Chapter 9
GRAND ROUNDS AND GRANDER GESTURES
The cost of signing up to lead the Morbidity and Mortality Grand Rounds? An hour of your life.
The cost of bringing your haughty attitude to residency interviews? A transitional year of your life.
The cost of turning back around to your beautiful enemy? The consumption of your life.
Just ask my favorite yearner, Orpheus.
Clinical pearl #9: Never look back.
THANATOS
I’m lost.
Like irreparably, inconceivably lost.
I’m trapped underground, in a basement with open silver tubes protruding from the ceiling like intestines. Dusty, faded yellow bricks line the walls; cockroaches scatter across the floor like nitrous oxide, and sparks sizzle along the ceiling.
I feel like I’m in the bowels of hospital hell.
Percy
Where is Room 067?
Calypso, despite texting me this morning to welcome me back to Rusty and remind me that the Grand Rounds location changed, is aggressively quiet.
Exposed wires crackle above, and I recoil.
Ponytail flying, I round another corner, leaving the room for a flickering hallway, snaps of light hounding me like ghosts as I scurry from corner to corner.
Grand Rounds are supposed to start in ten minutes.
I swing up my watch to check notifications, which usually take seconds to load.
Nothing.
Rows of exposed wiring snake along the ceiling as I careen past another tangle of circuits. The corridor stretches ahead, branching into more identical hallways as I quicken my steps. If the dead do haunt this place, I'd hate to join them.
A dark opening yawns to my left.
I dart into it.
Instant regret.
A shriek escapes me before I backpedal into the dim glow of the main corridor, heart hammering.
Where are the signs? Hospitals typically have directions labeled for patients, but there must not be any reason for patients to come here.
Another turn.
Another corridor.
Then my watch buzzes.
Relief floods through me as my notifications pour in, the vibrations rattling against my wrist.
Finally, signal.
Sweat rolls down my neck, but even with my rapid skimming, I can’t find her name anywhere. My friends’ texts ambush me instead.
Beep!
Hyacinth
Your boyfriend is here
Beep!
Hyacinth
He looks annoyed
Beep!
Esther
ooh girl
Beep!
Esther
He just asked us where you’re at
“Lovely,” I mumble to myself as I trip into an even darker room, the scent acrid like burning plastic.
Percy
How did you guys find this place?
Hyacinth
Wdym? Just follow the directions in the email; it’s across the street from the main entrance.
I stop in my tracks, nearly tumbling. Nausea rolls through my stomach.
But Calypso texted—
Percy
Is Calypso applying OB/GYN now?
Esther
She changed last minute
Why
Percy
The gunner bitch told me the meeting was in the basement!
The phone rings, and I pick up immediately, swinging the video to my face.
“Percy!” Hyacinth scream-whispers from her auditorium seat. “Where are you?”
I wave my phone frantically. “Where does it look like!”
Her wide eyes squint. “Is that—” she gasps. “Percy, you’re approaching the morgue!”
“The morgue?” I whisper-yell back. “Where am I?”
“You’re never going to make it in time,” she says. Something ominous stomps in the background, and she puts the phone down, revealing a greatly helpful pitch-black screen. “Hold on.”
A low rumble vibrates through the speaker.
Muffled voices.
A sharp whisper.
Then Hyacinth is back.
“Stay there,” she orders abruptly, then hangs up.
My heart drops. There’s no way.
I’d know that haggard mumbling anywhere.
He wouldn’t, would he?
I stare into the darkness. A second passes. Then another.
An elevator shaft groans in the distance. Metal rattles. The doors slam open.
My pulse kicks into overdrive.
If he makes me even more late, I swear—
My breath catches in my throat as a sudden, ominous shadow enters my view, my chest thrumming harder than ever before.
Already?
When he spots me, he releases a bone-deep sigh, like he had to trade his soul as the token to enter the hospital crypts.
“Percy,” he breathes, like a curse.
“Kane,” I respond, like a promise, “You didn’t need to come save me.”
“I’m not your savior,” he responds, stepping into the light. “This is an abduction. Let’s go.”
He’s wearing a midnight-black suit today, tailored to perfection, unlike his usual hospital scrubs. His broad shoulders tense beneath the fabric as he approaches, the luxurious black accentuating the haughtiness in his eyes and near-predatory strut as he draws closer.
For a shocking, disorienting moment, my mind can’t believe the beautiful man stalking me is… Kane.
My pulse hitches over its usual beat. “Why are you dressed nicely for once?”
“That’s my thank you?” He shakes his head. Gel smooths his hair back, so it doesn’t puff out and fly nearly as much as it should. “Let’s go,” he says, inclining his head just a fraction, then taking off without even a backward glance.
