Lessons In Losing It (Study Abroad Book 4)

by Jessica Peterson

  Saturday Morning

  “So,” I say, flopping down on the couch next to Fred. “Are you getting nervous?”

  “About playing Málaga tonight?” He pulls a face. God, he’s cute. “Not particularly. I appreciate what they’re doing to try and turn the club around there. But their management leaves quite a lot to be desired.”

  I grin. It never gets old, shooting the shit about sports with Fred. “They should’ve never hired Hanover. The fans hate him. He totally blew up Bordeaux—that club won’t recover for years. Wouldn’t be surprised if Málaga is his next failed experiment.”

  “You know you’re giving me a hard on, right?” Fred says.

  “I do.” My gaze flicks to the tent he’s pitching inside his athletic shorts. “Usually happens less than a minute into our conversations about Spanish football.”

  “Less,” Fred says, eyes latched on my mouth. “Way less than a minute.”

  I’m leaning toward his lap when my phone starts to vibrate on the coffee table.

  I glance at the clock on the cable box. 9:59.

  My stomach flips. Shit. I forgot that Mom was supposed to call me this morning—she texted earlier this week, something about a form “we” needed to fill out so I can shadow one of her douchebag doctor friends in Dallas this summer.

  Needless to say, I ignored the text. But if I ignore this call, too, Mom will know something’s up.

  “Sorry,” I groan, sitting up and reaching for my phone. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

  I glide my thumb across the screen.

  “I was worried I wouldn’t get you,” Mom says after I tell her hello. “You never responded to my text. You know that’s one of my rules, right? I pay your phone bill, which means you answer me. Always.”

  I roll my eyes. I’m a lot calmer than I usually am when I talk to Mom, but my pulse still skips at the condescending tone she’s taking with me.

  “I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I’ve just had a busy week—I finished up a big paper.”

  Mom makes this small, impatient noise, something between a scoff and strangled choke. “Rachel, I’m busy at work. I don’t have time to chase you down.”

  Fred grins at my second eye roll.

  “Really, I’m sorry. I’ll try to respond sooner next time.”

  “So I spoke with Dr. Roby on Wednesday,” she says, talking about one of the anesthesiologists she works with at the hospital. “He said he’d love to have you shadow him this summer. It’s an amazing opportunity, Rach—his practice is one of the most prestigious in Texas. The guy drives a frickin’ Bugatti and owns a yacht down in Nassau, for God’s sake. He’s a total success story.”

  It’s all I can do not to gag. This is the closest I’ve ever come to actually puking in my mouth.

  “Good for him,” I say evenly.

  A beat of silence passes between us.

  “So?” she says.

  “So what?”

  “So I need you to finish filling out this paperwork so we can get you all set up at the hospital. Nothing you haven’t seen before. But I want to make sure you hit the ground running—maybe you can even have lunch with Dr. Roby over Christmas break, while you’re home? Get to know him a bit, kiss the ring, that sort of thing.”

  I let my head fall back onto the sofa. Mom doesn’t even ask if I want to shadow Dr. Roby, or if I’m interested in anesthesiology; she just assumes that, because he’s successful, because he drives a stupid expensive sports car, I’m going to fall all over myself to shadow him.

  I glance at Fred. He looks at me, the hazy desire in his eyes replaced by sharp concern.

  “You okay?” he murmurs.

  I nod, even though I’m starting to feel a little shaky. I have a feeling that this is going to be the call—the call I’ve been dreading for years now.

  The call where I fess up, and tell Mom about my sports medicine plans.

  “You can thank me anytime now, you know,” Mom is saying. “I had to pull a lot of strings to get you this opportunity. Med students would kill to get their foot in the door with a doctor like Roby.”

  Fred takes my hand and gives it a soft squeeze. I love how big his hands are, how warm and dry.

  “I don’t want to do it,” I say.

  Mom goes silent. My heart begins to pound.

  “What?” she says after a beat. “What do you mean, you don’t want to do it?”

  “I mean I don’t want to shadow Dr. Roby this summer. I don’t want to shadow any of your doctor friends.”

