Chapter 9
Isabelle
The unfortunate reality about residency was that it was incredibly isolating.
Every year around this time in the early summer, the residency match scattered outgoing medical students across the country.
Most graduates ended up hundreds of miles from home in a new city without much in the ways of social connection. Pile that
on top of a crazy work schedule, it made forging new bonds pretty difficult.
I sighed and turned my pint of beer around on a coaster.
I wanted to do something social tonight since I’d been working nonstop in preparation for being away for the wedding in a
week. But my coresidents were working and, since my work life ate up all the friends I had before residency, I was alone.
So, I came here.
Being alone in public felt a little less lonely than being alone in my apartment. The Irish pub on the Lower East Side wasn’t too far from the hospital and it was dingy enough that none of the attendings or anyone of consequence would be here.
As I waffled over ordering some fries, a shadow loomed behind me. I glanced over my shoulder.
It was Drake, Selena’s bodyguard. A second later, Selena emerged from behind him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, peeking behind her through the smudged windows. Sunset had long passed, and twilight took
over the sky.
“We share location settings,” Selena reminded me as she took a seat next to me and picked up the menu. She took a minute to
look it over before getting some soda water and fries. “I noticed your pin wasn’t at work for the first time in ages, and
I had to see it for myself.”
“I’m fine,” I assured, absentmindedly turning the coaster. I would have called her, but I was trying not to always play third wheel to Selena and Henry. “And my schedule has been pretty good this week.”
My life as senior resident was less intense than when I was a junior—I got to see the sun these days—but I knew that wasn’t
what she was talking about.
She moved the soda water between her hands. “I know you held on to his old sweatshirt for a reason. The photos. It’s okay
to admit that a part of you thoug—”
“I’m fine,” I assured her softly.
There were little parts of our past that I had held on to.
I assumed he had done the same, too . . .
maybe not. Like his old college sweatshirt, the one that was so lived in that it was threadbare and most of the lettering had worn off in the last decade, it felt like a promise I had made to myself.
That once all the hard work of my career was done, our lives together would be easy. Finally, something to relax into.
But like all things, this was yet another challenge. And a part of me was exhausted with those.
“If you weren’t, though.” Selena fiddled with her napkin, turning it on the polished amber-colored bar top. “It’s okay. I
mean, I know you and Blake officially weren’t together anymore, but I figured that, eventually, you would be again.”
“But we weren’t,” I repeated pointedly in agreement. “So he did nothing wrong. I’m not upset.”
She swiveled around in her chair to face me. “If you were, there’s no shame in being hurt.”
“I’m not hurt.” The words propelled out of my mouth so fast, Selena noticeably flinched, and Drake’s usually undaunted body
shifted. “Sorry.”
I didn’t need to ask for help; I fixed my own problems. I needed a date, I got one. I needed to get past whatever it was that
weighed my muscles all week, and I would.
“Okay, well, that’s great.” Her voice squeaked and went up an octave. She didn’t believe me. “Because I wanted to tell you
something.” She paused and chewed on her lower lip for a second. “I’ve never met Francesca, but I’ve met the other Davenports.
They’re nice.” She began slowly like she was walking toward fire. “From what I hear, Francesca is, too.”
Envy burned at the sides of my throat. Not because of Blake, but Selena was my best friend. It was one thing to feel like I’d lost everything else, but I hated feeling like I was losing her, too. Not that I was, and certainly not to Francesca, but logic was fighting for its life in my brain.
I pushed all the clamor in my head down and tried to sound perfectly okay with all of this.
“Maybe I’ll make a friend,” I added dryly.
I hated that I was jealous. I wasn’t exactly sure of what, maybe that he found happiness with someone else while none of my
relationships after him ever became serious because I always assumed he’d be the one I’d end up with. That fact cracked fractures
along my resolve.
Having serious relationships wasn’t exactly easy in residency either, but that didn’t matter because, in my mind, I’d always
had Blake. The eventuality I had pinned those romantic hopes on while I achieved my dreams.
“I’ll hate her if you want me to.” She reached a hand out and took mine for a second, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Don’t.” Thankfully the fries arrived, and I could start eating my feelings. “She’s doing me a favor, right? Clean breaks
heal faster.”
Selena would protect me with everything she had if she had to, but she was also sensible. She was trying to make the next
steps forward easier, get me used to the idea that whatever pain I was feeling now would probably get worse when I saw them
together.
“Exactly. It wasn’t meant to be. Better a bruised heart now than a divorce filing in a few years,” Selena agreed. She took
a long sip from her glass of soda water. “And I happen to love your idea to bring Austin.”
Selena swiveled her seat back to the bar.
“Oh yeah?” I plucked a perfectly golden fry from the center of the basket.
“Imagine the look on Blake’s face when he and Francesca see you on the arm of the American Footballer.”
“Yeah . . .” At least I’d have some decent company. He’d lived a compelling life, born in the States, playing at the highest
level in the Premier League. He probably had great stories. Not that he got much press these days. “And I sort of promised
we would use your invite list as a way to find patrons for his foundation.”
Selena gave me the exact reaction I was expecting.
“Have at it. That’s what all the rich people do at these things anyway.” Selena dipped a few fries in hot sauce. “The founders
of a venture capital firm are coming; start there.”
