Landon’s eyes find mine, and I can tell he’s disappointed, just as I am, not to scrub in for the MVD. Kraft is right—it is a fairly rare procedure, and to see a pediatric MVD is even more interesting. I sigh, and Landon and I head for the room’s back door. He pushes it open, nodding me in front of him. I can feel his eyes on my back as we head down the hallway, toward a staircase that will deposit us near the ER, on floor one.
“Wonder what this is,” I mutter as we hit the stairwell.
“Probably a hemorrhage,” he says dryly.
Older people with hypertension-exacerbated brain bleeds are some of our most frequent, and least interesting, customers.
“Or a herniated disc. Totally bet it’s a herniated disc. We’re the only ones available since everyone else is either in surgery or not quite here yet.”
Landon winks as he opens the door at the bottom of the stairwell. “You can take that herniated disk. I’ve got thirty floor notes to finish before we hit The Fourteener for that Deltoids gig.”
“Um, what?” I ask as we make for the ER door.
“The Fourteener? That’s the resident Friday night hangout, Evie. Haven’t you been keeping up?” A glance reveals he’s joking.
“What’s a Deltoids gig?”
“The Deltoids is a band some students at your school are in. Pre-med guys. Guys and girls,” he says.
I frown, wondering how Landon knows things about Alpine University that I don’t, since I went to med school here.
Then we’re in the ER, and there is so much screaming. Prinz—Levi Prinz, our fellow first-year—is right in front of us, along with Eilert. I notice that her face looks extra tense before she gestures us into a nook of the large room and briskly informs us, “We’re looking at two siblings here, both just arriving: two-year-old and three-year-old with facial trauma and possible cervical fractures. Father tried to injure them while mom looked on. Dad is coming in on a stretcher, shot by one of the responding officers, who’s also coming in. Prinz, assist me on the father’s gunshot. Jones and Rutherford, you’ll triage and work CTs on the boys, in bays four and five.” Her voice fades out as I start moving toward the area she mentioned, Landon at my side. I don’t know how I know to look at him—I guess I sense something—but when I do, I find his eyes unblinking, his face a shade too pale.
We reach the bays, partitioned off by sheets, and I realize that’s where the wailing is coming from. Of course it is. Landon’s lips press tight and he gives me a brief, stoic look before we push the curtains back and there they are: two tiny bodies on big stretchers, both kids red-faced and wailing while nurses and EMTs, one DPD officer and two attendings, rush around them.
The next two hours blink by. Afterward, I find myself back up in a restroom on floor three, and I don’t even remember walking back up. It’s eleven-thirty and I feel numb. Numb and exhausted.
As it turns out, both kids were basically okay, and I expect them to make full recoveries—physically. Emotionally…my stomach still feels wobbly thinking of it.
When, a half hour later, a couple of us finish for the night about the same time, Prinz suggests we hit The Fourteener. “Don’t know about you fine folks, but I could use a drink.”
Everyone agrees, and we call a Lyft with the plan to drink our woes away. The ones of us on schedule for tomorrow will guzzle some Powerade and pop a few NSAIDs, then Lyft back when it’s time to be here.
Three
Landon
We can’t safely fit into the Lyft, a beat-up white Maxima with a bearded driver and a pot aroma, but no one seems to mind.
“Guys first,” someone says, and I get in the front seat in anticipation of their plan. In the back, Prinz and a guy that I don’t know end up becoming cushions for Audrey and Evie, while the other girl, a third-year resident named Holland, squeezes into the middle.
“This is safe.” Someone—Audrey—gives a throaty laugh.
“It’s not like we’re neurosurgeons or anything,” Holland says. “We’re totally expendable.”
And of course, she means we’re not—implying that a tragedy involving us would mean more than your average tragedy…which is one of the few things I hate about this job.
I stare blindly at the street and think about the last few hours. Not think, exactly. My senses replay scenes, their sights and smells and sounds, on a screen that disappears when I blink, half asleep. When I open my eyes, the car is parked along the curb in front of the bar. I frown as my door opens.
It’s Evie.
“C’mon, sleepy.” She holds her hand out, and I can’t remember if I’m dreaming. Is this real life? I’m a resident, and so is Evie. She just called me “sleepy.” I don’t take her hand. Because I can’t. I see the hurt on her face for a second. Then she makes her face impassive.
I feel desperate as we walk into the bar. I think of leaving. Audrey bumps my back. I turn, and she smiles. “Sorry, cowboy.”
Cowboy orders a Raging Bull, because he doesn’t want to look too drunk. Sometimes that happens when he hasn’t slept. I can’t see what Evie orders. She’s a few stools down. We get a booth, and it looks like a screwdriver.
“I support that,” says Audrey, who’s on the other side of her. “A little Vitamin C.”
Evie smiles and takes a sip.
Audrey and the other girl, the ego-driven third year, pull us all through conversation. Second drinks are had, and third. By then, my shoulders feel a little looser, and I’m not hearing that kid’s cries. I almost can’t remember holding his hand on the way to CT—or if I can, I don’t care as much. Does that make me a monster: that I wish I could forget him?
