Julian
MARCH, YEAR 2
My heart isn’t broken.
It’s gone.
Disappeared.
She fucking stole it.
Am I even human anymore?
I make it through the rest of the week and my weekend twenty-four at Vincent without remembering much. All the patients survived, so I don’t care about anything else. At shift change, I sign out the patients to Alesha in our tiny call room, then gather my things.
“What did you do to her?”
I freeze in the middle of shoving things into my bag. “What?”
“What did you do to her, ?” Alesha glares at me. “She’s crying every day.”
I shake my head. “Not now, Alesha.”
“Yes, now , . She’s my best friend, and—”
“Just stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I go back to packing my bag.
Alesha stands and raises her voice. “I won’t stop! You broke her heart, .”
I whirl on her. “ I broke her heart?”
“Yes! Why would you—”
I abandon my bag on the bed to stand tall, staring down at her. “Did you stop to think for one tiny second that maybe hers wasn’t the heart that was broken?”
Alesha jerks back, eyes wide.
“I didn’t choose this. I would never choose this. I would choose her all day, every day for the rest of time.” I sit at the edge of the bed, dropping my head in my hands. “She—she didn’t want me.”
Cracks form in Alesha’s cold facade. “—”
“I tried to stop her.” I stare at the floor. “She broke us anyway.”
Alesha is silent, but the bed dips beside me. Her arms settle around my shoulders and her purple hair falls over my scrubs as she leans in.
“Do you know why?” Alesha asks.
My entire body droops. “That latest rumor—she found out and she just lost it. Started talking like being with her will hurt me. She said she can’t trust me. That I don’t even know her. She said if I really knew her, I’d leave.”
“Shit.” Alesha squeezes tighter. “I’m sorry, Juju.”
“I need to go, Alesha.” I pat her arm. “Need some sleep.”
She releases me.
“Have a good shift.”
* * *
At first, I convince myself Grace will realize her mistake and apologize, but two weeks pass without so much as a glance from her, and my hope dims. How did I fall so hard for a girl who would do this? When did I become this pathetic?
“Get your head in the game, Santini!” Maxwell barks after a poorly tied pedicle on my side of the uterus bleeds.
“Fuck.” I shake my head and go about fixing it.
Once the bleeding is under control, Maxwell pauses to stare at me. “Take a breath and get it out of your system. We have a job to do.”
“I know. I’m here. I’m in it.”
After surgery, I sit in the men’s locker room rubbing my face when his hulking form clunks onto the bench beside me.
He thumps my shoulder. “She fuck you up?”
“Yeah.”
Maxwell lets out a long breath. “Come have dinner with me and Cat tonight. It’ll get your mind off it.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say, even though any social interaction sounds like nothing but work.
A long silence follows as I stare at the green tile floor, trying to remember how normal people converse.
“Did I ever tell you Cat left me once?” he asks.
I turn toward him and shake my head.
“Yeah. During second year, actually.” He chuckles. “It’s a shit year, isn’t it?”
I let out a single bitter snort as my answer. I haven’t had a day off since Raven had her baby. At least work is a distraction from the train wreck Grace unleashed on my life.
Maxwell shrugs. “Under all that stress, I was probably a dick to her. She couldn’t take it anymore. Left for a couple months and moved in with her mom. I was a wreck.”
“Yeah?”
He nods. “We got married that fall, so it all worked out in the end.”
I return my gaze to the floor. “Good for you, man.”
Maxwell pats me once on the shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”
That evening, after dinner with Maxwell and his admittedly lovely wife, I drive home under a deluge of rain, thankful its presence will likely keep Grace from straying outside. We’ve had no less than five awkward run-ins on the stairs. My search for a new apartment is well underway.
Changed into dry shorts, I fall onto my couch and ignore Netflix to scroll through Insta—which inevitably leads to a rabbit hole of pictures of Grace. After a few minutes, the family chat lights up.
Tori: You feeling any better, BB?
Me: I’m fine
Me: You don’t have to keep checking on me
Me: She’s just a girl
Bethany: Am i gonna have to cut a bitch
Sabrina: we will fuck her up BB
Me: I
Me: Am
Me: Fine
Lauren: I think this is real you guys
Tori: BB do you need us? I’m there in a heartbeat.
Me: Please don’t come here. I’m not a child.
At didactics Thursday morning, I try my hardest to ignore Grace. While Kai took the space beside me, Alesha sits alone at a corner of the conference table, typing furiously. Raven is still on maternity leave. She sends daily pictures of her new son. Baby Derrick is unbearably cute—enough to give me a boost each time I receive one.
