I leave the private practice offices of Sumter, Maxwell, and Degraves with a lump in my throat. The guys called me over to talk to them and…they told me that now, with the trial so close and with everything they’ve discovered, they had to share with me what they think.

I say 'think' because while I know there’s been some utterly crazy shit going on these past few months, I don’t know if I can really believe what they’ve just told me. I mean this is not exactly the kind of leap of distrust you want to make in someone that basically raised you.

“He’s selling…and doing drugs that he’s getting from his hospitals.”

Julian’s words are reverberating off my brain. They don’t quite land anywhere in my thinking. I have to admit, my first thought, besides ‘Oh, the person I love would never do that’ are that a person that is supposed to be so smart, why would he do something so stupid? How does someone amass that much wealth and then do something as boneheaded as sell drugs in the hospitals they run?

I watched Breaking Bad, didn’t he? I mean, come on, there are no degrees of separation!

Okay, so I’m starting to get a little hysterical. I’m doing what one of my girlfriends refers to as emotional driving. I’m squeezing the steering wheel like it owes me money. I’m visiting Al Jefferson in the hospital now, despite him asking me to stay away from Havenfield General Hospital, and him.

Because Julian, David, and Stefan told me that they had real evidence that Al Jefferson was doing drugs and selling them from his hospitals. They had the tox screen, which would never fly in court because of how Julian got it. Al had already had all the other files altered anyway. But they told me that they had someone who could put all the pieces together. I wanted them to tell me more, but I told them I needed to process this information, too.

My angry, hurt driving gets me to the hospital and I’ve processed enough. I want some answers from Al fucking Jefferson and he can’t just ignore me now. I’m here.

When I come up to the desk this time, I ask for him again. The nurse at the desk station looks over her clipboard and then back up at me, not amused by this request.

“I’m family,” I state, my tone a little clipped at this point because I have to do something other than consider going back to school or switching careers to an entirely different industry. I can’t just think about the three surgeons that have stolen my heart right now…I need to confront the man that wants to crush them.

Because he raised me, he paid for my college, and he helped me every step of the way as I tried to make myself worthy of running this very hospital.

She tells me his room number, and I walk to it to finally visit Al. He’s here now because his recovery is taking longer than even to be expected for the kind of car accident that he was in. Al claims that’s part of why he’s suing David, Stefan, and Julian.

I don’t know what to believe anymore.

I remember the tired, angry but surprisingly frail man I visited after his surgery. The man who hasn’t let me come and see him since and barely talks to me now.

“Al,” I say as I walk in. “We need to talk.” “If I wanted to talk to you, I’d answer any of the calls, emails, and text messages you’ve sent me.” Al looks at me with cold eyes. I’ve never seen him look at me, at anyone or anything, like that. “I’ve made it perfectly clear that you are not to be in this hospital and that you are not to contact me.”

I feel like there’s ice in my veins. I suck in a breath and look into those cold eyes so I know he sees how serious I am. “Do you illegally sell pharmaceuticals in your hospitals?”

Al laughs. He laughs for nearly a full minute.

I felt hurt when I came here…but now I’m just starting to feel pissed off. My instincts told me that I should trust the guys, but I remained weary. Still, right now, I have the strongest feeling in my gut that I should run. I’m not exactly the type of girl that runs away from her problems. I mean, my whole world started falling apart, and I didn’t shed a tear. I worked the angles to see what I could take care of. I just didn’t have a lot to work with.

So that’s how I know it is danger that I’m sensing, not my own fear that makes me think I should get the hell out of here.

Al leans in closer when he stops laughing. “You come in here when I told you I don’t fucking want you here, and you accuse me of being some kind of drug kingpin? You get out of my hospital and out of my face, or you’ll be seeing your dead parents sooner than you think.”

The ice in my veins has turned to razors. A cruel, ugly threat that seems needlessly…evil. I stand up and leave the room. I don’t need to engage with Al for another second.

My mind summons the words of one of my favorite role models, Maya Angelou. “When people show you who they are, believe them.” I am not going to get emotional about the devastating blow this was to me today. I’m not going to try to reason out why he did the things he did. I’m going to stay the hell away from him, and tell the three men in my life that have been trying to uncover the truth this whole time.

I’m putting on my big girl panties for now, but I’ll make sure that when this trial is over, I find some way to de-stress.

I think you and I can think of something I might do?

I’m starting to realize that there’s more than just convenience or sexual chemistry in why I lean on David, Stefan, and Julian. No, I lean on them because…I love them.

I don’t know when it happened. I just know that it is true. I love all of three of them. I know that’s pretty far away from what a normal relationship looks like. Hey, when I met them, all I wanted was casual sex!

But somewhere along the way, when they showed me who they were, my heart believed them. And I have to see where that leads.

After the trial -- and maybe another one with this revelation that Al is a drug kingpin (his words!) – Al is my past. Can David, Stefan, and Julian really be my future?