by Camryn Eyde
When put like that it did sound like a whole lot of sacrifice for very little reward. “Yes?”
Taylor narrowed shrewd-looking eyes. “She likes you, doesn’t she?”
“Likes me?” I burst out laughing. “Oh, yeah, I’m her favorite person ever. She just loves me.” I kept chuckling, but at Taylor’s continued silence, I stopped. “No, Tay. She doesn’t like me.”
Taylor cocked her head and smirked. She wouldn’t explain that look, and left, making me promise to never do anything as low again, and demanded I apologize to Olivia.
I went to bed that night feeling like a monster. I had become the Scrooge of relationships. Taylor was right. I used her, I used Olivia, and I even used Charli, just to find out if I could make Taylor jealous. The answer was yes, but I got no satisfaction from it. I got nothing but a bucket load of guilt that didn’t mix well with the amount of Christmas pie I ate.
Rubbing at my churning stomach, and unable to sleep, I reached my hand out into the cold air and snatched my phone from the side table.
“Darcy?” Olivia said, answering.
“Hi.”
“Why are you calling?”
“Accidental dial.”
Silence.
Chuckling, I said, “I called to say Merry Christmas. Did you have a good day?”
Her answer hesitated. “It was like any other Christmas, I suppose.”
Having no idea what that meant, I asked, “So what did you do today? Was Santa kind to you?”
“I visited some people and ate roast chicken, and I don’t believe in Santa.”
“Wow…thrilling,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“How are your parents?”
“They’re good. They asked where you were. So did Taylor and Charli.” Olivia didn’t respond. “She kissed me.”
“What? Who did?”
“Taylor kissed me. Sort of.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Congratulations are in order, I suppose.”
“Mmm. I guess.”
“Was that not what you wanted?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t a happy ending.”
“She’s a bad kisser?”
“Uh…” I couldn’t help but compare Olivia’s kiss to Taylor’s one from the moment it happened. There was a clear victor if I had to be the judge of the best female kisser of the year. It broke my heart to know that it wasn’t my best friend that would emerge the victor. “She tried to seduce me.”
Silence. Then, “You are aware she has a girlfriend?”
“Very.”
“So did you let her?”
“Seduce me? No.” I took a deep breath and sighed. “She’s in love with Charli.”
“So what is she doing trying to get into your pants?”
“She…uh…was trying to give herself to me as a present.”
“Excuse me?”
“Umm…”
Olivia scoffed. “Why you have a crush on a clearly emotionally-challenged woman is completely lost on me.”
I sighed. It seems crushing on unavailable women was my thing. First Taylor, then Olivia, I thought. I gasped and shook my head. No. Not possible. Swallowing my wayward thoughts, I changed tack. “She asked if we’d slept together.”
“As if that’s any of her business.”
I smirked. That was an odd response. “I told her no.”
Olivia scoffed.
“What?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t say we did it three times a day. Apparently you have no problems sullying your morals, but when it comes to your virtue, you’re sickeningly pure.”
“My morals aren’t sullied, thank you very much.”
“Faking that you have a girlfriend to make your best friend, who also has a girlfriend, jealous. No, that sounds perfectly reasonable.”
I scowled into the phone. “Okay, so they’re a little…dented.”
“Train wreck, more like.”
“Fine. Whatever. None of it matters anymore anyway. She knows the truth.”
“That you’re a coward hiding behind a lie?”
I took a deep breath. “Yes. I told her that I used you to make her jealous.”
Olivia was quiet for a moment. “Oh?” Olivia cleared her throat quietly. “Good. I hope you made it clear you blackmailed me into it. I’m not having my reputation tarnished because of your pathetic plan.”
I sighed. “Yes, she’s aware it was my stupid plan. She’s already lectured me and demanded I apologize to you.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I felt a headache coming on. “I’d prefer to do it in person. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
“Can’t wait,” she purred sarcastically.
“Night, honey-bun,” I said, poking the wounded bear.
I could practically hear her grimace and then she hung up on me.
Chuckling, I tucked my phone under my pillow and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Seven
In my bag was the most precious possession I owned, and now, it was about to be the only peace offering I thought would be good enough. Returning to Boston on New Year’s Eve, I arrived back at the apartment just before the sun set.
“Honey, I’m home,” I called out as I bustled my way into the flat.
“Oh, hurray,” came the flat response from somewhere in the apartment.
I frowned and looked around for my sullen roommate. “Olivia?”
“Yes?”
Yelping, I clutched at my chest in fright, Olivia having popped up from behind the kitchen counter. “God, I hope you remember CPR, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already suffered one from all the rubbish you ingest.”
“I don’t eat junk food all the time.”
She gave me a dubious glare.
Letting my head fall forward as I grunted in frustration, I gave myself a big cheery welcome home in my head and trudged to my bedroom. The old leather case I retrieved from my bag could wait until Olivia wasn’t being…well…Olivia. Peace offerings required a certain mood, and like hell I was going to hand her something precious while she was being a facetious bovine.
“Are you doing anything special tonight?” I asked Olivia when she finished her evening meal of ravioli. I munched on my takeaway Thai curry waiting for her to answer.
