Stargazing with You

7. Medical School

Chapter 7

Medical School

First Year

T he first year of medical school felt like running a marathon at a dead sprint. Like taking a drink of water from a firehose. To survive each exam (and there were exams every two weeks), you had to consume information—every little possible detail about human anatomy, physiology, and pathology that a person could know—at a superhuman pace. I felt like I could never catch my breath.

It didn’t help that whenever I introduced myself to my professors or classmates, the shadow of my father loomed heavy over me, like a thundercloud. Oh, you’re Dr. Hunt Richards’ daughter? Your dad is the chief of surgery? Was the typical chorus, tinged with a mix of awe and sometimes, I feared, skepticism. The disdain for children of nepotism was apparently a universal experience.

Making new friends, in general, had never come easy to me. But my lineage was making it nearly impossible, whether my acquaintances were intimidated or disgusted by me. I wanted to tell them there was nothing to be intimidated by, that I was struggling just as much if not more than anyone else, despite my father’s legacy. But I also didn’t want them to see how much I was struggling to keep up and take that as confirmation that I didn’t deserve to be here.

Despite the difficulties, I had managed to find a few people who didn’t seem to care who my father was and presumably liked me for me. My closest friend thus far was a girl named Blake Njoku, who I had met while sharing a cadaver in the anatomy lab. Dissecting a human body for hours a day, multiple days a week, in a cloud of formaldehyde, bonded you for life. At least, that is what Blake said to me when she declared that we would be best friends.

Blake was brilliant and blunt, with a dry wit that could slice through the tension of our toughest study sessions. She often said she ‘hated people,’ and was therefore going into anesthesiology, ‘where she could keep her patients quiet and asleep.’ But despite her big talk, she was one of the kindest, most genuine people I had met. She volunteered at the free clinic nearly every week. She befriended me despite the whispers she might have heard about me or my father and introduced me to her group of friends. If they had qualms about me joining their ranks, they didn’t say as much. Soon enough, with Blake’s fervent approval of me, they became my friends too.

In the spring, we survived what felt like the hardest exam of the entire year thus far. Ironically, the subject was cardiology, and I was quite sure Dad wouldn’t be putting this test up on the fridge. When we stumbled out of the testing room, feeling like we had been personally violated by the exam, Blake insisted that we were going to be spending the entire evening at the local bar with our fellow classmates; to commiserate how terrible the exam had been and drink our sorrows away.

“You need to remember what the sunlight looks like, Diana,” Blake said to me while fixing her mascara in my mirror.

“It’s dark outside,” I replied.

“It’s a figure of speech! I mean you need to get out more. The only thing we ever do together is study!” she yelled.

I looked through my closet for something to wear to the bar that could match Blake’s level, not that that was possible. Blake was always impeccably dressed, even when she was sitting in a lecture hall.

Though Blake was from Pennsylvania, her parents were originally from Nigeria. Her dad, like mine, was a doctor—an ophthalmologist. Though, from everything I had gathered from her phone conversations with him, she seemed to have a much more amiable relationship with her father than the one I had with mine. Blake had continued her father’s legacy out of respect and admiration, whereas I had continued my father’s legacy because no other options had been presented to me.

Blake’s mother was a designer of some of the most beautiful clothing I had ever laid eyes upon, and I had seen a lot of clothes in my day. Tonight, Blake was wearing a two-piece ensemble of her mother’s design—a pair of fitted shorts and a structured peplum strapless top, in a bright fuchsia and purple pattern. Blake’s clothes were always made with vivid colors and patterns that matched her bold personality. Only in the anatomy lab, when she was elbow-deep in body parts and fluids, had she deigned to wear the shabby scrubs provided by the medical school.

Tonight, her dark skin shimmered with glittery highlighter at her collar bones and cheekbones. Her natural hair in its tight coils made a halo around her face, with touches of copper highlights at the ends.

I settled on dark jeans and a strappy blue top—about as daring as I was willing to go in front of my medical school classmates. It wasn’t exactly clubbing attire, but it would have to do, as I was not willing to go to my parents’ apartment to raid my closet for the more fashionable items in my wardrobe.

When we arrived at the bar, it was packed with our classmates in various states of inebriation in their attempts to bleach their brains of the terrible exam. The noise of the chatter and music was a physical thing, a wave of sound that assaulted you as soon as you walked in the door. I clung a little closer to Blake as we made our way to the bar to order drinks. Blake, true to form, ordered shots first.

