Chapter 22 #2
Our waiter smirks, then schools his face. “I don’t think we carry that, but we have a great craft lager on tap that you might like.”
My seat feels even more uncomfortable than it did when I sat down. “You know what, I’m good with water.”
A cool trickle of sweat runs down my back, and my stomach does a complete 360-degree flip, sending a wave of nausea up into the back of my throat. It’s just a stupid beer. It doesn’t mean anything. Order something else. It’s not a big deal.
“Where’s your bathroom?” I have this sudden, overwhelming sense that I cannot sit at this table a moment longer.
He points to the back left corner of the restaurant. I stand with an “Excuse me,” ignoring the questioning lift of Reeve’s eyebrows as I make a panicked dash for the back.
I can’t breathe.
And my body is way too hot.
And it’s taking too much of my concentration to force air into my lungs. In and out. In and out.
I slam into a stall. The fancy wood door hits the wall with a loud bang. There’s no lid on the toilet, so I press my back against the tiles, feeling the coolness seep through my cotton shirt.
What am I even doing here?
What was I thinking?
That I’d just move to the city. Start med school and become a person who eats gourmet hamburgers and drinks microbrews.
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
My knees start to wobble and give way. My back continues its slide until my butt hits the floor. I remove my phone from my back pocket, fearing crushing it, and, in doing so, I notice a text.
It’s from Zoe—a GIF of a slug on a leaf that looks very much like a dick, followed by the words I’m sorry.
In less than a second, I’m dialing her. Two rings later, her voice is on the other end of the line.
“I’m the dick in this relationship, not you,” I tell her before she has a chance to say anything first.
She lets out a long and breathy sigh. “It wasn’t a shining moment for either of us.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about applying to med school.”
She pauses a beat. “I still don’t get why you kept it such a secret.”
I’ve asked myself the same thing every time we’ve hung out—whenever she’s asked her usual What’s up, Buttercup? and the only thing I said back was Not much, you?
I don’t have a straightforward answer other than Zoe would act like my entire plan was going to happen.
Say things like When you’re down in Toronto, or Easy there, Dr. DeMarco, inching my hopes up a little higher with every well-meaning comment and making the fall all that much farther when it inevitably didn’t work out.
“Do you remember my fourteenth birthday when my mom promised to take us to the Drake concert?” I ask.
Again, Zoe pauses, likely wondering where I’m going with this. “Uh. Sure.”
“I obsessed about it for weeks. Picked out my outfit. Told everyone at school. Made that stupid sign on the poster board, only to have my birthday come and my mom pretend she had no idea what I was talking about. Not only did I have to live with the crushing disappointment for weeks, but I also had to hear all our friends’ questions on how good the concert was. ”
There’s a quiet shuffle on Zoe’s end of the line, as if she’s changing positions. “Your mom has always been the worst. There’s no denying that. But I’m not making the connection.”
I change my tactic. “To actually go to med school next year, I need to beat out more than four thousand applicants for one of two hundred spots. Then, if by some miracle I actually do, I need to come up with a hundred thousand for tuition and at least a hundred more to cover four years of living expenses. The odds are slim of being able to do one of those things, let alone both. I didn’t want to tell you about it because I know you’d get excited for me and I thought it might be easier to handle the crushing disappointment solo. ”
There’s background noise on Zoe’s end of the line, quieted by a closing door.
“Well, you are right that I will always get excited when something good happens to my best friend. That is simply a fact that we both need to deal with. Where you’re wrong though is with all this negative talk. You are going to get in.”
“Zoe—”
“Do not ‘Zoe’ me. You know I’m right. You are Jules fucking DeMarco. You’re smart, and incredibly capable, and every time life has handed you shit, you’ve figured it out. You’ll get in, and then we’ll figure out the money thing. There has got to be a way.”
I know I need to tell her about the dance hall, but Zoe more than anyone has reason to hate this next part of my plan.
“Don’t get mad at me, okay?”
“Jules. We’ve talked about that question.”
I tentatively choose my words. “You know that building next to Sunnyvale?”
Zoe pauses as if thinking. “The abandoned one?”
I nod even though she can’t see me. “It belonged to Kitty St.Clair, and I found out a little while ago that she left it to me in her will.”
Zoe lets out a breathy No shit. “Okay, so what does that mean?”
I consider how to phrase the next part and decide to rip the Band-Aid right off. “Reeve works for a developer, and he says it’s worth a lot of money. They want to buy the property from me and turn it into condos.”
Again, Zoe’s end goes quiet.
“I’m not going to sell it.” I jump in before she can. “At least, I haven’t decided if I will sell it. I know what it means. If I do sell it, I know it could affect the town, and I’m not the kind of person who can throw away her morals like that, I just—”
“Jules.” Zoe cuts me off. “You don’t need to tell me what kind of person you are. I’m your best friend.”
The tightness around my lungs loosens enough that I take a deep breath.
“And so take this as coming from a very best friend place,” she says. “You should do it. Sell that building. But squeeze those assholes for every single penny they will give you and then go to med school and become the fabulous doctor you were meant to be.”
Her answer is so far from what I was expecting that I’m sure I’ve heard her wrong. “Seriously?”
“Serious as a heart attack. Which I would be terrified to have right now, given the state of our healthcare. This town is changing. It is what it is. I hate it, but I love you more. And with all of these tourists clogging up the urgent care centers, we need as many doctors up here as we can get.”
I mean to laugh, but it comes out more as a sob.
“It’s true,” Zoe says. “Dale cut himself the other day and had to wait eight hours for stitches at the urgent care. He’s a bleeder. We need you.”
There’s a loud flushing sound from the stall next to me. It’s so loud I have to wait to continue the conversation, but when it’s finally silent again, it’s Zoe who speaks first.
“Where are you?”
I wait until I hear the bathroom door open and close before answering. “Sitting on the bathroom floor in a trendy restaurant I have no business being in.”
I expect some comment about how nasty bathroom floors are, but Zoe’s voice is unusually soft. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. Definitely getting there.”
“Where is Reeve?”
I glance at the clock on my iPhone, realizing I’ve been in this stall for almost ten minutes. “He’s back at the table. Probably regretting inviting me down here right now.”
“Hey.” She draws out the word. “Putting aside the whole evil developer thing, that guy adores you. I watched him make lovey googly eyes at you all New Year’s. I almost called him out, but you were doing the same thing.”
“I was?”
“It was gross.”
“I should probably get back out there.” I get to my feet, resisting the urge to wipe my hands on my pants.
“You deserve good things, Jules. Remember that tonight and, more important, tomorrow.”
I draw my first easy breath since entering the bathroom. “Thanks.”
“Kick some doctor ass at that interview thing. Show no mercy.”
“I’ll try.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. You are a good friend.”
“I am the best. You won’t find a better one, so don’t bother looking in Toronto.”
Although I’ve always known it, there are no circumstances where I would ever want anyone but Zoe as my best friend.
“I’d never even try.”