When I get back to the dorm, there’s only one person I want to talk to and that’s Seth. Okay, things haven’t been super great with him lately, but that’s about to change. I’m going to make an effort to make it work from now on. Maybe next weekend, I’ll drive out to see him.
Before reaching for my phone, I pull a photo of Seth out of the drawer by my bed. In the picture, he’s lying on his bed, his curly brown hair tousled, grinning with those adorable dimples at the camera. It’s like I’ve somehow almost forgotten what he looked like. I trace my fingertip over the curves of his face, trying to remember how much I care about him.
I do. I know I do. Even though he’s sort of been a jerk lately.
I place the photo on my pillow and flop onto my stomach so that I can gaze lovingly at the picture while I call him. I dial the number and wait for him to pick up. It takes seven and a half rings and he answers just when I’m certain the voicemail will pick up. What is he always doing that he can’t manage to answer the phone in the first few rings?
“Hey,” Seth says.
“Hi, it’s me,” I say.
Thank God, he doesn’t ask who “me” is. And hallelujah, it doesn’t sound like there are any girls laughing in the background. Seth is all alone for a change. We can have a real conversation.
This relationship could work. It’s going to work. Two hundred plus miles isn’t so far for true love. Seth and I have the kind of love they make Disney movies about. I would be… well, I don’t really see myself as a Disney princess. Maybe, I don’t know, Sleeping Beauty because I’m just that tired right now. And Seth would be… whatever the prince that Sleeping Beauty fell in love with was called. Prince Charming? Prince Charles? Well, it doesn’t really matter. The princes are all kind of interchangeable.
“Hi…” Seth says.
He sounds… oddly serious. But whatever, I’m not going to obsess for once. I prefer Serious Seth to the apathetic guy he’s been lately.
“So guess what? I passed my anatomy exam!” I almost get chills when I say it.
“That’s great… I knew you would.”
He did? It sounded like he was certain I’d bomb it. But whatever, I’m not going to pick a fight.
“So… I thought maybe we could celebrate this weekend,” I say, circling his face on the photo with my index finger. I didn’t even notice until now how bitten up my fingernails are. “I could drive in Friday night…”
“I don’t know if this weekend is good,” Seth mumbles.
“Why not?”
There’s a long pause on the other line. What’s going on? “Seth?”
“I just…” he sighs loudly. “I don’t know what we’re doing anymore. I mean, is this enjoyable for you?”
“It’s not about enjoyment,” I say. “I want to be with you. We both knew the long distance thing was going to be hard.”
“But… shouldn’t it be about enjoyment? I mean, we’re twenty-two years old. Why shouldn’t we be able to enjoy ourselves?”
Seth might be the love of my life. But at that moment, I hate the bastard.
“I mean, if this isn’t making us happy…”
He’s dumping me. He’s dumping me! How is this possible? Over three years we’ve been together! How could he? We love each other, damn it! Unless…
“Is there someone else?”
“No… well, not really,” Seth stammers. And now I really hate him. “There are other… I mean, aren’t there guys at school that you’re interested in?”
“No,” I say, although I can’t help but think of Mason.
“I’m sure there are.”
“Fuck you,” I say.
There’s a long silence on the other line. I grip the phone in my fist, not wanted to be the one to break the silence. If I talk first, he wins. I can’t let him win.
“I need to go study now,” Seth finally says.
He wants to hang up. He’s not going to insist that I hang up first, and then tease me when I tell him he has to hang up first. He just wants to be rid of me.
“Fine, go study.” I don’t wait for a reply. I hang up the phone and hurl it across the room. It smashes against the wall and I hear a resounding crack.
Well, that was a dumb thing to do.
I feel numb. I want to cry, but the tears just aren’t coming. I blink and sniffle, but still… nothing. I lift my face from my hands and hug my knees to my chest. It’s been so long since I’ve seen Seth—this all seems so surreal. It almost feels like I could call him up now and he’d still be my boyfriend.
Well, if something as small as being apart for a month could break us up, obviously it wasn’t true love. We weren’t Sleeping Beauty and Prince Whatever. We’re just two people who dated a while in college and broke up when life got in the way.
