6. Emma
CHAPTER 6
EMMA
I wake up with a pounding headache. All night, I’ve been having the weirdest dreams about Liam, the kind of dreams that make me question my sanity. Why is he on my mind? Haven’t I seen enough of him over the last few days to last me a lifetime?
Of course I have. We’ve spent way too many painstaking hours together lately, but still, there’s something that fascinates me about him, some sort of strange allure that keeps bringing me back to him.
That or it was him shouting into his phone all night long again. As I drifted in and out of sleep, all I could hear was the faint sound of a man being very, very angry on the phone next door. I don’t know when he found time to sleep if he was spending all night yelling at someone. I don’t know who he was yelling at to deserve his wrath. What I do know is that I’m glad it wasn’t me.
I drag myself down for breakfast. I’m reluctant to show my face, but my stomach is grumbling. Liam is nowhere to be seen, and I eat my cereal in peace and quiet, just the way I like it.
I know exactly what Phoebe would say if she was here right now. Give him a chance! How do you know he’s awful if you won’t speak to him? I scoff at the thought, probably making myself look insane.
There’s no way she would really advocate for me to get to know someone I hate, is there? Not that I really hate Liam. He’s mostly irritating. I think he’s one of those people who works so hard he’s forgotten how to act like a normal person, but then who am I to judge on that matter?
The training isn’t supposed to start until a little later today, probably to everyone’s relief. I can’t imagine any of us were happy to be up so early in the morning talking to a stranger. I definitely wasn’t.
But despite the later start time, my casual breakfast is over too soon and I drag myself off to the conference room. Not that I’m keeping score, but I arrive before Liam, and as the minutes roll past, I start thinking that maybe I could be lucky and maybe he won’t show up. There’s a part of me that’s delighted about that, but there’s another part, something strange, which is almost disappointed.
It’s been a long time since I met anyone capable of challenging me like he does.
I don’t have a huge amount of seniority in my hospital, but I have been there since I was an intern. It’s been years. Some people do look up to me as an authority voice, and when that starts to happen, people stop being able to say no to you. As a doctor, it’s good to learn how to accept when you’re wrong.
As much as we want to be, we can’t always be perfect. Being able to let someone check us on our work is a good thing. Maybe this course has taught me something after all.
Bruno is standing at his makeshift podium by the time Liam slinks into the room. He looks more bedraggled than yesterday, the bags under his eyes suggesting that he slept about as much as I did. I still think it’s his fault that neither of us slept at all.
“Good morning, everyone,” Bruno says, far too chirpy for this time of day. Maybe he’s actually a robot. That would explain so much.
Without a single flicker in his smile, he explains what the activity for the day is; he’s set up a trail in the forest that we have to navigate to find hidden waypoints so we can mark them off. It is, he claims, an exercise in teamwork and managing stress in challenging circumstances.
I think that’s a load of absolute nonsense.
And, of course, so does Liam.
It takes us all a while to set up, so by the time we’re heading out into the forest, it’s midday. Bruno hands each team a map and a GPS tracker so we can prove we went to the waypoints. The map is barely marked, and we hardly have a chance to look at it before we’re bundled onto a bus and driven out to the forest.
Liam and I don’t say a word to each other as we travel, only acknowledging each other when our knees knock together every time we go over a bump.
When we arrive, we get no further instructions. Bruno smiles and waves us off, and all the teams stumble off into the forest, slightly baffled and completely out of their depth. I’ve been on hikes like this before, but never alone and never without someone with real experience.
We still don’t talk as we head out into the forest. The path is well marked enough that we don’t struggle to see it, not at first, anyway.
As the path narrows and grows darker, Liam insists on taking the map. I don’t try to take it because I don’t think it’s worth the argument, but I have absolutely no confidence in his ability to read this thing.
Lord knows why Bruno has set this up for us. It has nothing to do with medicine. More than anything, it seems like an excuse to get us out of the room for the whole day so he doesn’t have to teach us anything else.
Maybe I’m just grumpy because I don’t want to spend this time with Liam.
I guess if crisis management is the point of all this, then I can definitely pretend the crisis is happening. It’s the only way I would ever work with someone like him.
However, here in the forest, he’s also decided to dress like he’s on vacation. He’s in shorts and a light blue polo, the kind of thing that’s giving me “dad on the beach” vibes.
I cut that train of thought off right there, forbidding it to go further. I’ve been thinking about family a lot recently, and the last thing I need is for my subconscious to latch on to the image of Liam as some sort of father figure.
“This is stupid,” he says for the four-hundredth time this morning.
“I agree,” I say, gritting my teeth. “But we have to do it.”
“Do we, though?” he says. “It’s not like we’re legally bound to do what we’re told. No one will know if we cheat.”
“We can’t cheat. That completely defeats the point of the exercise.”
But he’s on a roll now and isn’t listening to a word I’m saying. “And anyway, the certificate is just a piece of paper. He’ll give it to us anyway.”
“You really have no work ethic, do you?” I snap, tired of his relentless stream of negativity.
He recoils at that and winces as if I’ve just said something unforgivable. “Don’t judge me by your standards,” he says darkly. “You have no idea how hard I work.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, even if I’m not that sorry. I almost want to keep pushing; I didn’t realize I’d hit such a sensitive subject. But he’s clearly in a bad mood, so I don’t push him any further.
We continue into the forest until we hit a fork in the path. One way seems to keep going on the well-paved path, and the other keeps narrowing, overgrown by bushes and definitely more work than I would like.
“We’re coming up on a marker,” I say. “Which way?” I ask Liam, in the spirit of teamwork. I feel like I should let him feel like he’s in charge, if only just for now.
“Don’t you know best? With your perfect work ethic? ” he smirks.
“Will you stop?” I say. “I’m doing my best to work as a team here, and all you keep doing is dismissing my ideas and shutting me down. I know you hate it — please don’t say it again. I hate it too, okay? But can we just talk about the directions? Please?”
Liam’s nostrils flare as he tries to keep his temper. I’ve ruffled him. Good.
Through gritted teeth, he says, “Okay, let’s discuss. Which way do you think?”
“The path,” I say, gesturing, “is marked on the map. It looks safer. The waypoint is nearby. That way is best.”
He takes a moment to assess the map, then frowns. “No, it’s faster to go the other way. We can still hit all the waypoints and get to the end first.”
“It’s not about getting there first.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Okay, whatever. Let’s say it is. I don’t feel like trampling through all that undergrowth, and what if we get lost? There’s no way to tell if that path keeps going. Wouldn’t it be safer to stick to the planned route?”
Liam looks me up and down, a glint of amusement in his eyes despite the unhappy pout on his face. “That’s your issue, isn’t it? You like to play it safe. You don’t like that I present a challenge to your status quo.”
“You are so full of yourself,” I scoff, ignoring the wry grin creeping onto his face and how charming it makes him look. “You think you know so much?”
“I kind of do, yeah.”
“Then you lead. Go on. Get us lost. I won’t even say I told you so when we can’t ever escape from the jungle.”
He raises a sly eyebrow. “Trust me, Emma. I won’t get us lost. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
I’m too tired of this argument to say anything else, so I let him lead us down the smaller path and hope to God he knows what he’s doing. There is one small mercy, at least. The feeling when I get to say I told you so is going to be like nothing else.