Chapter 18
RESIDENT RETREAT
But occasionally, wellness committees use government-provided funds for good. Such as renting out a country club for the residents to embarrass themselves in.
THANATOS
If this is what being kidnapped feels like, I’m a proud supporter of Stockholm syndrome.
Daring, bold weeds of green interrupt the monochrome gray of tundra.
The emerging sun snipes blades of light through the seasonal fog.
Even a warm breeze sifts through the air, one of the rare bearable days that sprinkles itself into the bitterly cold Midwest spring, and I count my lucky clovers that I get to spend a whole day with Kane instead of fretting over an unfinished rank list.
It’s a beautiful day on a balmy, upper-echelon golf course, and I, the truant medical student, am playing hooky to hang out with a demon.
At least that’s how it feels as I skip along the course with Kane, who all but kidnapped me at the last minute to his resident retreat, saved by a surprise volunteer to take his shift.
Sometimes fake dating pays off, especially when whatever sappy intern—I think Kane said her name was Alice?—told him they could trade.
And after the two vodka cranberries he got me from the country club bar—one for me, one for him (that I stole)—I feel amazing!
After our last devastating conversation, I’d sufficiently doomscrolled, gardened, and suppressed my feelings until I decided I was perfectly, artificially, fine.
Nothing’s wrong. Nothing will ever be wrong. I’m just happy to be alive.
Perfectly, undoubtedly well.
The residents are celebrating being done with interview season, their rank lists finalized. Mine are about to be due, but I have more exciting adventures to unlock, prancing along the course with Kane and admiring how the bourgeoisie lived.
Now this is wellness.
A butterfly, glistening orange, flies by, and I extend my hand eagerly, but it flutters away.
I retreat my hand, dejected. “Kane, it left me.”
He chuckles, moving his hand to the small of my back. “It’s okay,” he says. “It doesn’t know you yet.”
The warm press of his hand makes my core heat, and I step away shyly, watching his smile widen.
Kane strolls on, so tall I’m skipping to keep up, even when he’s weighed down by the clubs slung on his back. I offer to carry them, or at least to drive a caddy, and he waves me off for both.
He’s no fun.
I’m fueled by alcohol. I can help!
Maybe I should have guarded my feelings better by not hopping into his car so easily. But resisting him is like fighting the rising of the sun—utterly futile.
Either way, both of us chatter on tangents as the sun arcs across the sky and we walk circles around the course—how do you feel about the new OR rooms? Physician advocacy? Breaking the 80-hour workweek regularly? Both of us vehemently opposed to the last one, of course.
Kane keeps scanning the tees with interest until I prod him with, “Do you want to play?”
He sets down his father's clubs, a laugh escaping him. “Guess.”
I leisurely pick one up, holding it like a lightsaber. “Do you want to teach me how to use this thing?” I bounce forward, aiming it at his neck.
His hands come up like he’s guilty.
“Terrified,” he breathes.
I giggle, poking him with it.
But then his face blanks, glitching suddenly into confusion.
Whirling around, I spot David, arms linked with Calypso, ascending the nearest hill.
My stomach curdles.
David’s wearing his signature self-righteous smirk, and beside him, Calypso’s leaning close, glossy lips whispering into his ear.
I stumble back, lightheaded.
“Neither of them is a resident,” Kane exhales, like he can’t believe his eyes.
“Definitely not,” I agree, baffled by how they keep showing up. It’s almost like…
“Calypso is wealthy enough to have a membership on her own,” I reason, “but choosing to bring him here on all days…”
“Energy vampires,” he mutters. “There’s no reason for them to be here unless they’re showing off.”
I beg my racing heart to calm, reminding myself that it’s fine, I’m fine, he’s not going to try anything, he can’t knock away my phone with Kane right next to me. “There’s no way.”
“Clout demons,” he continues, “why are they always following us?”
“I can’t believe it,” I breathe. “He really does hate me.”
He barks out a laugh. “Or she hates me.”
“How long did you date?” I ask. I need another vodka cran to deal with this.
Be well, I tell myself. This is a wellness retreat.
