Chapter 17
FIRST, DO NO HARM
A human named Persephone? Gardening? How unique. How unexpected. How novel.
I think some storytellers are out of ideas, but the fourth wall’s not mine to break.
THANATOS
Knees deep in the grimy dirt, thorns scratching my skin, I pluck the nearest weed out of the barely defrosted soil, pouring all of my frustration into clearing out Cornfield’s community garden.
Rank lists open this week.
My interviews have all wrapped up.
I passed my last rotation–thank heavens–and now I’m wasting away like these barren thorns in winter, waiting for match day to arrive.
I’ve had weeks to fret, months to research, and years to prepare, and I still don’t know how I’m ranking.
Do I put proximity to family first? Prioritize high-tiered academic institutions? Choose programs with the best work-life balance?
I yank out another weed, watching the frozen stem disintegrate in my hands.
It usually clears my head to garden, wind whispering over my skin, fingers weaving between stalks, but now, it’s just me in the shackles of my mind.
I can’t stop replaying my months of performative antics.
Kane brings me matcha daily. I kiss him on the cheek as my thank you, ignoring how his breath hitches every time. Every so often, we escape like children to what should have been the pediatrics wing and talk about nothing and everything together.
My last few rotations have been electives, so the pressure is off, which means instead of spending all my available time working, I’m wasting all my free time brooding.1
For OB/GYNs, interviews are all virtual now, so I don’t have to drag my suit across the country for in-person visits. But that also means I’m forced to make life-changing decisions on where I’m going to spend the next four years based on a computer screen’s worth of information.
Every interview blurs together like hallucinations, the highs of one ebbing with the lows of the next.
We’re like family here!
We have great schools!
My spouse loves it in this city!
Not that the last two really apply to me.
I’ve always felt too young to be in medicine, but I feel like the interview season really hammers it in.
No husband. No children.
Nobody in particular I’m in medicine for.
It doesn’t help that I feel so unworthy compared to my peers. When I’m in the Zoomies room, watching the hollow flicker of dozens of little rectangles, all I hear is I got my MD-PhD in…
My dual degrees are in…
I started a nonprofit in…
I led a research project in…
And the only thing I am an expert in is the vacantness in my chest where I imagine love would be, the place that hurts the most when I think about the fake boyfriend I’m falling for involuntarily.
I dig my shovel into the packed earth, flinging away the worthless, hard soil. The moon is setting, rays of dusty pink bathing the horizon, but even the welcoming orange of a sunrise can’t calm me.
I yank out a new weed every time I remember a pointless question I asked him.
Tug.
Are you scared to start a new surgical residency?
Tug.
Do you see yourself getting married and having kids, eventually?
Tug.
The more questions I asked, the more Kane squirmed, and I regretted each one more than the last. His shoulders hunched, his answers became clipped, and he hid his face, as if he didn’t want me to see him flustered.
And I got nowhere trying to figure out what this secret is that Ginny’s so worried about.
Compared to my ex, who would babble about nothing and everything like his thoughts were of incredible importance, it’s like pulling teeth to get Kane to tell me anything.
Why won’t he just talk to me?
Will he even miss me when we part ways for residency?
Are we that incompatible?
I dig my shovel harder into the dirt.
Men are ridiculous, indecipherable beings. It is an embarrassment to be attracted to them.
Even when he’s being the perfect fake boyfriend, making us look like a marvelous couple in public, while I’m the one feeling rejected in private.
I’m the one who pesters him with questions, even though he’s told me the truth already: he wants to stay here.
And I can’t leave with him.
If I were smart, I’d put distance between us and spend more time “working on myself,” as all singles are encouraged to do.
Bullshit.
I toss a weed so hard it throws me off-balance, twisting over my ankles into the dirt, kicking up clouds of dust.
Coughing, I crawl to stand, tossing my tools aside as I hobble on my flimsy limbs.
High-risk behavior is one of the telltale characteristics of depression, as my therapist claims.
