Chapter 11
Lainey
After a few minutes of blindly riding around in the passenger seat of his car, it occurred to me that Sam deserved some sort of explanation. We’d been sitting in silence since exiting the parking garage, when he’d reminded me to buckle my seatbelt.
He hadn’t asked me why I’d been crying in an alcove with my arch-nemesis. My usually stoic attending was true to form, navigating around the crowded Chicago streets like he was unbothered by the panicking colleague currently riding shotgun.
“She’s…” I cleared my throat, needing to try again. “She used to be my best friend. Her husband, Nate? He used to be my boyfriend. They…got together while I was still with him.”
There. That was a fairly cut-and-dry explanation of what had gone down. No need for more waterworks. No extra drama. Just cold, hard facts.
“He cheated on you?”
“Yes.”
“With the blonde.”
“With Katie, yes.” I toyed with the hem of my dress. It was pretty, made with flowy material and a tiered skirt. I’d felt nice when I picked it out for the conference; demure enough to suit my mother and still fun enough to be me. Now I just felt cold.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” For some reason, his quiet assurance made me want to tell him. He looked at me as we slowed to a stop at a red light.
“I didn’t have many friends growing up.” He looked hesitant to tear his eyes away, but gave me his profile when our car inched forward. “I traveled with Mom, or stayed with the nanny while she was away. Hard to make friends when you’re not around a lot, you know? I met Katie Sophomore year of high school. It was like an instant connection. Her parents are so great. I think I spent more time at her house than mine. So obviously we roomed together during college. Mom wanted me to go somewhere fancy, like Harvard or something, but Katie had her heart set on Texas and I couldn’t just leave her. She was family, you know?” Sam nodded. I swallowed, studying my skirt once more.
“We were both pre-med and ended up at med school together. That’s where I met Nate. First week of classes during First Year, he walked up to me in the lecture hall and told me he thought I was beautiful.” My laugh echoed in the car, a surround-sound of bitterness. “Then it was the three of us, together through med school. And I was so happy and in love and everything was perfect.”
Out the window, buildings rolled by. I cleared my throat again, wishing I’d had the wherewithal to salvage the tea I’d been making after Sam’s session. “He started acting weird towards the end of fourth year. The three of us were so focused on studying for exams and matching into residency together, but I noticed. I told Katie I thought he was going to propose.” My stomach twisted at the memory. I dropped my head to the headrest.
“She’d been acting weird, too. I thought she was just in on it, you know? She was my best friend. Surely she’d know if my boyfriend was about to propose to me.” Another dry chuckle huffed out of my lips. “He did not propose. They sat me down the night we all matched with Presbyterian. Like a divorce talk from my parents or something. I’d thought we were all just busy with studying, but they were, like, building a life together behind my back.”
I stared out the windshield, my gaze unfocused, as I grappled with a storm of emotions and lingering betrayal. The pit in my stomach reminded me why I never talked about this. I’m sure a mental health professional would tell me it was a bad idea to bottle up the grief and anger, duct tape them in a dark place somewhere in my brain, and leave them there to fester. I didn’t know if it was good news or bad news that the same feelings were always still there on the rare occasions I checked on them. I didn’t know what to do with them. So I usually just got some more mental duct tape and packed it all up again.
“Were they sorry for what they’d done?”
I’d been monologuing and lost in the past for too long. I hadn’t expected Sam to actually engage, figuring he’d let me word-vomit all over his car and then drop me off at my apartment.
“Oh, yes. Don’t worry, they were very apologetic and logical about it all.”
“Logical?”
I smiled at the disbelief that tinged the single word out of his mouth. “Logical. Yeah. Like, they’d waited until after exams to tell me, because they didn’t want it to affect my scores. And how it didn’t change anything. We could still all live together in that two-bedroom condo next year during residency like we’d planned. And they were so sorry, but it had just happened . And it was love so, what could they do? They assured me it was okay for me to be upset.”
At some point, the landscape outside the window had transformed from business buildings to houses. Trees and neighborhood parks rolled by. I unfocused my eyes until they filled with the memories of that absolute cluster of a day. “That was one of the worst things, honestly. They were just so… superior. Since they thought they were more in love with each other than I was with Nate, that somehow gave them the moral high ground. Like it made it alright for them to do all of this behind my back. They assumed I’d see that, I guess, and accept it.”
