Page 12 of Reformation

But Michelle wanted New York. She wanted the culture and the prestige that came with the city. Even though I didn’t want to move, I didn’t care enough to fight her about it. When it came down to it, my success was the most important thing. I didn’t care if it was in Boston or New York. As long as I had a thriving practice and plenty of money in the bank, I was happy.

And I was. Until I wasn’t. Michelle made sure of that.

“What the fuck was that?” Trevor asks.

“What are you talking about?”

“That sound you just made. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted to punch me in the throat.”

“Sorry. Was just thinking about New York.”

“Thinking about New York causes you to sound like an animal about to attack?”

“No. Thinking about Michelle does.”

We let the silence hang a little longer before I ask the question that’s really been on my mind.

“Would my life have been different if I hadn’t ended up in New York? Would things have not gone down the way they did?”

Trevor doesn’t answer right away, and I almost forget that I asked it. “Unless you found a hospital with an entire staff of male nurses, I’m pretty sure your ass would still be here next to me right now, no matter where you went.”

Trevor is right. I would be here. We could have gone anywhere in the world, and I still would have spent all my time working and fucking nurses. Michelle still would have divorced me. I still would have reached out to Mark to help me get back on my feet. I’d still be running on this beach.

“We are doing pretty well for ourselves, aren’t we?” I ask out loud, not really expecting an answer.

“We are. We have a client list a mile long, have made a good chunk of change, and have hot women on our arms. Well, you have Annika and I have whomever I want. What more could we ask for?”

“Not a damn thing, brother. Not a damn thing.”

He’s right. What more could we want? This is exactly what I wanted when I came here to start over.

Money. Success. Notoriety.

“We have it all, my friend. We have it all.”

But as the last word comes out of my mouth, I feel it fall short on my tongue. My feet stop. My body bends in half so fast it’s like I was snapped into the position. The ground is spinning. Am I spinning?

What the fuck…

My breathing is short. I can’t… I can’t breathe.

And the pain… oh, fuck, the pain.

“Garrett!”

It’s the last thing I hear as I fall to the ground and the once warm Virginia air goes cold.

Chapter Eight

Garrett

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The steady cadence of the hospital monitor stirs me awake. Which is strange. Usually, if I’m catching a power nap in the on-call room, I can barely hear the monitors. After years of pulling multiple shifts back to back, after a while they became white noise in the sea of constant commotion that is a hospital.

Today they are not. They are loud and annoying and all I can hear.

Come to think of it, I haven’t needed to sleep in an on-call room since I moved to Virginia.

---