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But no.
I couldn’t force the hazardous thoughts from my tongue.
Because if I was wrong? It would destroy me all over again.
FIFTY-THREE
CHARLEIGH
“The doctor should bewith you in a few minutes,” I said, voice hollow as I left the patient in the examination room.
River had tried to convince me not to go in to work, but I’d refused, telling him I had no sick time to take. It was the truth, but it didn’t have anything to do with the reason I couldn’t agree.
I needed to move. To shuck the errant thoughts that had laid siege to my brain and had sunk their talons into my psyche.
Since I’d insisted on going in, Raven had decided she was going to go into work, too.
She’d suggested I drop her off at Moonflower and take her car since I got off earlier, and then I would go back to pick her up at the end of the day.
She’d paused when I’d pulled up outside her shop, and she’d reached out and squeezed my wrist, concern burrowed deep in her brow as she asked, “What’s wrong?”
I had barely been able to toss out the lie. “I…I just haven’t been sleeping well after everything. I think I just need to get back into a normal routine. Shake myself out of the fear.”
She’d nodded and promised, “It’s going to be okay.”
I wanted it to be.
I wanted to feel okay.
To grasp back onto reality.
But I hadn’t been able to escape the thoughts that had plagued me since last night here, either.
They’d followed me throughout the morning.
I moved into the office so I could get the records for Dr. Reynolds’ next appointment, and I pulled out the file cabinet drawer labeled T so I could grab Francisca Thomas’ chart.
Only I stilled when my fingertips brushed over the name on a tab toward the front.
Tayte, Nolan.
Nerves tumbled through my stomach. What did I think I was doing? But instead of ignoring it and moving on, I glanced behind me to make sure no one else was around and pulled out the file.
It wasn’t like I didn’t have access to the files or wasn’t allowed to look, but it felt like what I was doing was illicit.
Wrong.
With my back to the door, I kept it concealed as I rested Nolan’s file on my left arm and flipped it open.
I scanned the information. Name, date of birth, address, family contact.
The inputs in my handwriting that I’d made the first day that I’d met him.
I started to flip through the papers.
His well-checks.
A visit for a fever.
