t taking care of myself.”

  “I didn’t want to do it without you.”

  Olivia’s words repeat on a loop in my head and I can’t turn them off. I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me, but how in the fuck could it be this? How could she do this? How could she tell me everything else but leave this part out?

  Because she knew you would hate her for it.

  She spent all that time and energy being pissed at me for leaving, making me beg for her forgiveness and open up every bad fucking wound of my past when the entire time, she was keeping a secret like this.

  Something isn’t right about this entire thing, but I’m too full of rage to try and make sense of anything. I loved her, I promised her the fucking world, I told her EVERYTHING and she lied to me. She lied right to my fucking face. I want to argue with my mother, I want to swear on everything that I am and everything that I believe in that Olivia would never do this, but the proof is right in front of me. It’s in my fucking hand and, as much as I don’t want to believe it’s true, I can’t ignore this piece of paper. I feel the rage burning a hole right through me the longer I look down at it, rereading every single detail of what she did to her body and to my child. Everyone in my life lied to me. EVERYONE. It doesn’t hurt knowing my parents and my sister lied, but it tears apart everything inside of me realizing that Olivia did. Even Garrett lied, my own fucking best friend. His cryptic words about how when the shit hits the fan, I couldn’t dare leave Olivia again. He knew what she did and he knew it would break me. Jesus Christ, I crawled to both of them on my hands and knees! I blamed myself for every rip and tear in our relationships and they let me. They fucking let me.

  “I should have never given her the money. I take full responsibility for even suggesting that she do something like this, but you have to believe me, Cole. I never thought she would. I lost five babies, son, babies I wanted with every fiber of my being. Surely you can see that I’d never expect a woman like Olivia could do this. I thought she was stronger than that. I just wanted her to leave so she’d be safe.”

  I don’t say a word as I push myself up from the chair. I don’t ask about my father because I don’t fucking care. I don’t tell my mother I forgive her, because I never will. She played her own part in all of this and she’s going to have to live with that for the rest of her life. This family is a joke. One big, fat fucking joke.

  And I guess everything I thought I had with Olivia is, too.

  My mother calls my name over and over as I walk towards the door. My fury grows with each step I take and I pause in the doorway long enough to yell as loud as I can before throwing my fist through the wooden door. I ignore the pain in my knuckles and the blood dripping down my fingers, the paper in my other hand fluttering to the ground as I leave my father’s office.

  The paper stating that, at seven weeks and four days, Olivia terminated a perfectly healthy pregnancy.

  “GARRETT, I COULD kiss you square on the mouth right now,” I tell him as I flip through the papers he just handed me.

  “In a past life, I would have taken you up on that offer,” he laughs.

  Parker wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes him tight. “I’m the only woman you’re kissing forever and ever.”

  Garrett slides his arm over her shoulder and smiles down at her. “Damn straight, my little bad ass.”

  I stare at them with a smile as Garrett explains. “You should really be kissing Parker for what you’re holding in your hand. She’s the one who broke into the hospital, hacked the records and got all of that information. I just played lookout and made sure she didn’t get arrested. Or kill anyone who got in her way.”

  Parker rolls her eyes at him before moving away and sitting down next to me on the couch. “I know you were adamant about not wanting this information, but you should know by now that I never do a damn thing anyone tells me and I’m not about to apologize for that.”

  A few months ago, I probably would have been upset with her for going behind my back and doing something I specifically told her not to, but she saved my life by doing this without even knowing it.

  “I wouldn’t accept your apology even if you gave me one,” I tell her. “It’s time for all of this to come out in the open. Lord only knows what Vivien is telling Cole right now. I know he won’t believe anything she tries to tell him, but it will still be nice to have this in my hand so he can see the truth with his own eyes,” I tell her, waving the papers back and forth.

  Garrett sits down on the other side of me and takes the papers from my hands, flipping through them until he finds one he’s looking for.

  “This right here is pretty much the only one you need, but Parker printed out everything from the moment Cole left until she fired you, just in case you need it.”

  I look over his shoulder at the page he’s holding up. The day everything changed and the nightmares truly began.

  “This eight digit code on the left is Vivien’s hospital I.D. number. You’ll see at the top that her name is right next to the code just so there isn’t any confusion about this being HER report with HER activity,” Garrett explains.

  “On June twenty-fourth, she entered the hospital pharmacy at 9:15 am.”

  He pulls a second page from the pile and holds it between us.

  “This is the report from the Pyxis MedStation in the pharmacy that lists every single dose taken out of the machine with a date, time stamp and the hospital I.D. number for the person who requested it. Normally, you also have to put in the prescribing doctor’s code for the medicine to be released and recorded, but Vivien would know how to get around that.”

