Chapter Two Julian
CHAPTER TWO
JULIAN
I did want to see her vulva.
I lope back and forth in my office like a wild animal penned in a cage, which is what this combination-Pizza-Hut-Taco-Bell-Family-Practice-Urgent-Care-Clinic feels like right now.
I take off my glasses and fling them on the desk, then release a guttural groan at the ceiling.
Nomi Wyeth was stretched out half naked before me, fulfilling every one of my formative sexual fantasies—save for the stage two laceration on her outer labia, I’m not a total freak—and what did I do?
I said the shape of her remaining pubic hair was a vibe.
I run my palms down my face and groan again.
I should resign. Ridiculous commentary aside, I…
felt things when treating her, and that’s unacceptable.
The doctor-patient relationship is built on trust that depends on my professional detachment from normally exciting body parts, and yet, there was nothing detached about pressing my palm against Nomi’s soft, warm cunt.
My eyes flutter back in my head, dick stiffening for the second time tonight.
I bark out a sharp laugh of despair. The only way I could be more of a disgrace would be rubbing one out in my office while the memory of my last patient and, coincidentally, the only woman who’s ever driven me insane, is still fresh.
I slam down in my chair. After a minute of cradling my throbbing skull, I call Eric’s emergency line. The phone rings five times before a groggy voice answers:
“Dr. Sampson speaking, what is your emergency?”
“Eric,” I croak. “I have to resign from the medical profession.”
There’s some muffled cursing while Eric adjusts the phone. “Julian, it’s after midnight. What, and I say this with love, the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I got a semi-erection while suturing a stage two laceration on my high school crush’s vulva.”
Eric curses again, this time directly into the receiver. “Okay. That’s bad. What happened?”
I regale the entire saga, from the moment Nomi showed up to the unfortunate lasagna comment. “I even considered masturbating in my office,” I confess wearily. “But I called you instead.”
Eric exhales. “There are things you don’t have to tell me. Many things, in fact.”
“You’re my advisor,” I counter.
“I was,” Eric agrees. “Years ago. When you were in medical school. Now I’m just some guy you call in the middle of the night instead of whacking off.”
“Eric, could you not make this about you? I’m in crisis.” I lay my forehead flat against the desk and prop the cell phone against my ear. “How does one resign from the medical profession?”
“You’re not resigning. You didn’t do anything inappropriate. Well, except for the lasagna comment.”
I whimper.
“—and ultimately, nothing inappropriate occurred,” Eric concludes. “You are a human. These things happen.”
“Has it ever happened to you?” I sit up straighter.
Eric snorts. “I’m an orthopedic surgeon that specializes in feet. I’ve never gotten an erection while performing a bunionectomy.”
“What about a semi?”
“What do you think?”
“That I’m a reprobate.” I slump back down. “I’m so disappointed in myself. First Philly Gen, and now this. I can’t even make it in a goddamn family practice.”
“This is a new position for you. You just left one of the biggest hospitals in the country, where you had specialized colleagues that handled all the gynecological emergencies that came in, right?”
I pause, not wanting to be made to feel better but also unable to argue with my advisor. “Well, yes.”
“Ergo, you don’t have experience with vulvas.”
“Yes, I do,” I spout indignantly. Maybe not a lot of repeat experience because, according to the last woman I slept with, my looks only go so far in overcoming my personality.
“With treating vulvas,” Eric amends, the smile in his voice audible. “And this wasn’t some random stranger, which would be very concerning. This was a special person from your past.”
“She’s not special,” I spit out. “She’s a stoner who carved my heart out with a blunt.”
“That’s… not how those work. Alright, Julian. I’ve got to keep this line clear for actual patients with actual emergencies. You gonna be okay?”
“No! You haven’t given me advice yet!”
“Sure I have. Let’s do a recap: First, don’t quit the medical profession.
You’re an incredible doctor with subpar social skills.
You got away with that in the ER until you didn’t, which is how you’ve landed here.
You’ve got six months to improve your atrocious bedside manner before Philly Gen will consider taking you back.
