MEA CULPA (My Fault)

Beth POV.

That day was just like any other. Neither bright nor gloomy. Neither dull nor eventful. We were all going through the motions at the hospital. It was early evening, probably 5.00 PM or so.

That was when the alarm blared loudly, startling us all.

BelleVue General Hospital was my second home. Though, one might argue that it was my primary abode since I spent most of my waking hours there. I was a young trainee doctor working my ass off to live up to the expectations of not just my peers but also my own.

The loud blaring of the alarm snapped me out of the drudgery of the routine I had immersed myself in that evening. I remembered suddenly that it had been a while since I had checked on Jason. I made a rush down the hallway of the surgical department dressed in my regulatory white coat with a medical chart in my hand.

Jason Brown was my boyfriend. And both of us were a few hours away from the start of our residency as surgeons at BelleVue General.

We were partners in life, partners at work, and would-be partners in the residency that was supposed to become our future. How would you describe this life except as lucky?

“Have you seen Jason?” I asked the nurse carrying a tray of surgical tools at a distance. Her name was Emma. She was a new recruit just like us.

“My boyfriend … Jason,” I repeated to elicit a quicker response from her.

It may not have been necessary, though, as everyone working in the hospital knew that we were a couple. We had been going around together for almost three years now. Our relationship was certainly not a secret on the campus.

It was no secret to Emma, either.

“I think … I think I saw him going into that … room,” Emma replied haltingly, pointing vaguely at the end of the hallway. “With Naomi.”

Her inexplicable pauses, lack of eye contact and inability to point to an exact location made me apprehensive. As if she was trying to avoid disclosing too much.

With Naomi? What did she mean?

Naomi Thomas, like me and Jason, was a trainee doctor too. She was also my best friend, and was scheduled to begin her residency the next day. Just like us.

All three of us wanted to become surgeons. All three of us wanted to share the same fate. And, as luck would have it, the three of us DID end up sharing our fates.

I walked briskly towards the end of the hallway. There was only one room there. The supply closet.

And that’s when I stopped dead in my tracks.

It was faint but I heard it. A sound I have heard before. A sound that sent a shiver racing down my spine. A sound I made every time Jason made love to me. 

The moans were repetitive, and continuous, emanating from a woman’s voice at regular intervals.

What was happening?

With shaky fingers, I flung the closet door open.

I gasped.

The medical chart fell out of my grasp and clattered to the floor at my feet, taking my heart with it. 

I could not believe my eyes.

Jason and Naomi were standing on the floor a few feet away from the door, fully clothed, locked in a tight embrace and covered in sweat. He was kissing the back of her neck while she gasped and moaned. They were glowing with exhilaration and satisfaction that usually followed a torrid kissing session. 

The clattering noise of the medical chart hitting the floor startled them both. They sprung around. They disengaged and pulled away from each other.

But neither showed any hint of regret or remorse. Both were shameless in their act, and brazen in their display of immorality.

They didn’t even bother to leave the closet once I stepped inside.

Instead, Naomi giggled. Nervously or mockingly I could not tell. But it was enough to enrage me.

I knew Jason and Naomi were good friends, always close, always whispering to each other, always touchy-feely.

She would call him at odd hours, and he would always answer. I would complain and voice my displeasure about what she was doing as I didn’t feel it to be appropriate. After all, she was my BFF while Jason was my BF. But he would brush it off with a dismissive smile, and say, “There is nothing for you to worry about, babe. We are colleagues and good friends.”

And now these two ‘good friends’ had just been caught kissing together. Hours before the arrival of the biggest milestone of our lives. Sneaking inside the supply closet like rats and making out with each other.

As my gaze flicked between them, desperate for answers, I didn’t notice an ounce of remorse on either of their faces.

“What the hell is going on here?” My high-pitched voice sounded foreign to my ears. “Jason, what the fuck!”

Jason looked toward the ceiling, and then to the floor. Everywhere except for my eyes. As if looking into my eyes would be a tiresome task. And Naomi didn’t even bother to leave to give us some privacy.

“Jason, I demand an answer,” I cried, clenching my fists at my side. 

“Answer for what?” he shot back, running a hand through his chestnut hair. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Are you kidding?” I cried, my throat hoarse from holding back tears. “You shoved your tongue down her throat on the eve of my residency! How could you?”

Naomi snickered beside him, a smirk turning up at the corner of her mouth. She continued twirling a strand of red hair around her finger, not caring that my world was crumbling around me right now. 

“You should forget about the residency, Beth,” Jason responded callously and bluntly. “You won’t make it past day one. Being a surgeon is too much pressure for someone like you.”

His tone was dismissive, loaded with ridicule and jeers. I could not hold back my tears.

“Is that why you asked her to sneak in here with you? Because I am not fit to be a surgeon and she is? I never should’ve wasted three years on you. We are done. Shame on you, you son of a…”

Unable to look Jason in the eye any longer, I ran out of the supply closet without finishing my sentence.

Why, Jason? Why me? Why today?

Jason and Naomi watched with blank faces as I slammed the closet door with tears in my eyes. Not once did he apologize for his infidelity or try to stop me from leaving. 

Enraged and hurt to my core, I picked up a chair lying nearby and jammed the door handle from outside.

Within a second, they started yelling and pounding the door from the inside.

Loudly.

I stormed out. Out of the hallway. Out of the surgical section. Out of their lives.

To hell with him and his bimbo. Let them rot in this tiny closet. They can make out for as long as they want.

But it didn’t change the fact I was walking away with a broken heart.

Maybe he had never loved me. Neither truly, nor selflessly, nor unwaveringly. If he did, he wouldn’t have betrayed me the way he did.

In the span of only a few minutes, I was left betrayed, unloved, and shattered.

How did everything go so wrong so fast?