10. Emma
CHAPTER 10
EMMA
Y esterday with Liam was really weird. Not in a bad way, but definitely weird. He was acting weird from the second we met up in the conference room, like he had slept on his personality funny. Maybe too much fresh air in the forest the day before went right to his head.
We had to sit through some more lectures and team-building exercises, but Liam and I made the best of it. We challenged each other to find one good takeaway from each set of PowerPoints.
For the first time since I got here, the day actually felt bearable. And that was in no small part due to Liam.
He was just as grumpy and argumentative as ever, but instead of butting heads, we used our competitiveness as a force to work together. It’s like we really did learn something in the forest after all.
And, as I promised, we went to dinner. He was a funny dinner companion; it turns out that once he gets over himself, he is exactly as charming as he pretends to be. He made me laugh all night.
It was almost a wrench to say goodnight. Almost.
Now we’re on the final day, and I’m almost going to be sad to say goodbye. Almost.
When I leave my room, I stand and wait for him. He’s later than I expected he would be, and when he finally emerges, he blinks in surprise when he sees me.
The surprise quickly gives way to a smile, though. “Good morning,” he says.
“Is it?”
He grins. “Well, yes. This course is almost over, thank goodness. And the fact that I get to spend the time with you is something, at least.”
“Have you had a fall? Do you need your head checked?”
“What, I’m not allowed to be nice now?”
“No,” I say, teasing him with a smile. “It’s weird.” And it is. After getting to know him as the asshole I’m forced to be with, recategorizing him as someone fun to hang out with is more than a little jarring.
“Let’s go and see what fun they have planned for us today,” he says, offering me his arm. I take it, playing along with his silliness.
Yet again, we find ourselves in the conference room, ready for whatever the final day is going to throw at us. Everyone else is clearly excited to see the finish line too, because the room is abuzz with chatter and feels lighter than it has since we began.
That doesn’t stop the collective sense of a groan when Bruno stands at his podium, ready to announce the day.
“Good morning, everyone! I am so excited to be handing you all your completion certificates later on today.”
“There had better not be a ceremony for that,” mutters Liam into my ear.
“Hush,” I whisper but don’t hold back my smile. I do agree with him, after all.
Bruno continues chirping on, announcing that we’re going to spend some time coming together as teams. After that, we’ll close the day with a reflective session where we’ll all present what we’ve learned over the last few days.
I don’t even have to look at him to know what Liam is thinking.
And even if this is trite and not what we came here to learn, I am a professional. I have a reputation to maintain. And I want the last thought these people have of me to be someone with standards. No doubt they’re excited to watch Liam and I tear each other apart, but I refuse to do that.
We will have a civil, measured conversation. We will show everyone that teamwork can prevail against all the odds.
We spend most of our group time talking about San Francisco.
Bruno selects pairs at random to go. The first few that present are extremely straightforward and don’t even bother dropping any jokes in their speeches.
I can feel Liam starting to fall asleep next to me as the fifth group finishes, but before I have a chance to elbow him and tell him to wake the hell up, Bruno steps up to his podium again and clears his throat.
“Thank you very much, Kylie and Catherine! Okay, let’s see. Mr. Randomizer says…” He hesitates, his perfect mask of enthusiasm wavering for the very first time. “Next up, Liam and Emma!”
We both jump to our feet as soon as we hear our names, like schoolchildren caught napping. The eyes of everyone in the crowd are on us, blazing like they’re ready to see how we descend into battle.
I glance at Liam, and he glances at me, and we play an intense game of “you go first, no you go first” with our eyes. Finally, our standoff annoys me too much and I march up to the square marked out on the floor, the so-called stage.
I clear my throat, trying to prepare myself for what I might say, because we definitely didn’t prepare, and I glance at Liam again. Then I smile at the crowd and open my mouth, ready to be surprised by whatever comes out.
“My main takeaway from this week, I suppose,” I say, trying to stall for time. “Well, I suppose it’s tolerance.” A small murmur of laughter goes around the room, and I ignore it, trying not to get distracted.
“In every job we have to deal with difficult people, don’t we? There’s no such thing as perfect colleagues or perfect patients. There’s always going to be a time when we’re in conflict with someone, whether we want to be or not, and I guess this week for me has been all about remembering that.”
“And the same for me,” Liam chips in. “I’ll take away from this week a renewed strength in my belief that persistence is one of the most important qualities anyone can have. It takes a strength of will to succeed, especially as a doctor when your days are long and hard.”
“And you have to deal with less-than-ideal patients and colleagues.”
The ripple of laughter spreads again, but this time, I meant for it to happen. Liam and I look at each other, properly look, our eyes meeting, and that’s the moment that we’re locked in.
Every word we say after that flows so naturally that we might as well have planned it.
“Tolerance and hard work,” I say, “are qualities that so often get lost in our busy world. We’re all too wrapped up in our own heads to remember that sometimes you have to put your nose to the grindstone and get on with things. Especially as a doctor, you’re in a high-stress environment so much of the time; you have to learn to adapt.”
Liam jumps in again, bouncing off the end of my sentence like a springboard. “If you don’t adapt, you’ll break. You have to learn to roll with the punches, to get on with people you wouldn’t normally be able to stand because at work, nothing is more important than the patient. Their care comes first. Nothing else can have space in your brain to matter.”
I fumble my way through some closing remarks, following on from what Liam said, and when my sentences dry up, he meets my eye again. There’s a curious look in there, one that almost seems to say Damn, I’m surprised I agree with you so much .
My face might be saying Damn, I’m surprised that I’ve learned to like you this much , and I hope that’s all he reads into it, because if he starts seeing the Damn, I like you more than I want to , I might be in trouble.
We’ve been having more fun the last couple of days. That doesn’t mean it means anything.
Bruno, realizing that we’ve come to the end of our presentation, such as it was, starts to lead an applause. It’s enthusiastic because people can relate to our honesty, and we use it as an excuse to make our exit. We shuffle our way back to our seats and duck into them.
“Nice one,” says Liam under his breath. “I had no idea what I was going to say.”
“You didn’t? You sounded like you knew what you were talking about.”
“So did you.”
I chuckle at that. “Guess we’re a good team after all.”
He doesn’t reply to that, and I clench my fists, willing myself not to flinch. Maybe that was a step too far.
The rest of the presentations are exactly what I expect them to be. People got different things out of the course depending on where their headspace was when they arrived… I’m sure everyone managed to get something out of the training, no matter if it was what they expected to be learning.
Finally — finally — the last group sits down, and Bruno encourages us all to applaud again. The crowd is more enthusiastic now because this really is the end. “Wonderful, thank you. All very insightful, and I’m happy you all got so much out of this. And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for — the winners!”
It takes a long moment for the projector to warm up again, and while it does, I feel Liam’s eyes boring into me, digging holes like he’s trying to figure something out. I turn to look at him, but before I can challenge it, the scores come up.
“Well,” I say as we look at the list. “At least we’re not totally last.”
“No.” He smiles with a look in his eye I can’t decode. “We’re not.”