Prinz keeps looking at Evie. I don’t blame him, but I wish he’d fucking stop. Maybe I should go home now. I’m so drunk, I think I could sleep. No work for me tomorrow. Why did I come to Denver? I could have stayed at Hopkins because the program there is well regarded, but this one is more expansive. More OR time here. More Evie here.
I finish my drink and talk to Prinz about a case he has in the NCCU. The conversation goes on, while the others discuss sports.
Somewhere in there, someone starts to talk about the brothers from the ER.
“The father…did you see him? What a sick fuck.” Ego girl.
“How could a parent do that?” Audrey asks. “The evolutionary instinct is to protect your offspring. And the mother. What the hell? She should go to prison, too, for doing nothing.”
I put some money on the table as Prinz says, “Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have children. There’s responsibility that comes with that.” I stand up slowly. “Little kids aren’t even hard to care for,” he continues. “I have nieces, and they’re wonderful. I could raise them and still intern if I had to.”
Evie stands. She casts her gaze at me, then tries to blank her face out as she says, lightly, “I think I’m going to run home for a shower, guys.”
I can tell she’s upset by her tone. I glance at the others, but no one seems tipped off.
I add, “Same. Tapping out.”
The group says goodbye to both of us, and people move for Evie to exit the booth. She makes for the front door. My body leans that way, but I decide to go out back. I’m drunk, but I’m not fucking stupid. In my imagination, Evie’s long glance my way was intentional. She knew I wouldn’t like to hear a discussion about parental responsibility. In my imagination, Evie gives a shit. In my imagination.
I go out the alley door and walk out toward the sidewalk before stopping in the shadows, pulling out my phone and ordering a Lyft. The app says the car won’t be here for another seven minutes. I lean against the alley’s wall and shut my eyes.
The sound of footsteps makes me open them. My gaze drags left, in the direction of the sound, and I see Evie’s figure at the mouth of the alley. For just a second, warmth spears through me. Then I hear a small sob.
Her shoulders pump as she tries to get a handle on herself, letting out a few choked sounds while she holds up her phone.
I’m movi
ng toward her before I stop to think, but when I do, I make myself freeze. Evie leans against the corner of the alley, her face in her hands. Then she steps into the shadows and crouches down, putting her head against her knees.
I walk over slowly, so as not to scare her.
“Evie?”
She jolts, lifting her head. I see her squint.
“It’s Landon.”
She stands quickly, wiping her eyes. I know from the way she tucks her arm around herself that she wants to look composed, so I don’t close the distance between us. I sure as shit don’t put my hands on her.
I stand there, breathing hard and trying not to look like I am. My heart is fucking pounding. I feel like I’m sixteen years old.
“You okay?” It comes out sounding gruff.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” In the dim light from a street lamp by the road behind her, I can see her try to smile. “I’m just a weepy drunk.” She wipes her eyes. “I have to work tomorrow. Shouldn’t have come out. That stuff was so sad,” she says softly. “Made me want to have a drink and just forget.”
I nod.
She looks behind her, at the road. “I need to call a ride.”
I check my phone. “I’ve got one. Here right now,” I tell her as I spot the message from the app. “Only fair,” I add. “I owe you.”
“Mmm.” I can see her searching for the words to turn me down as a dark SUV pulls up along the curb. My arm arches around her back. I touch her gently with my fingertips.
“C’mon. I don’t mind.”
“I can’t,” she says thickly.
“It’s just a Lyft, Evie.”
She nods once, and then she lets me urge her toward the sidewalk.
Evie
I had three screwdrivers—three too many. Now I’m doing something foolish. I know as I buckle up that I should get out of the Lyft and call my own ride. But I’m drunk, and Landon is beside me. Grown up Landon, with his bulky shoulders, scruffy face, and big-but-gentle hands. He’s wearing a starched button-up and straight-front khakis, and he smells faintly of cologne and liquor.
Add to that: he found me while I was crying. Is there anything sexier than a well-dressed man wiping your tears? Of course not.
With my inhibitions gone, there’s no way I’m doing the smart thing. I’m going to sit beside him on this leather seat and pretend he’s my date. We’re going somewhere good, and if I shut my eyes…just for a second, if I close my eyes, he might lean over. Touch me.
It’s the feel and smell and look of him that calls to me, but also so much more. Riding in a car with Landon is like going home. The kind of home you can’t go back to once you’ve left. And I left. I really, really left. In a certain sense, I left the day he left. He took my heart. I’ve never found it.
The fullness of that loss, sharpened by vodka, comes down on me like a monsoon. I just left a bar with Landon. I’m interning alongside Landon. I could reach across the car and touch him right now.
God, I used to dream of this. And it actually happened. My dream came true, but I can’t touch it. I can never touch it.
“Evie?” His voice is rough and quiet.
I notice that my head is in my hands. Oops. I try to lift it, but my eyes seem to be leaking again. When I don’t lift my head, I feel him moving closer to me. No. Fuck. I peek through my fingers and see the road tilt out the windshield. We’re moving, so I can’t get out. Oh my God, I’m so dumb.
“Evie…what’s wrong?”
