Chapter 18
Scarlett
Thursday night, Regan and I haul the last box up the narrow staircase. I’m sweating through my shirt and questioning all my life choices, including the one where I fought to live in a prewar walkup.
Regan closes the door with her hip and looks around. “Wow. These shoeboxes really exist.”
The place is a clean, furnished shoebox with a fresh coat of bright paint. But still a shoebox.
I don’t rub it in that I haven’t slept properly in weeks since taking possession of her sofa. That some nights I had to share it with her cat.
The kitchen table rocks under the weight of my backpack, and I cringe that the off-balance table is where I’ll be doing my schoolwork since there’s no desk. At least there’s a bookshelf.
“Looks like they gave you a brand-new mattress.” Regan points to the corner where a plastic-wrapped twin bed sits under one window.
“I think that’s code now.” I look out the window over the sink.
A sliver of the East River is visible if I lean at exactly a forty-five-degree angle. It might not be much, but it’s mine. And no one can throw me out. Or make me move out.
Regan drops the box labeled BOOKS onto the floor near the bookshelf. “You know,” she says, planting her hands on her hips. “I’m proud of you.”
“For letting my professor, a.k.a. my hookup, use his credit card so I can live in this squalor and not blackmailing him for my silence with a luxury condo on the Upper West Side?”
“Wow.” She stares agog. “It sounds like you’ve given that some thought, but no. I meant for leaving Pierce the minute he showed his true colors. For choosing yourself. For choosing your dream.”
My eyes burn at my friend’s words. “Regan, you’re going to make me cry.”
“And for that we need a pizza and wine.” She takes out her phone and finds a good place that delivers both.
I begin to unpack, delaying the weight that will fall on me for making that brave decision she mentioned. For leaving a comfortable home with a secure future, albeit with a terrible man, to face the unknown.
I stuff my boring clothes into the one shabby dresser while Regan lines up my textbooks and a few second-hand romance novels on the bookcase.
She pauses to look out the living room window as a siren wails somewhere below. “You’re really close to the UN Plaza,” she says.
“My father said there’s some mafia war going on.” As I say this, I think of Dr. O’Rourke and the rumors about him and his brother being mafia. Irish mafia, I presume, by their last name.
I imagine the face he’d make if he saw this place. I’m sure he’s lived in luxury his whole life, if he really is mafia. I bet he never had to sleep in a place like this.
“You’ll be fine.” Regan waves me off. “They don’t go after innocents. Keep your head down and mind your own business.”
“Right.” I think about that. “I’ll make sure not to look anyone who appears to be Irish mafia in the eye.”
Err, too late. I think.
“Well, if a man in a tailored suit with an accent asks you out—”
“I’m not dating,” I cut her off. “Finishing med school is my one and only focus.”
“Right.” Regan gives me a look. “Because you’re totally over the hot professor who gave you your best orgasm and, for some reason, keeps helping you.”
Heat creeps up my neck. “Of course, I am. I was never…into him.”
Lie.
My heart does this pathetic flutter, remembering how Dr. O’Rourke looked yesterday. Cool and controlled in front of the class, but every muscle tightened when he saw me.
“I get the feeling he might have felt something for me after that night.”
“Maybe that’s why he got the hell out of there,” Regan suggests. “Some men can’t handle intense and sudden feelings.”
I think about that.
“It looked like it hurt for him to lay eyes on me,” I continue, my voice straining not to get too emotional. “You should’ve seen the way Vienna swarmed him after class on the first day.”
“Is that the one who flirts with every professor?” Regan says, suggesting she’s been paying attention to my muttering on shifts.
“That’s the one.” A dark thrill pulses in my stomach. “He acted like she was poison, but with me…he made me go to his office and then brought me to the property management company to make sure I had housing.”
“Sounds like he might not have gotten you out of his system,” Regan remarks casually.
“He looks too in control for that.” I join her at the window. “He told me something I will never get out of my brain,” I whisper. “He said he was scared at how much he still wanted me.”
“He should be scared!” Regan cries out and faces me. “He can get royally fucked if he touches you. By your dad, as your father and his boss. He’d lose his job and likely end any future teaching jobs at another school.”
I pace around the room, a thought hitting my brain. “I always wonder how a doctor ends up teaching.”
“Because in most other schools, the least qualified people end up being the professors?” Regan says sardonically.
“I really want to believe in the case of medicine that’s not true.” I bite a fingernail. “But I’ve been wondering how a UCLA grad, who was a surgeon, becomes a teacher.”
“Huh,” she says, digging into my jar of lollipops and unwrapping one.
“I looked him up,” I confess, heat crawling up my neck. “He was top of his class. Fellowships to three major programs. Pediatric surgery residency in Seattle. There were news articles, ‘brilliant young surgeon saves infant boy,’ stuff like that.”
