17. Keeley
KEELEY
T he next afternoon I get out at a reasonable hour only because the patients Dr. Joliet tried to foist off cancelled when they learned they’d have to be seen by me, which doesn’t feel like much of a victory, under the circumstances.
I go to the prepared foods section of Erewhon on the way home. I’ve just ordered chicken and rice when I hear a polite cough beside me and look up to find Arjun Patel, the worst attending ever.
“Dr. Connolly,” he says, raising a brow, “how are you? How’s the new job?”
Even if I hate it, I’m not about to let him know, so I plaster a wide smile on my face. “Wonderful,” I reply. “Much easier than residency.”
“You always did love taking it easy,” he replies, and my smile fades. Easy ? He gave those cases to his little favorites. He’d pat them on the back for diagnosing fucking athlete’s foot, and then give me medical mysteries straight out of an episode of House and pillory me for the tiniest oversight.
I have no idea why he hates me so much when every other attending adored me. Fuck this guy. I no longer need to win him over.
“I don’t recall you ever allowing me to take it easy,” I reply. “You reserved that for Evans and Hutton.”
“ They hadn’t batted their eyelashes through their entire residencies. I thought you might appreciate the chance to prove you could get by without that.”
The guy behind the counter hands me my chicken and rice. I take it, tempering the wide and possibly flirtatious smile I was about to give him. “I didn’t bat my eyelashes through my residency,” I snap. “I’m not sure where you got your information.”
“I saw it with my own eyes, Keeley. Some women are offended by being underestimated, but you seem to relish it.”
I stare at him, my jaw agape. “I don’t relish it.
” But even as I say those words, a thousand instances of being let off the hook are coming to mind.
I was relieved not to be called on during rounds, always feeling like the kid in class who hadn’t done her assigned reading.
It felt like a win when I got to leave early or wasn’t asked to scrub in.
I step past him, my smile sarcastically sweet. “Nice chat.”
“When you realize you’re capable of more,” he says as I walk away, “come see me.”
“Whatever, dude,” I mutter, getting into line.
When you realize you’re capable of more .
What the hell did that mean? Does he really think I’d swing by the hospital just to have him tell me how bad I am at everything?
So he can once again read me the riot act for misdiagnosing the single case of Mycobacterium marinum that ever came through the doors, and demand to know why I hadn’t asked what the guy did for a living, a question irrelevant to almost any other diagnosis?
I’m still annoyed when I get home, but the apartment is tidier than it’s ever been, and Graham’s hung up the large, framed print that fell off the wall during the last party I threw. Maybe he’s not all bad, but I hope he stays in his room.
I change into leggings and a sweatshirt, the only comfortable things I can still fit into, then head to the kitchen for my food. I’m so hungry I want to eat chicken and rice, which is sad.
Graham has emerged from his lair, unfortunately. One eye narrows on the sweatshirt. “You didn’t go to Tulane.”
“It belonged to an ex. It’s the only one I have that still fits.”
His nostrils flare in irritation—God knows why. I take my cardboard container from Erewhon and flop on the couch, only to discover nothing but white rice inside. The idiot behind the counter didn’t give me my chicken, and I was too busy arguing with Patel to notice. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I throw the container on the table and groan. I’m too tired and too hungry to drive all the way back, park, and demand my chicken. Fucking Dr. Patel .
“What’s the matter?” Graham asks. “Not enough marshmallow bits in tonight’s bowl of Lucky Charms?” His brow is furrowed, though, as if he’s actually concerned.
I press my face to the couch pillow. “I just wanted to eat. I did my best.”
Saying those words out loud has me near tears. I did my best, and I still failed. What happens when I have a small kid to feed? Sorry, hon, we’re just eating white rice for dinner tonight . Even my mom managed to do better than that, and she was practically a child herself when I was born.
I loved my mom, a lot. But I never envisioned I’d be a worse parent than she was.
Graham quietly sets a sub in front of me. “I wasn’t going to eat it anyway,” he says before he walks into his room.