But today I can’t concentrate.
I keep thinking about Mason. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m worried about him. Really worried. I don’t know what’s going on in his head. And it scares me. Last time I saw him, there was something terrifying in his eyes. Every time I try to concentrate on my work, I see those bloodshot hazel eyes.
Finally I give up on studying, and make the decision to head over to Mason’s suite. I’ve never actually been there before, because we’ve been keeping our relationship casual and a bit hush-hush, but it doesn’t seem to matter anymore since it’s pretty much over. And I’m a little bit curious to see where he lives.
I drive over to the dorm where the vast majority of students are residing. I briefly considered living in the dorm because it was so cheap, but at my age I couldn’t stomach it. I needed my own apartment, my own privacy—I couldn’t imagine having to abide by some dorm rules, and have a roommate sharing my bedroom.
Mason’s apartment is on the third floor of the dorm. I find his apartment and after only a brief hesitation, I knock on the door. By the heavy footsteps, I can tell that Abe is the one coming to answer the door. He looks slightly breathless as he pulls the door open, and I feel a twinge of sympathy as his face falls when he sees it’s only me. I suspect he was hoping for Heather.
“Oh, hey Ginny,” he says. “Mason isn’t here right now.”
He knows about me and Mason. He’s more clever than I’ve given him credit for. I wonder who else in the class knows. Probably everyone.
“Do you know where he is?” I ask.
Abe glances at his watch.
“He’s usually back by now,” he says. “Do you want to wait?”
I looked down at my own watch. It’s close to midnight. Where is he? I feel too antsy to go home so I say, “Okay, I’ll wait.”
Abe steps back to let me in. I venture into the apartment, which is a total guys’ apartment. There’s food and laundry strewn everywhere, and the futon looks almost too dirty to sit on. I push aside some books and papers and make a small square of space to rest my behind. Abe at least has the decency to blush.
“Sorry the place is such a mess,” he says, as he plops down next to me.
“It’s okay,” I say. “My sisters were kind of slobs, so I’m used to it.”
“You’ve got sisters?” Abe asks.
“Yeah, two of them. You?”
“No, I’m an only child.” Although as he says it, a dark shadow passes over Abe’s face.
The conversation makes me realize how little I know about Abe. Or really, anyone in my class besides Mason. Abe is my lab partner, and we’ve had probably hundreds of conversations, but every single one of them has involved anatomy. Or at the very least, biochemistry.
“Are you feeling ready for the exam?” Abe asks me.
Back to familiar territory. I nod. “Sort of,” I say.
He laughs. “If anyone is ready, it’s you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs. “You know it all, Ginny. Everyone knows that you’re the top student in the class.”
He’s got to be messing with me. “No way.”
“Way,” he says. “I mean, Heather always says…” He stops midsentence, his words trailing off. He looks really sad again.
“Abe?”
He doesn’t answer. His green eyes seem very far away.
“Do you,” I venture carefully, “want to talk about Heather?”
It’s not like me to make an offer like that, I’m feeling so guilty lately. Maybe talking to Abe would be penance for some of the things I’ve done wrong. Or at least, it would be a start.
“No,” he says. “I really don’t.”
At that moment, something changes in his face. Something almost imperceptible, but it’s definitely there. His green eyes darken and his jaw seems to harden. His gentle features change, morph, into something different, something frightening. I look down and see that his left hand has balled into a fist.
Instinctively, I back away from him. At that moment, it hits me how very large Abe is. I bet he’s got at least a hundred pounds on me. And he’s a good foot taller, probably more. He always seemed so sweet and harmless, but at this moment it’s very clear that he could easily break me into two pieces, if he got it in his head to do so.
“Um,” I say, rubbing my sweaty hands on my pants legs, “I think I’m going to head out.”
“I don’t mind if you stay,” Abe says in a strange voice, standing at the same time as I do.
As he stands next to me, it just emphasizes how much taller he is then I am. I feel my legs tremble beneath me.
“It’s okay,” I say breathlessly.
And then I run out of the apartment as fast as I can, not once stopping to look behind me until I’m outside my car. Even then, I don’t entirely feel safe.
Maybe Mason isn’t the only person I should be worried about.
_____
I’m working on dissecting the right foot of the cadaver, one of the few parts that hasn’t been shredded to bits by a scalpel courtesy of Mason. I’m carefully separating the muscle bodies of the extensor digitorum longus. I know that the rest of Frank’s limbs are too badly mangled to be tagged for the anatomy practical, but I’m hoping they might tag something in his right foot. I feel pride when Dr. Conlon finds one of my dissections to be worthy of an exam question.
“What are you working on, Dr. Zaleski?”
I look up and my eyes meet Dr. Conlon’s. Up close, he has the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life, even hidden behind his glasses. I’m glad he remembered my name for a change.
“Just separating the extensor muscles of the foot.”
Dr. Conlon makes his way around the table to get a closer look at my dissection. I watch a smile grow across his face.
“Excellent job,” he comments. “Of course, what less could I expect from the best student in the class?”
I feel my cheeks burn—I’m not used to compliments. It’s even more surprising to hear from him than it was to hear it from Abe yesterday.
