by Julie Wright
I stared at the screen in disbelief.
Everett took my apartment? My reaction felt a little shaky in the mental stability department. Everett took my apartment? I laughed. Then I gathered my toiletry case and a fresh change of clothes and entered the hospital to get ready for the day in the public restrooms.
Like a real homeless person would do.
***
Avoiding people proved impossible. Everett found me at just after nine am. “Hey, Andrea without an E, do you have a minute where we could talk?”
I didn’t return our playful name banter. Between being tired from no sleep and feeling irrational from no humanity, I simply wasn’t in the mood. I didn’t even look up from taking notes on the patient I’d just visited.
“It’s about Adam.” He waited for a response. When he didn’t receive one, he forged ahead anyway. “I just have to tell you, warn you really . . . that you shouldn’t got out with him. He wouldn’t be good for you.”
I did turn then and the look on my face must have been at least half of what I felt because Everett actually took a step back. “You don’t think he’d be good for me? Because you know so much about what’s good for me? Someone has the gall to show interest in me, and you feel you have any right to act like you have a say in the situation?”
“Whoa, Andra, where is this coming from? I thought we were okay with each other, you know . . . the reset button.”
I snapped my notebook closed. “I’ve reset the reset button.” I tried to turn, to get away before tears showed up, but Everett closed his hand around my arm to stop me.
“Why? What’s going on?”
My fingers instinctively went to the place where my heart necklace so often hung, but when they found nothing, anger replaced the thought of tears.
His hand that had been holding my arm moved to my shoulder where he gave it a small squeeze. The human contact wasn’t enough, and it came too late.
We’d been here before. The moment reeked of déjàvu. But I couldn’t stop it any more than I had been able to stop it before. “You know, it doesn’t matter, Everett. You’re free to date whoever you’d like, free to live wherever you’d like, free to do whatever you’d like. It’s none of my business. But right now I need space . . . Literally and metaphorically. I don’t have an apartment anymore, and the one I had been on the waiting list for during the last year fell through because some new student showed up and swooped it out from under me. So I have to find a place to live ASAP, and keep up with school, and I just can’t do this friendship dance we keep doing.”
He stared at me for several moments. “The new swooping student?” He pointed at himself. “Me?”
His shoulders dropped at my curt nod. “I see. Would it help to know why I had to move?”
I softened a little toward him. “Look, Everett, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just keep things professional and get through the next two years unscathed, shall we?”
His frame sagged as if his whole being cringed at the word professional. “Right. Got it. I can do that for you if that’s how you really want things, but Andra, as a friend I have to warn you to keep things professional with Adam, too. He’s not what you—”
“I can take care of myself.”
Everett shuffled back a step, then forward a step, then he turned altogether. “I’ll just leave you alone then.”
When he did leave, the weight of his words pressed down on me. Alone. I felt lonelier than ever before in my life. I reached for my necklace and felt a pang. My heart was gone.
The Third Chamber
Two people connected by the red string of fate are destined to become lovers, regardless of time, place, or circumstances.
–Chinese Legend
Chapter Eleven
Everett had been right about Adam. Adam was a lecherous kind of guy and my one and only date with him to the concert had been kind of disastrous in the had-to-call-a-cab-to keep-from-getting-date-raped kind of way. Working with them both proved difficult over the next several months. When Adam dropped school altogether because he’d been caught trifling with one of the girls in the cafeteria and because he had no hope of passing second level exams, I felt great relief to see him go.
Everett and I remained friendly toward each other but wary also, like a couple of cats who'd been in a brawl and had to still live in the same household. He dated a bit—even going so far as to actually date Tamara, though it didn’t last long. He did all this while I tried not to notice. I dated less than that. I don’t know if he noticed or not.
Even while we weren’t dating or showing a marked interest in each other, I still sought Everett’s approval. His compliments buoyed me from moment to moment. I tried to return the favor, but also had no way of knowing if my compliments meant as much to him as his did to me.
I had no way of knowing a lot of things except my job, my patients, and my relationships with the doctors and nurses, who would, hopefully, one day recommend me for residency at Boston Children’s Hospital.
I kept my head down and my hands busy all through third year. Fourth year was more of the same, only with more confidence. I learned that not everyone in the hospital gave accurate information. Being proactive, asking questions—even when the wrong answers were given—and doing my own research helped me to understand the process of being a doctor. Taking the time to really learn the answers to my patient’s problems allowed me to fully understand and to trust my own judgment.
At the end of our fourth year during our rotation in pediatrics, I encountered Everett sagged against the nurse’s station with his head in his hands.
I slid in next to him and bumped his shoulder, a familiarity I had not allowed myself with him in all the time since I told him to keep it professional. “When was the last time you ate?” I asked as I rummaged in my pocket for what I knew he needed.
“I don’t remember,” Everett said.
I slipped a protein bar in his hand. “Eat this. You need it.”
He lifted his head long enough to look at the package. “Honey peanut butter?”
