Third Degree

by Julie Cross

  His fingers loosen on my arm and I think he’s about to release me and take off, but instead a trail of heat moves up my arm, across my shoulder, and eventually to the back of my neck.

  He’s focused on my mouth, and I’m focused on his eyes and the way the blue surrounding his pupils grows larger as he moves closer. His warm breath is already hitting my skin, the hand on the back of my neck drawing me closer.

  Do it, please—

  The second I absorb the feel of his lips on mine, it’s like a giant knot inside me unwinds. I reach for his shirt, tangling my fingers in it, pulling him to me. Our lips part and his tongue is in my mouth. My eyelids flutter shut and I fall hard into this feeling. Two minutes ago I’d wanted to punch him, and now I can’t get enough of the softness of his mouth, the strength of his arms around me, the scent of soap and deodorant, the annoying weight of our clothes between us.

  Kelsey was so right—he’s a gifted kisser. I should have tested the theory a long time ago.

  Chapter 11

  I’m making out with my RA out in the open, with hundreds of students milling around. Does this make me normal?

  Both of us jump apart at almost the exact same moment. I stare, first at the newly acquired two feet of space between us, then at the Marshall’s wide eyes. He swipes the back of his hand across his mouth and I do the same.

  “Okay, I totally didn’t mean to do that.” His gaze flits around us, taking in the surroundings again, and then he’s back to looking at me.

  “Me either,” I say, my chest still rising and falling quickly.

  Not that I didn’t want him to kiss me …

  I reach for my books on the bench and then decide to sit down instead of picking them up. My limbs are like Jell-O. I remember the feeling of the knot unraveling just moments ago. It’s almost like post-orgasm relief. I can think clearly now. I don’t have all that anger and tension clouding my thoughts.

  Marshall sinks onto the bench beside me. “I’m sorry.”

  I glance sideways at him, fighting a smile. “What for? I kind of enjoyed that.”

  “Me too.” He lifts an arm, wrapping it around the back of the bench. “I meant that I’m sorry for what I said about you. That was pretty harsh and judgmental.”

  “Definitely harsh.” I lean back and close my eyes, my head now resting on Marshall’s arm. “But also true.”

  I’m constantly bouncing between being afraid that there’s something wrong with me and then convincing myself that it’s not me, it’s them.

  “Izzy …” Marshall looks straight ahead while I stare at the side of his face. “If you were really as cold as you try to be, I wouldn’t want anything to do with you.”

  “You would have hated me a couple of years ago.” After that in-depth analysis of Poe’s life, it feels good to confess this. “I was the world’s biggest brat. I deserved to be smacked many times, but I’ve never been punished in my life.”

  “Maybe your parents didn’t know what to do with you,” he says. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

  I laugh. “Thanks.” The amusement dissolves as quickly as it came, and a darkness I’ve experienced only a few times in my life sweeps over me, pressing its weight onto my shoulders. “Maybe they’re scared, too. Maybe they’re working hard to deny the fact that their only child might not be a very good person.”

  “Izzy—” He’s looking at me now, so I shake my head to stop him. I’m not fishing for reassurance.

  “They’re getting divorced,” I admit. “I drove home last week and I wasn’t going to come back, but then there was a FOR SALE sign in the yard and my dad’s office furniture was gone. They ended their marriage without even telling me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marshall says. “But maybe they’ve been unhappy for a while. Maybe it’ll be better this way. Did they seem unhappy?”

  I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “That’s the thing … I didn’t notice any difference. What the hell is wrong with me? I didn’t notice my parents’ marriage falling apart.”

  Marshall hesitates, then squeezes my shoulder with one hand. “People are good at hiding the ugly parts of their lives.”

  My gaze drifts to his face for a second, studying his features, trying to figure out if he’s speaking from experience. Can I tell him about the ugly parts of my life? Will he get it? Can I tell him the ugliest part, the part I’m not even sure my parents are aware of? The fear that brews inside me and sneaks up on rare occasions, catching me off guard?

