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She pursed her lips.
Blake raised one eyebrow, letting her know without words that he knew he’d hit the nail on the head. “Talk to me, Erik.”
“I don’t want to bring you down. You won. You should be celebrating.”
He scoffed. “I don’t need to celebrate every damn win.”
She rolled her eyes, a half-hearted attempt at playfulness. “Since when?”
“What happened at work?”
“I lost a patient,” she said, her voice suddenly growing thick.
He gave her a moment to compose herself, wondering what set this patient apart from others she’d lost. Erika was a compassionate person and a dedicated doctor. Losing patients always affected her, but he’d never seen her fall apart like this. Her strength amazed him, so he hated seeing her so down.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured when she failed to say more.
“Her name was Sara. She was seventeen.”
“Fuck,” Blake muttered. “That’s rough. Car accident?”
Erika shook her head. “OD.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Sadly, Baltimore had been dubbed the U.S. Heroin Capital in a recent news program, so Erika had dealt with too many overdoses in her career.
“Heroin?”
“No,” she said. “Cocaine, actually. She and her boyfriend got their hands on some bad stuff, laced with fentanyl.”
“Fucking drugs.”
“Her parents didn’t even know she wasn’t home in her own bed.”
“Jesus,” Blake whispered.
“She was an only child.”
Ah. Maybe that explained it. Erika—also an only child—must have felt some sort of personal connection to the family.
“The worst part of my job is telling people they lost someone they loved. But when it’s someone so young and it’s unexpected and…”
Blake reached for her hand, squeezing it gently.
“There’s nothing harder than watching parents come to grips with the fact they lost a child. Sara’s father just stood there after I told them she was gone. Still as a statue. I’ve never seen anyone so devoid of…anything. It was like the light inside him went out completely. And Sara’s mother didn’t seem able to process what I’d said. She just started talking, really fast, telling me about her daughter’s new boyfriend, about how they didn’t approve of him, and how they’d grounded her for sneaking out to see him a few nights ago. Then she told me that her daughter was a good girl, always on the honor roll. Apparently, Sara had gotten early admission acceptance to her first choice of college. She wanted to be a math teacher.”
Blake realized it wasn’t just the mother who felt the need to talk. Now that she’d opened up, everything that had been bothering her fell out of Erika. He noticed there were no more tears. He wondered if that meant she was all cried out or if she never allowed herself to cry in front of others. Knowing Erika, he tended to think it was the latter.
“It sounded like Sara met the wrong boy, made a bad decision. One bad decision and then…nothing.” Erika bent forward, reaching for her wine glass, then putting it right back down again without taking a drink.
“Did you open that bottle tonight?”
The sideways glance she gave him answered the question without words. She took a couple of deep breaths, and he watched her dig deep for that inner strength, shrugging off the heavy feelings. “I’m usually better at leaving stuff like this at work. This one…followed me home.”
He knew what she said was true. “Is the wine helping?”
She shrugged, so Blake reached out, massaging her shoulders.
“You’re damn tense for someone who’s three glasses deep. You need some stress relief.”
