4. Emma
CHAPTER 4
EMMA
I wake up the next morning dreading what I’m going to find later. It’s just my luck that I managed to be paired with the worst man alive. Not that I was here to enjoy myself, exactly, but I at least thought I wouldn’t have to tolerate someone that annoying.
Still, even if Liam’s not going to be a professional, I am.
I get dressed and shuffle into the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I do, I stare at myself in the mirror and sigh. I’m going to have to grit my teeth and get on with the week. I will go for breakfast. I will go to the training course, and I will not be afraid. If he wants to be a jerk about it, then whatever. I’m here to learn.
Fortunately, I don’t see him at breakfast. I scope out the whole dining room before I take a seat, but to my relief, Liam is nowhere to be seen. I don’t think I’m lucky enough that he’s going to have vanished altogether, but not seeing him while I have my morning coffee is at least something.
I take my time indulging in the array of tiny pastries on offer, but I also keep a close eye on the time. I want to be sure to arrive at the training early today.
If I have to be with Liam the whole time, at least I can look better than him by showing up early.
So I do, and take a seat in the circle that the speaker — Bruno — has set up for us all. It doesn’t bode well for things to come, a circle. That suggests more teamwork.
To my great disappointment, Liam arrives only a couple of minutes after me. So we’re both early. Looks like he had the same idea as me.
He spots me sitting alone in the circle and his face almost falls, though he saves himself and forces his face into an irritated neutral. I doubt this is a guy who ever smiles.
“Good morning,” he says, coming to sit next to me.
“Hey,” I mumble. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine, I guess. You?”
“Like a baby.”
“I’m so happy for you,” he huffs.
I know for a fact that he went to bed later than me, because I could still hear him yelling into his phone when I went to sleep.
We sit in silence as the room slowly fills up and finally Bruno comes back to the tiny stage that’s been set up for him, shuffling behind the podium and taking hold of the remote for the projector. At least there haven’t been any technical issues. That would make all this a thousand times more unbearable.
“Good morning, everyone,” he says in a voice that is entirely too cheerful for eight o’clock in the morning. “I hope you all slept well, because we’ve got a busy day today. I hope everyone’s sitting in their pairs already too, because we’re going to be doing a lot of teamwork this morning.”
“Great,” mutters Liam, and much as I hate to, I can’t help but agree with him.
Teamwork is important in our line of work, so vitally important, but that doesn’t make sitting in a room of strangers, doing pointless exercises with them any more fun.
“So,” Bruno continues, ignoring all the murmurings from the audience. “We’re going to give you twenty minutes to say hi to your partners, get to know each other a little better, and then we’re going to jump right in with some activities. How does that sound?”
The rest of the room bursts into applause, but me and Liam share an uneasy look.
“This is torture,” he says.
I nod in agreement. “Team building exercises can be frustrating,” I say, then realize I’m agreeing with him, so I clamp my mouth shut.
“They’re a waste of time.” Liam sighs.
“I guess it’s what we’re here for, though,” I say, trying to scramble back to some passive high land.
“I hate that training courses like this always turn out to be some sort of exercise-based garbage,” he says. “I thought that maybe this being made specifically for medical professionals, we would actually do something relevant to the job. But it looks like it’s the same old tired shtick as usual.”
I nod again. I almost want to ask him how many of these training courses he’s been to, but that feels too much like conversation.
Conversation feels too much like I’m actually going to forgive him for being an ass, and I’m still too mad at him for that.
Fortunately, before the conversation can progress into anything that could remotely be mistaken for friendly, Bruno starts talking again, cutting into everyone’s chat with a squeal of microphone static. “Great. So now that we’ve all woken up a little more, why don’t we split off into some circles?”
An unhappy mumble goes around, and Bruno reassesses his plan. “Hmm.” He hums brightly. “Well, we’re all in one big circle now. I think there’s thirty of us, yes? That’s a little bigger than I usually like for this kind of thing, but we’ll manage. All right everyone, make sure you’re sitting next to your partner.”
There’s a moment of scrambling where people leave those they came with to go and sit with the strangers we’re about to be stuck with. Liam and I don’t move, frozen in place as we watch everyone else move. After all, neither of us knows a single other person in the room.