“It’s just another night.”
“It’s New Year’s Eve.” I picked up my beer and toasted her before washing down a mouthful of food. “Want some beer?” I asked for the second time.
“I still don’t drink.”
“So you said, but it’s New Year’s Eve.” She glared at me. I gave up. “So…” I started after we had cleaned up after finishing our respective dinners. “What do you usually do on New Year’s? Do you stay up? Watch the fireworks on TV? Go to bed early?”
“I read.”
Of course she did. “Oh? What do you read? Anatomy textbooks?” I asked, trying to sound interested as I shot the TV with the remote. It came to life and I quickly muted it.
“A book,” she said as she entered the bathroom.
I looked over at her and put down the instructions for my new wireless headphones my parents got me for Christmas. “A book?”
“Yes.”
“Called…?”
She didn’t answer as the sound of her brushing her teeth came from the bathroom. After rinsing and turning off the tap, she said as she emerged, “None of your business.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sounds like a thrilling read.”
“It is. Good night.”
“Night. Happy New Year.”
She gave me a weary look and closed her bedroom door. I sneered at the wooden barrier for a moment. Why did I have to say sorry to her again?
My movie finished just shy of midnight. It was a motivational rom-com about second chances and friendship and family and all the mushy stuff that warmed the cockles of the heart. Packing away th
e headphones and flicking over to the live feed from New York, I grabbed another beer and noticed Olivia still had the light on in her room.
Biting my lip, I decided it was time.
Putting down my bottle, I retrieved the leather bag from my room and knocked softly on her door. I had no intentions of making a loud banging noise in case she was asleep, lights and all.
“Yes?” her muted voice called out.
I cracked open the door and poked my head around. “Hi. Can I come in for a moment?”
She sighed. “If you must.” She put her book down after checking the page number and I glanced at the title.
“Harry Potter? Seriously?” The look on her face told me to shut the hell up or I’ll be sorry. “Anyway,” I said quickly. “Umm…here.” I handed her the bag. “I want to thank you for pretending to be my girlfriend. That, and I wanted to give you something for Christmas. You know…because it’s the season to give and all that.” I tapped on the case. “I thought of you when I saw this.” And I had. Rummaging through my closet for my snow shoes, I had found the worn case and thought of how much Olivia would appreciate the contents. If anyone was geeky enough to cherish this, it was her. “Anyway. It’s yours. Merry Christmas and thank you and sorry.”
She looked at the bag warily. “It’s a doctor’s bag,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Yes. From the eighteen hundreds. Open it.”
She did…carefully. Inside were restored instruments of a nineteenth-century surgeon. It had been my pride and joy for nearly two decades. After saving Taylor’s life when she was a child, the doctor gave it to me as a reward, complimenting me on my cool head and encouraging me to consider medicine in my future. Since then, the bag had been my talisman to achieve that goal.
Olivia’s hand had covered her mouth when she saw what was inside. “It’s beautiful.”
“I know,” I said, tracing my finger over one of the old ivory-handled scalpels.
“I can’t. It’s too much.”
I shook my head and stilled the hands she was using to push the bag back at me. “No, it’s just enough. You helped shield my fears from my friend while giving me the courage to try and express my feelings for her. You didn’t have to come to Minnesota, but you did, and for that, I’m grateful.”
“You told her how you felt?”
I lowered my gaze. “Yeah. It was about then that she admitted she was in love with Charli, and I realized I didn’t feel the same about her anymore.”
“So why did she try to seduce you?”
I laughed wryly through my nose. “Who knows. I didn’t get around to asking because she was too busy tearing me a new one.”
Olivia shook her head and looked once again at the surgery kit. “I can’t accept this.”
“Yes, you can.”
She shook her head even more adamantly. “No. You can barely afford food, I won’t let you give me a gift that’s clearly worth—”
“I didn’t buy it for you. I’ve had that kit for nearly twenty years.”
“You’ve had this since you were a child?”
I nodded. “Yes. And now I’m giving it to you. No returns.”
Olivia bit her lip and looked at the bag longingly. “It is beautiful.”
I smiled. “Yes.” The sound of soft cheers from the TV reached us, and the soft pop of fireworks from outside permeated the walls. “Happy New Year.”
Olivia smiled at me. Not one of those carnivorous ones to placate me, but a genuine smile complete with shining eyes. It was beautiful. I was definitely a little bit in lust with her. Just my luck. “Happy New Year,” she said in return, her eyes lingering on mine.
I leaned in and heard her breath hitch. “What are you doing?” she asked as I paused a few inches from her mouth.
“Kissing you?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s New Year. It’s tradition.”
She put her hands on my chest and shoved. “I don’t think so.” And just like that, the mood popped.
Raking my hand through my hair and realizing my pulled back style was an abysmal mess from laying on the couch, I stood and huffed. “Fine. Good night.”
She was staring at me as I looked back when I closed the door, a thoughtful expression on her face. Tired and unwilling to try and decipher it, I took myself to bed.