  “Not noticing my parents’ relationship issues isn’t the only thing I’m worried about,” I say, releasing the biggest breath of all. “I really do think there’s something wrong with me. My first week as an intern—last fall—a whole group of us started at the same time under Dr. Rinehart. She’s basically my boss. Well, she was my boss. We had this car accident patient that Rinehart and four of us interns evaluated. The guy was talking to us, joking around, his wife and his kids were bouncing all over the room, and then Rinehart gets called away to emergency surgery and the guy crashes—completely flatlines.”

  “Did he have like internal bleeding or something? I’ve heard about people with sticks through their heads walking and talking from adrenaline …”

  I want to smile, lighten the mood, but all I feel is dark and heavy. “He had internal bleeding. He stopped breathing, his heart stopped. There were two other interns in the room with me—both of them seven years older than I. I’d been eighteen for eight days, which means I’d been legally allowed to practice medicine, supervised, on patients for eight days. Both the girl and the guy intern panicked when the patient crashed. All they could think to do was yell for a nurse to page Rinehart. Of course they knew it was probably internal bleeding, but we had to address the not-breathing, no-pulse issue first.” The sun is warm, but goose bumps spread all over my arms and I have to rub them away. “Both of them completely froze up. And me … I didn’t have even a second’s hesitation. I grabbed the paddles and proceeded to follow textbook procedure for a code blue. By the time Dr. Rinehart returned, I’d not only restarted the guy’s heart, I had a breathing tube in place.”

  “That’s good, right?” Marshall asks.

  I shrug. “I thought so. Actually, I didn’t really think about it being good or bad. I knew what needed to be done, so I did it. But when everything calmed down, after Dr. Rinehart was back in control, there was a moment where I looked around the room and I could see that everybody in the room—the nurses, the guy’s wife, his screaming kids, the other interns—thought my reaction was abnormal, and not in a good way. Afterward, I asked to scrub in on the surgery, and Rinehart told me no, but then she let Dara and Caleb into the OR—and this was after they’d completely frozen up in the ER, and one ended up puking her guts out in the locker room and the other one was sobbing like a two-year-old in the stairwell.” I take a deep breath and look up at Marshall. “I think that I was supposed to be scared that he was going to die, and I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t anything.”

  Marshall’s fingertips brush my cheek and then our eyes lock and he’s leaning in. My heart rate increases again, my breath catching in the back of my throat and my stomach getting that awesome flip-flop feeling. And I want this so bad. I want his mouth on mine again. I want to go back to his room, lock the door, and tug each other’s clothes off. My eyes begin to close and I can practically feel the weight of his fingertips gliding across my breasts, my stomach, moving south …

  But I’ve done this before. I’ve been here before.

  The revelation hits me like a brick falling from the sky. My eyes fly open, and my hand reaches out and presses against Marshall’s chest.

  “What—?”

  “You’re right,” I say, sliding farther away from him on the bench. “I’m not really trying, am I?”

  Marshall’s eyes are still half-lidded, his brain not quite shifting gears as quickly as mine. “Huh?”

  “What are we doing?” I ask him. “We’re in this bubble, and it’s become an excuse fo
r me to not really try to assimilate here.”

  “Right.” He straightens up and wipes any trace of confusion or desire from his face.

  “And I’ve done this routine before.” I gesture between me and him. “Competing with someone, fighting, then making out in the on-call room.”

  Justin. That was the foundation of our “relationship,” and really we never got beyond that foundation. I have no idea what I want with Marshall, but I know I don’t want our parting words at the end of the semester to include him slapping a hundred dollars into my palm and telling me he’s glad I failed.

  Marshall runs his fingers through his hair and then over his face. “Why does it feel like you’re in the middle of a game of chess, moving people around to figure out how to win?”

  I release a frustrated breath. I can’t answer that question because I agree with him—it does feel like that, but I don’t know why. I grab my books and stand up. “I think I’m gonna skip the game this weekend. It’s probably best. Go have fun with the leggy blond girl. I’m sure you could use some normal in your life after three weeks of being around me.”

