Page 81 of Back To You

I reach for one as she answers, “Oh, I didn’t have time to make them from scratch, so I picked them up from a bakery on my way home from the zoo yesterday.” I pull my hand back.

“You didn’t make them?” I ask.

“I still got your favorite kind,” she answers with a little chuckle, grabbing one for herself, peeling the paper, taking a bite before holding it out to me, but I shake my head. She looks at me confused. “What?”

“I don’t want it,” I reply like a toddler refusing to eat his vegetables.

This makes her roll her eyes, and I feel our friends watching us, their amusement palpable in the air. “What’s wrong with them?” she challenges.

“They're not yours,” I answer, but before she can tell me I’m being stupid or whatever is on the tip of her tongue, I add, “Plus, I just had dessert.”

Chapter 31

Annie

The days are flying by faster than I can keep track. One minute, Luke was eating me out in the passenger side of his car dressed as Harley Quinn—the next, it’s the first Movie Night of November, and it’s all a blur of how we got here.

There have been at least ten separate occasions over the several weeks where I’ve literally had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Rotations are as stressful as everyone warns, and you never feel like you have your feet solid on the ground.

Right when I start to feel stable, it’s time to switch and start all over again somewhere else—learning the layout of the hospital, meeting the new staff, and feeling like a fish out of water. Again.

But, they have also been exhilarating and exciting because every day brings new challenges and new things to learn.

Luke and I are also almost too good to be true. We fell into such a natural rhythm, even for as busy as we are, and we have such a good time together. Even if it’s just dinner on the couch and watching TV, any time I have with him feels like a dream.

I thought there would be more growing pains, especially as we learn to balance our past and the present, but I think our history made it all that much easier.

Drew, Mia, and I have plans to watchIron Man, the second movie in our mission to watch all the Marvel movies in chronological order—Drew’s idea because it’s something she did with Emmett when they first started dating.

And because it started getting harder and harder for us to pick a movie that wasn’t from theTwilightfranchise.

We’re cuddled up on the couch in my living room, Daisy and Rosie asleep at our feet.

While we queue up the movie, I give Mia and Drew the update on the whole Devin situation, seeing as Luke reached out to Grant and took him up on his offer to get together. Luke asked if we could all double-date, so we’re meeting both Grant and Devin at Lenny’s tomorrow night.

“I’m glad you guys are confronting her. You both deserve to finally move on from that night,” Drew says as she crosses her legs, sitting between Mia and me.

“I don’t see it going well though,” I reply. “Devin has never been the kind of person to admit when she was wrong.”

“Maybe you should hit her truck with a baseball bat,” Drew scoffs.

“Maybe you should hitherwith one,” Mia adds, and we all laugh much harder than we should.

With the popcorn popped, the candy nearby, and the movie starting, we drift into comfortable silence up until the montage of Tony Stark building his first suit while he’s being held hostage.

“How are rotations going, Ann?” Mia asks as she opens up a Kit Kat, handing one stick to me, one toDrew, and keeping two for herself because it’s her favorite candy.

“Good,” I answer, breaking the stick of chocolate and bringing one half to my mouth. “I’m doing my small animal dentistry and oral surgery rotation, which is a big difference compared to my time at the zoo.”

“Did you hear back about that program?” Drew asks in between eating all the chocolate off the Kit Kat like a psychopath, her eyes still glued on what she calls her favorite Marvel movie.

During my rotation at the zoo, I found that I could really picture myself there, working with the staff and all the different exotic animals.

I know it is early in the rotation year, and this year is all about getting as much experience as we can before we figure out what we want to focus on. Plus, I always thought I’d end up back at the animal shelter or someplace like it, working with the dogs, cats, bunnies, and birds.

But when the practicing veterinarian at the zoo told me more about the Animal Health Center program and the externship that they have for fourth-year vet students, I couldn’t get it out of my head, even after I started my next rotation.

After talking with my advisor, I decided to apply. If I get in, my last month of my rotation year would be the externship, followed by a 3-year Zoological Medicine Residency, which trains veterinarians in the zoo and exotic animal medicine field.

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