“To survival!” she toasted, and we downed them quickly. The burn of the alcohol was painful but welcome as it scorched down my throat. We immediately ordered mixed drinks to follow.

As the evening wore on, I felt myself starting to relax. Spending hours upon hours each day studying, only for it to culminate in an exam every two weeks, was starting to wear on me. Prior to each exam, it felt like I was swimming from some deep depth to the surface, holding my breath until I could take one huge gulp of air when I reached the surface, only for someone to push my head back under again. But tonight, even though today’s test was likely the worst exam of the year, I felt more at ease than I had in months. I cheered my classmates on as they took to the dance floor and even found myself being pulled into the fray, letting the music sway my body back and forth along with the current.

I was going back for my third—maybe fourth?—drink of the evening, when I ran into someone— literally ran into him, and the impact felt like hitting a brick wall. He was lean but muscular, and he loomed over me, much taller than my five feet two inches. He had cropped black hair with the sides closely shaved, just short of a military buzz cut. I apologized, and he reached out to steady me as I wobbled from the impact.

“I’m sorry!” he leaned down, yelling into my ear over the music. “I didn’t mean to knock you over.”

I waved him off, smiling sleepily up at him. “It’s nothing!”

He didn’t immediately move his hands from my arms after steadying me. “I think I’ve seen you around before! I’m Michael! Michael Deng!”

I giggled. “Michael Deng? Like M.D.?”

He laughed. “Exactly like M.D. Would you believe it if I told you my parents did it on purpose? Told me I wasn’t allowed to be anything but a doctor.”

“I would believe it!” I said, grinning. I shook his hand firmly. “Diana Richards. D.R.”

We laughed at the irony. He bought two more shots and handed me one.

“To helicopter parents!” he said, and we downed the shots in unison.

I dragged Michael back to the dance floor with me. I felt completely unlike myself as I pulled against his shirt, dragging his chest into mine as we danced. His hands found their way to my belt loops, and he dragged my hips to meet his. We swayed together to the music. My brain was a blur of flashing lights and thumping music and body heat.

I don’t really know when Michael started kissing me, but I returned the kiss— enthusiastically, if a little sloppily. We continued to dance for several more songs, until I felt a hand grab my elbow.

“I’m so sorry, Michael, but could I borrow Diana, please?” I turned to see Blake there beside me, reaching for me between the dancing bodies .

“Go for it!” Michael said merrily.

I followed Blake off the dance floor, grinning and laughing the whole way. Blake took my face in both her hands and stared at me.

“Diana,” Blake said, far too seriously for the occasion. “I need you to look at me and answer a few questions, okay?’

“Okay!” I said enthusiastically, gearing myself up for the quiz.

“First question,” she said, and she held up a peace sign in front of my face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two!” I said very confidently. “Next question.”

“Next question,” Blake said. “How many drinks have you had?”

“Two shots. Aaaand three drinks,” I counted out on my fingers one by one.

“Okay,” she said. “Do you want this? Do you want whatever is happening with Michael to be happening tonight?”

I nodded emphatically.

“Okay, good!” she said. “I’m happy for you! Do you need me to take you home right now and get you into bed?”

“No, actually I was hoping Michael would do that instead!” I yelled back, and immediately burst out into giggles. Blake grinned and shook her head at me.

“You’re ridiculous!” Blake said, and she shoved a bottle of water in my hand. “I’m not letting you leave with him until you chug this though.”

I complied with her instructions, chugging the water before handing her back the empty bottle.

“Thanks, Blake, love yooouu!” I sang to her.

“Love you too!” she crooned. “Have fun! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! ”

I narrowed my eyes at her, confused. “But Blake, you don’t sleep with men?—”

“It is a figure of speech ,” she insisted, rolling her eyes at me. “Go! Have fun!”

I grinned at her before running back to the dance floor. I ran up to Michael and grabbed him by both hands. I leaned up on tiptoes to yell into his ear. “Blake said if I drank some water, I was allowed to take you back to my place!”