Maybe that’s why I ask Kane about his day. Find out what his favorite recipes are and send him photos of me trying to make them. Badger Jade for details about his life.
My taste in emotionally unavailable men might be my worst form of self-harm.
Last week, when I spotted him in the cafeteria, surrounded by chattering voices, my chest swelled with pride. Did he finally make friends? Should I leave him be?
And then I got tackled by bright brown eyes in the sweetest face, and his youngest sister introduced herself as Bianca, shamelessly asking if I wanted her gardening tools, since she hadn’t used them in years.
And what was I supposed to do? Say no? In public? While he was eating lunch with his family? (In retrospect, I suppose making friends was a tad unrealistic).
And so I hold yet another expensive gift from the Goodyears in my hands, that I do not deserve, drowning under the guise I’ve created for myself.
Bianca was so eager to give them to me that she’d already stuffed them into a brand-new backpack.
Babbling on about how happy she was that I got her a pet, spinning tales of how she’s already taught him to climb up Kane’s legs to annoy him—which Kane confirmed with a morose grunt—and how shocked she was that Kane finally found someone.
She never thought it would happen, and also, can she be a bridesmaid? Please?
And I said yes!
How long can I keep pretending?
Shaking my head, I grab my tools and shove them into their container. The gardening isn’t helping, and the ground is still too icy to tend to.
The buckeye trees shudder with the chilly breeze, watching me fade in and out of focus as I fight through mental torment.
The last time I was gardening, I was blissfully happy—convinced my ex was the one, that all my prayers would pay off, that if you were just optimistic and diligent enough, you could get anything you ever wanted.
I once had a man who bought me a custom scrub cap to wish me luck before my rotation. Polished off my gardening tools as a surprise. Watched my favorite stupid cartoons and agreed that the ladybug girl should have definitely recognized the cat boy as her crush by now.
All that time and memories, wasted and ruined like a corroded-over rake from the prime hoe himself.
For months, I was so indignant I never stepped foot in a garden again—and my good rake stayed in my apartment, rusting.
But as I sling my new tools over my shoulder, the guilt feels like it’s going to bury me with the weeds.
Such an innocent promise—yes, of course, you and Jade can be bridesmaids!—and now I haven’t just lied, I’ve deceived an innocent child.
I didn’t earn the equipment in my hand. Or the car I used to drive here. And how am I going to earn my residency position if it’s under the assumption that my resident boyfriend is elevating me?
I’m so fucked.
In the distance, surrounding the trees, there’s a field of wild violets. I saunter toward them, guided by the rising sun. At the very least, I can gather a bouquet for the Goodyear family as a thank-you for the gifts.
Stepping through the fading mist, cut through by rays of sun, I try to remember the first rule of medicine I swore to four years ago: first, do no harm.
Because how am I supposed to save my patients when I can’t stop hurting myself?
The knot in my stomach twists harder.
Bending down, I delicately pluck the wild violets, telling myself that under no circumstances will I drag this on any longer than necessary.
I must save myself from emotional harm, too.
My phone buzzes, and, startled, I drop the violets and scramble for it.
Kane
Little surgeon
Look up
A Golden Ghost skids into the parking lot, glinting with the morning sunlight, tires screeching on the asphalt.
In an instant, my earlier promise to myself vanishes, charmed by the idea that first, I must have my fun.
Especially when such a gorgeous new car is racing toward me.
My pulse races, my heart soars, and I snatch back up the violets.
Because as the sun rises, my common sense disappears, and I race to him with the same cyclical conclusion I always come to: good girls never learn.
His smirk reaches his ears. “Get in.”
1 Narrator’s notes: After interviews, medical students and program directors both rank where they want to be and who they want, respectively.
Determining where to rank your top choices can be the difference between four exceptional years at a top-tier institution versus the worst four years of your life.
And as evidenced by her ex, Percy does not have a history of choosing well.