  I walk away without giving him a chance to reply. I need a new game plan. And I really need to know what Dr. Winifred James, Ph.D., wrote about me in her evaluation. I’ve flirted with the idea of illegally getting my hands on that report for long enough. What if I’m not capable of being a decent human and now I’ve dragged Marshall down this hole with me? He’s the type who cares, and, well … I don’t know if I am or not. And more important, if I’m not, can I become better?

  As I’m walking away, I pull out my phone to call my mom. She picks up on the third ring. “Hey, Mom … so, have you sold my room yet, or is it available for lease this weekend? I’d like to book a room tonight.”

  My heart pounds, my palms are sweaty. My fingers freeze over the keyboard of my laptop, listening to the silent house one more time. Logically, I know my mom is in bed for the night—it’s two in the morning—but the paranoia is above logic. And my mom was extremely concerned when I showed up at home yet again without much advance planning. Maybe she was just worried about hiding more evidence from me, like divorce papers and bills from lawyers, or maybe she’s sold the house already and didn’t want me to find out until my next trip home, when I walk through the door and strangers are all moved in. That seems to be their preferred method of communicating with their daughter lately. I push the anger from my thoughts and focus on the task at hand.

  I could get in a lot of trouble for this.

  I could also find the answers I need.

  Or I could exit out of the secured system and go insane obsessing over my failures.

  The cautious part of my brain shuts down and my hands fly over the keys, entering in my name, birth date, and social security number. The file pops up before there’s any chance of me changing my mind and now that it’s uploading before my eyes, I can’t turn away.

  I scroll through a fairly recent exam and full panel of blood work I had done as a precaution after Justin the asshole decided to engage in sexual relations with another girl while engaging with me.

  Finally, I land on the notes from Dr. Winifred James, Ph.D. It’s hard to take any of this report seriously. She’s not even an M.D. But the more I read, the more my heart sinks to the pit of my stomach. Sentences jump out at me and play on repeat.

  Displays tendency to project blame on others.

  Struggles to bond socially with peers.

  Emotional disconnect when discussing patients.

  Forms inappropriate and unhealthy sexual/romantic relationships, i.e., co-worker and college professor.

  Okay, that last item is technically true, but it sounds terrible when put in this context. Plus I thought answering that question honestly would have given me trust points or something. Besides, he wasn’t my professor at the time. I was his TA. That’s like co-workers, right? Except co-workers are apparently off-limits, too.

  Adoptive father (also an M.D.) admits, after much prodding and through non-direct questioning, that the candidate struggles with any type of relationship.

  I stare openmouthed at the words in front of me. My dad betrayed me? I rub away the pain forming in my chest. How could he say that? Is it the opinion of a very well-known heart surgeon, or is it a dad worried about his child?

  Adoptive father reports candidate’s family history of superior intelligence and mental illness—birth mother carried high academic accomplishments, master’s and Ph.D. by age twenty-two, diagnosed clinically depressed at age twenty-three. Displayed similar behavior patterns as the candidate—socially inept, etc.

  My fingers take over again and slam the laptop shut. Nausea rolls over me in giant waves, my skin itching at the thought of this genetic link. I hate psychology. I’ve never trusted it. It’s not an exact science and is often flooded with stupid, far-fetched theories. But I can’t deny a genetic link. I can’t deny that I appear to be on the same path as—

  Stop! Don’t think about it. Think about a way out of this hole that’s been dug by evolution.

  But Dr. Winifred James, Ph.D., might be right. I might be like my birth mother.

  I squeeze my shaking hands and stand up, pacing my room. I shouldn’t have read that. I should have stayed in the dark. And it’s not like I’ve ever wanted to be this way. I don’t. Normal is so much easier. I don’t care what genetics say; I won’t be like her. I’ll refuse. I’ll fix myself.