Didactics is the only time I’m forced to see Grace—a blessing and a curse.
She’s beautiful.
There’s no sign of sleeplessness. No tightness to her smile or shuttering of her eyes.
She’s fine while I’m wondering if my insides have been put through a food processor and replaced in the wrong order.
The only upside is all her forcing me to study has finally paid off—I know most of the answers when I’m pimped.
My distraction and concentration issues from earlier this year have returned to their normal borderline ADHD status. Maybe her presence in my life was bad for me.
I consider that for three full seconds before I laugh inwardly.
Nope. She’s the only reason I know as much as I do. Grace was the sun and now I’m cold and shivering in the dark.
Pathetic.
Between lectures, the room bustles. Asher sits across from me, huge smile in place.
“What?” I ask him when he meets my eyes.
He shakes his head. “Just wait for it.”
“You okay?” Kai whispers next to me.
I stare at him and say nothing.
He turns away. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
I nod, swallow and return to the notes on my laptop—a document I started at Grace’s insistence.
“But you can,” Kai murmurs. “If you want to.”
My typing slows, and on a new line I write, If I talk, it’s real. Not ready for real yet.
“Fair enough, man.” He drums his fingers on the table. “Maybe we could go out tonight.”
I give a half-hearted shrug. “Maybe, but I don’t think it’ll work.”
“Then take out one of the nurses. Half of them are already in love with you.”
The idea has merit, but a self-hating imp in my mind makes me hesitate. What if she changes her mind?
I. Am. So. Pathetic.
I shake my head. “Not ready for that, either.”
The next lecture is given by Dr. Chen, who sweeps in and takes a seat at the head of the table. His CPAP lines are crisp across his cheeks, but he’s in fine spirits. He wraps up his talk on complex vulvar pathology with a labeled diagram of a normal vulva.
Grace’s hand shoots in the air before Chen’s last word has left his lips. Her usual twenty questions follow. I stare blindly at the screen before me and play Silversun Pickups on my AirPods to drown out her voice.
“Any other questions?” Chen asks when she’s finished.
“I have a question.” Kai eyes the diagram with a skeptical brow. “Is there something wrong with straight men? ’Cause like—” he gestures toward the screen in a circular motion “—I’m looking at this, and all I can think is, this is not that hard to figure out.”
Asher snorts.
“Uh—” Dr. Chen’s mouth twitches.
“No, seriously.” Kai points at the screen. “This is like an instruction manual. Am I missing something?” He turns to me. “It’s not that difficult, is it?”
I give him a hard stare.
He relents and lowers his voice. “Oh. Right. Sorry.” He flips his laptop closed. “Imma stick to dicks anyway so it doesn’t matter.”
Lexie bangs her hands on the table and adopts a mock-serious tone. “The most important part is that you PROTECT THE CLITORIS!”
The room fills with snickers, and a chuckling Chen stands to make his exit. I do a double take. The back of his white coat is covered in unrolled condoms.
Asher bursts into laughter. Several others follow suit.
Chen turns, narrowed eyes aimed at Asher. “What?”
The tears in Asher’s eyes as he laughs shine bright, his face red.
“Oh my gawd.” Kai snorts. “Dr. Chen, what did you do to your coat?”
Chen looks down at his coat, then pats his back. A resigned smile tugs at his mouth when he looks at Asher. “I suppose this is your doing, Dr. Foley?”
Asher is soundless in his laughter. Everyone else cracks up.
Everyone but me.
Chen takes off his coat and holds it out for all to see, dozens of condoms sutured into it. “I don’t know how I didn’t notice when I put it on.”
Asher splutters, but manages to get some words out. “Me, either.”
“You sewed all those in?” I ask.
Eyes gleaming, Asher nods. “What else did you think I was gonna do with all those condoms on my fridge?”
I chuckle, unsure how this douche managed to pull a laugh from my shattered, depressed mood.
Thanks, Asher. You’re good for something, after all.
The levity is short-lived. When the amusement dies down and Chen leaves, Asher turns toward Grace. He whispers something way too close to her ear, and she smiles at him. I fantasize about stabbing a scalpel into his chest.
Kai leans closer. “She looks fine, but she’s messed up, too.”
A shot of adrenaline wakes my pulse.
Yeah? If it hurts, why did she do it?
My body disobeys my mind and swivels toward her, gaze landing squarely on those hazel eyes. The connection between us yanks. She turns in my direction.
The chatter around us falls away. Asher’s words near her ear go unheeded as her lips part, and she mouths my name.
Fuck this.
I don’t care if I’ll be punished for jetting early. I swipe up my things and thrust them into my bag, leaving the room without a word. I’m at the middle landing in the back stairway when the door opens and she calls my name.
