Chapter 22
PUTTING THE ‘I’ IN IMPOSTER SYNDROME
“Imposter syndrome” is a well-studied phenomenon where our best and brightest, whether it’s doctors, nurses, techs, or most importantly, our patients, feel like they’re not good enough to be who they’re meant to be.
Having seen the handiwork of some of you, all I can say is: there’s only one true imposter at this medical school, and I fear his true colors are about to come out.
THANATOS
“We need to talk.”
Rough hands rip the sheets off me; the rush of cold air shocks me awake. My bedroom lights blink on, and I jerk up in bed, recoiling from the face I hate more than anyone.
Fear ices my veins as he towers above me, cornering me in bed.
It’s 1 A.M.—and Hyacinth is still bar hopping with our friends—so even if I scream for help, this apartment is empty, and I’m alone here with him.
“Stephanie,” David says, a serpentine smile contorting his features. “Good morning.”
My heart’s racing, pounding faster than my frantic thoughts. How did he get in here? He’s been over before, but I never gave him a key. And he’s blocking the only escape. I’m trapped.
“What the hell do you want?” I demand, bringing up the sheets in a flimsy attempt at decency. “This is my apartment. You shouldn’t even be here.”
“Like that’s going to stop me,” he scoffs. My hand arches for my phone, but before I can nab it, he swipes it from the charger.
“Not so fast,” he says.
He tosses it side to side, toying with me.
Terror jolts through me. There goes my plan.
He smirks, sliding my phone into his scrub pocket. He makes the uniform look sinister, stolen from glory, not dignified like Kane does.
Sweat coats his flushed face, and his pupils dilate in and out, huffing and puffing sporadic bursts of air. He’s twitching, muscles spasming, like he’s glitching in and out of consciousness.
He looks unstable. Feral.
I’m still sleep-deprived and anxious, but even in crisis mode, my mind flies to reason.
“Why did you come here?” I ask, trying to look brave. There must be some feasible explanation, some rational purpose for his breaking and entering.
He darts forward, and I slip, tumbling to the side in my flimsy nightgown.
“Oh, don’t look so scared,” he says, watching my exposed thighs with lecherous eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not THAT evil.”
He jumps forward, and I scramble back so fast my head slams into the wall.
“Yet,” he growls.
My head throbs.
YeeoooWWW! MeeoooWw! hiisSSS!
“I trapped those fuckers in the freezer,” David growls, kicking the door closed with a BANG! as Hyacinth’s cats screech.
His eyes flash. “I can trap you in there, too, if you’d like. In pieces, I think you’d fit beautifully.”
My pulse roars in my ears.
I’m going to die in this apartment.
“See, I just learned some… fascinating information.” He drags aside a chair with a metallic screech, straddling it backward. His teeth gleam as he grins, like a jackal playing with his food. “I didn’t think it could possibly be true—but then again, it just makes too much sense.”
I retreat backward as slyly as I can, trying to put distance between us as my heart pounds. “Just get to the point.”
“Oh, Stephanie,” he says with a rattling cough. “How long did you think you could pull this off?”
I scan the room, but my gardening tools are shoved into the far corner, with any potential weapon out of reach. It’s just me, hyperventilating, preparing to die in my own personal hell corner.
“Pull what off?” I spit out.
“Heh.” A maniacal, hysterical laughter takes over, and his whole body convulses.
My lungs inhale faster, thoughts tumbling over each other. I can’t believe I dated this man. What was I thinking?
“You and that—scum—have been lying to everyone. For someone who complains that she hates gunners, you’re the vilest of them all. I mean, fucking a program director’s son so that he can put in a good word for you at this hospital? Being his eye candy so he’s more appealing to residency positions?”
“David,” I protest. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
How? How did he find out?
“I know plenty.” He takes out my phone, swings the face recognition to me, and taps the screen, scrolling way back.
“Hyacinth,” he reads. “I need a way to get David away from me. What do you think I should do?”
He imitates the high pitch of Hyacinth’s voice. “Dr. Kane Goodyear, 25-year-old ghoul, past history of being his D.O. school’s valedictorian, currently on his intern year!”
He continues reading text after text, face contorting with each line.
“How’s fake dating going?”