Michael looked a little dumbstruck, but pleased. He led me off the dance floor and out of the crowded bar. My ears rang with the absence of the pounding music when we made it out onto the street. He caught a cab, and I gave the driver my address. We kissed in the backseat the entire way home, the entire ride up the elevator to my studio, and stopped to kiss in the hallway every few steps. I fumbled with the keys to my apartment as he held onto me by my waist.

We pushed into the room, barely closing the doors before we started tearing clothes off each other. We left a trail of discarded items behind us like breadcrumbs as we tumbled toward my bed. I laughed with delight when he picked me up clean off the ground and threw me onto the mattress. I rolled over and opened my bedside drawer, grabbing a condom and throwing it to him. He joined me on the bed moments later.

He nudged my knees open, and I gasped as he plunged into me. I grasped at his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin. The tension growing in me as he moved inside me felt like a culmination of many things that I had been feeling for a long time: one was the pure, animalistic need of not having had sex in over a year; another, the building stress of medical school weighing down on me, needing any kind of release to make me feel like I wasn’t being crushed beneath the pressure; and finally, the need for the intimacy of physical touch and being held by someone again.

He increased his pace, and I could feel the brink of the release I was looking for. I lifted my hips to meet his until he reached just the right spot. He shuddered his release, and I could feel him pulsing inside me with it. Just as he started to slow to a stop, my vision filled with stars, and I clenched around him with my own release.

He collapsed nearly on top of me, holding his weight off me with one elbow. He rolled onto his back. We both panted and laughed in the wake of it. It felt like only seconds later before I heard Michael’s soft snores, and I didn’t blame him. With the alcohol, the stress of the day we had, and the evening’s activities, I was exhausted. I rested one hand against his bicep, closed my eyes, and let sleep consume me.

When the first rays of sun hit my face in the morning, the first thing I felt was the intense throbbing of my head. The second thing was the ache between my legs. The whole evening flooded back to me in hazy detail, and I fought the urge to groan at the memories. I didn’t regret what happened, but I was surprised, nonetheless. I rolled to my back and opened my eyes completely, and I instantly felt like someone was hammering an ice pick into my parietal lobes when I did.

Michael was still asleep beside me, his back facing me, cradling one of my fluffy pillows in his arms. I had a floating shelf above my bed that acted as my nightstand, and I grabbed my phone off it, looking at the screen. It was just past seven in the morning. I realized I missed several texts from Javi and unlocked it. The first was a selfie in front of the white sails of the Sidney Opera House.

JV: G’day from Australia!

JV: Miss you. Wish you were here.

I hearted the picture, closed my phone, and threw it back on my nightstand. I rolled over back toward Michael, fully intending to go back to sleep for as long as my body would let me, when my phone rang loudly. I fumbled for it again, answering before I could even process who it was, just to make it shut up and avoid waking Michael. I looked at the phone in a panic, seeing a picture of Javi and me at our graduation as the caller ID.

“Hello?” I whispered, as I scrambled out of bed. I grabbed a throw blanket from my desk chair and clumsily wrapped it around myself.

“Diana?” Javi answered. “Diana, are you there? I can barely hear you.”

I scrambled to open my window and climb out onto my fire escape. I closed the window nearly all the way.

“I’m here,” I said a little louder than a whisper now that I was outside, though my voice was thick and hoarse with sleep and the hangover. I attempted to clear it. “How are you?”

“I’m great!” he said. “Things are going great with the project meeting here in Sydney. The group is really excited about the device. They’re fighting to try to get it rolled out here before we even get it out in the States. And they’re really wining and dining me trying to make it happen. It’s crazy! I wish you could be here, Doc.”

“That’s so exciting, Javi,” I said.

Javi paused on the other line. “Are you okay? Why are you whispering? And your voice sounds weird, are you sick?’

“No, I’m not sick,” I said, hesitantly. I wasn’t quite sure why I hesitated. I had always told Javi about the men I had dated in the past, though things had never progressed quite so quickly as it had last night.

“I actually have someone over right now,” I finally admitted. “He’s asleep.”

“Someone over? Isn’t it super early there?” he asked. “ Oh ... Someone over.”

I cringed as he made the silent realization on the other line.

“Do I know this guy?” he asked, his voice losing all its enthusiasm.

“No, you wouldn’t have met him before,” I said. I didn’t add, because I just met him last night. Javi had visited twice during the year so far, usually during purposefully extended layovers on his various trips around the world. He had met my core friend group and liked them all, especially Blake. They got on better than I could have ever hoped for.