I face her. The signs of strain finally shine at me—the sharpness of her cheekbones, the circles beneath her eyes.
She holds her hand up. “Wait.”
“Why?”
She says nothing. The silence sucks away all the air between us, and this is the first time I see it…
She’s cold.
Unfeeling.
Cruel.
I take three steps up while she takes three steps down—still standing on her pedestal.
Why did I put her up there? I would have given her everything.
“Are you—” She swallows. “Are you okay?”
A pinch of wrath stirs into the icy misery inside me. “You’re kidding, right?”
“—”
“I have a knife in my throat. I can’t fucking breathe. Why are you here? To twist it?”
She presses her lips into a flat line.
“Nothing to say?” I stretch my arms to either side. “Do you like standing up there, watching me drown?”
She takes two steps toward me. “I don’t want this.”
“Changing your mind, then?”
She looks devastated, tears sparkling, then shakes her head.
“Then go.” I hate how hollow my voice rings. “If you’re not willing to put a little faith in me—”
“The risk-reward ratio here isn’t—”
“I’m not a risk,” I snap.
“Can you swear that you’ll stay no matter what?” She drops her gaze, eyes shining like she already knows my answer. “Can you promise me forever?”
Forever.
Pictures spread over my mind, memories that don’t exist. Grace meeting my mother. Watching her walk toward me in a white dress. Endless days of laughter and arguing, nights of pleasure and passion.
I want it. This future she won’t give me. I want it more than anything.
Taking one step up, I stare deep into her eyes. “What if I could? I love you, and I want you forever.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t . Haven’t you figured out there’s no such thing as forever?”
Ouch. Wow. I lay it on the line, and that’s her response?
Does she really think that? Does she think if I put a ring on her finger, I wouldn’t honor that promise? How could I not have realized before now how little she trusts me?
She’s too scared to put any faith in me.
“You’re a coward,” I say.
Swallowing, she nods. “I know.”
I shrug my messenger bag higher on my shoulder. “You’ll regret this.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
She closes the remaining distance between us and stands on the stair above mine, putting us close to eye-level. “Because I just—I can’t. And you deserve better.”
A cold spike lodges behind my ribs and my blood stirs. Fury strikes like lightning. She’s going to try to play the martyr? After ripping my heart out and taking a pickax to it?
“So selfless, aren’t you? You think you know everything.” My voice is serrated. I hope it shreds through her like paper. “Tearing me apart and convincing yourself it’s for me. Does my blood on your hands make you feel good, Grace?”
She sniffles.
I stare her down. She doesn’t balk despite the tears. She’s ensnared in my fire, and I throw out my next words in a selfish desire to hurt her. “You think I deserve someone better? Fine. Let’s see if I can find her.”
It’s only after I leave that the self-hatred punctures my anger.
I’m not this person. This bitter, angry, heartbroken man. Regret soaks in, spurring the desire to apologize.
My pain doesn’t give me the right to hurt her back, does it?
I don’t know what’s right anymore.
I don’t know anything.
* * *
“Motherfu—” My heart throws a tantrum when I step through the door and become aware of the second presence in my apartment.
“Hey, BB.”
“Goddamn it, Tor. You scared the shit out of me.”
She unfolds herself from the couch. “You really should find a better hiding place for your spare key.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I throw my wallet and keys on the table by the door.
She tosses out her devious smile. “It’s April. Snowbirds are gone. Season’s over, and I had vacation time to spare. Plus, my baby’s hurting.”
“I’m only eighteen months younger than you, Victoria. You act like you’re my mother.”
She drops her mouth open in faux outrage. “How dare you. I take personal offense to that. I am way better than our mother.”
“Why are you here, Vicky?”
She grins and offers a plastic bag from the coffee table. “I come bearing gifts from everyone.”
A tender warmth spreads through my chest. “Please tell me there are Norman Love truffles in there.”
Her grin widens to rival the Cheshire cat. “Tahitian Caramel.”
“God, I love you.”
“I know.” She juts her cheek out to be kissed.
After I change and settle on the couch next to her, she pats my knee.
“Tell me what happened, BB.”
I shrug and grab the box of chocolates she brought, taking out a truffle. “What’s to tell? She didn’t want me.”
Tori’s brown eyes follow my movements as I throw the box on the coffee table. “You’re still in love with her, ?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“.” The quiet tone of her voice gives me pause.
I turn toward her, and she lifts an arched brow.
Victoria is a feminine version of me. We have the same dark hair and eyes, the same curves in our faces, so reading her expression is like staring in a mirror. Right now, she hurts.