  Again, silence.

  Again, that awful noise Mom makes. “Just what do you think you’ll be doing this summer, then?”

  I swallow. Fred offers me that smile of his, his eyes getting squinty and cute.

  You got this, he mouths. Sex in the shower when you’re done?

  Despite being so nervous I really do want to puke—despite the hammer that’s about to come down on my head—I giggle.

  “Rachel,” Mom says. “What the hell is going on over there? Are you with someone?”

  “No-o?” I say.

  “That’s it,” she says. “I’m going to facetime you. You’re clearly not paying attention to what I have to say.”

  My stomach tightens, a cold wash of panic seizing my insides. If mom sees me in this apartment with Fred—

  “No,” I say. “No, Mom, wait, I’m listening—”

  But I can already hear her fiddling with her phone, cursing as she hits the wrong button. For a second I think I’ll get lucky—maybe she accidentally hung up—but then I hear her saying my name, her voice different, smaller, now that we’re on facetime.

  Shit.

  I glance at Fred. He’s looking nervous now, too.

  “I’m sorry for whatever she says,” I whisper.

  And then I pull the phone away from my ear and hold it out in front of me.

  “There,” Mom says. There’s a second or two delay in the video feed, so she doesn’t say anything about the apartment yet. “That’s better. As I was saying, I just need you to finish filling out these forms, and then you can scan them and—”

  Oh, God. Here it comes.

  “Whoa, whoa. Rachel—that doesn’t look like your dorm room. And why is your shirt so big?” Her eyes bulge as the realization hits her. “Just where the hell are you?”

  I roll my lips between my teeth. Best to just get it out and tell her the truth.

  “I’m at my boyfriend’s apartment.”

  If Mom’s eyes were bulging before, they’re literally about to pop out of her head now. “Boyfriend? I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. We’ve talked about this before. I don’t like the idea—”

  “Mom, meet Fred Ohr.”

  I tilt my phone, leaning into Fred so both our faces fit into the tiny square in the corner of my screen. Of course he’s still scruffy from sleep; I think he always looks handsome, but I know mom is going to be put off by his five o’clock shadow, his glasses, and the ratty sweatshirt with the stretched collar he wears in the mornings.

  He couldn’t look more different from the slick, polished, impeccably groomed surgeons who inhabit Mom’s world.

  My phone slips out of my hand; my palms have gotten really sweaty all of the sudden. I catch it and hold it back up.

  “Hello, Mrs. Collins,” he says, and gives her an awkward little wave.

  Another painful pause. She’s clearly not impressed. “So. When did Fred come into the picture?”

  My face burns.

  “A couple weeks ago. Maybe a little less than that.”

  “How long ago, exactly, did you meet him?”

  I look at Fred. “Ten days? Twelve?”

  Mom does something I’ve never heard her do. She laughs. A giant, disbelieving cackle that would make Cruella DeVille proud.

  Beside me on the sofa, Fred goes still. My heart clenches.

  “Ten days? And here I was starting to worry. Just blink twice if you need to be rescued, okay?” She laughs again. The sound grates on my nerves
, already stretched taut. “Listen, you’re clearly distracted this morning. Why don’t we talk about your summer plans when you get home in a couple of weeks?”

  Fred gives my leg a squeeze. I feel slightly less like dying.

  I feel like now is not the time to chicken out. In for penny, in for pound, or whatever that expression is.

  “About that,” I say. “I’m actually trying to get a summer internship here in Madrid.”

  Her smile disappears. “In Madrid? Doing what?”

  “Sports medicine,” I say. My voice is high and thin. “I’d be interning at the facility where Fred’s football team trains. It’s also a prestigious program. I’m just not that interested in surgery—I’m sorry.”

  Mom stares at the screen. Her mouth pinches.

  I wait for her response.

  I wait.

  And wait.

  Somewhere in the background, our cat meows.

  “Mom?” I say. “Say something. Please.”

  When she speaks, her voice is cold. Hard.

