15. Megan
CHAPTER 15
MEGAN
M egan had just finished treating a patient with a broken leg when Dr. Ralter called her in to meet with the other residents. She followed him to a meeting room where she sat at the same table, in the same seat she had sat in the day she first met all her fellow residents. They were all in the same seats, she noticed, as though they were assigned on day one rather than personal choices.
“Good afternoon,” Dr. Ralter began. “I have good news. Well, it will be good news for one of you. Our Lady of Mercy has a research fellowship opening, and they’re looking to us among other hospitals for applicants. The want the best of the best, so I suggest any of you remotely interested apply. This is going to be a fantastic opportunity for whoever takes it, but you’ll all be in competition with one another. Of course, that will change nothing for two of our residents, who have been in competition since day one, am I right?” He glanced between Megan and Charlie.
The others in the room did not disagree, and that included Megan and Charlie. They had been extraordinarily competitive from day one, and it hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice. Whether anyone other than Kayla knew about their other inclinations was still up in the air.
A research fellowship. Megan was more than excited about the prospect, and started fantasizing about applying almost immediately. But she doubted she would ever actually make it. Charlie, on the other hand, would most certainly go for it, and she couldn’t imagine anyone else would be able to stand in his way. The fellowship was practically his already.
He caught up with her on her way out to the break room. “So…” He gave her a meaningful eyebrow waggle. “Are you going to apply?”
She looked away from him. “I mean, probably not.”
“What?” He sounded surprised. “Why not?”
“Lots of reasons,” she answered with a shrug. She was trying to look like it was no big deal, but the truth was much more complicated. “It would take a lot of time. Even if I made it in, I’m not sure I could devote the time to it. My mom?—”
“Your mom would want you to apply.”
Megan laughed at his insistence, even though she didn’t one hundred percent understand it. “You’ve never even met my mom.”
“And when are we going to correct that, again?”
Oh God, he’d gone full relationship-mode on her. When did this even happen? Megan wasn’t sure she was ready for it, but at the same time, it felt so natural that she didn’t want to fight it. Everything in her life had been hard, and she’d spent so much time putting in the work, cultivating the right attitude to get through it all. Falling for Charlie Sullivan had been a walk in the park by comparison, even taking into account the initial dislike, the competitive nature of how they started. “You can meet my mother later.” She paused and amended. “Much later.”
“And how do you think she’d feel about you passing up an opportunity like this for her sake?”
Megan glared hard at him. He was such a frustrating human being. “Nope. You are not dragging her into this. I don’t respond well to guilt trips. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You’re applying, I assume. There’s not a chance in hell I’m going to be able to compete with you. It’ll just add more stress to an already stressful situation for no good reason.”
“But what about me?” Charlie said with a sly smile. “I’ll get bored if I don’t have any real competition. And no one else is going to be real competition for me.”
Megan laughed at him. “Wow. I guess your arrogance hasn’t been diminished since we started our whole thing.”
“Why would it? All you do is make me feel better about myself.”
She shook her head. “I have no idea whether that’s a good or a bad thing.”
“It’s a good thing, Bright.” He stopped and grabbed her wrist to stop her, too. “It’s a very good thing. Please, don’t let me get bored. Just apply. Assume you’re going to lose. Do it for me, to motivate me.” With a wink he pushed her back into the wall and looked down at her like a hungry beast. “Competition is one of my biggest turn-ons, you know. Don’t you want to turn me on, Bright?”
He didn’t let her answer. Instead, he kissed her right there in the hall, and once he got started, there was no chance Megan was going to stop him. Everything Charlie decided to do to her was far too enjoyable for her to put a stop to it, no matter where he decided to do it and how indiscreet it was. Several people walked by murmuring, and Megan couldn’t find the brain power to wonder who it might be, nor could she bring herself to care. No, she and Charlie were an item. It was no secret now, and Charlie didn’t seem even a little interested in keeping it under wraps anymore.
When he finally pulled back, she stared up at him. His flushed cheeks made his eyes look even bluer, his hair look even blonder. He really seemed to have fallen for her. She could hardly believe it was true. But then, hadn’t she fallen for him just as hard? It wasn’t just sex anymore. There was respect there, too. There was building each other up and supporting each other. It was beginning to feel like a real relationship, the kind her mother always told her to strive for.
“Charlie,” Megan began under her breath. “I don’t want this to come between us.”
He cocked his head at her and furrowed his brow. “How could it come between us? We’ve been competing this entire time.”