  I take the paper from his hands and he points to a line in the middle of the page.

  “At 9:18 am, Vivien used her I.D. to take out twenty units of Pitocin.”

  Twenty units. Ten more than the typical amount used to induce labor. I feel sick to my stomach and Parker wraps her arm around my shoulder.

  “We still don’t know how she got the initial dose in you, but there’s another report in here that shows her I.D. being used to gain access to the maternity floor several hours later,” Garrett explains.

  Six hours, to be exact. Six hours spent petrified that I was truly about to lose the very last piece of Cole before the doctors managed to slow everything down. I was in and out of consciousness, exhausted by hours of crying and pain, but I know I saw her in my room. Even half asleep and f
ull of medication to calm me down, I will never forget the vision of her in the doorway of my room. Fifteen minutes later I was wide awake, my body wracked with contractions even stronger than before as I clutched my stomach and prayed for everything to be okay.

  “I know how she gave it to me,” I tell them quietly.

  Parker and Garrett share a look and I close my eyes, remembering that day so clearly. I was such a fool, such a stupid, trusting fool.

  I should have known better.

  Once again, I’m being summoned to Vivien Vargas’ office. I knew it would only be a matter of time before news traveled that I disobeyed her orders. Luck was on my side when she left town for several months and I thought maybe I would be able to skate by, continue doing my job and she would forget all about the threat she made.

  As I made my way down the long hallway to Vivien’s office, I rested my hand protectively over my stomach. There’s nothing she can do it about it now. If she wanted to fire me, let her. I have something much more important to deal with now.

  I paused in the hallway as the door to Vivien’s office opened and Charles and Caroline stepped out. They spotted me immediately and we all stood in the hallway, staring at one another awkwardly. I had only met Charles once, so I really didn’t care what he was thinking right now, but Caroline was another issue altogether. At one time I thought we could be friends, maybe even allies. She’d tried calling me a few times since Cole left, but my heart couldn’t take talking to her. She reminded me too much of Cole with her quick wit and her desire to take care of the people she loved. Hearing her voice reminded me of the times the three of us spent together when he was still here, still loving me and still a part of my life. I can see by the look on her face that she’s hurt seeing me standing here now, looking so different, and I feel bad for not telling her the truth.

  “Olivia, Mother told us she was meeting with you in a few minutes. You’re looking well,” Caroline told me stiffly.

  Before I could apologize for not keeping in touch with her, Charles grabbed her arm roughly and started dragging her down the hall towards me.

  “We need to leave, right now,” he growled to Caroline, not even glancing in my direction as he pulled her past me.

  I turned and watched them go, Caroline rushing to keep up with her father’s brisk footsteps as he stomped angrily down the hall, further away from me.

  With one last look over her shoulder, Caroline smiled at me.

  “Good luck in there, Olivia!” she shouted before they both disappeared around the corner.

  I slumped back against the wall and rested my hand over my nervously beating heart. Running into the rest of the Vargas family was not what I expected when I came up here. Aside from the anger on Charles’ face, it went better than I thought it would, but I still had Vivien to contend with and this was no time for me to let down my guard. I pushed away from the wall, squared my shoulders and marched right into Vivien’s office.

  I open my eyes and think about what happened after I walked through the doors of Vivien’s office. She was angry, rightly so, according to her. She demanded that I do something and I had defied her. Apparently, she wasn’t used to people not doing exactly as she asked.

  “She offered me a cup of tea,” I tell Garrett and Parker. “She told me I looked tired and pale and said the tea would make me feel better. After she berated me, of course, for not following her orders. I took that stupid cup from her and she made me drink the entire thing while she stood there watching me. She must have put the Pitocin in the tea, that’s the only explanation. She couldn’t have stuck me with a needle; the closest she ever got to me was two feet away when she handed me that fucking teacup.”

  Parker curses, getting up from the couch and pacing back and forth in front of me.

  “I don’t even know why she called me up to her office. It didn’t occur to me until a few weeks later that the only thing we talked about was how disappointed she was, how shitty I looked and how that special, organic tea would work wonders. I was in so much shock over her failure to acknowledge the obvious and I guess it never occurred to me that it was all a ploy. Even five minutes later when I felt the first contraction on the elevator, I didn’t consider that she… I mean, it’s almost unfathomable that Vivien could be capable of this.”

  I remember that moment in the elevator, doubling over as pain radiated through my lower stomach and spread to my back, so sharp and sudden that it took my breath away.