“What?” I ask.
“What can I do?”
I laugh. “Can you make her change her mind?”
“Do you want me to?”
I relish the vision of Victoria putting Grace in her place for a few moments before shaking my head. “I just need time. I’ll get over her.”
“You sure?”
No. I’m not sure.
Because what if I don’t? What if I never find the feeling I had with her ever again?
My bitter laugh is uncontrollable. “It’s that, or drown myself in the bathtub, so…”
“Ha. Ha.” She purses her lips. “Do you work this weekend?”
I lift my eyebrows. “Miraculously, no. First weekend off in three weeks.”
Her evil smile spreads. “I’m taking you out tomorrow night.”
* * *
This is a mistake.
I’m so drunk.
Fucking Victoria. She’s a bad influence. Or maybe she’s the best influence. Hard to tell at the moment.
“!”
The world keeps spinning when I whirl toward my name and stumble two steps on the dance floor.
The girl with me giggles and reaches for me. Our hands meet. She winds up against my body. We sway to live country music, her lips against mine.
“, I just won $82.” Kai’s arm is clamped around Tori’s as he approaches.
I blink, then smile because this is the best news since someone invented sex. “That’s awesome!”
“I told Dr. Chen!” He holds out his phone to show me the message to Chen.
I’m too blurry to focus on it, but I plummet into uncontrollable laughter. “What did he say?”
“He told me to get my charts done. I may have gotten his privileges suspended for not finishing my discharge summaries.” He shrugs. “Whoops.”
Tori laughs. “Your friend has a way with the slots.”
The girl I’ve forgotten about latches onto me, her mouth finding the sensitive place beneath my ear. I stare into her face.
Right.
Kai convinced me to invite Ariel the Mermaid to our foray past the Oklahoma border, and the magical casino here. Still trying to figure out why I thought that was a good idea.
Maxwell materializes beside them. His wife is drunker than me and attached to his arm, giggling.
“How much did you have to drink, bro?” Maxwell asks.
I try to remember, but the night is already half destroyed by alcohol. “Twelve?”
“Jesus.” Maxwell takes my arm, guiding both me and his wife to the benches at the side of the dance floor while the band on the stage takes a quick break.
A scantily clad waitress asks if we need anything.
“Shots!” I yell before Victoria slaps my hand and asks for water.
I glare at her. “I thought this is what you wanted.”
She rolls her eyes. “I wanted you loosened up, not dead.”
Ariel the Mermaid falls into my lap. “Hey, baby.” She sucks hard on my neck. Well, that’s…not pleasant—
“.” Kai widens his eyes.
“What?”
“Oh, let him have fun.” Tori waves her hand.
“You willing to let him get herpes?”
Ariel moves to my mouth, and now we’re making out in front of my friends and sister, but I don’t care.
For once, there’s no pain. Everything is numb and this girl kisses nothing like Grace.
Grace is all slow and shy and sweet. This girl is trying to suffocate me.
A chuckle emerges somewhere to my left and Victoria says, “Don’t worry. He’s way too drunk to do anything serious.”
Little does she know. The last time I fucked Grace, I was so hammered thanks to her love of Unicorn Blood that I barely remember it, and she still came twice.
I stare at the girl in my lap. Blue eyes. Round face. Could I get it up for her right now?
Maybe.
Honestly?
Probably not.
The raucous laughter to my right draws my attention. Kai is doubled over, and Maxwell has his face hidden in his hands. Still in my lap, Ariel glares at me.
Tori lifts an eyebrow at me. “You realize you said all that out loud, right?”
I shrug and roll my eyes. Everyone here is well aware I have no filter when I’m drunk. This is why I never drink like this.
Why is Ariel here again? I slide her to the seat beside me, tired of her bony ass digging into my legs.
“Who is Grace?” she demands.
Kai leans toward her, smile in place. “Dr. Rose.”
“What?” Ariel the Mermaid laughs. “You slept with her, too? I heard she’ll screw anything with a pulse.”
I really don’t like this girl. Kai frowns, exchanging a glance with Maxwell.
Tori clears her throat. “I don’t think—”
Ariel giggles. “She’s a total bitch to the nurses. Are you glad you got rid of her?”
I meet her sea blue eyes. “No. But you’re really fuckin’ rude, so now I’m kind of wishing I could get rid of you.”
The smile drops off her face.
Cat bursts into laughter. “Drunk is my favorite .”
“Same here, girl!” I raise my hand and she gives me a high five.
“Why don’t you take me upstairs?” Ariel whispers in my ear. “I’ll remind you why you brought me here.”