We had five days left of the Christmas break, and then it was back to the medical grindstone. Quickly, I was knee-deep in policy, epidemiology and back to doing patient-doctor rounds. Before Christmas, I did my rounds with three other potential doctors. One girl, Susan Childs, had a tendency to throw up whenever a patient did, and she often squealed when handling organs during our anatomy classes. I wasn’t surprised to find that Susan hadn’t come back to Harvard Medical School. What did surprise me was the loss of eight other students for reasons we speculated on over lunch. Financial difficulties and a change of heart were the front-runners. In one case, there was a rumor a student won the lotto and retired overseas at the tender age of twenty-six. I was smiling about that when our new patient-doctor groups were allocated thanks to the drop in numbers.
I was still in a group with Olivia. Great. Miss Pedantic herself. After previously spending time watching how the patient inquiries were done, and being allowed to ask simple questions, this time, we were upgrading to doctor interrogation level.
Knowing there was nothing I could do about watching Olivia boss her way through her patient inquiries, I stood back and prepared to grimace when Dr. Fredricks asked her to talk to the first patient on our rounds.
She was a little old lady with cute curly hair. Poor innocent victim number one.
“Good morning,” Olivia said to her. “How are you today Mrs. Lindsay?”
“My stomach hurts like a bitch, my head is pounding and I have cramp in my ass. How do you think I am?” Mrs. Lindsay said with a scowl. Feisty woman.
I looked around to the rest of my training group. Henriquez Paolo, a man with a Spanish accent, snickered into his doctor’s coat. The other woman, new to our group and rather attractive, looked at me and winked. I flushed but managed a smile back at her before watching the drama unfold at the bedside.
“Have you had pains like this before?” Olivia asked.
“Yes, every time I eat that idiotic man’s fish stew.” She pointed to a man trying to blend into the cubicle curtains. “That ain’t nothing but poison, you silly old coot. Mamma’s secret recipe, you say. What’d she use it for? To top off your old man?”
The man poked his tongue out at his wife. Useful.
Olivia looked at her chart. “You’ve been suffering from diarrhea and vomiting since last night?”
“Yes. Thanks to his efforts to kill me.”
Olivia ignored the bitter woman’s accusations. “I suspect, Mrs. Lindsay, that you have an intolerance to something in the dish. You’re severely dehydrated, so I suggest we put you on fluids, give you something for the nausea and something to relax the muscles in your rectum.”
“My what?”
Olivia leaned forward and said, “Your ass, Mrs. Lindsay.”
“Oh. Well why didn’t you just say that? All that fancy doctor talk is just showing off. I ain’t dumb, lady!”
Olivia smiled at the undeserving woman. A smile that had me copying her. It wasn’t one of those sneers often directed at me, but something warm and caring. I didn’t think she had it in her. “We’ll have you fighting fit in no time, however, I suggest you avoid the fish stew in future. I also highly recommend you study the ingredients in it and pinpoint which one you react to just in case you get more than a case of food poisoning next time.”
We left Mr. and Mrs. Lindsay to the argument that ensued after those suggestions and continued our rounds. Each time we did patient-doctor inquiries after that, Olivia proved to me each and every time that she was going to be a remarkable doctor. She was by far the winner of the bedside manner competition. The fact that she correctly diagnosed everyone had her rank
ed at the top of the class. She was a show off with a multiple personality disorder.
The new girl in our rotation group was Kara Adelman and she had a winking fetish. At least, that’s what I figured because she winked at me quite often over the next few weeks. Her hair was flame-red and clearly out of a bottle, and her eyes mismatched it by being dark brown. Her skin was pale and freckly, but by no means unattractive. Especially with those short skirts she wore in direct opposition to the frigid weather. Her legs were marvelous and she had noticed me look at them more than once. Mortifying.
In anatomy lab, she was in the group at the gurney beside the group Olivia and I were in, and often I’d look up to see her watching me. I couldn’t decide whether it was creepy or flattering.
“Will you pay attention?” Olivia had hissed at me once, moving into my sight line and making me realize I’d been staring at Kara for longer than socially acceptable. Olivia’s annoyance of me paying Kara attention had been escalating for weeks, and she’d been intercepting a lot of our silent exchanges. Taylor was right, she was controlling. My eyes took a familiar road over her body when she went back to studying Dolores’ heart. Olivia had worn a very low-cut top today, and in retrospect, they had been getting lower by the day. I looked up just in time to catch Olivia giving me the evil eye. I’m sure she’s going to smother me in my sleep eventually. In fact, I was positive she would when, once again, I had landed firmly on her bad side. “What?” I had snapped back at her once in a whisper on our patient rounds. Olivia was giving me the displeased look because, once again, I was caught looking at Kara’s legs…by both women. “I’m being friendly.”
Olivia had pulled me up as Kara, Susan, Henriquez and Dr. Fredricks moved onto the next patient. “You’re being a distinct perv.”
I burst out laughing and quickly reigned the noise in as a nurse walked past glaring at me. “I am not a hussy,” I whispered back.
“Are you really that deprived of intimacy, that you’re now throwing yourself at anyone that looks interested?”