Our exes showing up unexpectedly isn’t invasive or stalker-core at all.
“Too long,” he says. “We met on a dating app, went on a couple of awkward dates for months, and had zero chemistry. She told me I was rigid and difficult.”
“You are rigid and difficult,” I agree.
He narrows his eyes. “Thank you.”
“I think it’s endearing,” I add, leaning my head against his shoulder. He feels sturdy, secure, even when the alcohol is making my thoughts dance, and my ex is making my insides somersault. “At least you’re rigidly loyal and difficult to defend the people you love.”
“Please,” he says. He makes no response to the people you love bit, thank God.
Over the hill, the two snakes saunter toward us. The sun flares behind them, making them look like shadows, serpentine silhouettes blocking out any light.
“Oh, God,” he groans. “Not the small talk.”
I wiggle my fingers at him. “I can do the small talk for you.”
Kane’s posture grows increasingly stiff, hands planted on his hips as he watches them approach, before he pivots, suggesting something far worse instead. “We should challenge them to a game.”
My hand drops.
“Kane,” I say sternly. “I grew up in a cornfield. I can’t play.”
“I’ll teach you,” he offers.
“Why bother, though?”
“Because I know they’ll lose,” he says, rather bluntly. “And so I have an excuse to use my club in a way that doesn’t involve beating David with it. God, why are they always following us?”
Kane mutters profanities under his breath.
“This has to be intentional,” he growls. “Their hands are all over each other. At a country club! My country club!”
David turns mid-step to kiss her, tongue lapping around her face like a rabid dog’s.
I gag. “Sickening.”
“Stalkers,” Kane continues. “Like a pestilence. Look at the little blond boy go.”
“His blond isn’t even a real blond,” I tell him, watching David run his hands through his messy hair. It doesn’t even look like he brushed it this morning. Tufts stick up in wadded clumps, disheveled.
“He’s not?!” Kane gasps, turning to me in horror.
Seeing him shocked like a schoolgirl makes me giggle. “No, Kane. He dyes it. With the cheap stuff from convenience stores. He told me he hasn’t been a natural blond since elementary school.”
“That’s why he hates you,” Kane says solemnly. “You’re the real blonde.”
I burst out laughing, and the tongue mashing stops, two sets of eyes glaring at me, bent over Kane, dying of laughter.
“Does he get fake tans, too?” Kane asks excitedly.
“He gets skin cancer tans,” I say between laughs. “It’s a miracle basal cell hasn’t caught him yet.”1
Steeling my nerve, I extend a falsely confident arm, waving at them, angling to make the sunlight sparkle off my ring. When they finally stop eating each other’s faces to notice, Calypso’s face drops.
Their steps come a little faster.
Kane says, with increasing anticipation, “We have to play them now. They need to see how happy our pasty selves are together.”
“You’re more tan than pale, though,” I argue, handing him the golf club. The sunlight illuminates the warm bronze of his skin, and he rolls his eyes at my comment, then swivels, waving his ex and Golden Boy over.
“Let me teach you,” Kane says suddenly, and then his arms enclose me, chest pressed against my back. We come together, skin separated by only soft cotton.
My pulse races.
“Okay?” he asks, sliding his hands from my shoulders to my wrists—dramatic, really—then swings his arms with mine, sending the ball soaring straight to David’s head.
“Kane!” I yelp.
David ducks just in time.
The ball grazes his hair, Calypso shrieks, and Kane cackles.
David watches the ball soar away, to no visible hole, then continues stomping forth, abruptly increasing in tempo.
By the time they’re in front of us, he looks affronted, and she just looks sweaty.
They’re wearing matching athletic wear, both in these garish shades of yellow, which makes them look like they tried to snatch color from the sun and failed.
Calypso smiles demurely. “Hey!” she says to us, but mostly to me. “How’ve you been, Percy?”
“Good,” I tell her politely. David and Kane exchange twin looks of contempt, David with his charming smirk, Kane with his deprecating scowl.
“Hello, Percy. You look nice today.” David says, ignoring Kane completely. “Would you want to watch Kane and me play? Since you’ve never been much for athletics.”