“Oh,” he said, as if he didn’t know anything else to say about the matter. “I guess it’s pretty serious though?”

“It’s pretty new,” I said through another cringe. It felt wrong not to be completely open with Javi, about anything in my life. But I didn’t want to admit to him that I had drunkenly brought a guy home that I had just met. Javi wasn’t the type, nor really was I until last night.

“Are you dating anyone?” I asked, hopefully, trying to redirect the topic.

“Nothing serious,” he replied. “A few dates here and there. It’s been hard with all the meetings and travel. I haven’t seen my apartment in Palo Alto for more than two days in months. I basically live out of my suitcase. And I’m not really interested in a relationship that lasts the length of these business trips.”

“That makes sense,” I replied, peering into my window, wondering if Michael was even still there or if he had noticed my absence and taken the opportunity to escape. But I could still see the outline of his form beneath my sheets.

“Well, I can’t wait to meet him when I come visit in May,” Javi said, and he seemed to have worked some enthusiasm back into his voice.

“Yeah,” I said, noncommittally. “Can’t wait.”

“Are you sure you’re alright, Doc?” Javi asked again.

“Yeah, I’m great,” I said, trying to make my voice sound more cheerful and significantly less hungover.

“Okay...” he said, sounding very unconvinced. “Well, I’m going to get some sleep. My flight back to the states is tomorrow, and then I’m off to London in a few days.”

“Send me pics from Big Ben,” I said.

He laughed. “You know I will. Love you, Doc. Talk soon.”

“Love you too,” I said and heard the other line click.

I gathered my blanket tighter around me and turned to head back into my apartment. I fumbled with one hand to lift the window, the other holding up my blanket so I didn’t flash the occupants of the building across from mine. As I was lifting the window up, though, it slipped from my hand and fell completely closed with gravity. I scrambled to try to force the window back open, trying to use the friction from my hands against the glass to work it back open, but it wouldn’t budge. I sat, defeated, onto my fire escape. Here I was, once again, naked and locked out of my place.

It took me a long time to work up the courage to knock on the window. At first, I knocked quietly, but Michael was apparently a heavy sleeper. I knocked louder until he stirred. He looked around wildly, and I knocked again. He finally noticed me sitting outside the window and sprang into action. He grabbed his pants from somewhere around my kitchen table, halfway down the trail of discarded clothing we had left behind. He pulled them on and jogged to the window.

When he opened the window for me, he grinned. He squinted against the sunlight, his head probably aching as much as mine did.

“Well, good morning, D.R.,” he said, merrily.

I smiled sheepishly. “Good morning, M.D.”

“How did you wind up out here? Trying to escape?” He held out a hand to help me through the window, and I took it, using the other to keep the blanket wrapped around me.

“No, no escape,” I said. “Just my dumb luck. I had to take a phone call and didn’t want to wake you.”

“That’s considerate of you,” he said. “Anything important?”

“No, nothing important,” I said. “My best friend is in Australia at the moment, so we have to catch each other in the rare hours where one of us isn’t asleep.”

“I thought Blake was your best friend?” he asked. I started picking up my discarded clothing from the floor, throwing them into my hamper. I fished out fresh clothes from my drawers.

“My best friend from college,” I amended, and quickly changed the subject. “You want coffee? Some breakfast? I think I have a couple bagels from the downstairs bakery.”

“I’d love some,” he said, and I was happy he didn’t linger on the phone call for long.

I started the coffee pot before ducking into the bathroom to put on real clothes and freshen up. I served us coffee and bagels with cream cheese as we chatted about life and school. Michael was pursuing orthopedic surgery, which explained the muscles.

Ortho hopefuls had a distinct reputation for being the frat bros of the medical world. They also tended to be the students with some of the best test scores. Michael met most of the bill for what I would expect of a future ortho bro—sarcastic, smart, competitive, hardworking, a little vain, in an athletic way. He made me laugh with stories about his helicopter parents that had pushed him—more like shoved him—down the path to medicine.

After breakfast, now dressed in the clothes he had worn the night before, Michael leaned against my door frame. He leaned down and kissed me once, very softly.

“I had a really nice time, Diana. Can I see you again?” he asked.

“I’d like that,” I replied.