  “Let me just play devil’s advocate for a minute here. Roughly five minutes passed from the time you finished the tea until your first contraction. That’s relatively fast, right?” Garrett asks.

  “Pitocin generally starts working about twenty minutes after it’s administered, but that’s when it’s diluted with sodium chloride and an electrolyte solution. She most likely filled up a syringe with straight Pitocin and shot it right into the tea. Without it being watered down, so to speak, it could start working instantaneously,” I tell them.

  “And after the doctors got everything stabilized, that bitch came back in your room and put more into your I.V. line,” Parker finishes.

  I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees as I put my head in my hands. Parker squats down in front of me and runs her hand over the top of my head.

  “It’s going to be over soon. You have all the proof you need to nail her ass to the wall. We can prove that she used her I.D. to obtain the Pitocin right before you met with her, and that she accessed the maternity floor right around the time that things took a turn for the worse,” Parker tells me. “And her bullshit reasoning for firing you and trying to strip you of your license because you stole the Pitocin and gave it to yourself can all be explained away now. There’s a reason your blood work came back positive for Pitocin and it’s because that bitch gave it to you.”

  I drop my hands from my face and look up at her. “I’m going to be the reason that Cole’s entire family falls apart.”

  She shakes her head back and forth. “Fuck that shit. His family was a mess long before you and he’s better off without them. They need to pay for what they did you, hon. They need to pay for what they did to both of you.”

  I thank Garrett and Parker for everything they’ve done for me, give them both a hug and make my way back to Cole’s house, armed with the information that will change his entire life. His mother can’t lie her way through this. It’s concrete proof that she was directly responsible for what happened to our child. It breaks my heart when I think about how hurt Cole is going to be, and I hesitate for a moment. Then I think about everything I lost, all of the pain and the agony and the loneliness I’ve suffered, all because of Vivien. It’s time to get my life back. I deserve this life with Cole and we deserve to be happy. No matter what excuses Vivien is most likely giving Cole right at this moment, I have the truth and proof on my side.

  AN HOUR LATER, I jump up from the couch in Cole’s living room when he walks through the front door.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for over an hour?” I ask, stepping around the coffee table and heading towards him.

  The room is dark. I never bothered turning on the lights when I got here earlier because the moon shining through the windows brightened the living room enough for me to see. I want to see Cole’s face clearly, though. I need to see him, to wrap my arms around him and feel his strength. I reach for the light switch on the wall next to him, but his hand comes out quickly, wrapping around my wrist to stop me.

  “No. Keep the lights off.”

  His voice is low and hoarse and I want to ask him if he’s okay, but I know he’s probably not. I can only imagine how the conversation with his mother went and I decide to keep my mouth shut for the time being and let him work through things however he needs to.

  He moves faster than I’ve ever seen him, grabbing onto my hips and turning me until my back hits the wall next to the door. His body slams against mine and his lips are on me before I can utter a word. The kiss is rem
iniscent of the one I gave him when we had sex on the couch a few weeks ago—bruising and hard and filled with anger. I let him take what he wants from the kiss, trying to slow him down and make it gentle, remind him that I’m here with him and I’m not going anywhere, but it just fuels his fire.

  I know that his caveman actions shouldn’t turn me on, but they do. I’m wet and ready for him before he finishes unbuttoning his jeans and pulling his hard length out of his pants. I will give him anything, let him take anything to make his pain go away. He growls into my mouth, plunging his tongue deeper and harder. His hands smack against my ass and he lifts me up against the wall, spreading my legs with his hips as he reaches between us, shoves my underwear to the side and thrusts all the way inside me in one hard push.

  I pull my mouth away from his to ask if his knee is okay, but he silences me immediately.

  “Don’t talk right now. Please, just don’t talk,” he begs.

  I can hear the tears in his voice and it breaks my heart. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and hold him as close to me as possible as he starts pounding into me in short, ragged movements. I’m too concerned with what’s going on in his head to concentrate on my own pleasure. It doesn’t matter right now; this is just for him and I will let him take it.

  He buries his face into the crook of my neck, his hips slamming into me faster and faster until he reaches his release, silently coming inside of me as his fingers dig into the skin of my ass.

  I close my eyes and run my fingers through his hair as he catches his breath.

  “Well, that was certainly unexpected,” I try to joke with a soft voice.

  He jerks his body away from mine so quickly that I have to grab onto the wall to steady myself when my feet hit the ground.

  I watch in the dark shadows as he moves further away from me, staring down at himself as he tucks everything back into his jeans and buttons back up.