I suddenly feel very restless. I pace across the bedroom a few times, then I grab my keys off my desk and head out the door. I get to the stairwell, but instead of going downstairs, towards the exit, I found myself going upstairs.
Abe lives upstairs—one flight up, to be exact. But I’m not looking for Abe right now. I’m looking for his roommate.
Mason. No matter what other negative things I could say about him (and there are many), that guy is very, very attractive. He has those hazel eyes and that killer grin. When he gets into the hospital as a third year, the nurses are going to go wild for him. He’ll probably sleep with half the hospital staff.
An hour with Mason will help me forget about Seth. Mason is like the perfect rebound guy—he’s hot and I don’t care about him at all. And he looks like he’d be up for a little no strings attached action. Plus I’m pretty sure all hot guys are at least halfway decent in bed, if only because they get a lot of experience.
I stand outside the door to Mason and Abe’s dorm room, taking inventory of my appearance and working up my nerve. Okay, I don’t look amazing or anything. I don’t think I have a scrap of make-up on, but at least I’m showered and wearing clean clothes, even if my jeans and sweater aren’t outright sexy.
Maybe I should go back upstairs and put on some lip gloss. Of course, if I do, I’ll probably chicken out. Oh God, this is scary. How do you hit on a guy?
I knock timidly. Once.
I hear footsteps and it’s pretty obvious that those resounding thumps belong to Abe. Crap. How am I going to explain to him that I want to hook up with his roommate? Before I have a chance to think about it, the door swings open.
Abe’s face lights up when he sees me. “Hey, Heather.”
“Oh, hi…” I wrack my brain to think of a believable reason why I’d need to talk to Mason. I draw a blank.
Abe raises his red-orange eyebrows at me. “What’s up?”
I swallow. “Is… is Mason home?”
Abe frowns. I wonder if he has any idea what I’m thinking. “No, he’s probably at the library. He’s always at the library.”
Damn. “Oh.”
Abe steps aside. “Are you okay, Heather? Do you want to come in?”
I really like Abe, don’t get me wrong. But I came here for a booty call, and now that it’s not going to happen, I feel completely deflated. Still, Abe can lend a sympathetic ear, at least. And I’m clearly not going to get any studying done.
I’ve never been inside Abe’s dorm room before, and let me tell you, their living room is disgusting. I mean, really disgusting. There are two empty pizza boxes and a few half-full beer bottles on their coffee table, and I can see a partially-eaten crust abandoned under the table. I scan the floor for insects or rodents and can’t find any, but I do spot a pair of boxer shorts hanging off the edge of their ratty, stained futon sofa. Abe is nice enough to yank it off.
“Sorry,” he says, blushing. “Not mine.”
I’m seriously considering asking him to put a blanket on the futon so that I don’t have to sit on it directly. Of course, yesterday I was elbow-deep in Frank’s intestines, so maybe I shouldn’t be such a diva. I plop myself down between a brown and a yellow stain, and bury my face
in my palms in an overly dramatic gesture.
I feel Abe’s large hand fall on my back. He rubs my shoulder gently.
“Heather,” he murmurs. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
I just shake my head. To say it will make it real.
“Come on, Heather,” he says. “It’s me.”
Finally, his kindness gets the better of me. I start sobbing, mourning for three lost years of a guy I thought I was going to marry someday. I’m definitely not going to marry him now. I may even hate him.
Abe just sits with me, rubbing my back, eventually getting up to fetch me some tissues (well, toilet paper). I’m glad it’s just Abe with me because I am not attractive when I’m crying. My eyes swell up and my nose is clogged with fresh snot. Good thing Mason isn’t here to see this.
Abe scoops up the hand that isn’t holding snotty tissues and squeezes it in his own. He could easily crush my hand in his, but his touch is surprisingly gentle.
“Talk to me, Heather,” he says again.
“Seth 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. But 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.”
I shake my head. “Um, yeah, I think I could.”
