with each blink. I’ve come this far, so there’s no backing out now, but what exactly do I want to know?
My fingers dither over the keys, knowing this is a mistake. Chickening out, I research something which is just as scary as finding out dirt on Roman. I don’t know where to start, so I decide to go back to the basics.
The keys whine in protest as I type the words: clinical trial results for high-grade glioblastomas. Pages upon pages load before my eyes, and I get an uncanny sense of déjà vu. This takes me back to sitting in my bedroom in Manhattan, researching methodically until the sun went down and then came back up again.
I skim over the top hits, not wanting to get my hopes up. The chemo drugs Dr. Carter wanted me to take, the same ones Erin took, keep popping up in my feed. I open one page and then another, comparing and analyzing the results. Each case study is different, but the odds for people like me…aren’t as bleak as they once were. Out of one hundred case studies, eight individuals were “cured.” I’m apprehensive about using that word because cured can be interpreted in many ways.
Two out of that eight were cured, meaning they no longer had a brain tumor because the inoperable became operable. For the other six, their tumors were downgraded to low grade. It doesn’t detail what the remaining ninety-two subjects’ results were, but I’m suddenly curious.
Eight percent had positive results, and it all comes down to the common denominator—they were all on the same trial drugs Georgia and I were on before they were put on the new experimental medication. Their results were similar to mine, and they then were a candidate for the next stage, the stage I opted out of because I was too chickenshit to try.
Closing fourteen of the fifteen tabs I have open, I take a deep breath, suddenly feeling faint. I can’t do this again. I can’t have false hope. Needing a distraction, I speedily type into the search engine: Dr. Roman Archibald.
Not exactly ethical but a distraction.
I’m swamped with pages of global Roman Archibalds, but nothing on the good doctor. I continue searching, determined to uncover something, no matter how small. As I’m scrolling through page three, I see a match that could be a winner. I click on the link, drumming my fingernails on the desk while waiting for it to load.
Just as I’m about to give up, I almost inhale my tongue when those hypnotic eyes flash onto the screen. It’s an article from some medical journal, detailing the doctor’s career.
He went to NYU—no surprise there—acing all of his subjects and graduating at the top of his class. It says his current work location is St. Mary’s Hospital, specializing in cancer research and treatment. Hobbies include a whole bunch of boring as they’ve left that question blank, by default, no doubt.
On paper, Dr. Archibald appears the perfect specimen, but something is missing. Steepling my fingers underneath my chin, I wonder what that is. This blueprint is flawed. There is no backstory, and I know from my experience in researching many doctors over the years that most like to brag. Most like to detail every accomplishment linked to their name, and I know for a fact Roman was involved with Erin’s case, which I’m sure was something talked about in the medical world.
Something is rotten in Denmark.
I continue scrolling through the pages until I see a Facebook page that has me hovering over the link. Call it woman’s intuition, but I click on it and try not to holler in smugness when I see a profile picture of Roman carrying a Golden Retriever like a baby. Both look beyond elated.
I’m disappointed when the profile is private. How can I carry on snooping now?
All I can see apart from his photo is that he grew up in Buffalo, New York, and that holy shit, his birthday is in two weeks. He’s turning thirty.
I get lost in those eyes, wondering what secrets he holds, like who took this picture. He looks happy, genuinely happy. It’s a side I haven’t seen since I met him. Not that I can blame him.
“You know…” The moment I hear those words, I want to thump my head against the desk, hoping to render myself unconscious. “You really shouldn’t believe everything you read.”
Stupidly, I attempt to close the page, but in my haste, I instead minimize it and open