  “We’ve talked about this, Rachel—sports medicine is a dead end. So is this guy. Are you really going to plan your entire future around a man you’ve just met? Get real, Rachel. You’re coming home, and we’re getting you in with Dr. Roby’s anesthesiology team. End of story.”

  My nervousness expands, burns to anger at the edges. “I told you. I’m not interested in surgery. I’m not taking the MCAT.”

  “You’re not interested in surgery,” she says, scoffing. “So what are you interested in, then? And don’t say sports medicine, because that’s just ridiculous. What are you going to do for the rest of your life? Stretch out some guys on a soccer field? You can’t make a real living that way. You’ll get bored. You’ll never be able to buy a house, take nice trips…”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You know what happens to people who don’t have a plan, Rachel? People who don’t care about their future? Nothing happens, that’s what. You want to be nothing? A nobody?”

  I grit my teeth. Beside me, Fred squeezes my leg again.

  “Be calm,” he says, quietly. “You don’t want to say something you’ll regret.” Right. Be calm. I take another deep breath.

  “Listen, Mom. Just because I don’t want to be you doesn’t mean I’m going to be a nobody. I know you’re not happy with my decision. But I hope one day you’ll be able to accept it. Accept me for who I am. I love you, Mom, and I always will. I have to do this. I have to go with my gut. I’m not a surgeon. I never will be. I think we both know that.”

  “You have the potential to be anything you want, Rachel. As long as you don’t get caught up with the wrong guy,” she says.

  “I want to be in sports medicine. You know I love sports. I am so freaking excited about this internship—not only about how prestigious it is, but also about actually doing the work there. It’s going to be the best summer ever. I’m excited, and I’d love it if you were excited for me, too.”

  She releases a long, low breath. “I don’t think I can be, Rachel. I’m disappointed in you. Very, very disappointed.”

  Tears burn the backs of my eyes. Fred wraps his arms around me, and I fall into his chest. His heartbeat is steady. Strong.

  “I have to go,” she says. “But this conversation is not over, you hear me? We have a lot more to talk about when you come home. When you come home. Not if.”

  “I don’t think we do,” I say. “Mom, I’ve made my decision.”

  She huffs. And then she hangs up.

  My hand drops from my ear. I look down at my screen as it goes blank.

  For a minute I just sit there, letting the last charges of nervous energy work their way through me. I’m lightheaded. Relieved. Destroyed.

  Sad.

  “Breathe,” Fred murmurs. “Don’t forget to breathe, love.”

  When I do, I’m attacked by a fresh wave of tears. The burn behind my eyelids is unbearable. I hold my thumb and forefinger against them. It helps, a little.

  “Fuck, this is hard,” I say. I look at my phone. All I’d have to do is pick it back up. Call Mom again. Tell her I’m sorry, I was wrong, I’ll shadow those anesthesiologists for the next ten years if that’s what she wants me to do.

  If that’s what would make her happy.

  “I know,” Fred says.

  I straighten. Scoff. “How long are things between Mom and I going to suck for?”

  “Probably a while.” He tucks my hair behind my ear, meeting my eyes. “But you’ve got me in the meantime. Small consolation, I know—”

  I laugh, and he smiles.

  “—I’ll do my best, though. I know how much it hurts. And how the temptation to turn back is always there. But you’ve taken the first step in making your life your own. That’s a good thing. That’s huge.”

  “I thought it’d feel better.” I unravel the tissue in my hand, then crumple it into my fist again. “I mean, I feel good that the call is over. But the doubts I’ve always had about making this choice—it’s like they’re howling inside my head.”

  “Yeah, but isn’t the voice that told you to take this path also howling?”

  I manage a smile. “It’s screaming. I guess it always has been. I’ve just been scary good at ignoring it. And then I met you…”

  “And everything fell apart,” he says, smiling back.

  “No.” I shake my head. The heaviness inside my chest releases, just a bit. “Everything came together.”

  He strokes the top of my hand with his thumb. “Your happiness is important to me. It matters, Rachel. You matter.”