My indignation simmers. “We can play as couples.”
David raises a brow but doesn’t comment.
Kane glances at me, expression brimming with pride.
“Winner gets bragging rights,” Kane decides.
“I say the winner treats the ladies to dinner,” David objects.
“Huh?” Calypso says.
David feigns indifference, flicking non-existent lint off his shirt. “Why not? It’s just good sportsmanship to support the losing team.”
But not the losing man?
Kane towers over David, even from far away, and I can’t help the surge of undiminished contentment from my boyfriend being the bigger person (literally). I hope David feels threatened.
Based on how his posture is improving, I think he does.
Now this wellness retreat is getting interesting.
“You can barely handle yourself,” Calypso says bluntly.
Her tone’s so clipped, it gives off an air of barely leashed resentment.
Hmm. Maybe she hates him now, too.
“I doubt Calypso wants to be the third wheel on my family dinners,” Kane says, checking my reaction.
David’s serrated smile fades, but not before he coils an arm around her shoulders. “Someone’s worried,” he purrs. “If you’re sure you’d lose, we can always go play by ourselves—”
And it’s his haughty confidence, the way he looks down at my Kane, that makes me say, “We’ll play you. But if we win, I’m dropping Calypso off at Taco Heaven. You can starve, David.”
Calypso giggles. “Fair enough.”
David sets his mouth in a peeved line.
“Fine,” he says, yanking a club from his bag and setting a golf ball on a tee. Striding over to the putt, he takes a deep breath, bends over, and then swings, sending it flying far in the air.
Then he grins smugly back at us.
Kane steps up next, moving with calculated precision. In one clean swoop, his ball launches, swiftly blurring off into the distance as it travels faster and further than David’s.
Calypso looks oddly impressed, but David’s mood darkens.
In silence, David paces away, Calypso following, and we endure a painfully long trek over, the tension thicker than whatever wedge I am gleefully watching form between the two.
Kane pulls me to the side, trailing us a few paces behind. He tightens an arm around my waist, whispering into my ear. “He’s so obsessed with you, Persephone.”
“I know,” I whisper.
In the distant, nagging part of my brain, alarm bells are ringing frantically, but under the haze of vodka, all I can think about is how much I want to be better than him.
“I’m serious,” he continues. His grip tightens. “He’s staring at you like he wants to dissect you in his basement. You know you can call me anytime, right?”
“I know,” I say, and we reach our balls, braking to a stop. Both of them are swinging distance from the hole, but David’s is almost out of sight. Kane’s is nearly adjacent, but also balanced precariously close to an artificial pond.
“Ladies first?” David says, gesturing to Calypso.
She smiles, easily swinging the ball into the hole.
Damn. This might be harder than I thought.
Calypso really knows how to play.
I approach ours cautiously, and Kane steps up beside me, guiding his arms around mine. He feels warm, welcoming, and safe, and I don’t miss the jealous glint in David’s eyes when I set up by the tee.
My heart is pounding, but it’s not because I’m nervous about golf.
“Teach me how,” I tease, lashes fluttering.
David rolls his eyes.
Kane grins.
We stare at each other for just a second too long before David says, “If you can’t help her, I can.”
“David!” Calypso protests, elbowing him. “What’s gotten into you today?” she asks quietly.
I try to twist around to kiss Kane before we swing, but the terrain is muddier than I thought.
I glance at the water, and then at Kane, who’s already staring at the distance between the pond and us.
We have just a moment of pure, utter kinship—should we?
Will we?
If those two hellions have the audacity to chase us here, then I think we should be bold enough to torment them back.
This is a wellness retreat, after all.
Kane doesn’t know what I’m thinking, but he knows what it means when I squeeze his arms, and he molds against my back, wrapping his arms tighter.
Then my feet catch, and all of a sudden, I’m tumbling.
What makes me well, I decide, is payback!
I skitter over, releasing a shriek, and before I know it, Kane throws himself over me, sending us both careening backward into the water.
SPLASH!
1 Narrator’s notes: Wear sunscreen, kids. Basal cell is more common than melanoma and brings me young tanning bed victims year after year. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be box-blond boy.