Dead Med, page 6
“Talk to me, Heather,” he says again.
“Landon broke up with me,” I manage, and that sets off a whole fresh wave of tears.
If it were someone else, I’d probably fudge the details. I’d probably say that “we broke up.” But what’s the point of lying? Abe is my best friend here. If I can’t tell him the truth, then who can I talk to?
“Wow,” Abe murmurs. “I’m really sorry. That’s… awful.”
I nod and blow my nose noisily into a fresh tissue. There’s so much snot that I have to lay my first tissue on his coffee table and get a fresh one for a second blow. I feel pretty gross. I glance up at Abe, who doesn’t seem to be bothered by my snotty tissues.
“Sorry,” I say anyway.
He frowns. “For what?”
I hold up the tissue. “For being disgusting and full of snot.” I allow myself a tiny laugh.
But Abe doesn’t laugh. “Heather, you could never be disgusting.”
“Um, yeah, I think I could.”
“No.” The way he’s looking at me makes my heart speed up suddenly. “You couldn’t. Never.”
I’m about to tell Abe that he’s never seen me when I’m sick with a bad upper respiratory tract infection when he leans forward and presses his lips against mine.
This, I did not expect.
But it’s not bad. Actually, it’s quite nice. Landon always used to scratch me up with the stubble of his facial hair, but Abe’s lips are incredibly soft, and even the bristles of his five-o’clock shadow are gentle against my chin. As he kisses me, he slides his hand up the back of my neck, lacing his large fingers into my hair, pulling me closer to him. And I’m letting him do it.
I can’t even say how long it lasts. But when Abe pulls away from me, I’m breathless. We’re both shaking, and his green eyes are wide.
“I’m so sorry,” he breathes.
“You don’t look sorry.”
Abe rubs his face with his hands. “I wanted to do that for so long,” he murmurs. “You have no idea.”
He’s right. I had absolutely no idea. I’m a total idiot.
This explains a lot, though.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, and now he’s the one who looks like he’s going to cry. “I really like you, Heather. I mean, a lot. I just… want to be something to you. I don’t want you to freak out. We could just be friends again if that’s what you want.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask him.
He runs a shaking hand through his red hair. “If it’s what you want.”
“But what do you want?” I press him.
He stares at me.
“You,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
I look at Abe. Honestly, I never thought of him this way. As a man. He may not be as handsome as Mason, but he’s not bad-looking at all. He’s actually pretty cute, and he has really nice green eyes and huge muscles. As long as you don’t mind guys who are roughly the size of a grizzly bear.
“Okay,” I say.
His eyes widen. “Okay what?”
I reach out and squeeze his knee. “Okay, you can kiss me again.”
Abe’s face lights up, and he grins at me like Christmas and his birthday came all at once. And then he kisses me again.
12
Dating Abe is an experience like I had never imagined.
Abe’s number-one concern in life seems to be Making Heather Happy. It’s almost overwhelming. Even if it was three in the morning, even if he was studying, even if there was snow and hail and a tornado outside, all I had to do was let out a small sigh and he’d race out to buy me a little present to cheer me up. (Not that I’d let him go out in a tornado or anything. I’m not that high maintenance.)
And the flowers… Dear God, the flowers. I don’t know how Abe got the combination to my locker, but I start finding flowers waiting for me almost every day. What baffles me further is how he finds time to put them in there, considering we spend nearly every waking minute together.
I also love that he is such a gentleman. One day, when we walked into the parking lot at school, there were puddles all over the ground from an earlier rainstorm. I mentioned I was worried about getting my shoes wet, so Abe scooped me up off my feet. A few times when I was dating Landon, he picked me up to carry me to bed, and he always grunted and strained like he was carrying a baby elephant. But Abe didn’t even break a sweat as he trotted across the parking lot with me in his arms to deliver me to my car with perfectly dry shoes.
Of course, the crux of every med school relationship is studying, and Abe and I are no exception. More nights than not are spent lying in Abe’s bed, textbooks in our laps, my legs crossed over his. Those are the times I like best.
The second anatomy exam is much less painful than the first, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t thanks to studying with Abe. We study pretty much every night he doesn’t work at the clinic. It makes me feel a bit like a loser that it took Landon’s tutoring to get me through premed courses in college, and now Abe is carrying me through anatomy.
“I think I’m holding you back,” I sometimes say to Abe when I’m feeling especially guilty.
“No way,” Abe insists. “I learn the material better when I go over it with you.”
It could be true, although I suspect he’d help me even if it weren’t. The fact that Abe has a part-time job on top of med school is unthinkable to me. How is it possible that he’s balancing a job on top of the mountain of work we have to do for school? All I can think is that his brain must be wired differently.
That or he’s got a little helper in the form of pills.
No. No way. Abe isn’t on drugs. I’d know if he were, and he just… he isn’t. He wouldn’t. I’m sure of it. I’d sooner believe he’s some sort of cyborg sent from the future with the singular purpose to excel in anatomy.