  The floor outside my door creaks, and I freeze in place. I stare at the knob, watching it twist, and then my mom’s head pokes through a tiny opening.

  “Isabel,” she says, sighing with relief. “You’re awake. I heard noise, and I thought …”

  She opens the door the rest of the way and steps inside my room. I take in her appearance, hair matted down and graying. My parents didn’t adopt me until they were in their forties, so they’re getting to that almost-old stage. My dad is fit and handsome still, but Mom looks tired and older, much older, like she hasn’t slept in weeks.

  I glance at the laptop, at what I was reading, and then turn my attention to Mom. “Sorry, I couldn’t sleep. There’s this assignment I’m working on for my literature course. It’s completely pointless, but I’d like to avoid scaring off another instructor.”

  Mom gives me a sleepy smile. “That’s too bad. I thought maybe you were in here on a late-night phone call with a certain boy who happens to have a flip-flop addiction.…”

  Another knot forms in my stomach at the thought of Marshall. “I don’t even have his number, Mom.”

  She shrugs. “Never mind, then, but you kids have a million different methods of staying up all night chatting besides using phones—email, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, or whatever it’s called.”

  Maybe it’s not completely my fault that I’m out of touch with normal teenage society. “He’s my RA. It’s pretty much a big no-go zone. Besides, he’s nice and I’m not. He calls his sisters, did you know that? He calls them and they call him and he listens to them gripe about problems with third grade or whatever. Can you imagine Justin or—”

  I clamp my mouth shut before the name Sam—Professor Townsend—has a chance to roll off my tongue. I have a feeling Mom always suspected something was going on between us, but she either didn’t want to accept it or didn’t want to be forced to tell my dad.

  “Or who?” she prompts, eyebrows lifting.

  “Or any other guy like Justin,” I say, faking exasperation. “You know interns and residents. They’re all alike—selfish vultures.”

  “I have a feeling Justin’s not the monster you’ve made him out to be,” she says.

  I sigh and flop onto my bed. “Maybe not.”

  “You’ll go and see your dad in the morning?” she asks, though it sounds like the question is extremely difficult for her to speak aloud.

  “In his new condo?” I snap, hating the unmanageable anger. “Or is he working tomorrow?”

  She leans her head against the door frame and closes h
er eyes briefly, and I feel like the difficult twelve-year-old all over again. “You haven’t asked me anything. Why haven’t you asked me anything, Isabel?”

  My jaw tenses, but I stare up at the ceiling and say the words I’ve been holding in for over a week now. “Did Dad cheat on you?”

  “No,” she says right away, “he didn’t cheat on me. And I don’t know what happened. His work has always been a wedge between us, but when you joined him at the hospital for seventy hours a week and I was here all alone, the reality of his priorities finally set in. I guess I need more than he’s willing to offer.”

  I stay focused on the ceiling as a couple of tears roll down the sides of my face. I’m so scared to ask her if I still belong to them like I have since I was five. Or am I becoming this person who’s related to a mentally ill woman, and the reality of that is too dark for them to stick it out together?

  Looking at the report was punishment enough. I want to not know the answer for a little bit longer. I want to hide from my future for a little bit longer.

  “I can’t see Dad,” I say, quickly forming a plan. A new goal. “I’m heading back to school in a few hours.”

  I make the decision right then to do something that resembles trying. Really trying to belong this time. No excuses. No slipping into another Marshall Collins bubble and hiding from the rest of the university. No more running home scared. This isn’t going to be my home for much longer, and my parents are already worn thin having to deal with me and then their marriage issues on top of that. I need to figure this out on my own.

  Chapter 12

  @IsabelJenkinsMD: Depression-related suicide is the 10th-leading cause of death in the U.S.

  I come up the stairs to my floor, and before I even reach the top, I hear voices coming from Marshall’s room. My stomach flutters, realizing that I’m about to see him again, right now. It’s a weird mix of excitement, from remembering that hot kiss, and nerves, from remembering my abrupt departure and all the confessions.