Page 16 of Holiday Star
“Hardly,” I interrupt. “I still have two more years of residency to finish.”
“I get that, but you know what I mean. It’ll be good for you to get out. Do a little goat yoga and lighten up.”
She means no harm. She only wants the best for me, but unknowingly she’s hit a nerve. Someone else once called me too serious. Right before he broke my heart.
Maybe he had a point, and maybe she does, too.
Now that I’ve achieved my biggest goal of getting into an ER residency, I’ve had this dissatisfied feeling. I’ve found myself staring into my mirror lately, wondering if this is it. Is this all I am? All I’ll ever be? Just serious, sensible, dependable Gwen?
That sounds so boring. I’ve always colored in the lines. After my dad died,anyrisk terrified me. I wouldn’t even go on a roller coaster, too busy thinking of what it would do to my mom and brothers if an accident happened and the coaster went off the track.
But recently, I’ve been yearning for something more. To become unrestrained, let myself live more fully. For so many years, I focused on staying safe and accomplishing my goals. Spent all my time in the library studying, watching out the window while my friends had picnics together on the quad below. Helping them pick out dresses for parties I couldn’t go to because I had an organic chemistry test the next day. Hearing about their adventures over the phone as I sat in my dorm room with a book in my hand.
I love being a doctor, but sometimes I feel like I missed out. It’s left me a little lost, like I’m not entirely sure who I am or who I want to be.
As she turns to leave, I stop her. “Hey, Jenny, let’s keep this between us. About Caleb being here. I’m not sure what’s going on with him, but I suppose everyone deserves a safe place to crash. So don’t tell anyone else. Okay?”
Jenny draws her fingers across her mouth in a “my lips are sealed” gesture. Then she pretends to turn the lock and throw away the key. That old motion, left over from our teenage years when I would make her swear to keep all my secrets, makes me smile. Of course, my secrets back then were that I had a crush on Tyler Hamilton or that I got a B in pre-algebra.
This secret is bigger, a grown-up secret. If I can trust anyone, it’s my best friend.
8
Isleep in the master bedroom until noon, surprising even myself. I can’t recall the last time I slept in that late. Pip stays with me, tucked into my side.
When I wake, I make a quick phone call to Mom, checking in with her. Her voice has a slight echo to it, accentuated by the long distance. “Thanks again for watching the house while we’re gone, honey. You don’t know what a relief it is, knowing that you’re there. There’s no one I trust more. You’re always so responsible. It’s like how much you helped me when your dad passed. How you took care of Teddy while I worked.”
Usually her praise would warm me, fill up all my empty spaces. But today it hits differently. The flavor of it tastes dull in my mouth. Sensible and responsible is an ugly echo of what Jenny said earlier. It sounds lackluster to me now. Not how I want to be described.
I don’t tell her about Caleb and that he’s staying here. It’s not a conscious decision. I’m not trying to lie. It’s more like I don’t want to disappoint or worry her. I doubt she’d be too happy about me being alone in the house with a man I barely know, even if he is Seth’s nephew. I don’t want her to rush back here, thinking she has to chaperone us.
After I end my call, I go downstairs to find the puzzle pieces back on the table. Caleb must have picked them up off the floor. My eyes drift over to where he slouches on the couch, in the same wrinkled clothing from the night before. His hair is messy, and his cheek is stubbled.
Even disheveled, he’s still handsome.
He’s so focused on reading the book in his hands that he doesn’t notice me. I give a start when I see the cover, recognizing it immediately. It’s an old, battered copy ofTwilightby Stephenie Meyer.
My book.
I know that crumpled cover and the coffee stain on the front. I remember how Jax spilled during a late-night study session. “Where’d you get that?” I ask, my voice sharp.
Caleb startles. “Oh, hi,” he says when he sees me. “It was in a box over there.” He points to a corner of the living room, where cardboard boxes are stacked neatly on top of one another.
I go to investigate. In the highest box, the one that’s partially open, I see a bunch of my stuff. A random assortment of mementos left over from elementary school all the way to medical school. I hadn’t known Mom kept so many of my old things. A golden tassel from my college graduation cap lies draped over a microbiology test. I smile at the A+ circled in red at the top.
There’s the first-place ribbon from the science fair that I won in seventh grade. My father had been so proud of me that day. He’d called me his little genius. Said I was going to change the world. Make it a better place. Sometimes I wonder if anyone will ever have that kind of faith in me again, or if he was the only one who could sense the potential in me.
A set of watercolor paints rests in the corner of the box. I crack open its lid to find the small circles of paint so dried out that they have cracks across them, jagged lines that radiate out like the parched ground of the desert. I must have been in a purple mood when I last used them. That color is all gone, but there’s lots of brown, blue, and green left over.
Back in junior high and early high school, before my dad died, I chose art as my elective. I had looked forward to that period, with its paint-spattered tables and the smell of turpentine. The painter part of my brain is already calculating which colors I would mix together to mimic the vivid aqua blue of Caleb’s eyes.
I stop thinking about paint when I notice the clear plastic box buried deep beneath a pile of loose paper and other awards. It holds a carefully preserved corsage. Pink roses, now faded to brown, surrounded by fragile babies’ breath pinned to a silver wristband.
I take out the box and crack it open. A whiff of rose scent, dulled with age, puffs out. The bitter sting of regret hits the back of my throat. The image of Jax slipping that elastic band over my wrist before prom overlaps with him slipping the diamond ring onto my left finger. There’s a doubling of time, the flash of a camera on both occasions, as Mom took our picture, capturing those moments when I smiled up into his crinkled brown eyes.
“Are you turned on by men who glitter?” Caleb interrupts my sad memories.
“I’m sorry. What?” I shake my head, momentarily confused. The corsage goes back in the box, and I turn to find him observing me carefully.