“I think he likes me. He just stole Jade’s attending lounge I.D. for me!”
“Can you suggest to the other students that they should go to the library today? Dr. Demon and I will be studying there, and I need witnesses.”
His fingers fly, transversing message after message, spitting with rage as he scrolls back and forth.
“David and Kane both want to be general surgeons next year. So the best way to get to him would be to get to his competition!”
How long has he been here? Has he read all my texts?
What did he come in here to do?
“It was a joke,” I plead. “We are dating!”
“Is that why you broke up right before match lists were due? After you both got what you wanted?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He has me cornered, and he knows it.
“What do you want?” I ask, voice shaky.
I should have never left evidence. What was I thinking?
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he hisses. “I’ll keep your secret. On one condition.”
He rattles the chair, and I flinch.
“You’re going to tell EONS you made a mistake. That it’s really me you’re in love with, and you plan on couples matching with me, and nobody else. You’re going to rank my top preferences first, and catapult us to where I plan on matching.”
My vision blurs, the world tilting as David’s plan knocks me off my axis. This is my entire future. And the idea of couples matching and being stuck in the same place as David—
“Oh, and I’ll tell everyone Dr. Demon took advantage of you while you were his student.”
“What?!” I gasp. “That’s not true! It was my idea!”
“But will it matter?” he says sardonically. “You’re my girlfriend now. No matter how vehemently you deny it, rumors spread fast in medicine. All I have to do is plant the seed that you were treated badly.”
I was wrong. Kane has never been Dr. Demon. It’s this monster.
My head pounds, throat closing.
This is what a true demon looks like. A preternatural beauty hiding the irreparably, irredeemably sinister.
“Leave him alone,” I beg. My instincts won’t save me, and my nerves are fried. But one thing I know with absolute certainty—I will not let Kane get hurt in this. My chest throbs with the overwhelming urge to protect. “He’s my victim, not the other way around.”
“Oh, please,” he scoffs. “It’s so obvious that man would do anything for you. Whatever siren power you possess, you’ve completely seduced him into doing your bidding.”
“Are you insane?”
My brain is flying through scenarios, plans, anything that would save this situation. I can’t couples match with him. I can’t. I can’t! This is my whole career! My whole life!
“Why?” I ask. “Why can’t you just match on your own? This doesn’t make sense! It’s too late anyway! It’s nearly match day!”
He laughs dryly. “I mean, let’s be realistic, Percy.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He pauses, leveling me with a contemptuous look. “I think we all know that matching is based more on appearances than talent.”
He lets out a mocking sigh. “It’s a shame you aren’t prettier. Has anyone ever told you that looking at your face is peak uncanny valley? From far away, you look like a pretty girl, but the closer you get, the worse it becomes.”
“Fuck off, David,” I say between tears.
“You’re going to submit your rank list in front of me,” he demands. “You’re going to pull out your computer right now and show it to me.”
Rank lists were already due. He has to be on something.
Which one causes pupillary dilation?
Or memory loss?
Nothing he’s saying makes any sense…
Think, think, think…
“I already sent my letter of intent,” I lie. “They’re going to notice I changed my mind.”
He rips a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “Don’t worry,” he says with a snarky smile. “I already came out with our new list and our excuses.”
“Or what?” I stall. “What if I just chuck it at you?”
He slowly turns to me, eyes cold as ice.
“Then I send the email I already wrote to everyone we know.” He pulls out his phone, waving a draft at me.
“I have proof that the transitional year intern and an M4 are faking a relationship for the sake of manipulating program directors,” he reads.
“And, oh look, it has attachments. To the photos I just emailed to myself.”
He hovers his thumb over the send button.
“Well?” he says darkly. “Go grab your computer.”
“Don’t do this,” I plead. “You’re a strong candidate. You can match on your own.”
“So was Kane. And he didn’t match at all. You might claim ignorance regarding this email,” he muses, waving his phone around. “But Kane? The man who couldn’t match and already has the cards stacked against him? He’ll be done. For good.”
He cackles again. “And that would be a problem for you, wouldn’t it?”
His face darkens into something resembling betrayal. “I saw you at Med Prom. You actually fell for him, didn’t you?”
The hurt on his face vanishes, replaced with seething disgust. “Not that it matters,” he says, “he never loved you back. Not enough to keep you, at least. I guess he and I have that in common.”
