To say my life had spun out of control in the two weeks since I took the paternity test would be an understatement. It had been utter chaos, and the media was feeding off of it like frenzied sharks in bloodied water.
The only good to come out of anything this week was my appointment with Mark, setting him up with a strict diet plan, and preparing him for a heart transplant. We weren’t rushed at the moment, his heart being assisted well by the machine, but still, once the donor heart was available, we would go through the process of assuring it was a perfect match and then do the surgery. I wanted to be excited about this, but I’d had zero reprieves to be able to.
I was in my office after my evening rounds, looking at the envelope I came to pick up. The results were in, and with the hectic day I’d already had, I wasn’t sure how I’d respond to either being a father or not. If the latter were the case, then that proved what we all knew—the woman had been lying about everything.
With my nerves trying to settle after being called to the ICU for an emergency crash of one of Dr. Anderson’s patients, I knew I needed to take a breath before I opened the envelope. I’d tried everything to save the man to no avail, and my frustration grew even more when I went through his charts and saw that Anderson should’ve never done the surgery in the first place. The deceased man we couldn’t revive despite everyone’s most considerable efforts was not a candidate for open-heart surgery, and I was reasonably sure, knowing Anderson, he told the patient and the family so, but they opted in anyway. When I walked out to inform the family, they seemed to be more understanding than surprised this happened to their family member.
With all of that having happened, fighting media mobs over the past two weeks, seeing where I was now the asshole doctor living a happy life, and leaving the mother of my child to raise my child alone, I was reaching a breaking point. How the hell could they say this shit about me without knowing whether or not I was the father? The lawyers’ advice was to keep my mouth shut while this Liz bitch cried daily in front of the cameras and reporters. Why the fuck did anyone give a shit about my personal life anyway?
I rubbed my forehead, my thumb absently running over the embossed seal of the results I needed to know. Shitty day or not, I couldn’t go another night without having some answers.
I felt emotionless as I opened the folder and read the results. I shouldn’t have been surprised, pissed, or in the red-zoned state that I’d just hit after learning the child was, in fact, mine. I shoved the paperwork in my work case and shouldered the bag, leaving my office and needing to be alone to process things.
“Jacob,” I heard a woman’s breathless voice call out after I pulled my keys out from locking the back door of my office. “Jacob, wait.”
I turned to see the very last person that wanted to be in my presence. “Liz,” I said, glancing around to find us alone and pissed this woman practically came out of the trees to talk to me. “Now’s not the time. What are you doing out here by yourself this late?”
“I’ve been waiting to talk to you,” she said. “I’m sorry about what happened with the patient you—”
“Hold up,” I looked at her in disbelief. “This is bordering on psychotic stalker behavior. How do you know what I’ve been doing, and why are you waiting for me in the dark?”
“I tried to talk to you earlier when I got my results—our results—but you were called to the hospital in an emergency. So I waited.”
“You’re positively insane,” I snapped, my sense and voice of reason fleeing from me rapidly. “We can talk when we’re in front of lawyers,” I said, turning to leave.
“We need to talk now,” she said, trailing me. “We need to talk about the future of us and our baby.”
I stopped, closed my eyes, and tried to breathe out the fury I felt as I heard those words come out of her mouth. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this. Not even close.
“There is no future between us, and I can assure you that. We’ll talk about the baby in front of lawyers.”
“I’m scared to do this alone,” she whimpered, and I glared in response.
“Scared?” I scoffed. “If you were so scared, then why did you come to my house that night? If you were so goddamn scared, why did you wait five fucking months of knowing you were pregnant to tell me about it?”
“Because of this reaction.”
I ran my hand through my hair and closed my eyes. The woman’s tone was grating on my nerves, and her lies about being Ash’s friend led me to believe the woman had far more significant issues than carrying my child.
“Listen,” I said. “You and I need to find a way to deal with the outcome of a condom failing because I was a dick who wanted a piece of ass. I know this.”
“The condom?” She laughed. “You didn’t use a condom, Jacob. That’s how I knew the baby was yours.”
“Believe what you want,” I said. “The bottom line is that I’m the father, and trust me when I say that I still question that. I’ll have another test done once the baby is born as well.”
“Why are you questioning it?”
“Because you walked into my office after having covertly joined my intern team, all with the most ridiculous excuse I’ve heard in my life. If that wasn’t enough, you fucking stalker, you lied about being Ash’s best friend. What do you want out of this—out of me? Money? Name the price, and I’ll pay your ass off right now.”
“Any price?” she looked at me with confusion or excitement—hell if I knew. The woman was a lunatic, and she was taking the bait.
“Any price.”
“You’re disgusting,” she said. “I will get child support, but our baby needs its father in its life.”