“What happened to hello, how are you?” I ask rhetorically. He’s so tall, I’m nearly jogging as I chase him, my longest strides inches to his.
“I know how you are,” he says. I wish he would spare me even a half-second of a derisive look. Instead, he’s just chugging on, archly continuing with, “You’re lost.”
I clench my hands into fists and trek after him. I should be more grateful, elated even, but I’m still annoyed he’s been slowly ghosting me for weeks.
“How was the homework I sent you?” I ask.
“Survivable,” he responds brusquely. “Walk faster, or we’ll be late.” He shakes his head again. “You damn near checked yourself into a body bag, Percy. Why were you down here?”
“Calypso sabotaged me. She told me that Grand Rounds got moved here.”
At that, he slows for half a second before continuing at his breakneck pace, swinging another corner into a bleaker, emptier hallway. “Check with your friends next time, not your enemies.”
“Wait a minute,” I breathe. My face reddens. “Did you think I got here naturally? That I chose to be this lost?”
“Medical students exist in all sorts of helpless flavors. I can’t help which one you choose today.”
“Kane!”
“Although I’m relieved this wasn’t a conscious choice, at least in your home hospital.” He finally brings us to the stairs, flings the door open, and takes them up two at a time.
I fight for breath as I hustle after him.
“Can’t you be… nice… for once?” I gasp.
“Your cardiovascular endurance could use work,” he says, not missing a beat. He pauses for what feels like two seconds at each floor for me to catch up, staring up at the fifth floor wistfully on each landing. “Were you me, we’d both be up there by now.”
“My job is to fix you,” I remind him. “Can’t you at least pretend to be nice to me?”
“With no one else around?” he asks, chasing the flights up again.
“That’s… the literal… definition… of integrity!” I ramble, sweat making my scrubs sticky.
“And there’s integrity in lateness?” he retorts.
When we reach the top of the stairs, he’s unfazed; I’m casket-ready.
I twist around, dramatically dropping my massive backpack with my lunch, computer, textbook, and all kinds of miscellaneous tools on the floor, collapsing with my hands on my knees.
He watches me pant, frowning.
What is wrong with this man, I wonder between wheezes. He, in his peculiar way, is staring at the backpack instead of looking at me.
“I’m too old for this,” I heave out, drenched in sweat.
“You’re 25, at the prime of your life.”
I shoot him the nastiest glare I’m capable of. “I’m twenty. Seven. Damn near dead.” I inhale a few more precious gulps of air before informing him, “I did a master’s in public health before medical school.”
His eyebrows raise a fraction. After a moment of processing this, he responds with, “Why do you whine like such a little girl then? You’re older than me.”
I glower at him. “How old are you, genius?”
He grins. “25. I did a BS-DO program.”1
My head snaps up. I forgot! Hyacinth texted me months ago that he’s only 25. “So that’s why you’re so… your prefrontal cortex is just starting!”
I can’t believe this whole time, I’ve been dealing with the behavior of an adolescent!
Well, if I want to match the juvenile nature of my fake boyfriend—
“Hold my hand,” I demand, sticking it out. “Make it romantic when we walk out, like you came to save me.”
He scowls.
“No,” he says, brows creasing together. “We aren’t twelve.”
“You’re pretending to be nice,” I remind him. “We’re about to be—as you so mentioned—in public.”
“Being late and patronized is a lot, Percy,” he says, crossing his arms.
“And while we’re at it,” I admit, frustrated and pissed off, “you hurt my feelings.”
I’m tired of this hospital being built like a maze. I’m exhausted from chasing this intern up the stairs. I’m worn out and bitter from endless Grand Rounds, didactics, and managing the expectations of mercurial residents—including the one that’s still avoiding my gaze.
“Huh?” he asks, finally looking at my face. Really looking at me, brows furrowing deeper, lost in concentration. Like he’s trying to siphon out the soul from the flesh, the lies from the carefully curated truth.
“I was trying to reach out to you during my away rotation weeks ago, and you blew me off,” I mutter, withdrawing my hand and retreating a step.
His eyes widen. “Percy, you didn’t text me for two weeks straight while you were away. How was I supposed to know you really wanted to talk and not procrastinate?”
He bends, but instead of offering me a hand, he picks up my backpack, angling it around himself instead.
His face morphs to chagrined. “I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did,” he says. “That’s why I sent what I sent.”
I’m finally done sweating, but my head still feels thick and worn out. “What?”
“Me hurting your feelings with my text,” he says. “I couldn’t even fathom just chatting with someone while I was doing my aways. I thought you were avoiding whatever it was you really had to do.”
“I… see,” is all I can say, realizing this is the first I’ve ever heard him apologize. And I didn’t have to beg him like I did with David.