I shrugged. “Once you eat this bar, your entire world will change. It tastes just like a honey peanut butter sandwich only it’s prepackaged and doesn’t smoosh and make a mess as easily. Try it.”
He lifted his left eyebrow, which made me smile. I had no eyebrow control though I’d spent a great deal of time as a child staring into a mirror and trying to arch one brow. It never happened for me and was a talent I appreciated in others. “World changing?” he asked.
“World changing, rocking, domination. It’s got everything.”
“I can’t.” He pushed the bar back my direction. “It’s yours.”
“I’ve at least had lunch today, and you haven’t.” I totally lied. Lunch had gone the way of unicorns and Santa Claus for me . . . it just didn’t happen, but I did keep a small supply of healthy, quick energy snacks in my pockets and had used them liberally throughout the day. I backed up and put up my hands as if to say, “No give backs.”
“How about we split it?” He ripped the foil top off with his teeth, slid the bar from its packaging, and broke it exactly in half.
My stomach rumbled just then, traitor. I rolled my eyes and took the offered half. As if we’d planned it, we turned to each other and tapped our protein bar halves together like a toast—like we had with our red Solo cups all those years ago that felt like a different life entirely.
“Cheers,” Everett said.
“Cheers.”
We each took a bite, and his eyes fluttered closed briefly as if I’d just fed him ambrosia from the gods.
“Okay, this is amazing,” he murmured. “It even has the texture of the honey crystallized in the bread like when my sandwich sat in my lunch bag for half the day in elementary school.”
“I know! It’s why I love them,” I agreed.
He flipped the packaging over to see the name brand. “I am going to stock up on these.”
We went to munching on our half bars in com
panionable silence until there was nothing left to do but get back to work. I sighed deeply as I watched Everett wad the packaging up and toss it into the waste basket.
“Sounds like a sigh with a story,” Everett said.
“Not really. I just have a patient left to check in on before I can even hope to go home that I kind of dread having to look in on.”
Everett eyed me with a new interest. “Did you just complain about a patient? Can I tell people about this? Not that they’d believe me or anything, but it would be great for the world to know that the great Andra Stone gets grumblers, too.”
“Grumblers?” I asked.
“Patients who suck.”
“Ah. I see.”
“So who’s your grumbler?” He lowered his voice conspiratorially, and he finally looked awake.
“We’re in the pediatric wing. How can you call any kid a grumbler?”
“Nope. You don’t get to pull the whole I-love-everybody card. You already admitted to dread. Kids grumble as much as anyone. So who is yours? C’mon, tell. Tell. Tell.”
I laughed and swatted him lightly. “Room 204.”
“The Burgess kid. Yeah, he’s on my list too.”
“I guess Jeremy is a bit of a grumbler . . .” I had every intention of defending the boy even as I dreaded going to his room.
“A bit?” Everett looked scandalized at the word choice. “A bit? The kid calls nurses and doctors, this one and that one and it as if they were inanimate objects instead of people. Any time anyone tries to talk to him about anything, his only reply is, ‘Okay, yeah. I hate that.’ And you want to say he’s only a bit of a grumbler?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, you know . . . considering all he has going on right now. If he complains, he has a right being that his left leg is a mess. I don’t mind that so much as he’s just . . .”
“A grumbler . . .” Everett prodded. He literally prodded. He poked my shoulder several times as if he was one of the very grumbly kids he was just complaining about.
“No. It isn’t his grumbling that makes me dread going to his room. It’s just that . . . well, honestly? He stinks.”
“Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”
“Not that he stinks as in he’s lame, but stinks as in he smells bad. Really bad.”
Everett laughed out loud. “Stinks? All that kid has wrong with him on a societal level, and you’re worried about his smell? I haven’t really spent any time in his room. Is it like bodily fluids? Is our resident grumbler a bed wetter too?”
“It’s not that,” I said. “He’s on a catheter since he can’t walk on that leg, not that I’m afraid of a little urine. But what he smells like is so much worse.” I shook my head and tried to find the right words to explain myself. “The kid smells like . . . like hot dog water.”
If Everett had thought a stinky kid was funny before, he thought hot dog water was absolutely hilarious.
“You must be tired,” I said, “because none of this is really funny. How long have you been here today?”
“You just compared a child to hot dog water. It’s totally funny. And I got here at the same time you did.” He shot me a knowing look with the eyebrow raised again.
His bringing up the reality of our very long day made me rub at my eyes. I tried to do so without looking like I felt the tired seeping into my veins and being systematically pumped through my body, but Everett watched me closely. Of course he noticed.
“You work too hard, Andrea without an E.”
I looked at him, really looked at him for the first time in months. How did I suddenly miss him so badly when we’d been working together in such close proximity for such a long time? “You work too hard, too.” The words came out slowly, softly. “Maybe we both need some time to unwind. We could go get a pizza—”
“I do take time to unwind,” he said, avoiding the fact that I’d made the first overture to something more—an opportunity to spend time together that I thought he’d jump at after being placed firmly at arm’s length for so long.
