Chapter 12
The fresh page lay open and perfectly white. The last one had curled at the edges where the water spread, the ink feathering into a gray cloud that made my previous entry unreadable. I didn't throw it away. I left it there, ruined, as proof that an accident had happened.
My brown crossbody bag hung on the back of the white chair. I'd tucked the small amber bottle inside it that morning after I measured the dose, not because I wanted to hide it but because I didn't know where else to put it where it would be safe. Now, with the guard watching me from his spot near the wall, I understood I couldn't keep carrying it around like a secret.
I stood up from the nightstand and walked to the chair.
The guard's eyes tracked me behind his black sunglasses. His hands were still clasped in front of him. He didn't move, but I felt the shift in his attention.
I unzipped the bag. The sound was loud in the quiet suite. Daylight from the large window on the right cut across the wooden parquet floor and hit the gold frame of the landscape painting.
I took out the bottle.
It was small and warm from being against my hip. The white cap was screwed on tight. I carried it back to the nightstand and set it down openly, right next to the clear glass of water I'd refilled and the black pen. I didn't slide it behind the notebook or tuck it under a cloth. I placed it in the center of the wood where anyone walking in could see it.
The guard's head tilted a fraction.
"You're leaving that out?" he said. His voice was low.
I nodded. My throat was dry. "It belongs on the chart. It should have always been on the chart."
He didn't answer right away. I heard him breathe. In Chapter 7 he had offered me that one look-away, that deal where he wouldn't see what I wrote if I needed a minute. I was cashing it in now, but not the way he'd expected. I wasn't asking him to ignore a lie. I was asking him to watch me tell the truth and do nothing.
He glanced toward the window, then back at the bottle. His hands stayed clasped. "Okay," he said finally. "Okay."
I picked up the bottle again and unscrewed the cap. With my other hand I pulled a clean oral syringe from the pocket of my white uniform. The dark piping on my collar felt tight around my neck. I held the bottle up to the light. The liquid inside was amber too, catching the daylight.
I drew the plunger back slowly. The syringe had black marks for milliliters, half-milliliters. I wasn't administering anything. The patient under the dark blanket made a soft sound and shifted, but he didn't wake. I just needed to know what was left. What the real volume was, versus what the chart said should be left.
The guard watched my hands. He didn't stop me. He didn't step forward.
I held the syringe at eye level. The measurement was clear. I had given less than ordered yesterday, and the bottle showed it. There was more left inside than there should have been if I'd followed the falsified note left for me. I stared at the line where the liquid stopped against the marks. That line was the truth. It was the one thing no one could talk me out of.
My hand wasn't shaking now. It was steady.
I pushed the liquid back into the bottle carefully, recapped it white and tight, and set it back down on the nightstand. Open. Documented by its presence.
Then I took my phone from my uniform pocket. I didn't hide it under the table. I held it over the nightstand the way I'd seen day-shift nurses do for wound photos.
"You logging that?" the guard asked.
"I'm backing it up," I said. "My notebook is legal. But paper gets wet."
I opened the camera. I framed the shot so it caught everything together: the small amber bottle with its white cap, the syringe laid beside it showing the last measurement, the fresh lined notebook with today's date already written at the top, and behind them, the corner of the clear glass of water. The gray-white tabby wasn't on the table anymore; she'd jumped down when the water spilled, but I could see her thin tail curled around the leg of the chair.
I took the photo. The shutter sound clicked.
Then I took a second one, closer, just the bottle and the syringe marks, so the volume could be read without question.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and felt its weight there. The photo backup existed now, even if this fresh page somehow got ruined again. Even if someone told me to rewrite it.
May you like
The guard exhaled and looked at the door to the suite, as if he could hear the employer footsteps that hadn't arrived yet. He didn't reach for the bottle. He didn't tell me to put it away.
I sat back down at the nightstand, picked up the black pen, and uncapped it over the fresh page. The bottle sat openly beside my hand, catching the daylight. I was ready to write.