I don’t point out that he said Kane would do anything for me just seconds ago. David’s unraveling, badly.
His statements don’t make sense, and he’s acting like he mixed drugs, erratic and beastly. What’s gotten into him? Stimulants? Hallucinogens?
I can’t win a physical fight against a man on street drugs. I grasp at straws for anything I can do, anything I can say, any way to confuse him.
Stall. I can stall him. At least until I have a plan.
“You’re a coward,” I accuse, “for confronting me and not him. You’re terrified of him, aren’t you?”
“I’m not scared of shit,” he growls.
Bingo. Insecurity and men, the perfect combo for building psychos like this.
“Then why aren’t you talking to him?” I ask. “Go man to man. Measure up to him.”
He’s broiling now, bubbling over. Good. If I can convince him he can take on Kane instead—
“You’ve always been scared of me finding someone better, huh? Someone taller? Smarter? Prettier? Seems like the only thing you are is a puss—”
In a flash, he rips out my phone and throws it at me, sending it soaring toward my head.
I duck at the last minute, hearing it dent the wall behind it.
Oh my God. He’s going to kill me.
But as it falls, I reach out to grab it, and his hand wraps around my throat.
“Don’t you dare!” he shrieks. The phone lands on the bed next to me, just inches out of reach.
His grip tightens, and my vision goes black.
And then I hear it.
Rrrrng. Rrrnrg. Rrrrnng.
“If I don’t answer that,” I wheeze, “it’ll look suspicious.”
Rrrrng. Rrrnrg. Rrrrnng.
“Who is Esther?” he demands.
“That’s my chief,” I lie. “If I don’t answer, she’ll know something is very wrong.”
Keeping one hand closed around my throat, he grabs the phone with the other hand, clicking the speakerphone on.
Dumbass doesn’t even remember who my friends are.
Esther’s voice crackles through the phone. “Percy, it’s happening!”
“What?” I gasp.
“I thought it was just Taco Heaven, fuck!” she shrieks.
She never curses, which makes my stomach sink. She’s only 32 weeks. So it can’t be happening now. There’s no way.
“The babies! They’re early!” She sobs through the phone. “I’m in the ambulance right now! Liam is on his way, but he’s still an hour out, and my parents live too far to come—AHH!”
She screams as contractions take over.
David groans, moving to turn the phone off, but I knee him in the crotch while he’s distracted.
I snatch the phone from his hand, whacking him in the head with all the force I have.
The impact sends him cursing away, bursts of scarlet blood bursting from his head.
Why’s his skin so fragile?
David falls away, screaming, and I watch with horrified fascination as he ignores the ichor from his head to smack at his ankle, then his knee, then his crotch.
Amidst Esther’s shrieks is a faint Squeak Squeak!
The vermin!
Blood racing, I sprint to the other side of the room, pick up my rake with the other hand, wait until the mouse runs out of his shoulder sleeve, and drive it through David’s eye.
He screams, tumbling backward.
Blood spurts everywhere.
“I’ll meet you in labor and delivery!” I yell, shaking off blood like sweat. David continues twitching as Mousey climbs up his arm, trailing blood like lace across his body as he screams.
“Fuck, Percy, I wanted an epidural!” There’s the sound of shuffling, and then she whimpers, “What do you mean we’re still 20 minutes away? Still? Tell them to speed up!”
“What do you mean, SEVEN CENTIMETERS? Already? Tell her to slow down!”
“I’ll meet you in the parking lot!” I yell.
“I’M SENDING IT!” David screams, blood dripping through the fingers of one hand, clutching his phone with the other.
I have a split second to decide—my reputation and career, or my friend?
I yank my shovel out of its pile and hurl it at his crotch, smiling when he doubles over, and Mousey jumps off him.
My feet are out the door before I’ve ever realized my decision.
If there’s anything Kane has taught me, it’s that the only thing that makes medicine sacred is the people we’re trusted to treat within it.
And I am done being everybody else’s victim.
I yank open the fridge freezer before dashing away.
“Send it, bastard!” I screech, running out. “I have babies to deliver!”
And behind me, three furious cats launch themselves at the mouse scurrying around my ex.