Page 128 of The Choices I've Made
Looking at the caller ID, I found myself smiling.
“Haven’t I done you enough favors lately?” I said, not bothering to even say hello.
“I’m not calling to ask for another one. Just making sure you’re still showing up tonight,” the familiar female voice said on the other end.
“I haven’t forgotten, Makayla. I am somewhat responsible,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, now. I mean, you’ve always been present and accounted for in your professional life, but when we met, you were basically a train wreck.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “So, I have you to thank for the leaf-turning?”
“Nope,” she said adamantly. “It was all you. I just gave you the healthy best-friend nudge you needed.”
“And, to think, I thought you were nothing but a gold digger on that plane so long ago.”
“Oh, I was,” she replied, clearly amused. “If you’d given me a reason, I would have attached myself to you like some parasitic organism and drained you dry.”
Laughing, I replied, “Clearly, you’ve been studying.”
“Until my eyes bled.”
“Good. And, hey, I’ll be there. With bells on. Promise.”
“Thanks, Jake. I really appreciate it. With finals coming up, I think we could all use the motivation of a success story right about now.”
I let out a deep breath. “I’ll see what I can do.”
She reminded me of the time and place once more even though she’d texted it to me several times and given it to every member of my staff.
Makayla was efficient. It was what had made her the top-grossing pharmaceutical sales rep in the area, using her charm over men and women to bank tons of cash. But, after our fateful plane ride together to North Carolina, one that would cause each of our lives to spin on its axis, I’d found a completely changed woman less than a year later.
It’d turned out, I wasn’t the only one searching for answers on that flight. Makayla had left someone behind as well. She’d thought it was a college fling, something she’d move on from, but fate had had other plans.
The moment she had seen her ex-girlfriend and roommate, Mara, everything had changed. The petty life she’d been living dissolved, and she’d remembered who she was again. Makayla had quit her job, enrolled in medical school to become a doctor rather than marrying one, and had been busting her ass ever since.
As for her and Mara? They’d just celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
It was one of those fairy-tale endings Molly always talked about, and I was grateful to have witnessed it.
By a stroke of luck, and a shared addiction to a particular coffee house in the area, the three of us had become fast friends.
The rest of the day went by in a haze. I had a few patients with colds and a couple of positive strep tests, and I had to send one poor woman to the ER after she went into labor in my exam room when she’d brought her two-year-old in for a checkup.
“Well, that was an eventful day,” Carly, my head nurse for the last year, said.
“No kidding,” I replied. “I haven’t delivered a baby in years. Wasn’t sure I was prepared for that today.”
She laughed. “Well, we could have pulled in Dr. Kellogg. I’m sure he’s delivered a few in his time.”
I chuckled. “No doubt.”
“You headed out?” she asked as we finished up for the day, the usual chatter of the large office growing quieter by the minute.
“Yeah, I’ve got—”
“The talk tonight. I know. Makayla made sure we all knew.”
“She’s going to be one hell of a doctor,” I said. “She’ll make some poor attending miserable when she heads off to her residency in a few years.”