  Oh, God, I’m going to start crying all over again. I know, somewhere deep down inside, Mom wants me to be happy, too. She’s not a total monster. But she’s buried so deep in her own shit that sometimes the message—the intent—gets distorted. Our relationship is complicated. I think most mother-daughter relationships are. There’s love, but there’s also jealousy. Miscommunication, misunderstanding.

  I’ve never had someone in my life so unconditionally on my side the way Fred is. My girlfriends are great, of course, and I love them to the moon and back. But Fred is different. We’re closer. And I’m not just saying that because we have the best sex on the planet. He just understands the battle I’m trying to fight in a way no one else can.

  He’s holding my hand through it in a way no one else would.

  I look at him through a film of tears, some of them sad, others happy. Because as much as disappointing Mom sucks, knowing that I have this new, amazing friend-slash-boyfriend-slash-studly-soccer-player by my side makes it bearable.

  It makes it all worth it, even though I really did only meet him twelve days ago.

  It lets me know that I’m going to be okay. Eventually. And until I get there, I’ll have stuffed French toast and shower sex to get me through.

  I only hope it can last. Please, I pray. Please, God, let me get the internship with Fred’s club. I don’t know if I can fight this battle on my own back home.

  I don’t know how I’ll choose between Fred and the Meryton internship I’ve been dreaming about for years.

  I don’t want to have to make that choice.

  Then again, I might have to. I bought my plane ticket home way back in August; it’s a one-way ticket for a flight to Dallas on December 23. I keep waiting for the chance to change or even cancel it—hell, if I get the internship at the club, maybe I’ll just go to Germany with Fred for Christmas—but I don’t want to jinx myself.

  Maybe I should’ve let Fred make that call to Valentina. I’m getting nervous now. Really nervous.

  Whatever—what’s done is done, and worrying like this is just a waste of time and energy. It’s all pretty much out of my hands at this point.

  “So,” I sniff. “Still up for that shower?”

  Fred’s pale eyebrows jump. “Fuck yeah I am. Maybe catch the bowl game after?”

  I smile. Few things make me prouder than knowing I turned Fred into a college football fan.

&
nbsp; It’s in that second, suspended between heartbreak and happiness, that I think I’ve fallen in love with Fred.

  Then again, is it even possible to fall in love with someone you’ve only known for all of two weeks? Are we really forever material even though we’ve just met?

  I’ve heard stories of it happening with my parents’ friends. You know, boy meets girl, boy marries girl a month later, and now they’ve been happily married for thirty years. I guess I didn’t believe it could happen for me. I believed that kind of love died out with soda shops and saddle shoes.

  Modern love is complicated—or it’s supposed to be, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be angsty, impossible, distorted by our internet-driven indifference. It isn’t supposed to happen so quickly.

  So happily.

  But it’s happening. And the way I feel about Fred doesn’t seem complicated at all. Yeah, our situation is difficult, to say the least. We’re hinging all our hopes on this random internship application working out. I’m very much aware that we’re skating on thin ice.

  But it’s happening. And I kinda sorta love it.

  Chapter 17

  Fred

  Rachel and I steal away every chance we get during the next week and a half. Sometimes we’ll travel to a new city—Segovia, Toledo. Other times we’ll hole up in my flat, where we’ll catch episodes of Tournament of Kings or watch American football between marathon naked sessions on the floor, in my bed, on the counter. We fuck until we’re both so sore we have to resort to oral.

  Having Rachel suck my dick is even better than I fantasized it would be. I always make sure to repay the favor once, twice, three times over. I feel like my mouth is between her legs morning, noon, and night.

  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  We take cooking lessons. We go to museums. We watch the Fifty Shades of Grey movie (boring) and read the book (amazing, mostly because Rachel insists on reenacting the sex scenes after we read them). Rachel crashes my training session when she can—it seems the training facility is the happy place for both our inner sports nuts. We go to Madrid’s famous flea market, El Rastro, one Sunday morning, and see a flamenco show in the afternoon. We shop and we eat, and then we burn off what we ate in the shower.