I wouldn't have stayed there, in that small, half-hidden exam room, with my body curled over Sara Shapiro's and a hand holding her head to my chest while the glass crumbled from the window casing.
And I definitely wouldn't have yelled, "What the hell is wrong withyou?" while a half dozen emergency department employees rushed into what was left of the exam room.
Chapter2
Sara
No one could keepa good bitch down…but that didn't mean she wouldn't end up on the floor.
The two-hundred-odd pounds of man on top of her, well, that was not part of the plan.
The code green lockdown of the emergency department wasn't on the list for today either.
Neither was the formal reprimand from the Chief of Surgery or the oversized, unnecessary consequence he dished out.
Sometimes, bitches overshot the mark. Sometimes, they made a mess.
The problem with being a savage-hearted bitch who was also a recovering people-pleaser was that I still had the "pleasure to have in class" good girl wandering around inside my head. On days like today when she couldn't decide whether to sit in the corner and panic or drown me in a highlight reel of my all-time worst moments until I was forced to admit I was a giant fucking fuckup, it was tough to find the truth.
Reprimands and consequences, those things didn't happen to me. No truly compulsive people-pleasing perfectionist ever found herself in the kind of trouble that came with finger wagging and deeply disappointed frowning. People like me, we'd sooner condense ourselves down into smaller and smaller particles and disappear altogether than land in a situation where we were straight up told to our fragile little faces we weren't good or right or enough.
And yet I was furious. I wasbreak shit and screamfurious.
"It would be great if you could sit down for a second," Alex Emmerling said, holding up her surgical-glove-clad hands to stop my pacing. The women's changing room inside the attending surgeon's lounge wasn't big enough for any real pacing, though it was adequate for some abrupt marching. "Just sit down, babe, and we'll clean up those cuts and make sure you don't have any chunks of glass in your arm. I think it would also help"—she motioned up and down her chest—"to breathe a little."
The general surgeon—and my upstairs neighbor—gestured to the sofa beside her. I didn't want to, but I sat. It was that or pace my way into a panic attack and I really didn't need to call more attention to myself today.
"I'm fine," I said to her as she lifted my arm for inspection. "It's nothing. All superficial. Nothing worth noticing." I winced at the dried blood streaked from my bicep to my wrist. "It looks worse than it is. You should see the other guy."
She brought a gauze pad to my upper arm. It was the one spot that hadn't been covered by Sebastian's considerable mass. He was obviously a big guy—tall, broad, all those fun things—but he'd felt like a slab of solid muscle over me. It was excessive, really. He had enough. A full head of dark, thick hair—no receding hairline, no dignified dusting of grays. A deep, dusky olive complexion that seemed impossible considering he spent most of his waking hours in cold, windowless rooms. A jaw that managed to be both scruffy and sharp. Worst of all, he'd been gifted an outrageous set of eyelashes, the kind that didn't look real but when you saw him up close, you knew they were absolutely real and he was merely the recipient of heaps upon heaps of physical gifts. It wasexcessiveand I knew what excessive looked like. My father was the top plastic surgeon in Southern California. Excess put me through medical school.
"I did see the other guy," Alex said. "He's the one who sent me up here."
"Why?" I wailed, so much louder than necessary.
"Because he's busy digging glass out of his own arm," she replied.
"But I need help doing it?" I blew out an aggravated breath and frowned down at my t-shirt. It was ripped in a few places, bloodied in others. I wouldn't be able to wear it again. Not to work. "Sorry. Ignore me."
Alex was the last person I needed to yell at today. I didn't need to yell at her at all—we were friends. We weren't besties who lived in each other's back pockets, although not for any lack of pocketing attempts on Alex's part. I was excellent when it came to having a small crew of close friends who I knew well enough to be selected as a bridesmaid in their weddings though never close enough to be the maid of honor. I was terrible at the bestie thing. I just didn't understand how to let anyone into that much of my life.
"Believe me, I am," she said. "I have some residents who want to learn compassionate holds. I'll page them up here if I need to restrain you."
See? This was why we were friends. She could joke about these things and I could laugh in response because we shared a humor that was as dark as dirt.
I watched as she discarded another gauze pad into a metal basin. It sparkled with tiny, tiny flecks of glass. "I still don't understand why Stremmel tackled me like that back in the exam room."
"Because that's what he does," she said with a laugh.
I glanced at her. "Throw people across rooms? The bruise forming on my ass is no joke."
"He takes care of people." She said this as if I was extremely dense. "He's probably furious he missed this spot on your arm."
"We're talking about Sebastian Stremmel? The one who lives in the apartment above you?"
"One and the same," she murmured. "You'd have a better feel for him if you spent more time with the group."
Another reason we weren't on the best friend tier: Alex's social batteries far outlasted mine. She loved meeting up for drinks after work, parties, brunches, dinners, farmers market visits, all of it. She wanted to go places and see people, and I needed a week to recover from a single outing.