Landon’s here, and he’s so fucking nice. A grown-up Landon. He’s a surgeon, too. Why is he a surgeon? Why does he smell good?
I think of sitting up and kissing him. How good his scruffy face would feel under my hands. I would kiss him, and his eyes would close. When we were younger and we kissed, Landon’s eyes would always close—and I would sometimes look at him. This is what he looks like, I would think: my person.
Mine.
I still feel like he’s mine. When he leans over right beside me and he murmurs in his Landon voice, my heart says mine.
With my hands still over my face, I twist away from him, toward the door. “Stop the car, please.”
“What?”
I curl over my lap. “I need to get out.”
If I stay near him in this state, this will not end well. I feel it.
“You want the car to stop?” he asks quietly, his voice sounding concerned.
“Yes, please.”
I feel Landon lean up toward the driver’s seat and hear him say, “Hey, man, can you pull over?”
The car stops, and I struggle with my door handle. My hands are damp and unsteady. When I finally manage to push it open, I find myself looking at Landon. While I struggled, he got out and came around. He holds a hand out for me, and I just look at him.
He’s handsome. With his striking eyes and high cheekbones, plus that stubble, Landon is the kind of guy who probably gets a lot of female interest—and that’s in street clothes, without the magical white coat.
His hair is short, and in the darkness it looks brown. His eyes are still that earnest gray. They look at me as if they’re trying to send a message. I can’t hear it. I can’t do this. If I do, I’ll talk. I can’t lie to him, and I can’t tell the truth. Landon is off limits. Why did I think that we could share a Lyft?
After a long, unreadable look at me, he presses his lips together, glances down, and walks back around the car. I’m so confused that instead of getting out, I turn around and watch him climb in. I’m expecting him to meet my eyes, so when he doesn’t, just buckles and blinks straight ahead, I’m thrown; I pull my door shut.
After a long glance in my direction, Landon tells the driver, “You can go.”
I frown at his profile. Swallow. In my dumb, tear-softened voice, I ask him, “Why did you say that?”
He blinks at me, impassive.
“I told you I was sick,” I whisper.
His jaw twitches. “No. You said you wanted to get out. You’re not even drunk, Evie.”
“I am, too.”
His lips flatten and twist down. He glances away for a moment before his eyes return to mine. This time, they’re hotter. “Do you think I can’t tell when you’re lying, Evie?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“You think I’m kidding?” He looks incredulous. “I watched you lie a thousand times. I know what you look like when you’re holding something back. You’re not sick, Evie, and you’re not that fucking drunk. You just don’t want to be in here with me. You said you wanted to get out, but when you found me right in front of you, you wouldn’t even take my hand.”
“I wasn’t sure if I would need to,” I murmur, but it’s bullshit, and it sounds like bullshit.
“What about now?” His gray gaze burns. “Do you need to get out now?”
I blink through tears. “No. I don’t.”
“What address?” he asks me tightly.
“What?”
“What’s your address?”
After I tell him, Landon looks ahead again, his jaw tight and his shoulders tense.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I’m a mess.” I don’t even plan the words, they just roll out, because I’m me and he’s Landon.
Four
Evie
Landon’s gaze angles to mine, and in a softer tone, he murmurs, “Why?”
“Because…I’m sad.”
He turns to me more fully, looking like he did as he stood by my door a minute ago: as if he’s trying to discern something.
“You never wrote,” he finally says.
I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears.
“You wanted to forget.”
Tears spill. He leans close, wiping them as his eyes hold mine. “I came on Christmas Eve,” he says softly. “I was living in Knoxville, but I took the bus. Emmaline answered the door. Do you remember?”
I shake my head again.
“She asked if I was there to stay. When I told her probably not, she hugged me and said you weren’t a
t home. She said you’d been sad about me, but you weren’t anymore. That I shouldn’t come and make you sad again.”
I heard about that—him coming by. But before that…
“You disappeared.”
“I told you that I would. That’s why I sent the letters, Evie. What was I supposed to do? I had nowhere to go. That group home was a fucking cesspool.”
“You could have come found me.”
The Lyft stops—in front of my townhouse. We get out, and we’re there on the empty sidewalk, our faces splashed gold by a streetlamp. Landon’s hands are by his sides. My arms are wrapped around me.
“That’s what I’m saying, Evie. I came back as soon as I could. When I left the group home that spring, I just…ran. I found some college kids in Knoxville who let me crash at their place, and I had to wait it out till I was 18. I kept writing you until the fall. I told you everything…”
I shake my head. I just shake my head, because I cannot speak.
“You didn’t get my letters?”
I bite the inside of my cheek so I won’t cry, and look down at my sneakers.
Landon’s hands are on my shoulders, gently squeezing. I can’t help but look into his eyes, at his familiar Landon face—a face I loved.
“Well, I sent them. Evie—why?” His fingers tighten, as his face does. “Why didn’t you do anything?”
“I didn’t get them.”
“None of them?” I shake my head. He shuts his eyes for just a second. “Fuck.” His shoulders rise and fall. He lets go of me. Turns around. I watch him struggle with his breathing, like he used to do when we were younger.