“You didn’t end up at Houston Presbyterian.”
I snorted. “No. Nate had always had his heart set on Cedar. He has, like, some family legacy or something. I’d assumed he’d wanted to match in Texas to stay with me. Really, it was her. Katie’s the one who didn’t want to leave.”
I hesitated because this part was hard, too. I didn’t like this about myself, and I certainly didn’t want to go spilling my deepest secret to my colleague and…guy I kept noticing. My eyes focused ahead again. It was easier if I didn’t look at him.
“I know it’s not ethical, necessarily, but I couldn’t commit to that program, with them living their life together like everything was fine. I just couldn’t,” I whispered.
“Of course not.” His soft words encouraged me to keep going. A brick building rolled into my line of sight as the car slowed.
“My mom liked to brag back then about how many hospitals had wanted to match with me. She knows all the directors and stuff, so she knew who wanted me. The only reason I’d matched with Presbyterian is because I’d wanted to. So, I, ah, backed out. And I told my mom everything, obviously. And…And…” I became captivated by the crack running along the wall. “All it took was one call to Cedar. And I was in. I don’t even know if I bumped someone from their spot. I just packed my bags and left.”
I traced the crack again more slowly. I’d somehow arranged it all in less than forty-eight hours. Or my mother had. An hour after Katie and Nate had broken the news, I was in a hotel, staring numbly at the TV. The next day, my dad showed up with movers and I got the call that I was heading to Chicago.
It had been nice, in a way, to realize that my parents could take care of me. They’d delegated the task to nannies and tutors and coaches for so long, but they’d been there when I needed them. Despite hardly speaking to each other since their divorce, they’d sat with me against the wall of my new apartment that night, a Chicago-style pizza between the three of us, and for a little while it hadn’t felt like my whole world was ending.
“You didn’t.”
“Huh?” I looked back at Sam. I’d lost track of my ramblings.
“You didn’t take someone’s spot. Someone asked Caplan about it once, in front of me. He said they’d opened up an extra spot for you. You didn’t bump anyone from residency that year.”
“Oh.” My hand rested on my chest, feeling the pounding of my heart. Despite all the ick swirling around in there, something lightened. “I’ve always been worried about that. And was afraid to ask,” I whispered, feeling small.
“You should have asked. You didn’t have to live with that.” He looked at me with such gentle compassion, I wasn’t sure I could take it.
“I don’t like to bring it up too often. Nepotism isn’t a great look.”
“You were the best resident in the program. No one can argue that you belong here.”
I pressed my palm a little harder to my sternum, trying to trap the warmth that flooded there at his words. “Well, thank you for saying that. And for, uh, listening to my little sob story. And for taking me…”
Now that I’d purged the whole sordid tale from my soul, I became aware of our surroundings for the first time. The crack in the painted cinder block wall continued for a few feet before it ran behind a row of gardening tools on a hanging rack. A mountain bike leaned next to a door. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied some workout equipment on the other side of the garage.
My mouth dropped open. “Dr. Reese. Are we at your house right now?” I glanced around the garage again, letting the surprise crowd out the sad cobwebs sticking around my chest cavity.
“Please call me Sam. I can take you home, if you want. This was just close and…private.” He cleared his throat. “You seemed like you needed to get away from people for a while. I can take you home,” he repeated himself.
A warm rush of an entirely different sort flooded my veins at the thought of being somewhere private with Sam . It felt kind of illicit and giddy, nice on the tail end of the grief that was weighing me down. Besides, if I returned to my apartment now, I was afraid the sadness tsunami would crash over me again.
I also remembered the energy—that buzz from his session at the conference—and how much I’d wanted to spend more time with him; not reliving my past trauma.
I rolled my lips between my teeth, studying him and trying to will the last shreds of sad out of my system. If Katie and Nate were moving to Chicago, that was future Lainey’s problem. After the gala last night, I had wasted too much time emotionally spiraling about them, and I had no intention of dedicating any more of my time to them today.
“You’re just going to dump me at home? In my fragile state? It’s not very ‘white knight’ of you. The least you could do is ask me up, Dr. Reese.” His brow furrowed when I used his last name, like it got under his skin. I discovered in that exact moment that I liked getting under his skin.
