Chapter Three
Julien
Thursday night...
I folded my dress shirts with surgical precision.
Which was appropriate considering I was a surgeon.
Each fold was exactly three inches, sleeves tucked at precise ninety-degree angles, collars aligned perfectly.
White shirts on the left, blue in the middle, and the single gray shirt I’d packed for variety on the right.
“You know they have irons in hotels, right?” Vivian, my annoying sister said from her position on my bed, where she’d been lounging for the past twenty minutes like some kind of particularly annoying house cat, trying her best to get on my nerves.
“I’m aware.” I placed the gray shirt in my suitcase, adjusting it so it sat flush against the blue ones.
“So this whole”—she waved her hand vaguely at my suitcase—“origami situation is just for fun?”
“It’s not origami. It’s efficient packing.”
“It’s obsessive.”
“It’s organized.”
“Jules, you’ve been folding the same pair of pants for five minutes.”
I had not been folding the same pair of pants for five minutes. It had been three minutes, maximum, and only because the crease wasn’t sitting properly. But I didn’t bother correcting her. Vivian had never understood the importance of precision.
She reached out and poked one of my perfectly folded shirts.
“Don’t touch that.”
She poked it again.
“Vivian.”
“What? I’m not doing anything.” She dragged her finger across the collar, deliberately messing up the fold.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then to twenty. Then I considered counting to a hundred but decided that would take too long and I had a schedule to maintain.
“Why are you here?” I asked, refolding the shirt she’d just violated.
“Because you’re leaving for Vegas in the morning and I wanted to give you a pep talk.”
“I don’t need a pep talk.”
“You absolutely need a pep talk. You’re going to Las Vegas—Las Vegas, Jules—and you’re packing like you’re attending a funeral.”
“I’m attending a medical conference.”
“You’re giving one talk. One. The rest of the weekend is free time.”
“Which I’ll spend reviewing the latest research on—”
“Oh my God. Stop!” Vivian sat up, and I recognized the expression on her face.
It was the same one she’d worn when we were children, and she was about to launch into one of her lectures about how I needed to “loosen up” and “have fun” and other concepts that had never made sense to me… well, that or tackle me to the floor.
I just wasn’t sure which one yet.
“Jules, listen to me. You’re going to Las Vegas. You’re going to give your boring brain talk—”
“It’s not boring. It’s about revolutionary advances in—”
“—and then you’re going to do something wild. Something spontaneous. Something that doesn’t involve a color-coded schedule or a peer-reviewed journal.”
I stared at her. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you’re thirty-three years old and you’ve never done anything spontaneous in your entire life!”
“I bought orange juice with pulp last week.”
“That doesn’t count!”
“It was very spontaneous. I usually buy pulp-free.”
Vivian threw a pillow at me. I caught it reflexively and placed it back on the bed, adjusting it so it aligned with the other pillows.
“You’re impossible,” she said.
“I’m consistent.”
“You’re boring.”
“I’m focused.”
“You’re going to die alone surrounded by perfectly organized medical journals.”
“That sounds peaceful, actually.”
She groaned and flopped backward on my bed, her dark hair spreading across my duvet in a way that was definitely going to leave wrinkles. “I give up. I officially give up on you.”
“Good. Can you give up somewhere else? I need to pack my toiletries.”
“Pack your toiletries,” she mimicked in what I assumed was supposed to be my voice, but sounded nothing like me. “I need to arrange my toothbrush at a forty-five-degree angle.”
“Ninety degrees, actually. Forty-five would be inefficient.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
She sighed. “No, I don’t. But I should.”
I moved to my bathroom and began gathering my toiletries.
Travel-sized shampoo, conditioner, bodywash—all the same brand I used at home because switching products could cause unnecessary skin irritation.
Toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, mouthwash.
Razor, shaving cream. Deodorant. Everything had its place in my toiletry bag, organized by frequency of use.
“Oh!” Vivian called from the bedroom. “I almost forgot. Mom and Dad are coming into town next weekend.”
My hand froze halfway to the medicine cabinet. “What?”
“Next weekend. They want to have dinner. All of us.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“I have plans.”
“No, you don’t.”
She was right. I didn’t. But I could make plans. I could suddenly develop plans. Very important plans that couldn’t be rescheduled.
“Jules, you can’t avoid them forever.”
“I’m not avoiding them. I’m simply... strategically minimizing contact.”
“That’s literally what avoiding means.”
I grabbed my blood pressure medication—a recent addition to my routine, thanks to the stress of running a medical practice with five lunatics—and added it to my toiletry bag. “Fine. What day?”
“Saturday. Seven o’clock. That Italian place Mom likes.”