“Yes, but not really. So far, there hasn’t been anything that, if one of us got it, the other would lose it. There’s only one spot, one fellowship. If I won it, wouldn’t that make you hate me a little?”
“You really think you have a chance?” He nudged her playfully.
“I don’t know. I just don’t want to start something I can’t take back.”
Suddenly, his expression grew intense. He wasn’t kidding anymore. “Megan Bright, you swear to me you will never, ever lose your ambition for fear of what I might think of you. Everything has been handed to me in life, and you’ve had to fight for it, but you’re still so close to winning. Don’t just roll over now. Promise me you’ll fight. If I win this, I want to know it was because I really was the most qualified, not because I seduced my competition and guilted her out of even trying. You don’t respond well to guilt trips, remember? You said so yourself. So drop the guilt. Let’s battle it out one more time. No holding back for either of us. And whoever wins, the other has to promise to be happy for them — to just say good game and go out for pizza afterwards. Okay?”
His proposal was so sincere that she couldn’t even imagine saying no to him this time. So she agreed, and he kissed her again, smiling like a fool in love, flushed with excitement and energy. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she was still worried.
When Megan got home for the day, her mom was actually cooking dinner. It was tacos, too, which was far more involved than she could usually manage at this hour.
“Good day?” Megan asked her, laying her bags out on the table.
“Better than average,” her mother answered. “How was yours?”
“Also better than average. Our attending announced a fellowship opening and encouraged us to apply. At first, I thought I might, but then I thought… I mean could we really manage if I was away so much? I’ve heard the schedules can be intense. I wouldn’t be able to help you as much as I do now.”
“Megan…” Sadie started setting plates full of taco ingredients on the table, and Megan jumped to help her. “Don’t you dare sacrifice your career for me. I’ll be fine. I won’t be fine if I think you’ll go through the rest of your life thinking what if , and resenting?—”
“You know I never would,” Megan broke in. “No matter what happens, I would never resent you. Family is the most important thing to me, and you’re my whole family, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.” Her mother sat at the table and began putting together a taco for herself. Megan sat across from her as she continued. “But I know how much you give. You’ve always been so generous. It’s time for you to be a little more selfish. For your mother.” Sadie laughed, and Megan couldn’t help but join her. “Time to be more selfish for the sake of your mother.”
Megan started putting together her own tacos. Her thoughts were spinning. She didn’t usually have such a difficult time figuring out what the right thing to do was. She wanted to keep being a caretaker for her mother, but she didn’t want her mother to feel she’d sacrificed a lot to do so. All Megan could think to do was blame Charlie. Surely, he wouldn’t mind. “It doesn’t really matter, anyway,” she said. “Another resident is going to go for it, and he’s sure to win it. By applying, I’ll just be stressing myself out over nothing.”
For a second, she actually thought she might have said just the right thing. But she should have known better. Sadie had always been way too observant for her own good. “So, is this the young man you’ve been seeing lately?”
Megan scoffed and protested. “Oh, Mom. What difference does that even make?”
“Makes all the difference in the world if you’re afraid of losing him.”
“I’m not afraid of losing him,” Megan said quickly, even though it was a shameless lie. “It’s not like I even really have him right now anyway. We’re not in a committed relationship or anything.”
“You’d like to be, though.”
“Moth-er.” Megan tossed an empty taco shell at her mother, who caught it rather impressively.
“I see the way you look when you think about him, Megan. And when you talk about him, you get a full-on glow. I know the feeling.” She smiled a small smile, and Megan knew she was thinking about her ex-husband, Megan’s father. Their relationship hadn’t ended well, but her mother had never denied how well it started, and she always seemed to focus on the positive memories, especially when she was discussing the man with Megan.
“I do like the guy,” Megan admitted. “A lot. But we talked about it today, and he wants me to apply. It was funny — he also insisted you would want me to apply, too. I told him he didn’t know you, and he segued into demanding to meet you.”
“Ah, he loves you!” Megan’s mother had always been a hopeless romantic, and very little had changed over the course of their lives together. This time, though, Megan wasn’t so sure her mother was wrong.
“He might,” she said.
“He wants to meet your family. That’s a sign he’s serious.” Sadie took a large bite of the taco in her hand, and Megan was momentarily pleased her mother was doing so well today. “I want to meet him, this man of yours. What’s his name?”
Megan shrugged like the answer to that wasn’t nearly as important as it obviously was. “Charlie,” she said. “Charlie Sullivan.”