“White knight?”
“Oh, yeah. Saving me from an awkward conversation with Katie. Listening to my sob story. The ride.” I smiled as I ticked all his good deeds of the day off on my fingers, hoping the ring of smudged mascara probably sitting under my eyes didn’t ruin my flirty tone. “You’ve come this far, doc. Take it home.”
Those little indentations at the corner of his mouth deepened, and I knew I had him.
“Alright. Let’s go.”
◆◆◆
He looked over his shoulder at me, hesitation radiating from every line of his body. It shouldn’t have been adorable.
“I’m just now realizing I haven’t cleaned up in here recently.”
I didn’t bother hiding the grin that lit my face. No matter how quiet or contemplative he was, Reese…Sam, was always solid. He had the sort of slow and thoughtful demeanor that made him seem sure of everything, never second-guessing himself. Witnessing this little bout of self-conscious hesitation on my account was a thrill.
“Well, now I have to see.” I ducked under his arm before he could stop me. The move brushed me against his side. I made the mistake of looking back at him as I stepped into a dark hallway. Something equally dark and hot flashed across his face.
My lips parted on a gasp when he pulled me suddenly against his chest. His eyes traced my cupid’s bow before he blinked, nodding down at my feet. A discarded gym bag and a pair of sneakers lay heaped in a pile inside the door, right where I’d nearly stepped.
“Nice save,” I whispered. His hand curved around my hip. We were just inches from each other in the dim doorway. Private , he’d said. “Is the rest of your place this dangerous?”
“Hope not.” His fingers slid across the fabric of my dress, like they had to be convinced to let go. I caught my breath when he turned to lead me up a few steps into his living room. Despite his concern, it wasn’t a disaster. There were a few odds and ends scattered around. A Kindle rested on the table. A t-shirt draped across the back of a chair.
But he didn’t have to worry about any of that. The other side of the room beckoned me through an open kitchen with a small breakfast table. And beyond…
“Holy crap.” I stumbled towards the sliding glass doors.
“Holy crap? That’s practically an F-bomb coming from you.”
“It’s…you have…Holy crap.” He slid the door open so I could step out onto the covered porch. Sam possessed that mythical urban dream: outdoor space . Like many houses in Chicago, the back held a private garden area away from the street. But Reese’s little garden area was extra special. The porch held a massive picnic table and grill, surrounded by gorgeously blooming flower beds. A little gate opened into a courtyard roughly the size of a tennis court. Sunlight reflected off the bright green grass. For Chicago standards, it was ginormous.
Sam muttered something about drinks and disappeared behind the sliding door. I took the opportunity to gape. Townhomes like Sam’s surrounded the courtyard. I counted eight little gardens in all. Eight little porches and gates, all overlooking their own miniature park.
“This is amazing.” I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. True, I hadn’t exactly noticed any of the houses’ exteriors, but I also didn’t know anything like this existed within a few minutes’ drive from the hospital.
“Mostly my mother’s doing.”
Sam set a bag of chips and two glasses of water on the table before rummaging in a mini fridge next to the grill.
“Your mother?”
I sank into the chair he pulled away from the table, accepting the beer he offered. I held it steady while he popped the top off. Our fingers overlapped on the bottleneck. Warm.
“She’s a gardener. Started with Conner’s, moved to mine. Now she knows everyone in the units and does all the beds.”
“Conner lives here?” I grasped onto the information like a lifeline. Anything to keep pulling my attention away from the fact that Nate and Katie had just dropped an A-bomb on my life and I wasn’t sure what to do about it except cry. Future Lainey problem , I reminded myself.
Sam tipped his bottle to a unit across the yard. I spotted a child’s soccer goal resting against their gate. “I didn’t know Conner had a kid!” I called after him as he disappeared into his kitchen again.
“One and a half. His wife is due in a few weeks.” A container of guacamole and a bowl of mixed nuts joined the chips on the table. He was taking the white knight thing pretty seriously.
“I guess I don’t know much about them. Your brothers, I mean. Or, your family.” You , I thought. “It feels unfair. You know about my parents. And now about my tragic backstory.”
“What do you want to know?”
The glass bottle made a satisfying thud as it landed on the teak table. I tented my fingers in front of my face. This was the distraction I needed. “Everything.”