Regan’s brows lift. “Hot and heroic. Nice.”
“Then he fell off the map.” I swallow. “For almost four years. No publications. No hospital affiliation. Nothing.”
Regan whistles. “Burnout?”
“That’s the only thing that makes sense. But I’m dying to know what happened.”
“No articles about a downfall?”
“I have to keep looking,” I say, shrugging. “I guess even if something happened, he clawed his way back to medicine. That’s what matters. I had to claw my way back, too. I like that we have that in common.”
“Have you heard from Pierce?” Regan asks the white elephant question that always hovers.
“No,” I say bitterly, circling back to the reason I’m in this apartment.
“Those types of guys don’t like to lose,” she says, her eyes reminding me of the domestic abuse calls we’d been on. “All they know is possession. Control.”
“I remember,” I whisper. “The Langstons do control everything medical in this country, but I haven’t talked to Pierce since I left. I hope he’s gotten the message. Or finds someone else to dominate.”
Regan exhales. “So stay off the radar.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Does any part of your plan include getting that professor back in your bed?”
“No!” I say, but then bite my lip. “Okay, maybe a little.”
Regan’s eyebrows shoot into her hairline. “Scarlett Ford is awakening her villain era!”
“You’re bad.” I throw a dishtowel at her.
But she’s right. It would be quite villainous of me to tempt Dr. O’Rourke into a fling. He made it clear he still wants me.
Regan sighs, and for a moment, life feels normal. Light. Manageable. And as I personalize the space with my items, this tiny apartment looks lived in, like it’s mine.
A buzzer sounds off from somewhere, and we both stop.
“Someone rang your apartment’s outside bell.” Regan looks outside. “It’s the pizza guy!”
Without even a discussion, she’s out the door to grab it and then returns with the box and a black plastic bag with the wine sitting on top.
“This is why I love Uber Eats. I just say, I want a pizza and wine, and they bring it to me.”
“You are the queen of takeout apps,” I say and look for plates.
We eat and drink the wine on the floor in the living room using the coffee table while I figure out the television remote.
Needing to stretch my legs, I go to the window just as a man in a suit on the sidewalk is looking up at the building. I lower the blind and then peek between the slats.
“What?” Regan asks, coming up behind me.
“Nothing. Just a guy outside.” I visibly shake. “Suit. I thought it was Pierce. But it’s not.”
“Don’t call him.” Regan divides the last of the wine between our glasses. “That’s what he wants.”
“I won’t.” I push out the reality that Pierce has connections.
He knows I’m back at school. He could easily find me and show up here.
“Scarlett.” Regan knocks me from that horror. “That look in your eyes bothers me.”
My throat burns looking at my phone. “Should I unblock him to see if he’s spiraling? You know? Forewarned is forearmed?”
“I hate that saying,” Regan grumbles. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see where his head is at.”
I take out my phone, and my fingers hover over the keyboard. I’m shocked to see several messages from Pierce sitting unread in our text thread.
Pierce: Get back here.
Pierce: You will regret what you’re doing.
Pierce: Come home.
Pierce: Answer me.
“Regan, I blocked him. How do I have these?”
She takes my phone, swipes here and there. “You only muted him.”
“What do I know? This is my first time being a stalking victim.” I shake my head.
I glance again at what was sent while Pierce was muted. The messages are from the last couple of days. But nothing today. I’m not sure what to make of why they stopped. Langston hates to lose. Or maybe he concluded I wasn’t anything he considered a prize.
Or maybe…
He’s gearing up for a bigger fight.
Regan reads them, and we stare at each other. My brain is already overloaded from catching up at school. I can’t think straight. She’s a first responder and a crisis counselor. I need her.
“If I keep ghosting him, he’ll tear the damn city apart looking for me,” I say. “The first stop will be the school.”
Regan exhales, resigned. “You’re right. Send one text. Something boring and vague.”
Nodding, I type, my fingers trembling like a hand might reach out from the phone and strangle me.
Me: Settling into my classes. I need space. I’ll reach out soon.
I show Regan, who nods her approval. I hit send, and a small weight lifts from my chest. Just enough to breathe.
“You did the right thing,” Regan says softly.
“I hope so.”
“I have to get going. Have to check on my gran.” Regan walks to the door and then turns to hug me. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I’ll survive.”
“You will.” She pulls back, eyes softening. “You always do.”
After she leaves, the apartment settles into stillness, and the sunset spills pink across the window.
I sit on the edge of the bed, hands resting in my lap. I’m sort of back where I started when Pierce Langston found me as a first-year.
Mentally struggling with medical school and my mother’s failing health. And that’s when he pounced.