I nodded.
“And . . .” She chewed and took a long sip of water. “I talked to his agent, Jesse.”
“Really?”
“He called me after the auction last week. He’s setting up meetings for Austin, I guess for coaching or something. I sent
him the itinerary.”
Yikes. I didn’t know Jesse outside of meeting him at the auction, but he seemed like a pageant mom after too many red-eyes.
“He’s already planning all the ways he can use this,” Selena continued. “I told him a Voulez reporter will be there, and he’s trying to—”
“Nobody is stealing your thunder at your wedding,” I interrupted, feeling so defensive I propelled myself a bit forward. Selena was doing way too much when she should have been handing things off to me. I was already leveraging her wedding for my own childish revenge.
“I don’t mind, really.” Selena put her hand up. “I was actually hoping I could assign you a maid-of-honor task?”
I felt a little less useless or like an item on her to-do list to fix. I sat up straighter. “Of course.”
“I told you I gave Voulez Magazine an exclusive on our wedding for a reason.” Selena grabbed another fry. “They’re owned by the same media company that owns
most of the European tabloids.”
My brow crinkled as I put it together, remembering what she’d mentioned on the phone. “Right. You give Voulez this, and it’ll dry up the demand for pap photos?”
“It’s a win-win. They don’t need to outcompete themselves.” A smile stretched across her cheeks. “And I get a nice, relatively
quiet wedding.”
“Selena Montez, mastermind.” I nudged her shoulder playfully with my own. “So, what do you need? Seems like you have it all
figured out.”
“Do me a favor and keep Malcolm distracted. Pictures of some statues and women in ballgowns should be more than enough. Everyone has signed NDAs, and this is certainly
better than being mobbed by paps, but . . .”
“Done.” I put my hand on hers. She didn’t have to explain. I knew. There were so many ways I missed out on having a regular
life with Selena over the last few years. Not many nights out, vacations, road trips, nothing. But I could do something for
her now. “I am his newest shadow.”
“And it works for Austin, too. He can get some press for his foundation.”
“You know I didn’t hire you, right?” I asked Selena playfully, hoping if my tone lifted, my spirits would, too. If Jesse hadn’t
called her, I was sure she would have done it, because she was never going to let me hurt in all of this.
“Isa.” She laughed and leaned her head on my shoulder. “With a resident’s salary? You couldn’t afford me.”
A bleak night turned brighter with her laugh, a beer, and a basket of fries.
After stress eating a few more baskets of fries with Selena, I headed home.
I threw my keys onto the countertop under the dim pendant lights’ glow and walked straight to my fridge. I needed some ice-cold
water and some sleep and I’d feel better.
My exhausted muscles pulled me forward and, just as I opened the fridge, I looked at all the vegetables that had gone bad
waiting for me to use them.
The tomatoes had turned a brown color with a fuzzy gray mold growing around one side of them. They gave way to gentle pressure
from my fingers. The sentiment decayed in my heart, making it heavy.
I looked up from the fridge and my absent-minded scan of the room stopped on the counter.
Sitting in the corner was the oversize college sweatshirt—Blake’s college sweatshirt. It was threadbare after a decade of washes. I knew I needed to throw it out. But it was comfortable and throwing it away felt like losing something.
My mind flooded with memories of him.
And in that second, the fatigue, the sadness, the frustration all blended together. A match lit by that stupid sweatshirt
burst alive with a determined flame.
I grabbed the sweatshirt in one hand and stomped back to the fridge, piling everything that was definitely past its expiration
on top of it. The jalapenos that I had had no idea how to store, next to the milk that had been there for weeks, the eggs
that I had bought in hopes I’d make myself a nice breakfast in the morning on occasion.
All of it piled on top.
A few loud cracks on the floor stopped me just as I was turning to close the fridge door. I looked down. The eggs, having
teetered off the top of the pile of things in my arms, lay on the floor, pooling at my feet.
And like those fragile shells, it all just broke.
My arms dropped; everything but the sweatshirt joined the eggs on the floor.
The levies that kept my mind in check finally became too overwhelmed. With an anger that had nowhere to go, I let it out.
The emotion that clogged my throat cleared with a furious scream into the sweatshirt. When my throat burned, I finally let
the tears loose. They stung as they slipped down my cheeks, and I slid down to the floor.
Each arm fell limp to my sides, and the sweatshirt fell in the mess.
The fog began to clear, and I stared at the sweatshirt, then around my apartment.
I was alone. Me and the mess I made in the kitchen.
Blake had moved on. Selena had moved on. And I was in the same place.
On top of all that, in a couple short weeks, I’d have to see how far moved on they both were and how left behind I was.
In deference to my work, my personal life had stalled out.
But I had to be the best. I wasn’t going to live in my father’s shadow. And after my birth had plucked the wings off my mom, I wasn’t
going to be anything other than perfect. She’d look at her sacrifices and be proud seeing the career she didn’t get to have
in me.
I tried to remember that, but tonight, all of that pushed to the back of my mind.
The painful truth I never let myself admit was too hard to ignore—tonight I let myself feel it. There were some things I wasn’t
going to have.
The tears became a steady stream. My body rocked underneath a quiet sob.
I’d let myself feel whatever this was and pull it together tomorrow.