Chapter 15 #3
“Of course we’re friends,” Kane answers. “But I won't be the one to clip your wings, little surgeon.”
“It’s not clipping my wings,” I mumble. I know what he’s trying to say, but I still refuse to hear it, refuse to let the unspoken truth sting as badly as my side.
“Support systems are important,” I tell him. “If we ended up in the same place, we’re still friends—”
“And how is it going to look when we’re broken up, but still hanging around each other?”
I hold my tongue. He has a point, and we both know it. This—whatever this is—ends on match day.
“How are you going to move on when everyone thinks we’re still on and off again?”
I exhale, frustrated. There’s a twist in my heart still, a vine I would kill for him to take hold of and unwrap—
He changes the subject. “I’m sorry you have shingles, Percy. I’ll do the cleaning and take out the trash. You should be resting.”
My face drops. Too late now. I wrap my cardigan around tighter, like I could use it as some flimsy attempt at armor.
We stare at each other, him crumpling as he realizes he hurt my feelings.
“You said it yourself, remember?” he says kindly. “The first day we met. It doesn’t have to be serious.”
“You remember the first day I spoke to you?” I ask tentatively.
“I remember everything about you,” he answers.
A tense beat passes, where we both stay trapped in our hearts like lockets, shiny and bright to the outside, closed off and hidden to each other.
Outside, the wind blows harder, battering my shoddy apartment window like Kane’s words rattle my soul.
“I think we’re more than friends, Percy,” he says.
It’s my only consolation that he looks as haunted as I do.
My heart leaps for a second, for a moment, wishing that he would just say—
“We are… future doctors.”
My hope vanishes.
That’s what he goes with?
“You’re already a doctor, Kane.”
“Hardly,” he mutters. “I still need to match categorically.”
He tenses, mouth opening like he’s about to say something, but then he swallows hard, looking away.
My heart sinks further.
It really is all about family for him. It’s not personal. He’s going to choose Rusty and raise his sisters.
That’s a beautiful thing.
I wish it didn’t feel like he’d nailed the final stake into my coffin.
“We’re just colleagues, united for a common cause,” he says, “bonding over a mutual dislike of our enemies.”
And then, he leans forward, gently but firmly pressing a kiss to my forehead. It’s as much of an admission as it feels like a goodbye, and the memory of it lingers, fluttering over my skin like a butterfly.
“You kiss a lot for a doctor,” I mumble.
“If kisses could heal, you have no idea what I’d do to you,” he says, beginning to clean. “Go back to bed. I’ll take care of this.”
“Fine, then,” I concede. Before he leaves, I press up to my tiptoes, kissing him on his cheek.
“To matching, or dying trying,” I tell him. “Thank you for coming today.”
He pales like he’s been touched by a specter.
God, am I that difficult to love?
I ignore his shocked expression, timidly hurrying away to clean.
“Absolutely not,” he says, pulling the lavender wipes out of my hand.
“Kane,” I insist, reaching for them, “I can still walk—”
In one quick move, he’s under me, scooping me up in his arms like I’m weightless.
“Kane!” I protest.
“Not today, Percy,” he says, pallid expression gone, commandeering surgeon voice back. “You’re resting.”
Unrelenting in the face of my pleas, he delivers me to bed, tucking me in before I hear him shuffling through my kitchen, cleaning the countertops, packing up the food, and even pausing to scratch the cats that have escaped, their gleeful meows bouncing off the walls.
The scent of food ebbs out of my apartment, as do my hesitations about Kane, domestically organizing and straightening out my living room while I collapse into bed.
We’ve officially made it to the next step of faking it—even my best friend believes our relationship is honest, genuine, and true.
But after his reaction to my last kiss, I never knew my soul could shatter at an idea so fake.
Why did he look at me like I'd just crossed a line?
Why is he still here?
Unprompted. Cooking. Cleaning. Making sure I'm okay.
The mattress dips beneath me as I curl deeper into the blankets.
This should make me happy. I’m cherished by my friends, thriving in my career, with Golden Boy off my back.
For years, I would've killed for half of this.
So why does it all feel so fragile?
Like I'm balancing something precious in my hands, just waiting for the moment it drops.
Maybe I’m the problem.
Maybe I've spent so long preparing for things to go wrong that I don't know what to do when they go right.
My throat tightens. The idea of losing any of this hurts more than it should.
Because deep down, some stubborn, ugly part of me is still convinced none of it was ever meant to be mine.
Is that why my head feels so hot, so sick I could cry?
1 Narrator’s notes: Anyone who’s had chickenpox as a child can get shingles, which is triggered by high stress, illness, or sleep deprivation, all pillars of the medical student base education. It’s a miracle it didn’t happen sooner.