This time, I wait until the grades are posted rather than stalking Dr. Conlon in his office. I make Abe come with me for moral support, although he’s oddly uninterested in his own grade. The grades are listed on a piece of paper by our mailboxes, although thankfully, our names aren’t used. We each have a five-digit ID number to locate our grades. I scan the list until I find my ID number then let out a little involuntary squeal when I see my grade: seventy-six.
That’s a pass! Not even a low pass! It’s a bona fide pass!
I throw my arms around Abe, an action that might have knocked down a smaller man. But Abe just laughs and hugs me back. Then it turns into at least a minute of making out. When we finally separate, I cry, “I passed!”
“I figured that much,” he says with a grin.
“Not even a low pass,” I say proudly. Although I feel a little silly for being proud of what is essentially a C. “How did you do?”
I assumed he’d have done better than me, so I was prepared for that. What I wasn’t prepared for is the confused expression on his face.
“Oh,” he says. “I guess I should check.”
What the hell? How could we be standing a foot away from our midterm grades, but he didn’t even bother to look at his own grade?
“A ninety-one,” Abe announces. He shrugs. “Pretty good, I guess.”
“Pretty good?” I repeat, astonished. “Abe, that’s awesome! That’s honors.”
“Yeah,” he says and allows himself the tiniest of smiles. Although I can see in his eyes that he truly doesn’t care.
And that is just super weird, folks.
13
Although I’d been looking forward to Thanksgiving break as a reprieve from school, it ends up leaving me more exhausted than anything. My parents were in rare form and managed to pick on me nonstop nearly the entire long weekend. For example, the second I walked into the door of my parents’ house, my mother hugged me and said, “Heather, your hair smells.”
I had just been driving for nearly six hours straight, and that was definitely not what I wanted or needed to hear.
Besides, I had showered just before I left. Between you and me, the smell never entirely comes out of my hair. I looked online for solutions and had tried vinegar, tomato juice, Coca-Cola, and even baking soda, but nothing quite gets out the formaldehyde. I barely even notice it anymore. And that worries me more than anything.
After we finally got off the subject of my hair, my mother gave me the third degree about my wonderful new boyfriend. Abe and I had toyed with the idea of him coming to my house for the holidays or vice versa, but we decided our parents would have a fit. But as my mother grilled me, I desperately wished Abe were standing by my side. If only to look imposing.
I leave early on Saturday morning, and it’s not a moment too soon—I can’t wait to see my boyfriend. When I get back to the dorms, I barely take a second to throw my bags in the room and glance at my reflection in the hall mirror. I’m wearing a tight tank top and a pair of straight-cut blue jeans, which seem good enough. I suspect Abe would be okay with it if I showed up wearing a potato sack.
I kick off my boots and slide sandals over my bare feet and hurry upstairs to Abe’s apartment. Usually, we meet at my apartment because his is truly disgusting. A few weeks ago, I walked into the living room, and there was a dead roach lying right in the middle of the floor. I pointed it out, and to my surprise, Mason and Abe seemed to already know it was there.
“It’s a warning to other roaches,” Mason explained. “So they know what will happen to them if they come in here.”
Abe just looked embarrassed and scooped up the roach with a paper towel.
Anyway, roaches or not, I’m too excited to see Abe, and I don’t want to wait around downstairs. I knock on the door, and Mason answers.
So here’s the weird part: Mason always seems really put together, but right now, he looks awful. His hair is sticking straight up, and it looks like he hasn’t washed it in weeks. He’s wearing a DeWitt Med T-shirt that has a big brown stain on the front of it, and it smells worse than my hair. He’s got several days’ worth of stubble on his face, and those gorgeous hazel eyes are bloodshot.
“Mason?” I say.
I almost ask him if he’s drunk.
Or on drugs.
Mason blinks at me a few times, like he’s trying to place me. I practically expect him to ask me my name. Then his eyes narrow.
“What do you want?”
I’ve never known anyone in my life who was on drugs. But when I look at Mason, that’s my only thought: This guy is definitely on something. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.
But it’s none of my business.
“Uh…” I squeeze my fists together. “I just came to see Abe.”
Mason frowns for a minute.
“Oh.” His shoulders sag. “Right. Of course. He’s in the shower.”
“He is?”
The bathroom door is just off to the right, and there’s a puff of steam wafting out from underneath.
“Yeah,” Mason says. And then he adds, sounding very much like his usual self, “But I’m sure he wouldn’t mind some company.”
He smiles at me then, and before I can question his appearance any further, he slips out the door to the apartment.
Mason had an intriguing idea. How hot would it be if I get into the shower with Abe? Of course, it would be a bit of a surprise, but what guy wouldn’t get turned on by something like that?
I’m going to do it!
I go down the hall, gently opening the door to the bathroom, and silently slip into the room. Once inside, I blink several times as my vision clouds with steam. The mirrors are completely fogged over so that I can’t even make out my own reflection. Abe’s voice echoes from behind the white shower curtain, softly humming a tune. It sounds like Journey.
I pull my shirt over my head and wiggle out of my jeans, accompanied by my panties. I then unhook my bra. Finally, I’m totally naked in the middle of the bathroom, the steam curling my hair, becoming very aroused by the idea that Abe is naked, too, just beyond the shower curtains.
And then I happen to look down.