“I’m not… I mean, I don’t have the highest grades or…”
“Nobody else in the class has had such a consistently superb performance on all the exams and quizzes,” he says. He looks at Frank’s foot again. “As well as superior skills on the dissections. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
I don’t know what to say. All this time, I thought Dr. Conlon barely knew who I was.
“Um… thank you…”
He smiles again. “And if you want that teaching assistant job for next year, it’s yours.”
My heart soars. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely,” he says. “I hope you’re interested. I’d be really disappointed if you say no.”
“I’m interested!” I almost yell. I clear my throat, suddenly embarrassed. “I mean, I think I’d like to do it.”
He folds his arms across his scrub top, “You know, after teaching this class so long, I can tell exactly what kind of doctor each student will become, just from watching them in the lab.”
“Really?”
He nods. “This class brings out a lot of qualities in people, both good and bad.”
I stare up at Dr. Conlon’s face, trying to read his expression. Does he know it was me who left that letter in Rachel’s locker? Is this all his way of toying with me?
No. There’s no way.
“So what kind of doctor am I going to be?” I ask him.
Dr. Conlon hesitates a long time then finally smiles again. “Well, I don’t want to give away the surprise. You’ll know soon enough.”
What the hell does that mean?
“By the way,” he says, clearing his throat, “have you… have you seen Rachel around?”
I shake my head, not meeting his eyes.
He coughs and lowers his eyes.
“The two of you have spent a lot of time in lab together,” he observes. “Would you say that she… that she
has a good grasp of the material?”
Now why would he ask that? I can tell by the tone of my professor’s voice how smitten he is with Rachel. Doesn’t he realize that she’s getting good grades only because of him? Is it possible that Rachel is using him to cheat without his knowledge?
Poor Dr. Conlon.
“Honestly?” I ask.
“Yes, honestly. Does she know the material or not?”
“She doesn’t.”
Dr. Conlon’s shoulders sag. “Okay, thanks, Virginia.”
Chapter 66
My mother calls me on the Friday evening prior to our final exam. I’m on my way out to the library, and I get irritated when I see her name pop up on my phone, but I answer anyway. I realize that I’ve only been home to visit her twice since the year started, but I don’t feel guilty. Honestly, she’s lucky that I visit her at all.
“How are you doing, Ginny?” Mom asks me. “Do you have time to visit this weekend?”
“My final exam in anatomy is on Monday,” I explain, the irritation seeping through my voice.
“Oh,” Mom says. She sounds like she doesn’t quite buy this as a legitimate excuse. “How about for Christmas? Can you spend the week here?”
“Maybe a few days,” I say vaguely.
“I hope you do,” Mom says quietly. “It’s very lonely here.”
I feel my blood pressure creeping up.
“Well, that’s your fault, isn’t it? If Dad were still alive, you wouldn’t feel so lonely.”
There’s a long pause on the other line. Finally, Mom says, “I know. I wish he were still here too.”
I nearly throw my phone at the wall.
“What are you talking about?” I say. “If you hadn’t taken him off the ventilator, he’d still be here! It’s your fault he’s dead!”
“Virginia!” Mom gasps.
I shut my eyes and feel the tears rising to the surface. I can’t believe I just said that to my mother. But I’m not sorry. I meant every word of it. I’ve been itching to say it since the day he died.
“It’s true,” I manage.
“Virginia,” Mom says in a quiet, sad voice. “I didn’t take your father off the ventilator. The doctors just followed his wishes. He signed an advance directive saying he didn’t want to be kept on life support.”
What is she talking about? This is total bullshit.
“No way,” I say. “Dad would never have done that. Never.”
“He did it for you, Ginny,” Mom says. “He realized that as long as he was alive and sick, you’d never be able to live out your dream. He didn’t want you to waste your life taking care of him.”
No. She’s lying. I don’t believe her. My father loved life—he’d never agree to something like that.
“He was so proud of you,” Mom says. “You being happy and becoming a doctor was all that mattered to him.”
“And if not for you,” I say through the lump in my throat, “he’d be able to watch me graduate from medical school.”
And then I hang up on her, my hands shaking. I just can’t see how what she’s saying could be true. Dad knew that if he wanted me to go to medical school, I would have gone. He didn’t have to be dead. I mean, yes, I did want to stay at home and take care of him in those last few years. But I wasn’t going to do that forever.
I had every intention of leaving him to go to med school. I really did.
_____
For a Saturday night, the library is surprisingly crowded. When I look around, I see several of my classmates feverishly outlining textbooks and studying drawings of muscles, arteries, and nerves. It makes me nostalgic for the days when it was just me and Mason.
I feel confident I’ll at least earn an honors grade in the class. I know the anatomy atlas backwards and forwards, and I put in countless hours in the lab this week, memorizing all the structures. But is it enough to get the top grade in the class? I don’t know.
I haven’t checked Locker 282 yet. I have no idea if the exam is in there or not. I walk by the locker every day, debating if I should risk checking it. But I can’t bring myself to do it.
