Chapter 9

Our first anatomyexam is today. I didn't sleep at all last night.

I meant to sleep. Believe me, it wasn't my intention at the beginning of the night to stay awake for twenty-four hours straight and leave myself feeling like I'm about to collapse.

I went to the library yesterday after spending several hours in the lab, going over anatomy. Abe insisted that I leave with him at midnight, and I did it only because I knew he wouldn't go until I did. But when I got back to my room, I continued studying. My room looks like an anatomy tornado hit. Every time I even contemplated closing my textbooks, it just seemed like there was too much that I didn't know. By four in the morning, it just felt pointless to try to sleep.

I'm pretty tired.

At eight a.m., I change into my green scrubs and join the large group of my classmates in front of the anatomy lab, waiting for the practical portion of the exam to begin. I can almost see the nervous energy radiating from the group. I showered this morning, but it's obvious many of my classmates didn't bother. We're a pretty scruffy crew.

You could probably fill a small lake with the amount of coffee we've had to drink this morning. Several dozen of us are clutching identical white Styrofoam cups. This is my fourth cup in the last two hours, and I'm starting to have palpitations. And there's a very real chance I might wet my pants.

"Hey, Heather." It's Phil, the boy with the messy ponytail that I'd spied on the first day. "You nervous?"

Obviously.

"I'm just really tired from staying up all night," I say.

Phil reaches into his pocket and produces a small container filled with tiny white pills.

"Want one?" he asks.

I can't even conceal my horror. Oh my God. He's offering me drugs. Phil is the kid in our class who's dealing! And he just offered them to me—in front of everyone!

"Um, are those…?"

"Mint-flavored caffeine tablets," Phil says. "Got 'em at the gift shop."

"Oh." My heart slows to a less frightening speed. "No, thanks."

"Are you sure?" Phil asks. "It's like drinking a cup of coffee, but you don't have to pee!"

I shake my head and wander off in search of Abe. Instead, I find Rachel leaning against the wall, her long dark-brown hair hanging loose around her shoulders and obscuring the lettering on her T-shirt. She's tapping her toes against the floor impatiently, and every few minutes, she lets out an irritated sigh.

Mason is standing next to Rachel, looking fresh as a daisy. He's also staring so blatantly at her chest that I can't help but say something.

"What are you looking at?" I bark at him.

Boy, I'm irritable today.

Mason lifts his eyes and looks at me in surprise. "I'm trying to read her T-shirt."

Oh. I guess that could be true.

Rachel smiles at him. "It says, ‘I am the doctor my mother wanted me to marry.'"

Mason starts to laugh. He looks Rachel straight in the eyes and says, "Not yet you're not."

The doors to the anatomy lab open, and the students file in like we're on some kind of death march. The first part of the exam is the practical, where various structures on different cadavers are tagged with pins, and the students are given a sheet of paper and clipboard on which to record their findings. I have to confess, the clipboard makes me feel very professional.

I whip out my lucky pen, a black ballpoint with a rubber handgrip that I've been using since college. I used my lucky pen for every big exam in college, and on the one occasion I forgot the pen, during an exam on electricity and magnetism, I got a big fat F.

I choose my own cadaver as my starting point and uncap my lucky pen. Our cadaver's insides are nearly perfect, thanks to Mason's immaculate dissections and the fact that Frank was inexplicably healthy when he died. I clutch my clipboard to my chest, trying to stop shaking, although it's hard after all that coffee. My breaths are coming too fast, and my fingertips start to tingle. I'm hyperventilating. I need a paper bag.

"Are you okay, Heather?" Abe has materialized at my side, looking concerned.

I look him over and am relieved that his short red hair seems as disheveled as the rest of my classmates', and he has familiar dark circles under his eyes.

"I'm fine," I reply.

And I mean it. Now that Abe is standing next to me, I feel about one hundred percent better. There's something about his presence that calms me down. Don't laugh, but I sometimes feel like he's my guardian angel.

Dr. Conlon limps to the front of the room. All eyes are on him, waiting for his instructions. He smiles, his blue eyes twinkling, "Why does everyone look so nervous?"

Nobody laughs. Just start the exam, you asshole.

Dr. Conlon clears his throat: "As I went over with you before, you've got one minute to identify each pinned structure and one minute for each X-ray. When the time is up, I'll call out ‘next station.'" He looks around the room. "And don't worry. The test really isn't that hard. Any questions?"

No hands go up.

He holds up a stopwatch in his left hand, "Okay, then, begin!"

I look down at the first structure to identify. It's my own cadaver that I've been working on for a month, so I should know the answer. The pin is secured into a blood vessel that seems to be running into the back of the heart. Or is it the front of the heart? I suddenly feel disoriented. If only I could pick it up and examine it… but no touching is allowed on the exam.

I think it's the pulmonary vein. I'm like ninety percent sure.

Maybe eighty percent sure.

