4. Isaac
Chapter 4
Isaac
First Year of Medical School
12 Years Ago, October
H er laughter fills the room after my twelfth—fifteenth?—attempt to correctly identify the brain stem structure on her computer screen.
“Isaac, how many times do I need to tell you?” she giggles. “They’re called the pyramids! Look at the shape!”
“Don’t patronize me woman, those are triangles at best .”
She slaps her palm to her forehead. “Please explain to me the difference between a pyramid and a triangle, smarty-pants.” She’s so much better at this than I am.
Yet, for some reason, she continues to try to drag me through the mud.
“Okay, pyramids are three dimensional. How on earth is that three dimensional?” My voice is strained as I point at the black and white image. “Riddle me that one, Sherlock!”
“Ugh, c’mon,” she groans, grabbing my hand and pulling me from the wooden desk chair. “We’re going up to the lab.”
The library is full of utterly panicked first-year students—Jo and I included—all voraciously flipping through pages of scribbled notes and hand-drawn images of anatomical structures.
“It’s probably a zoo up there.” I follow, trying my best not to stumble as she pulls me through the book stacks towards the large double doors and out of the library. Sweat accumulates between our clasped hands as we race down the hall, up the stairs, and around the corner. She doesn’t seem to care.
Neither do I.
“I stashed a brain specimen in a bucket in the storage closet,” she responds, glancing back at me as we walk. She finally drops my hand when we reach the metal entrance to the dissection lab, the smell of formaldehyde accosting my nostrils before she cracks the door. I quickly wipe my palm on the inside of my pocket, watching to see if she does the same.
She doesn’t.
“If Dr. Clifford finds out you hid a brain, she’s gonna flip,” I say, eliciting a dramatic eye roll.
“I’m trying to learn, so sue me.”
The lab is, in fact, an absolute cluster fuck. Students are bent over cadavers, trying to position themselves to best see whichever part of the body they’re attempting to learn. Large surgical lamps hang from the ceiling to provide ample lighting of the bodies.
“C’mere,” Jo says, diverting her direction towards the set of small lockers on the far wall of the lab. She inputs a code on a purple lock and pulls open the door, grabbing a box of purple nitrile gloves. She hands me a pair and I stare at them, knowing full well they will be too small for my hands.
“What’s your favorite color?” I ask, attempting to pull one glove on.
“Purple, why?” It only takes another second before she registers why I’m asking, and she scoffs. “Oh shut up, you smart-ass.”
I chuckle, letting the material of the glove snap against the skin of my wrist when I finally wrangle it on. I start on the second glove as she darts quickly to our left towards the amphitheater. Before I manage to take a step to follow, she’s looking back at me with wide, annoyed eyes.
Wide, annoyed, and beautifully green eyes.
“Slow down, speed racer.” I reach her just as she swings open the door to the amphitheater and heads inside.
It’s only been six weeks.
Six weeks of my life getting turned completely upside down. Six weeks of this girl.
Tuesday afternoon cream sodas, Friday night Blue Moons, and panic attacks about not being smart enough to be here. Six weeks of staring at Jo across our table in the library and wondering if one day the text messages and phone calls from her boyfriend will stop.
“Look!” She shoves a brainstem so close to my nose that my eyes cross. “Tell me those don’t look like pyramids. ”
I take a step back, squinting my eyes and examining the structure.
Dammit, they do.
“Alright, Carello. You win this one.”
“I cannot believe I fucking failed,” Carmen yells, loud enough for both Jo and I to hear her over the Saturday karaoke at Golden Hour.
“We all failed, Carm,” Jo adds, holding her beer mug with both hands.
“Okay, no offense, but I’m way smarter than both of you.”
“To be fair, that exam was ass,” I say, while trying not to take offense to Carmen’s comment, because if we’re honest, she’s absolutely right. “Did she even cover any of that material in class?”
Jo shakes her head violently, causing beer to slosh over the edge of her mug. “I swear I didn’t know most of those words,” she adds, grabbing a napkin to clean her spill. She drops the sopping napkins onto the tabletop with a plop and sighs. “I need to wash my hands…I’ll be right back.”
She slides out of the booth and disappears to the other side of the bar. Carmen clears her throat.
“You’re staring.”
I pick up my own mug, closing my eyes while I take a long, slow pull of my now semi-room temperature beer. Was I?
“Just keeping an eye out.” I pause, wondering if any excuse I could come up with would actually satisfy Carmen’s accusation. “Lots of drunk people around.”
She nods slowly, her squinted eyes locked on me.
“God dammit, you like her! Don’t you?” A second accusation flies through the air and I wish I could grab the spoken words and hide them from existence.
“I don’t,” I say, matter-of-factly.
“You fucking liar,” she spits, albeit playfully enough to let me know she’s not actually angry. I think. “You’re going to ruin everything!”
“It doesn’t even matter,” I respond. A full-on admission in four simple words. “She’s got Andrew.”
Carmen scoffs, hushing her voice as Jo rounds the corner towards our table. “That won’t last. But I swear to God if you screw up our study group, I’ll kill you.”
I believe her.
“What are we talking about?” Jo plops down on the bench seat next to me once more.
“How Andrew sucks and we don’t know why you’re still dating him,” Carmen responds and my eyes shoot open. Not exactly the approach I would’ve taken, but I admire her honesty.
I haven’t met Andrew. He barely comes to visit, and when he does, they don’t leave her apartment. Inevitably, every Monday after he’s in town, Jo shows up to class with a little more of her sparkle dimmed.
It makes my blood boil.
She deserves so much better.
But who am I to have an opinion on the matter? We’re just friends.
Jo sighs, rounding her shoulders and slouching in her seat. She immediately closes in on herself just a little more than before. “He’s really just going through something right now, I think.” She picks up her beer and gulps down the remains. “Long distance is hard.”
I would drive hours every weekend to see her if I had to.
I nod, hoping to let the conversation fade into something less stressful for Jo, but Carmen presses on. I guess she knows far more about their dynamic than I do.
“He treats you like shit from what I’ve seen,” Carmen says, shrugging her shoulders.
Jo’s eyes dart around the room, trying at all costs to avoid my face. “We’ve been together for a long time, okay?” She pushes herself up in the booth. An extra bit of power penetrates her voice as she continues. “I’m not going to throw away almost ten years because he’s had a bad few weeks.” When she pauses, our gaze finally connects. “I’ll get us through it.”
The hope I desperately held on to fades into the background. It’s time to face the facts. She and Andrew will figure it out and I will find something else to think about. Maybe I’ll get a dog.
That’s one way to guarantee unconditional love for someone as broken as me.
“Why don’t we get out of here and stop for some ice cream on the way back?” I attempt to save Jo from another round of verbal interrogation.
Her and Carmen both nod.
“God bless the classroom tomorrow,” Carmen says, patting her stomach as she stands. “God bless ‘em.”