Is she fucking serious? I thought, nauseated and furious to hear the words our baby come out of her mouth. “You’ll get your child support,” I said almost in a growl, “but don’t expect me to be the father you might want. I don’t even have the time for a bullshit relationship much less deal with raising someone’s kid.”
I didn’t mean any of that. I’d just fed this woman what was far from the truth, but I was incensed. My fucking day had been hell, and now I was spouting off because I was pissed at the world.
“Wow,” she said, “does Ashley know this is how you feel about her?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, pissed at myself more than anything. “As I said, the lawyers will be involved from here on out. Do not come to my office ever again. If you need to meet, I’ll arrange the time and place. And after the child is born, another DNA test will be run to have foolproof accuracy of the child being mine. I have nothing else to say to you.”
With every step I took toward the parking structure, looking over my shoulder to see if the parasite was following me, I’d realized I said shit that wasn’t anywhere near the man I was. Psycho mother or not, I would be there for my child—no hesitation, no doubt in my mind. I couldn’t believe the rage that woman managed to pull out of me to make me respond in such a manner.
The woman was seemingly not right in the head, and I was definitely calling for a psychological exam to warrant her fitness as a mother and a medical professional. Shit, I’d screwed some crazy chicks in my life, but it just so happened that the craziest one of them all was carrying my kid.
I got into my car and immediately called Jim while pulling out of the parking lot.
“Eleven o’clock on a Friday night tells me you had a shitty day,” he answered from the speakerphone in his office.
“Pull me off speakerphone,” I said.
“It’s just me. I’m settling out the last of the paperwork,” he said, “What’s going on?”
“I fucked up,” I said. “The kid is mine. The results came in. That bitch—”
“Jake,” Jim cut me off. “Slow the hell down. How exactly did you fuck up?”
“Liz was hiding out in the trees like a psychopath, and I confronted her.”
“Regardless of how crazy the woman is or not, you understood very well that you’re to keep your damn mouth shut around the media, the office, and, more importantly, her,” he said in frustration. “Damn it, why in the hell did you open your mouth?”
“Bad fucking day, to say the least.”
“I heard about Anderson’s loss. You tried, man,” he said. “Collin said you seemed to be faring well after it all, though.”
“Well, that shit stays with me sometimes.”
“Fine. What did you say to her?”
“It started by me setting her up to take the money. I tried to bait the woman in and pay her off, but she wasn’t biting.”
“Fuck, Jake!” he growled. “That is not your job! We have the best team of lawyers in all of Southern California, yet here you are trying to negotiate while fucking yourself in the process. Why would you do that?”
“That’s not the worst part. I lost my shit and said I had no time to raise a child since I was barely handling a relationship or some crazy shit like that. If that woman hates Ash, I just gave her—”
“The lawyers already told you not to talk to her—especially alone—because of her mannerisms already. Her feeding everything to the press these days is the reason the lawyers told you to keep your mouth shut. Now to hear you baited her? Do you know how shitty that’s going to come across to the fucking morons who are obsessed with this personal-life circus of yours?”
“I don’t give a shit what the morons think. I just don’t want this broad giving Ash some distorted version of the truth.”
“Thanks to this stunt, this is probably going to blow up in your face, and you need to brace yourself for that.”
“I can’t lose Ash.”
“Should’ve thought about that before you let your temper take over,” he said with no sympathy. “Where are you headed now? Are you going to talk to her? Perhaps you should.”
“I think I’m just going to text her and head home for the night. I can’t trust myself talking to her in this state of mind.”
“Good call. Make sure you get up to see her tomorrow, at least. If you think it could be an issue, you should to get to Ash before this woman does.”
“I know. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Hey, Jake,” he said before I ended the call.
“What,” I responded flatly.
“Take this any way you want, but I’m going big brother on your ass. You need to shut the fuck up from here on out, you got that? I’ll watch the press, and I’m getting a team of lawyers on them as well. It’s gotten out of hand, and I’m worried about you not being able to perform your job well with all of this harassment.”
“It’s taking you just now to see how those dicks are fucking with my life?”
“You’re pissed. Go home. I’ll handle my part, and you handle yours.”
I hung up with Jim, and who knows what possessed me, but I took the freeway to head to Ash’s house to let her know what’d happened, and get that out of the way. By the time I’d pulled up to her house—after two major traffic jams—I looked at the time and was annoyed more than before. There was no way I was going to wake her up just to lay this shit on her and ruin her sleep, not to mention waking up her dad and Carmen. I decided to text her instead and head home to where I should’ve gone directly in the first place.
Jake: Hey, it’s been a pretty shitty day. Found out I’m the father. It’s past midnight, or else I’d have stopped by to tell you myself. I’m just heading home for the night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
After I hit send, I stared at the text, wishing I’d never sent it. It was something I definitely should have told her face-to-face. I was in a fucking downward spiral tonight and needed to go home.