Instead, he almost seemed to jump away. And then, as if someone had ordered her from a menu with instantaneous delivery service, from around the corner, a woman appeared—a woman I recognized from around the hospital but hadn’t given any thought to how she fit in or why she loitered in our area every once in a while.
“Evs!” she called out. “You ready?”
Did everyone call Everett Evs but me? The nickname stabbed my sensibilities like toothpicks under my fingernails.
Everett smiled at me. The smile seemed sad, and it made me feel a little sad to see it. “You do need to unwind, Andra. You’re going to implode if you don’t. No one can keep up that kind of pace.”
And with that, his arm slid around the woman’s waist. He said, “You’ve met Liz, haven’t you?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “No, I haven’t.” Was my smile tight? Too forced? Was I even smiling at all? Deciding it would be wrong to reach up my hand to feel at my cheeks to see if I was smiling, I extended it to this interloper instead. “Hello, Liz. I’m Andra. It’s nice to meet you.”
She shook my hand and smiled back like she was happy to meet me. “I know. Evs is always talking about the med student who sometimes knows more than the doctors. It’s nice to finally get an introduction beyond just seeing you around when I’ve stopped by to help keep this one fed.” She put her hand on his stomach and gave it a little pat.
Everett gave her a squeeze as he nodded in my direction. “Andra beat you to the punch today. She shared a peanut butter and honey sandwich with me.”
Liz shot me a grateful glance. “Thanks for watching out for him. I always thought doctors were smart about health, but it turns out they’re only smart about other people’s health and totally oblivious to their own.”
“The struggle is real,” I commented, not even sure what I meant to be saying. I didn’t like Everett’s arm around her. I didn’t like how casually she accepted that he belonged to her.
I didn’t like that his moving on was good for him.
I loathed that his moving on was all my fault.
Liz focused on Everett with such admiration, it would have been adorable if she’d been looking at anyone else. “Well, babe, any chance they’ll let you off soon? I downloaded a movie—one you’ll love.”
I was curious if she had any idea what kind of movies Everett actually liked. Did she know he was a sucker for science fiction? Did she know he practically had all the Dr. Who episodes memorized? Was she aware that he cried in the ending to the fourth episode of Star Wars because he loved it so much and cried in the third episode because he thought it was so lame?
Did she know my Everett like I knew my Everett?
“What movie?” He asked the question I itched to ask.
“Old classic. You told me it was one of your favorites. Fifth Element.”
My heart felt like it fell out of my chest and flopped around on the floor. She did know.
“And I ordered Thai for dinner. No stress tonight. Just relax.”
The look of gratitude he gave her pinged my chest.
“I think I can leave. I’ll check and make sure, then we can go,” he told her while swinging her in the direction they would need to walk to find out. “You going to be okay, Andrea without an E?” He tossed me a look over his shoulder.
I raised my clipboard into the air. “I’ve got hot dog water waiting for me. I couldn’t possibly be better.” I laughed, because laughing made it hurt a little less.
Liz looked over her shoulder too. “That doesn’t sound fun at all. You look like you can use a break too. We have enough food. Want to join us for dinner and a movie?”
Did she need to be nice on top of everything?
“No, thanks. I’ve got dinner plans.” With my microwave, I added silently. Everett must have seen the truth of it because his stupid eyebrow arched for a third time. It no longer seemed cute to me. And how had we been friends all these years and I never knew he could do that?
Did he acquire the talent to impress Liz? Was it new? Or was I just oblivious?
I squared my shoulders. My choices belonged to me, and decisions were made to be lived with, as my grams always said. I chose to keep things professional between Everett and me.
Regretting such decisions just because I felt a little tired and weak didn’t help anyone. With my clipboard clutched to my chest, there remained nothing left to do but face the boy who smelled like hot dog water.
“Have fun, guys,” I said and headed down the hall.
“You should go home, too, Andra. You need a break,” he called after me, but I waved him away with a laugh and a noncommittal grunt.
As my feet made soft thuds on the hall floor, Everett’s words struck a chord that thrummed a little. I did need a break. So instead of visiting the boy that smelled like hot dog water and had a little attitude to match, I stopped by to check on Drake, a little boy who had been badly burned over half his face, his shoulder, and down his back by a pan of boiling water.
The burns would leave irreparable scars on a face that would have otherwise been very handsome when he grew up.
He was a dear little guy who was pretty much terrified of the entire hospital staff. But he wasn’t afraid of me. And just like I calmed him down, he also calmed me. We were good for each other that way. Who needed boyfriend companionship when sweet little boy companionship was more than enough?
Before I’d even moved both feet into the room with Drake, I focused on my very best friendly-doctor voice and asked out loud, “And how’s my favorite patient doing?” When someone else looked up from Drake’s chart and smiled at me, my feet stuttered to a stop.
“Hello?” I said, the tone of those two words could have been translated any number of ways: Who the heck are you? Why are you in my patient’s room looking at my patient’s chart? And why am I suddenly very nervous?
Staring at the woman made me feel like I had an oral presentation to give that I hadn’t prepared for.