This family practice position will force you to level up, and you need to take it seriously. ”
I groan.
“Second, don’t masturbate in your office, and don’t call me instead, either.”
“But you’re my advisor!”
“Not in the job description. Third, you need to apologize to Ms. Stoner.”
“Are you sure avoiding her for the rest of my life isn’t a viable alternative to,” I take a deep breath, “apologizing”?
“It isn’t, because after you apologize, you’re going to ask her out. And if she offers you a puff, by God, take it. I’ve never met a man who could benefit more from smoking weed than you.”
“I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Believe it, Dr. D’Angelo. That is your chief advisor’s medical opinion.”
“Yes, sir.” Funny how fast that flies out of my mouth, all these years later. “But I resent it, sir.”
I don’t remember exactly when Dr. Sampson became Eric, perhaps during residency? But he said at our first advisory meeting during orientation week in medical school that if I had a question, I could always come to him.
He’s openly regretted that a few dozen times since.
After we disconnect, I spend the rest of the shift in a mortified haze with occasional breaks of activity.
Ms. Petrillo’s grandson with a high temperature and a bad case of the flu.
Billy Clark’s broken thumb. Nothing to top Nomi’s mangled labia, though.
God, I feel terrible, betrayed by my body in a moment when a patient needed me to be professional.
Worse, there’s nothing to break me out of the loop of shame and frustration I keep cycling through.
Nobody could ruin lasagna, it’s impossible!
Seeing Nomi after so many years—still beautiful, still feisty in that hot-blooded way of hers, still in Sparrow Nook doing nothing with her life?
It’s maddening, and this idle night shift is making it worse.
Time passed relentlessly in the Philly Gen ER, every heartbeat bringing a new disaster to triage.
I didn’t have time for this ridiculous introspection.
But by morning, I’ve reconciled with what must be done:
I’ll apologize to Nomi Wyeth.
Even though she stole my valedictorian title and my heart only to throw it all away smoking weed with that terror Eve Ionides, I’ll do it. I’ll apologize to the first girl I ever kissed. The first person to break my heart. And because the universe hates me, the first vulva I’ve ever stitched up.
What a night.
“Good morning, Julian.” Dr. Srinivasan putters into our shared office at seven thirty, newspaper under one arm, a large coffee in the other. “How did your shift go?”
I stand up and smooth the front of my coat, the memory of Nomi’s pert ass momentarily parching my mouth. “Uneventful.”
“Oh?” Dr. Srinivasan plops down in the rolling chair I just vacated and promptly adjusts the height, springing him up half a foot taller. “That is interesting, as I received a complaint about you to my cell phone.”
The blood drains from my upper extremities and pools in my belly. Did Nomi spy the outline of my semi-erect penis? It’s aggressively present when I’m at zero stimulation and outrageous when fully erect. A former girlfriend dubbed it a protruder, and I’ve been self-conscious of it ever since.
Or was it Eve Ionides? Did that mean little lesbian see my penis?!
“Calm down, Julian, you look like you’re about to stroke out.” Dr. Srinivasan gestures for me to sit, and I do, reluctantly. I’ve known him since I was little and coming in for my own yearly checkups. It’s still an adjustment to think of him as my boss.
Dr. Srinivasan looks at me appraisingly, but he doesn’t check the front of my pants, which is a good sign, I think. “Ms. Petrillo texted that you were very rude and implied her grandson contracted the flu from, and I quote, ‘licking doorknobs.’”
I exhale, letting my back rest against the seat. “He’s three years old. Aren’t they all licking doorknobs at that age?”
“No, they’re not tall enough. You also received a complaint from Mr. Donahue about his diabetic medication two days ago.”
“What did I say to him?”
His eyebrow arches, disrupting the rows of forehead wrinkles like a stone thrown into a lake. “You called his insulin his cheesecake shots.”
I arch my brow right back. “He eats a slice every morning, Dr. Srinivasan. For breakfast!”