I haven’t seen Mason since that night in the library. Maybe he decided to pick another location to study, one less distracting. There are students scattered all over the hospital studying this weekend. Despite how awful he looked the other day, I can’t believe he isn’t putting everything he’s got into this exam.
Believe it or not, I almost went and talked to Patrice about him. I stood in front of her office for about five straight minutes, my hand poised to knock on the door. But in the end, I just couldn’t do it. I want to get the highest score in the class on this exam—and if Mason rehabilitates himself, that might not happen.
Of course, the only surefire way to get the highest score lies in the contents to Locker 282.
I’m debating whether to get up and check the locker, when a familiar voice makes me stop short.
“Ginny?”
My breath catches in my throat. It’s Rachel Bingham. Great.
“Um… hey, Rachel…”
“I’m glad I’m not the only one here on a Saturday night,” Rachel says, sliding uninvited into the seat next to mine. I feel the comment is a little patronizing. It’s not like Rachel needs to be here late studying when she’s sleeping with the professor.
“It’s never empty here on Saturday night,” I say irritably.
Rachel sighed loudly and looks off into the distance. I feel like she expects me to say something, so I finally ask, “Are you okay, Rachel?”
“It’s just this guy I’ve been seeing,” Rachel says.
This guy? You mean our professor, don’t you? God, I hate her.
“We sort of… broke up recently,” she sighs. “I really messed things up.”
I frown. Rachel and Dr. Conlon aren’t sleeping together anymore? Does that mean she hasn’t been able to get the answers to the final?
“I… I’m sorry. Did all the studying get in the way?”
“No, not really.”
Rachel doesn’t look like she wants to say anything more, but I need to know what happened. I need to know if those exam answers are waiting for me.
I have to feel her out. “So you’re having a fight?”
“No, it’s over,” Rachel assures me. “I did something… pretty unforgivable.”
“You cheated on him?”
That seems unlikely. Rachel doesn’t seem interested enough in men to have sex if it wasn’t for a grade. From the comments I’ve heard her make, she seems to despise men.
“No, it’s not that…” Rachel bites her lip.
She looks away and that’s when I realize that there are tears filling her eyes. Oh my God, is she actually crying? I’m confused. Is she crying over her grade? She can’t possibly have been in love with Dr. Conlon, could she? No way.
This is the weirdest conversation ever.
Rachel stands up rather abruptly, nearly knocking over her own chair. She looks almost manic.
“Uh, I’ve got to go for a minute,” she says. “Watch my stuff?”
I nod, perplexed. I don’t bother to mention that nothing ever gets stolen out of the library. I left my purse here all the time when I snuck off to the locker room with Mason.
After Rachel disappears, I try to go back to studying, but it’s difficult. All I can think about is what Rachel was talking about. If she and Dr. Conlon are over, will the exam still be in that locker?
I’ve got to know.
I stand up. I glance around, and nobody seems to be particularly paying attention to me. Now is the time, before Rachel gets back.
I hurry across the floor, in the direction of the anatomy lab. My heart is pounding and my palms are sweaty. For all I know, Rachel is lying in wait in the locker room, and she’s going to bust me the second I open that locker. But that’s a chance I’ve got to take.
A few minutes later, I’m standing in front of Locker 282. My combination lock is hanging from the door, and for a moment,
the combination flies right out of my head. But then it comes back to me: 28-16-8. I start turning the dial.
Before I pop the lock open, I check the hallway one last time. Empty.
The door to the locker swings open and there it is: the final exam. My heart beats wildly as I pick it up and flip through over a dozen pages of anatomy diagrams and multiple choice questions. I can’t believe I’m actually holding the final exam. I can’t believe my plan actually worked. I’m going to get the highest score in the class on the final.
But as I stare into the empty locker, somehow a distant memory fills my head: My father bouncing around the ER, telling everyone who would listen: “My daughter wants to be a doctor!”
Ginny, you make me so proud…
I look back down at the final exam, and I suddenly feel ill. All I wanted was to make my father proud of me. If my mother is to be believed, he gave up his own life so that I could have my dream.
And all I know is that if my father could see what I’m doing right now, he would not be proud. He would be ashamed of me.
Before I can change my mind, I start ripping up the final exam into shreds. I tear up every single page into about a dozen pieces and hurl them into the nearest trash bin. It doesn’t even register that I’m crying until the final shreds of paper have been deposited into the garbage.
Please, Papa, forgive me…
I’m just glad he isn’t alive to see me like this.
_____
After several minutes of sobbing in the locker room, I get myself collected. Being in the locker room late at night makes me miss Mason almost desperately. Somehow, I know if I told him about my dad, he’d understand. He’d understand everything. He isn’t nearly as much of a jerk as I always made him out to be.
I wander around the floor, just trying to clear my head, halfheartedly looking for Mason, and eventually I find myself at the vending machines. During school hours, the vending machines usually have a line in front of them, but now they’re completely deserted. I stare at the different candies and cookies suspended in the machine, but I don’t have much appetite. I remember how Mason offered me vending machine Oreo cookies the first time we talked in the library. That feels like a million years ago now.
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