Page 27 of Hearts on the Table
There. That was a fairly cut-and-dry explanation of what had gone down. No need for more waterworks. No extra drama. Just cold, hard facts.
“He cheated on you?”
“Yes.”
“With the blonde.”
“With Katie, yes.” I toyed with the hem of my dress. It was pretty, made with flowy material and a tiered skirt. I’d felt nice when I picked it out for the conference; demure enough to suit my mother and still fun enough to be me. Now I just felt cold.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” For some reason, his quiet assurance made me want to tell him. He looked at me as we slowed to a stop at a red light.
“I didn’t have many friends growing up.” He looked hesitant to tear his eyes away, but gave me his profile when our car inched forward. “I traveled with Mom, or stayed with the nanny while she was away. Hard to make friends when you’re not around a lot, you know? I met Katie Sophomore year of high school. It was like an instant connection. Her parents are so great. I think I spent more time at her house than mine. So obviously we roomed together during college. Mom wanted me to go somewhere fancy, like Harvard or something, but Katie had her heart set on Texas and I couldn’t just leave her. She was family, you know?” Sam nodded. I swallowed, studying my skirt once more.
“We were both pre-med and ended up at med school together. That’s where I met Nate. First week of classes during First Year, he walked up to me in the lecture hall and told me he thought I was beautiful.” My laugh echoed in the car, a surround-sound of bitterness. “Then it was the three of us, together through med school. And I was so happy and in love and everything was perfect.”
Out the window, buildings rolled by. I cleared my throat again, wishing I’d had the wherewithal to salvage the tea I’d been making after Sam’s session. “He started acting weird towards the end of fourth year. The three of us were so focused on studying for exams and matching into residency together, but I noticed. I told Katie I thought he was going to propose.” My stomach twisted at the memory. I dropped my head to the headrest.
“She’d been acting weird, too. I thought she was just in on it, you know? She was my best friend. Surely she’d know if my boyfriend was about to propose to me.” Another dry chuckle huffed out of my lips. “He did not propose. They sat me down the night we all matched with Presbyterian. Like a divorce talk from my parents or something. I’d thought we were all just busy withstudying, but they were, like, building a life together behind my back.”
I stared out the windshield, my gaze unfocused, as I grappled with a storm of emotions and lingering betrayal. The pit in my stomach reminded me why I never talked about this. I’m sure a mental health professional would tell me it was a bad idea to bottle up the grief and anger, duct tape them in a dark place somewhere in my brain, and leave them there to fester. I didn’t know if it was good news or bad news that the same feelings were always still there on the rare occasions I checked on them. I didn’t know what to do with them. So I usually just got some more mental duct tape and packed it all up again.
“Were they sorry for what they’d done?”
I’d been monologuing and lost in the past for too long. I hadn’t expected Sam to actually engage, figuring he’d let me word-vomit all over his car and then drop me off at my apartment.
“Oh, yes. Don’t worry, they were very apologetic and logical about it all.”
“Logical?”
I smiled at the disbelief that tinged the single word out of his mouth. “Logical. Yeah. Like, they’d waited until after exams to tell me, because they didn’t want it to affect my scores. And how it didn’tchange anything.We could still all live together in that two-bedroom condo next year during residency like we’d planned. And they were so sorry, but it hadjust happened. And it was love so, what could they do? They assured me it was okay for me to be upset.”
At some point, the landscape outside the window had transformed from business buildings to houses. Trees and neighborhood parks rolled by. I unfocused my eyes until they filled with the memories of that absolute cluster of a day. “That was one of the worst things, honestly. They were just so…superior. Since they thought they were more in love with each other than I was with Nate, that somehow gave them the moral high ground. Like it made it alright for them todoall of this behind my back. They assumed I’d see that, I guess, and accept it.”
“You didn’t end up at Houston Presbyterian.”
I snorted. “No. Nate had always had his heart set on Cedar. He has, like, some family legacy or something. I’d assumed he’d wanted to match in Texas to stay with me. Really, it was her. Katie’s the one who didn’t want to leave.”
I hesitated because this part was hard, too. I didn’t like this about myself, and I certainly didn’t want to go spilling my deepest secret to my colleague and…guy I kept noticing. My eyes focused ahead again. It was easier if I didn’t look at him.
“I know it’s not ethical, necessarily, but I couldn’t commit to that program, with them living their life together like everything was fine. I just couldn’t,” I whispered.
“Of course not.” His soft words encouraged me to keep going. A brick building rolled into my line of sight as the car slowed.
“My mom liked to brag back then about how many hospitals had wanted to match with me. She knows all the directors and stuff, so she knew who wanted me. The only reason I’d matched with Presbyterian is because I’d wanted to. So, I, ah, backed out. And I told my mom everything, obviously. And…And…” I became captivated by the crack running along the wall. “All it took was one call to Cedar. And I was in. I don’t even know if I bumped someone from their spot. I just packed my bags and left.”
I traced the crack again more slowly. I’d somehow arranged it all in less than forty-eight hours. Or my mother had. An hour after Katie and Nate had broken the news, I was in a hotel, staring numbly at the TV. The next day, my dad showed up with movers and I got the call that I was heading to Chicago.
It had been nice, in a way, to realize that my parents could take care of me. They’d delegated the task to nannies and tutors and coaches for so long, but they’d been there when I needed them. Despite hardly speaking to each other since their divorce, they’d sat with me against the wall of my new apartment that night, a Chicago-style pizza between the three of us, and for a little while it hadn’t felt like my whole world was ending.
“You didn’t.”
“Huh?” I looked back at Sam. I’d lost track of my ramblings.
“You didn’t take someone’s spot. Someone asked Caplan about it once, in front of me. He said they’d opened up an extra spot for you. You didn’t bump anyone from residency that year.”
“Oh.” My hand rested on my chest, feeling the pounding of my heart. Despite all the ick swirling around in there, something lightened. “I’ve always been worried about that. And was afraid to ask,” I whispered, feeling small.
“You should have asked. You didn’t have to live with that.” He looked at me with such gentle compassion, I wasn’t sure I could take it.