“No,” he says. 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. Seth 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,” I comment. At least this took my mind off Seth.
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 ever 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 crazy 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.
Chapter 13
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 little 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 Seth, he picked me up to carry me to bed or something, 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.
Abe is so attentive to me that I have to wonder how long he had been saving up all this romance. I want to ask him about other girls he’s been with, but I don’t want to seem jealous or nosy. It has to be done delicately.
“So, um,” I say, one day while we’re lying in bed together studying. “Do you usually date girls with blond hair?”
“Usually?” Abe laughs.
“Well, you know,” I say. “Compared with brunettes.”
“Um,” Abe says.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Am I your first blonde?”
“You could say that, yes.”
Why is he being so evasive? He’s not playing fair. He already knows all about Seth, the only major significant relationship in my life besides a few silly high school boys.
“So… how many brunettes?”
“Brunettes?” He scratches his head.
Amazingly, I’ve grown to really love the color of his hair. It’s so red, it doesn’t seem like it could possibly be natural, but he assured me it is and the roots back up his story.
“I guess there haven’t been any brunettes either.”
“Redheads?”
Abe shakes his head.
I can’t think of any more hair colors.
“So, um, does that mean I’m your first girlfriend?”
“I guess so…” He lowers his eyes. “Is that really bad? You’re looking at me like it’s bad.”
“It’s not bad,” I say thoughtfully. “It’s just… unusual, that’s all. I mean, you’re almost twenty-three.”
“I suck around girls,” Abe admits, sitting up in bed. “If you hadn’t come to my room that night, I’d probably have spent the next four years pining after you.”
Something suddenly occurs to me.
“Wait, does that mean you’re still a virgin?”
Not to get all TMI, but our physical relationship has been proceeding at a snail’s pace. We kiss, of course. And on two occasions, Abe copped a very tentative feel before quickly yanking his hand away as if I might get offended. And that was it. I don’t mind going slow or anything… I feel like it would be too strange to jump from being physical with Seth to being physical with Abe.
But this is a bit too slow. Eve
n for me.
But even though Abe seems so frightened of taking that next step, it had never occurred to me before that I might be his first. I just assumed that sooner or later, one way or another, every guy finds a way to have sex. Seth sure wasn’t a virgin when we started dating, and he was only eighteen. Neither was I.
Abe shifts uncomfortably, “Well, yeah… I am.”
“Really?” I ask, completely dumbfounded.
I’ve been with two other guys. One was Seth and one was a stupid high school relationship. I slept with my high school boyfriend on prom night because I didn’t want to be one of those losers that started college as a virgin. But now I feel like the town whore.
“Is it a big deal?” he asks anxiously.
“Of course not,” I assure him.
In college, my girlfriends always told me that a guy who’s never had a girlfriend is a major red flag, but I thought they were being silly. It doesn't matter that Abe never had a girlfriend before. It will just make our relationship all the more special to him.
As it turns out, I should have listened to them.
Chapter 14
I stare into the yellow, empty skull of their cadaver. We removed the brain days earlier and now I can see all the nerves projecting from the empty cranial cavity. I look back and forth from the lab manual to the cadaver, trying to match up the drawing with the real life image.
This is hopeless.
“I have no idea what’s what,” I finally announce.
Mason grins at me. “Need some help?”
“No…” I look back at the skull and bite my lip. “Okay, yes.”
Mason expertly points out the different cranial nerves to me, starting with the olfactory nerve and ending with the hypoglossal nerve. We just started learning the cranial nerves yesterday and already Mason knows it like the back of his hand. What’s with him? How does he master the material so quickly? He’s some kind of insane anatomy genius.
“There’s a mnemonic for remembering the twelve cranial nerves,” he says. “Ooh Ooh Ooh, To Touch And Feel Vinnie’s Girlfriend’s Vagina. Ah, Heaven.”
“Do you mind?” Rachel speaks up irritably. She’s helping Ginny dissect the right side of the neck, but she still manages to flash Mason a disgusted expression. “I’m sure there’s a way to remember the cranial nerves that doesn’t involve fingering a woman.”
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