Chapter 28

I show up to work bright and early Tuesday morning because I barely slept a wink all night. I would give anything to have a girlfriend to talk to. My friends from back home are half a world away, and they only check their emails every so often. The only texts I am getting are from Fang. I'm so confused about what happened in the back of that car. 

Before I start falling head over diamond-Dior-sneakers, I have to ask myself what a superstar like Fang Yao would want with an average high school student? Is he playing with my feelings? Should I brace myself for a messy break-up after an awkward one-night-stand? I wish I had some time to make sense of everything before Fang comes whirling back into my life in full force.

I'm still sorry about last night.

Can I make it up to you?

There's a party next Thursday. . .

Liyuan won't be there this time.

I hesitate before I respond to the text. As much as I would love to hang with Fang again, I doubt I have anything to wear to the type of parties that Fang gets invited to. I tuck the phone into my pocket and try not to think about it. Can't we stay in and watch some T.V.? Maybe make some popcorn and drink some lychee-based drinks? Fang doesn't text me again once the sun is high up in the sky despite the flurry of texts overnight. Did he regret inviting me out once he sobered up?

Fang doesn't come to the hospital that day or the day after that. Dr. Su calls me into his office first thing on Thursday morning. I didn't see the papers yesterday, and I imagine my friends, the middle-aged women from California, from the acupuncture class didn't either. Dr. Su did because he thinks I'm why Fang isn't coming by the hospital for his treatment anymore.

As soon as I crack the door open to his office, Dr. Su shows me a copy of the Shanghai Morning Post from earlier this week. I suck in a breath. There is a picture of me in the gossip column. Now I know why Fang didn't follow up his text. He saw the morning papers.

"I can explain!" I blurt out, but Dr. Su sighs and throws the paper in the trash. Dr. Su takes his tea tumbler out of his desk drawer and downs a gulp from it. I wait until he sets it down on his desk. I know precisely where he was going to put that tumbler down because the green leather blotter is already stained with many concentric watermarks. I stare at it as I wait for him to scold me for my unprofessional behavior.

He doesn't. Instead, he gets up and rummages through his coat closet. Dr. Su emerges with a clear plastic bag filled with dirty clothes. I don't get it. What is this?

"Here," Dr. Su says and lays the bag down by my feet. "Fang isn't coming back to the hospital now that the tabloids are all over his relationship with one of our staff members — and by staff member, I mean you."

"Am I being dismissed from this program?"

"No, no," Dr. Su laughs at that. "Why would I dismiss you? You only have a couple of weeks left. Maybe, just maybe, you'll spend some of it learning instead of dodging photographers —"

"I will! I promise. I'll never see Fang again. I want to finish this summer course."

"No, no, it's okay. You can see Fang again," Dr. Su chuckles again and rubs his forehead like I'm ridiculous. "The papers are saying there's a rumor that he's bringing you to a ballet next week. You should see him, and when you do, bring him his personal effects. Tell him if he wants to avoid the hospital, that's fine by me, but tell him to ask his brother to pick up his prescriptions like he used to. Poor boy, he doesn't trust anyone else not to leak his medical history to the press."

Dr. Su used the word kĕlián to describe Fang again, and I try to swallow my protests. Fang Yao is the last person in the world I would use that word to describe. Gorgeous and angelic perhaps, but pitiful? No way, he's the one who dumped his beautiful movie star ex-girlfriend, and he's the one who is living in a multimillion-dollar apartment with every single luxury on earth at his beck and call.  If anyone is worthy of pity, it's me because I have no idea how to navigate dating a guy like Fang Yao amid the sea of paparazzi that is now stalking me.

Dr. Su will be not dissuaded. He hands the plastic out to me. 

Seeing that I have no choice in the matter, I take the plastic bag and hold it up to the light. There's a Dior blazer inside and a pair of Salvatore Ferragamo shoes. There's a splatter of blood on the right shoe, and there's a Brioni dress shirt with french cuffs that had been cut into shreds.

"It's the clothes Fang was wearing when he was brought to the emergency room," Dr. Su explains before I am to discern what exactly is the meaning of this bag of dirty, blood-stained clothes. "He didn't have anyone with him when he came in, so I held onto his clothes for him. I didn't get a chance to give it back to him while he was here, so I'm giving it to you to bring him. There's an alligator-banded Cartier watch in there somewhere that looks expensive. He probably doesn't even realize he's missing it, but it isn't safe to keep such valuable items in my work locker. Will you drop it off with him when you see him next Thursday? Or whenever you see him?"

I don't know what to say. I can only stare down at my white knuckles as I clench the plastic bag. I'm not Fang Yao's girlfriend! Why am I being entrusted with his clothes?

Dr. Su, as oblivious as always, clears his throat and goes back to working on his computer. "Tell him that he can call me if he needs anything. I imagine he probably won't want to come to see me in person now that the media is stalking his every movement, especially with respect to coming to his particular hospital."

As I walk out of Dr. Su's office, I decide to take Fang's bag of clothing straight to my locker before anyone sees me with it. It won't help the rumors one bit if I'm caught with Fang Yao's dirty laundry. Oh my, I can imagine the internet backlash I would cause if I were photographed with Fang's clothes. We've barely gone on a single date, and I'm being entrusted with his laundry bag? Isn't that like a serious relationship level of intimacy?

I finally manage to sneak back into the women's locker room without being seen. Before I dump the dirty clothes into my locker, I decide to make sure the watch was inside with his comparatively less pricy, ruined clothing. If it wasn't, God forbid Fang, or Dr. Su accuses me of stealing it! Heck, that watch could probably pay for my entire college tuition!

I rummage around the bag, trying not to touch the blood-stained shirt even though the stains had long since dried and turned brown with age. Fang had been injured so severely that the paramedics had to cut his clothes off his body. Poor Fang, how lonely must it have been to only have his primary doctor there for him at his bedside. Because of his commitment to secrecy, he didn't even have a family member to take his clothing home.

Oh! There it is! I feel a lump inside the Dior Homme jacket pocket. I reach inside and expect to pull out a watch, but no, the object is made of plastic. And it's cylindrical shaped.

It's not a watch at all.

I withdraw an orange medicine bottle from the folds of Fang's jacket.

Patient #54241

Fluoxetine 20mg

One daily in the morning.

He must have been carrying these pills with him on the day of the accident. It's just a small dose of Prozac. I recalled him and Qing arguing about his medication at the bar. No big deal. I open the bottle by accident as I try to slip it back into the jacket pocket. A handful of pills fall onto the floor.

Oh shit!

I get down on my hands and knees to gather up the tiny round pills. As I collect a handful of them, I frown. The pills don't look like Prozac, which, as I recalled from rotations earlier this summer to be a green and white pill. These are white, and they have the letters ER906 imprinted on them. As I take out my medicine book and look up the letters, I realize these are Lorazepam. It's a benzodiazepine that is known to have the side effect of inducing sleep.

Why was Fang taking these while he was out driving that morning?

Suddenly it dawns on me.

Fang thought he was taking his morning Prozac, a medicine that he had been taken for months. He wouldn't have thought anything of it. Fang probably didn't even think twice that these pills looked different. Before Fang lost his voice, he wasn't involved in his medical care at all. From what I recalled from his fight with his brother last night, Fang couldn't even be bothered to pick up his pills from the pharmacy.

For all his rambling about the details about the morning before the crash, he forgot one critical detail. Perhaps, all this time he was too focused on Liyuan and Kang's fooling around his back to recall the pills he took that morning.

  These weren't his usual pills at all.

Someone switched his pills. These sedatives must have practically made him drive like he was intoxicated. That's why Fang crashed the car.