Dr. Srinivasan sighs. “The last thing a patient wants is their doctor’s scorn. It’s your job to help, not to shame.”
“Even when they’re being stupid?”
“Especially when they’re being stupid.” Dr. Srinivasan chuckles. “Being a primary care physician in a town this size requires you to be more than right—it requires you to listen and be likable. Skills you must learn if you want Philly Gen to reinstate you.”
I cross my arms. “My ER patients never complained I wasn’t likable.”
“Well, my patients aren’t unconscious or bleeding out, Julian. You have to be nicer to these ones.”
I scowl, aware that I’m sulking and unable to stop it.
I should be kissing Dr. Srinivasan’s feet for the opportunity to serve my probation here.
After what happened at Philly Gen, I had to beg Dr. Riveras not to fire me on the spot.
If it were up to the Corringtons, Philly’s richest family, the hospital’s biggest donor, and coincidentally, the sponsor for my fellowship, I’d never practice medicine again.
But Dr. Riveras relented after I agreed to take a six-month leave of absence to work on my nonexistent people skills and learn how to listen for fucking once and get my head out of my own ass.
The best way to do that, she decided, was by serving in the ultimate patient service capacity—as a primary care physician in a family practice out of the public eye long enough that the Corringtons forget what I did.
Which turned out to be nearly impossible.
Dr. Riveras didn’t report me to the state medical board for what happened, but word still traveled fast. I contacted every family practice within thirty miles of Philadelphia, but I was as employable as RFK, Jr. in a vaccine clinic.
Nobody would have me because nobody wanted to cross the Corringtons.
Nobody except Dr. Srinivasan. And only because my mother called and asked him on my behalf.
I cringe reflexively, gutted that my poor mom, who spent the last five years of my father’s life rescuing him, had to rescue me, too—something I vowed she’d never need to do.
When my father passed away and abandoned us for good, twelve-year-old Julian sat silently at his service, listening to all his friends and family laugh and cry over what a good time Anthony D’Angelo was.
The life of the party. He could take more shots than a boxer and keep standing, as if that was something to be proud of.
Nobody talked about after the big accident—how it left him hobbled and unsure, how he retreated from the real world into our garage and let Mom bear all the burdens of our family.
But that’s the Anthony D’Angelo that I knew, and I swore the day we buried him I’d be nothing like him.
That I’d be the best. The best son, the best student, the best doctor, and one day, the best husband.
The best father. The people I love would always know how much, because I’d take the best care of them.
But I never realized how alienating becoming the best would be.
How the long hours studying pushed away friends, the longer hours working made dating impossible, and how my determination to succeed seemed to be a never-ending source of complaints from my family.
It doesn’t matter that I landed a competitive fellowship at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country—here, I’m Little Julie Try-Hard and Julian D’Asshole, somehow the biggest joke in an entire family of jokes.
The D’Angelos are to Sparrow Nook like pigeons are to New York City: everywhere, and typically fighting over pizza.
It’s impossible to go anywhere in town without running into one of my loser relatives, which is why yesterday I drove twenty minutes to the good grocery store.
The last time I went to the local Acme, my Aunt Patty was the only cashier working.
After tutting over each of my items, she informed the entire eighty-seven D’Angelos on the family text chain that I was buying orgasmic bananas.
It was a typo, I think, but I’ve received unsolicited banana pics for a solid week.
Is it any wonder that in Sparrow Nook, the D’Angelo name solicits an eyeroll and a pitying laugh?
I’ve spent my whole life trying to set myself above and apart from the D’Angelos, to prove that I’m not like any of them.
That, unlike them and my irresponsible, undependable heartbreak of a father, I am a force to be reckoned with and respected.
And yet, here I am, enduring the spectacle of my ridiculous family while I languish in this purgatory, forced to treat people who think diner cheesecake is a valid source of protein until December.
There’s nothing for it—I have to convince Dr. Riveras to reinstate me and get my career back on track to becoming the best, where I belong.
But to do that, I have to learn to be…likable?
How the hell am I going to do that?