As soon as the movement quiets down, Bruno clears his throat again. “Okay. We’ll answer as a team, and remember, for the next few days, all your hard work is going to show on the leaderboard. So whichever team I think is performing best is going to walk out of here with a prize.”
“What’s the prize?” I whisper to Liam.
He glares at me. “I don’t know. I missed the opening speech just as much as you did.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“It’s a gift card for some medical supplies,” hisses the woman sitting next to us, her face as stony as Liam’s. “It’s nothing that exciting.”
Clearly our bickering is starting to annoy other people as well as me.
“Thanks,” I mutter, happy to find a helpful attendee.
“No problem,” she says, then turn away from us again with what I’m sure is a sigh.
I lean in to Liam. “See? At least someone’s helpful.”
He just rolls his eyes at that, and I try not to notice how deep and emerald they are. I refuse to be attracted to this guy. It doesn’t matter how handsome he is. I will not do it.
“So, what I want from you all is to tell your partner a story of a time when you felt you had a big success at work, a day that really made you smile. All your partner needs to do is listen carefully and think of two questions to ask at the end.”
I grimace at that. I hate telling stories about work success. It always feels like bragging.
Clearly, though, Liam doesn’t feel the same.
He starts telling me all about the day he proposed a new birthing option for women who want to give birth at home, and the smug look on his face makes me want to roll my eyes right back at him. Sure, the plan he’s describing will help lower-income women not have a huge hospital bill while, at the same time, saving money for the hospital. But he’s acting like he’s the only one who has ever figured out a way to cut costs.
“I assisted a brain surgery once,” I say, cutting him off when he’s halfway through describing all the research he had to do to get the program approved. “I got to make some of the key incisions.”
“An assistant?” he says with a sneer. “I’m the lead in the new birthing program. It is my idea, and I’m in charge.”
“Well, I was just an intern at the time,” I say, “I was top of my class, so I was chosen to help one of the best brain surgeons in the country.”
Liam raises an eyebrow. “Impressive,” he says without meaning to. “And I got to present my program to the board of directors of the hospital.”
“Well, we saved a patient who was supposed to be terminal. Never going to speak again. We got him to a place where he could live a quality of life nobody was expecting.”
“And I’ve singlehandedly saved dozens of babies and mothers who have come to the hospital in distress.”
After that, we dissolve into trying to outdo each other, detailing complex surgeries and cases that should have ended badly. Everything he’s saying is impressive, and he does sound like a fine doctor, but the way he talks totally rubs me the wrong way.
“All right, everyone!” calls Bruno, bringing us back to reality. “I trust you’ve had enough time to tell each other your stories and ask enough questions to really understand each other.”
Most people around us nod and agree, and I stare at the floor, ashamed of the person I have allowed Liam to turn me into.
“Now, we’ll go round the circle, and I want everyone to tell me their partner’s story and one thing they have learned.”
Liam and I both groan quietly. Neither of us has a story to tell, let alone a moral lesson to have learned, except maybe don’t argue out of smugness.
The pair closest to Bruno start, telling some saccharine stories about their first days at work and their proudest moments saving a patient. All the stories go like this, one by one around the circle, everyone sharing something lovely and heartwarming and sickening.
Sickening because every story brings the circle closer to us.
I smile politely as the person next to me speaks, but I barely hear any word because my heart is pounding in my head. Do I lie? Do I make something up? Obviously, Liam would see right through that, but maybe that would encourage him to lie too.
Lying. Is that what he is turning me into? A prideful liar.
A gentle applause snaps me back to the present, and I take a shaky breath. Bruno turns to the microphone and smiles too. “Well, everyone, thank you for sharing all your stories. I’ve really enjoyed hearing them. Unfortunately, it’s time to break for lunch. Sorry to all of you who were excited to share. We’ll see if we can find some time for it later today.”
I sigh in relief. A small mercy, this time.
“Thank God,” mutters Liam. “Right, let’s go!”
With that he jumps up to go, leaving me watching in his wake. We’ve been spared from this fate, but I have a feeling that next time, we might not be so lucky.