Chapter 32

"Lookto your left and look to your right."

I roll my eyes as I look to my left. Just as I thought—Heather is doing it. Heather McKinley: my new roommate. Ugh.

Heather wants to be my best friend. She keeps suggesting we go out for drinks and asking me questions about my life. But the truth is, I can't stand her. She's nice, I suppose. But she's so painfully annoying.

First off, she brought so much stuff with her, you'd think she was moving into a mansion. Like five suitcases. And what's the deal with all that lotion? I've never seen so much lotion in my entire life, except maybe in the lotion aisle of a drugstore. And all her shampoos smell like fruit, which means Heather always smells like fruit. Usually peaches. I hate peaches.

Plus all she wants to talk about is her stupid boyfriend, Landon. He is just so wonderful, by the way. Did you know his favorite food is fried chicken and his favorite band is the Glass Animals? I know it. And the worst thing is that now, I can't unknow it, as much as I wish I could.

Oh, and did I mention she sings? Oh yes. She's constantly singing or humming a song by Beyoncé or Christina. And she's really, really off-key. I want to stuff tissues in my ears.

I'm using like a fifth of our shared closet, yet Heather had the nerve to look uncomfortable when I hung a few posters on the wall. She started mumbling something about how we were forbidden to use thumbtacks in the dorms. By the time I shoved the last thumbtack into the wall, she'd started to get it through her thick blond skull that the two of us will never be friends.

I can see it all laid out for Heather. She'll marry some guy in the next four years, if not her current loser boyfriend, then some other loser in our class. She'll work as a physician for a few years and then probably quit to become a stay-at-home mom after popping out a few rugrats. Heather is not exactly a high-powered career woman.

Before I left for DeWitt, my mom said to me, "Rachel, please try to make some friends this time." Or something patronizing like that. She sent me to a shrink in high school because I had no friends. Which wasn't my fault at all—trust me. Is it my fault that most people get on my nerves? And anyway, you don't go to med school to make friends. You go to become a doctor.

I just wish I were better at studying.

The truth is,there's a lot in anatomy that doesn't interest me all that much. Well, most of it, to be perfectly honest. There are just too many nerves, too many arteries… way too much to memorize.

So I fail a few quizzes. Big deal.

Dr. Conlon thinks it's a big deal, though. After I fail three quizzes in a row, he starts paying a lot of attention to me in the lab. He seems concerned.

"You realize you just cut through the phrenic nerve," he observes as he watches me.

Mason, who is working on the other side of the cadaver, says, "Rachel cuts through everything. She thinks it's all fascia."

Speaking of people I hate. I nearly reach out and strangle Mason for making me look bad in front of Dr. Conlon. He's the most obnoxious person I've ever met. I sent out an email to the class about how disrespectful it is to name your cadaver and asked him if he'd seen it. He told me he had, and it was "hilarious."

Dr. Conlon ignores Mason's comment and limps closer to me, squinting at my T-shirt through his spectacles.

"‘I am the doctor my mother wanted me to marry'," he reads off the shirt. He smiles. "I like that."

"Yeah," I mumble.

Dr. Conlon's eyes meet mine, "It's pretty amazing that women now make up the majority of med school classes these days. It wasn't that way thirty years ago."

"Yeah," I say. "Too bad most women do peds, primary care, and ob-gyn."

"What field are you interested in, Dr. Bingham?" he asks.

"Surgery," I reply without hesitation.

I look up sharply as Mason snorts from the other side of the table. I hate Mason. And the worst thing is, he'll live out his whole life being that same arrogant asshole and never learn any humility. It's just not fair.

Dr. Conlon waits for me after lab is over that day. He's changed out of his scrubs and is back in his slacks with a dress shirt. And a bowtie. That bowtie just slays me. Who the hell wears a bowtie?

"Rachel," he says as he takes me aside, concern in his blue eyes, "I just want you to know that if you need it, there's help available for you. There are a lot of second-year or graduate students I can recommend who will be happy to spend extra time with you in the lab."

We haven't even had our first big exam yet, and already, I've set myself aside as someone who needs remedial help.

"And of course," Dr. Conlon continues, "I'm always available for questions."

I'll bet. Dr. Conlon is the biggest dork on the face of the planet and clearly does not have a rip-roaring social life. Every time I pass by his office, no matter what the hour, the light is on under his door. No wife, no girlfriend, no kids. He probably hasn't had a date in years. Maybe it's been so long, he's given up hope that it's going to ever happen again.

It is just so unbelievably perfect.