I hadn’t noticed Abe’s blue scrubs lying on the floor of the bathroom when I came into the room. But I get an eyeful of them now. They look different from the way they do in the anatomy lab.
They are covered in reddish-brown stains, which are still slightly damp.
What is that? It looks like… well, like blood. But it couldn’t be. If Abe had that much blood on his clothes, he’d be dead.
Or someone else would be dead.
I crouch down, trying to get a closer look at the stains. But I knock my elbow into the sink, and although I manage to stifle a cry of pain, the sound alerts Abe to my presence. He opens the shower curtain and discovers me standing there.
“What are you doing?” he cries.
“I… I…” I stammer.
“I’m in the shower!” he shouts at me. Well, duh. “You need to… to get out!”
“But—”
“Get out!” He really is screaming this time. I can see the veins standing out in his neck, and his right eye is twitching slightly. “Now!”
I nearly slip on a puddle of water as I fumble to put my clothes back on. I’m so embarrassed. As I pull my tank top over my head, I notice that the pattern of water droplets sounds different. The downpour of water is steady now—Abe isn’t moving in the shower. He’s just standing still, waiting for me to leave.
What the hell is going on?
I’m tempted to storm out of the room and go home, but curiosity and confusion keep me there. What were those stains on his scrubs? It would have been easier to believe it was something innocent if not for the way he reacted. I sit on his ratty futon couch, avoiding a rather large new coffee stain, and wait for Abe to finish his shower. I will never forget the tone of Abe’s voice. I’ve never heard him sound that way. He was furious but also something else, something even more perplexing:
He sounded terrified.
A minute later, the flow of water stops, and Abe emerges from the bathroom with one towel around his waist and another clutched in his hands. His usually pale face is very red and not just from the steam of the shower. He can barely make eye contact with me.
“Give me a second to get dressed,” he says. “Okay?”
While he’s in the bedroom changing, I sneak into the bathroom to see if the scrubs are still there. They aren’t. But since he wasn’t holding them when he came out of the bathroom, that means he must have wrapped them in a towel. Again, very strange.
Abe emerges from the bedroom wearing a clean pair of jeans and a baggy green T-shirt. The second I see him, I blurt out, “What’s going on, Abe?”
Abe doesn’t say anything right away. He sinks onto the couch beside me. “What do you mean?”
“What were those stains on your scrubs?”
“What?”
He’s stalling for time, pretending he has no idea what I’m talking about. So I tell him my suspicions, just to see his face. “It looked like blood.”
His face grows several shades paler. That’s not the reaction I was hoping for. I wanted him to laugh like I’d said something preposterous. Scrubs covered with several pints of blood? How could you think something so silly?
“I was helping Dr. Kovak with a procedure at the clinic,” he explains. “It… it got a little messy.”
And then I notice his hands. More specifically, I notice his fingernails. There’s a dark-brown substance caked into the nails that didn’t entirely come out in the shower.
“You weren’t wearing gloves during the procedure?” I ask.
He stammers out some sort of explanation that doesn’t make any sense. Whatever he said, it’s so clear that he’s lying to me. Except why?
“What were you doing, Abe?” I say.
His eyes drop, avoiding mine. “Just working.”
“You swear?”
His shoulders heave. “I swear.”
I have given him every chance to tell me the truth about what he was doing. And he’s still lying through his teeth.
14
I hardly see Abe for the next few days. He’s clearly avoiding me.
I’m too agitated to study. How can I? Every time I try to concentrate on anatomy, I start imagining what Abe could possibly be hiding from me. Why were his clothes covered in blood? Why was it caked into his nails?
When I get home from class today, I discover a huge basket of flowers that takes up half my bed. A lavender card is embedded between two lilies, and I open it up to see Abe’s handwriting: Please forgive me.
Rachel is lying in my bed with headphones over her ears. She pulls them off and makes a face.
“I think your boyfriend is single-handedly supporting the flower industry.”
I bring my nose close to the bouquet to inhale the scent. I love lilies, and Abe knows it. And the fact that he doesn't have much money to drop on flowers makes the gesture even sweeter. I almost feel guilty.
Almost.
“Seriously,” Rachel says, “will you just forgive him already? Before I asphyxiate from all the pollen?”
I stare at my roommate in surprise. “You approve of my relationship with Abe? I can’t believe it.”
Rachel shrugs. “Well, he appears to make you happy and… I guess he’s not as horrible as most guys.” She shakes her head. “So what despicable thing did he do to piss you off anyway?”
I just shake my head. I wish I could tell Rachel everything. But even though we’ve been living together for months, I don’t trust Rachel. Especially since I’m fairly sure she’s hooking up with someone in the class, and she won’t tell me who. She frequently disappears late into the night and returns with her hair disheveled and a secret smile on her face. I asked her about it once, and she told me she didn’t have time for silly things like sex.
Anyway, this is Abe’s secret, and I don’t want to share it with just anybody, even if I don’t know what it is.
Instead, I leave the flowers on the bed and drive back to the hospital. I’ve got to talk to someone about this. But Abe is my best friend at this school—really, my only close friend. So there’s one other person who comes to mind that I can confide in.