I poise my lucky pen over the sheet of paper on my clipboard, printing the words "pulmonary vein," but nothing shows up on the paper. I try again, but all I can see is the indentation of the words I had tried to write.

My lucky pen is out of ink.

You have got to be kidding me.

The clock is ticking. I have less than twenty seconds left at this station. I shake the pen, trying to coax the last bits of ink into the point. I only need the pen to last for about fifty or so words. You can do it, pen! Please, pen! Don't let me down…

"Psst… Hey." Abe is nudging me. I look at him, and he's holding out a pen to me. "I always bring a spare."

Like I said, Abe's my guardian angel.

I nod gratefully at him and take the pen. I scribble down my answer just as Dr. Conlon calls out, "Next station!"

I thinkI'm going to be sick.

The second the exam is over, I run to the ladies' room near the anatomy labs and lean over a toilet. My stomach is churning, and I fully expect to see the bagel I forced down this morning regurgitated before my eyes—but nothing comes. I lean forward, gagging. I want to throw up. It's the only way to get rid of this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I'm starting to understand why a first-year med student might start taking drugs. Because I'm desperate for anything to get rid of this horrible feeling.

Finally, I give up on my attempted vomit and collapse onto the bathroom floor, not even caring about the mysterious yellow puddle right next to me. I lean my head against the door to the stall and let out a dramatic sob. I don't care anymore who hears me. It's not like I'll be in medical school much longer after that performance.

The exam was a bona fide disaster. Dr. Conlon called the test "easy." Easy? The test could have been written in Ancient Hebrew and I probably would have scored equally well. Even my lucky pen (now in the trash, having betrayed me) couldn't have rescued me from that train wreck.

But maybe Dr. Conlon was right. Probably the test really was easy, and I'm just too dumb to cut it in med school.

More and more, I'm beginning to think that's the case.

I don't even know how long I sit on that filthy bathroom floor, wallowing in self-pity, replaying all the events that led up to my stupid, stupid decision to go to med school. I should have known when I took the MCATs and had to leave to pee four times during the exam that I didn't have the stamina for med school. The fact that I had admired the hell out of my childhood pediatrician, Dr. Marsha Stoltz-Humberg, with her kind eyes and the smiley face sticker on her white coat, wasn't enough of a reason to put myself through this.

When I finally struggle to my feet, the first thing I do is stumble over to the bathroom mirror. I look awful. My face is blotchy, my eyes are bloodshot, and my dirty-blond hair is everywhere. I make a half-hearted attempt to clean myself up, but really, what's the point?

And then I make the mistake of looking down at the sink. At the fissure in the porcelain that still hasn't been repaired since that student broke it when she collapsed here and died. The thought makes me so sick that it takes everything I have not to run back into the toilet stall to try to throw up again.

As I stumble out of the bathroom, I call Landon's number on my cell phone. I lean against the wall outside the bathroom, waiting for him to pick up. He knew I was taking an exam today and that I was panicking about it. But the phone rings and rings then finally goes to voicemail.

I don't leave a message.

I stare down at my phone. I have never felt so alone in my entire life. Med school was such a mistake.

"Oh shit… What happened?"

I jump in surprise at the voice traveling down the hall and immediately try to hide my red, splotchy face. But then I lift my eyes and see who it is. It's just Abe. Thank God.

"I'm okay," I mumble, looking away from him.

"I was looking everywhere for you," he says a little breathlessly. He halts in front of me, and his green eyes widen slightly when he sees my face, but he doesn't comment. "You really hid yourself well. I thought I was going to have to call in a SWAT team."

I force a tiny smile. "Yeah."

Abe shifts between his feet, looking a little uncomfortable. I want to tell him that I almost definitely failed the exam, but the truth is, I don't want him to think I'm dumb. I don't want him to know I bombed an "easy" test.

"Hey," Abe says. "That test was super hard, huh?"

I almost gasp. Say what? Abe thought the test was hard too? Is he just being nice? Abe is really smart, and if he thought the exam was hard, maybe I'm not too dumb to live.

"You… you thought the test was hard?"

"Oh, definitely!" Abe says, nodding vigorously. "I don't know what Conlon was smoking when he said it was easy. That was brutal."

"Yeah, it sort of was," I say, perking up for the first time since handing in my test paper.

"Some of the pins in those bodies…" Abe shakes his head. "I mean, I had no idea. I felt like I was looking at an abstract art exhibit."

I finally smile for real. Encouraged, Abe continues, "And those multiple-choice questions on the written exam? I could have filled in the bubbles before seeing the test and gotten the same score."

I laugh. "I know exactly what you mean."

Abe rests his large hand gently on my shoulder. "Come on," he says. "I'm going to walk you to your car."

"Okay," I agree.

"And then," he adds, "we are going to drown our sorrows in pizza. And beer. I'm buying."

I dutifully follow Abe to the parking lot. A minute ago, I'd been having some incredibly dark thoughts. Thank God for Abe.