“I’m sharing a room with my sister. You want me to fuck you in front of her?”
Her cheeks turn a fantastic shade of red.
“Jesus, .” Tori slaps my shoulder. “You’re worse than I remember.”
“Can we please get some water?” Maxwell asks the sexy waitress.
“Sure thing, handsome.”
The cover band returns onstage, striking up a Carrie Underwood song. Cat and Ariel go wild and head for the dance floor. Maxwell shoves a glass of water in my hand. “Drink it all.”
I chug it and wipe my mouth. “Now what?”
Tori slides next to me. “You feel better yet?”
A hollow laugh bursts from me. “How do you come back from dead, Vicky?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic, .”
“Stop.” I meet her gaze, voice razor-edged. “I know you mean well, bringing me here and taking my phone and trying to distract me, but you’ve never been where I am. There’s no amount of alcohol that can make this better.”
She sighs. “Then I don’t know what to do for you.”
My voice drops. “I’m submerged, Tori, and there’s no air anywhere. I’m a grown man. Just let me be.”
After a long moment, she nods, eyes shimmering, and kisses my temple. “Do what you have to, BB.”
She hands me my phone, which she confiscated at the beginning of the night.
“I’m not going to text her,” I say.
“Well, now the choice is yours.”
* * *
The next morning, my eyes open to a brain-shearing light, and pain explodes through my entire nervous system, but for the first time in weeks, a lightness settles about me. Maybe I will survive this.
The feeling persists until I look at my phone to find an unopened text from Grace. Apparently, I did text her last night.
Me: I miss you grace
Grace: I miss you too .
APRIL, YEAR 2
By mid-April, I’m accustomed to life without Grace—sort of. Not happy, but surviving. Tori stays until she’s convinced I’m on the mend, and I breathe a sigh of relief at her departure.
I love my sister, but for the last seventeen days, my every move has been scrutinized and likely reported to my entire family. I’m not exactly sad to see her go.
Crashing onto my sofa, I can’t find the energy to reach for the remote. Instead, I stare at the ceiling. Patterns emerge from the popcorn texture—a mountain range beside a river, a lobster with eight legs, and…a perfectly shaped uterus?
How have I never noticed that before?
My phone buzzes on my chest.
Kai: Did you hear?
Me: Hear what?
Kai: Alesha ELOPED
I stare at my screen. That has to be a typo. Alesha isn’t dating. I hit the call button.
“Dude.” Kai’s voice is jubilant. “This is crazy.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Dr. Chen was at their wedding! He showed me the picture. Been dating in secret for three years .”
I rub my forehead. “Whose wedding? What are you talking about?”
“Alesha married Steven Langston.”
For five full seconds, I can only blink. Steven Langston is the director of GME. Steven Langston is a douche.
“She—what?”
“. Alesha is the girl who was screwing someone from GME.”
Coldness unfurls deep in my gut.
“This whole time!” Kai adds in my silence.
All those rumors. All Grace’s problems. Her insecurity. Her pain. The source was Alesha ?
“?”
“Alesha screwed someone to get into the program, then married him?”
Kai laughs. “No. Apparently they were dating before, and Langston stepped back from resident selection our year to remain unbiased.”
A silence follows. Kai clears his throat.
“And yet there were still rumors,” I say. “But not about Alesha.”
The buoyancy disappears from Kai’s voice. “Yeah, true.”
We fall into silence again.
My hand covers my eyes. “Alesha knew she was the source of that original story this whole time and never said anything.”
“I—” Kai clears his throat. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Why would she let that happen to Grace?” My voice sharpens despite an attempt to remain neutral. She could have set the record straight from the very beginning. She could have stopped it.
“Uh. I don’t know,” Kai says. “Maybe she was protecting him. Langston. Maybe he would have gotten in trouble if people found out.”
I drop my hand, and my gaze strays at once to the uterus on the ceiling. She protected her boyfriend and threw her best friend to the wolves? “This is fucked up.”
Kai grunts. “It kind of is.”
My throat is thick. “I have to go.”
“Yeah.” Kai sighs. “Listen, man. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not the one who should be sorry.”
When I hang up, I relive the last two years with new eyes. Alesha had defended Grace from the beginning, had never believed the rumors. I’d thought it was some girl-code thing, but no. She’d known it was all fake and let the rumors spread, anyway. Over and over she watched Grace stumble and fall, stuck in muck that didn’t belong to her.
Grace’s reputation is in tatters because of Alesha. I lost the love of my life because of her.
Alesha let us crumble for a rumor she could have quashed with the truth.
I open my private message with her.
Me: wtaf
She doesn’t answer.