I closed my eyes. The universe was punishing me. That was the only explanation. I’d done something terrible in my past life, probably been a singing waiter, and now I was paying for it.
“I’ll be there,” I said, because what else could I say? My mother had a way of making me feel guilty even when I hadn’t done anything wrong. It was a superpower, really. She should have been studied by science.
“Great! I’ll let them know.” Vivian appeared in the bathroom doorway, leaning against the frame. “And, Jules?”
“What?”
“Try to have fun in Vegas. Please. For me. Do one spontaneous thing. One thing that isn’t scheduled or planned or color-coded.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“You won’t.”
“Probably not.”
She smiled, and it was softer than her usual smirk. “I worry about you, you know.”
“Don’t. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re wound so tight you’re going to snap.”
“I’m not going to snap. I’m perfectly calibrated.”
“Humans aren’t machines, Jules.”
“Some of us are closer than others.”
She shook her head and pushed off the doorframe. “I’m leaving before I say something we’ll both regret. Have a safe flight. Try not to alphabetize the airplane.”
“The seats are already organized by letter and number.”
“Of course they are.” She grabbed her purse from my bed, leaving an indent in my duvet that I’d have to smooth out, and headed for the door.
“Vivian.”
“What?” she turned to look at me.
“Keep an eye on the clinic while I’m gone.”
“Why?”
“Just make sure Fitz doesn’t burn it down.”
“Why would he burn it down?”
“To drive me crazy.”
“You’re already crazy.”
“With you watching the clinic, I promise not to have a stress-induced stroke on the plane.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll keep an eye on the clinic.”
“That’s all I ask.”
She blew me a kiss, which I didn’t catch because that would be ridiculous, and then she was gone.
I stood in my bathroom, surrounded by my perfectly organized toiletries, and felt the familiar weight of anxiety settling in my chest.
This trip was a mistake. I knew it was a mistake. I couldn’t explain how I knew. It wasn’t based on data or evidence or any kind of logical reasoning, but I knew it the same way I knew when a surgery was going to be complicated before I even made the first incision.
Something was wrong. Something was off. The universe, if such a thing existed—which it didn’t, because I was a man of science—was trying to tell me something.
I should cancel. I should call the conference organizers right now and tell them I had a family emergency. Or a medical emergency. Or any kind of emergency that would justify backing out.
But I couldn’t.
Because if I canceled, I’d never hear the end of it.
Gabriel would give me those disappointed looks.
Fitz would make jokes about it for the next decade.
Nathan would add it to his running list of “Times Julien Chickened Out.” Quinton would probably throw something at me.
Hayden would just shake his head sadly, like I’d personally let him down.
And Winnie. God, Winnie would be the worst. She’d give me that look, the one that said she was disappointed but not surprised, and somehow that would be worse than all the others combined.
No. I couldn’t cancel. I was trapped by my own reputation and my colleagues’ expectations, and the fact that I’d already agreed to this ridiculous trip.
I finished packing my toiletries, zipped up my suitcase, and placed it by the door. Everything was ready. Everything was organized. Everything was perfect.
So why did I feel like I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life?
At 11:47 PM, I was still awake.
I’d tried everything. I’d read a medical journal. I’d reviewed my presentation notes. I’d reorganized my sock drawer—which hadn’t needed organizing but had made me feel slightly better.
Nothing worked.
I lay in bed, staring at my ceiling, feeling the anxiety coil tighter in my chest.
This was ridiculous. I was a neurosurgeon. I’d performed countless complex surgeries. I’d saved lives. I’d given presentations before, admittedly not a TED Talk, but still. This shouldn’t be causing me this much stress.
But it wasn’t the presentation that was bothering me. It was something else. Something I couldn’t name or quantify or explain.
“This is fine,” I muttered to the darkness. “Everything is fine. You’re going to Las Vegas, you’re going to give your talk, and you’re going to come home. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing ever happens to you because you don’t let things happen. You’re in control.”
The darkness didn’t respond, which was good, because if it had, I would have needed to check myself into my own clinic.
“It’s just a weekend,” I continued, because apparently I was the kind of person who talked to himself now. “Forty-eight hours. You can survive anything for forty-eight hours. You’ve done seventy-two-hour shifts. This is nothing.”
I rolled over, punched my pillow into submission, and closed my eyes.
“Nothing is going to go wrong,” I said firmly. “Nothing ever goes wrong when you plan properly. And you’ve planned properly. You always plan properly.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a small voice whispered that famous last words usually sounded something like that.
I told the voice to shut up.
“Everything is going to be fine,” I muttered one last time.
And then, because the universe apparently had a sense of humor, I finally fell asleep