Chapter 37

Remedial anatomy isthe most humiliating experience of all time.

It's me, Victor Pereira, and Marissa Dunne. We are apparently the dumbest three people in the whole class. Dr. Conlon instructed us to arrive at the anatomy lab at four p.m., so here we are, standing in front of a dead body, waiting for him to show up.

I don't care for Victor or Marissa. Marissa is a real girly girl. She has these long, long eyelashes and wears so much mascara on them that I'm a little worried her eyelashes might smack me in the face. She's also wearing high heels in the lab, which is just ridiculous. Victor, on the other hand, always seems like a ball of jittery energy and talks so fast that he trips over his words.

I really wish I weren't here.

"I didn't know you were failing anatomy, Rachel," Victor says when I walk in.

"Yeah," I mumble, not wanting to get into a conversation with him.

"I know," Marissa agrees. "I totally thought you were really smart."

Where the hell is Dr. Conlon?

He shows up a few minutes later, dressed in blue scrubs, clutching his cane in his left hand. I can't help but notice that his blue scrubs make his eyes look so blue. I shift slightly in my sneakers—I need to stop thinking about him being attractive. Especially since I hate him.

"All right then." He gently tugs the plastic off the body in front of us. "Let's get started, okay?"

Victor and Marissa nod eagerly. I just stand there and glare at him.

Dr. Conlon starts wrestling a glove onto his left hand while he says, "For starters, can you guys tell me the five major branches of the facial nerve?"

Crickets chirp.

"You don't have to know all five of them," he adds. "Just one. Can you tell me one branch?"

"Ophthalmic?" Victor guesses.

Dr. Conlon pauses in his attempt to pull on the glove.

"Uh, well, no. The eye movement is controlled by three other cranial nerves. Do you know which ones those are?"

More crickets.

"Cranial nerves three, four, and six," he says as we stare at him blankly. Well, he's got his work cut out for him. Good luck, Dr. Conlon.

"I knew that," Marissa says.

"Oh, okay," Dr. Conlon says, not sounding like he believes her. "Anyway, the branches of the facial nerve are the temporal, zygomatic, buccal, mandibular, and cervical. There's a mnemonic: To Zanzibar By Motor Car."

At least this time, the mnemonic doesn't involve sex.

Victor crinkles his nose. "Where's Zanzibar?"

"I think it's in Australia," Marissa says.

"Actually, it's in Africa," Dr. Conlon says patiently.

"Who's heard of Zanzibar?" Marissa says. "Zurich would be better. That's in Switzerland. I went to Zurich in college with my boyfriend."

"Um, fine," Dr. Conlon says. "You're welcome to use ‘To Zurich By Motor Car.'"

"And what's a motor car, anyway?" Victor adds. "Isn't that just the same as a car?"

Okay, I can't take another minute of this.

"God, Victor, who the hell cares?" I snap. "This is the dumbest conversation I've ever heard in my entire life!"

All three of them stare at me. Long enough that my cheeks start to burn.

"Sorry," I finally say.

I sneak a look at Dr. Conlon, and I could swear there's a tiny smile playing on his lips.

"All right," he says. "Let's get back to work."

Yes,this session is humiliating. But at the same time, wow, I learn a lot about anatomy. As much as I hate Dr. Conlon right now, I have to admire how patiently he explains everything to us. Victor and Marissa have plenty more ridiculous questions in the queue, but he fields each of them expertly and doesn't even make them feel like they said something dumb.

When the hour is up, Dr. Conlon dismisses Victor and Marissa.

"Why don't you clean up here, Rachel," he says.

"Why me?" I shoot back at him as the other students hightail it out the heavy lab door.

He regards me for a minute. "We'll take turns."

"Wonderful," I say.

He pulls the glove off his left hand. "I'm glad you came today, Rachel."

"I didn't have a choice, did I?"

"You always have a choice," he says. "It's just that this time, you made the right choice."

I guess he's implying that I made the wrong choice when I slept with him. Then again, I didn't hear any complaints at the time. He's the one who banged his student, so I wish he'd drop the holier-than-thou attitude.

"Don't worry," I say. "I have no intention of making that particular bad choice ever again."

Dr. Conlon nods, and maybe it's my imagination, but his cheeks seem to flush slightly red. It's kind of satisfying to see him lose his composure, if only for a split second.