Page 13 of The Interns

“Then maybe he’ll end up being Sydney’s soulmate. She is looking for a summer fling.”

Maya’s eyes widened in horror. “Darbs, no. That doesn’t leave this table. The last thing I need is Sydney complicating matters.”

Darby locked her lips and threw the imaginary key somewhere out in the cafeteria. Maya knew she could keep a secret given HIPAA and all that, so the tension in her upper back eased.

“Well, you’re not the only one who embarrassed yourself at work today. I almost vomited in the operating room.”

Maya covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. “What? Darbs, no.”

“Oh yeah. The senior resident nicknamed me Fifty Shades of Green. That one’s definitely going to follow me around for a while.”

Maya studied her face. Now that she mentioned it, her usual peachy complexion was looking a little sallow. “Aww, Darbs. I’m so sorry.”

“It comes with the territory. Have you ever heard the expression see one, do one, teach one?”

“No.” She slid her legs off of the seat and sat up, transitioning from patient to friend.

“They say it in medical training all the time,” she explained. “On my first day, I observed a chest tube insertion, so today they made me do one.”

“That’s awesome,” Maya said breathlessly. She had no idea what a chest tube was or what the procedure entailed but sticking something into someone’s chest sounded pretty major.

“Not to me. I was terrified, but I could see why you’d say that. You’d actually fit in well with the surgery residents. They’re super type A like you.” She smiled and chuckled to herself, leaving Maya to frown at the too true comparison. “I, on the other hand, have no business laying hands on living, breathing human beings.”

“Yeah, but you’ve always known that this was going to be something you’d have to get through during your first year before you got to focus on psychiatry,” Maya pointed out, recalling some of their late-night heart to hearts about their hopes for the future.

In her inner circle, Adam was family and knew her like no one else. Sydney appealed to her fiery, competitive nature and would always hype her up. And Darby was the sensitive soul she had deep, meaning-of-life kind of conversations with.

“Say that again?”

“Just that you knew it would be a necessary evil—” Maya repeated before slowing and stopping herself. “Oh. Right. I see what you’re doing here, Dr. Darby.”

“I’m not doing anything.” She grinned and picked up her fork again, then dipped it into the creamed spinach on her plate. “That’s really good advice, though. I’m going to keep it in mind. Every single morning when I’m on my way to work until this awful rotation is over.”

“What am I going to do when I have to start paying you for this kind of stuff?”

“You’ll never have to, but you can keep feeding me like this since you’ll have a real job soon, and I’ll be a poor resident for the rest of my twenties.”

“Deal. So how did your chest tube turn out?”

With a mouth full of food, Darby gave a thumbs up with a slight upturn of her closed lips.

“Badass,” Maya whispered.

Maya picked up the plastic fork she’d packed for herself and stabbed an already cut cube of steak. She popped it in her mouth, surprised to find that it tasted better than she remembered, but perhaps the company had something to do with it.

Of course she was going to show up tomorrow ready to work no matter what the assignment or circumstances were. She was Maya Hendricks, after all, and she didn’t know how to give anything less than her best effort.

* * *

“Do we even have a case?”

Maya leaned back in her chair and looked to her left to see Reed doing the same as he ran his hand over the fine, light brown stubble that covered the lower half of his face on this Wednesday morning. This case was simpler than she had originally thought, but it was theirs, and it was better than nothing. At least that’s what she kept telling herself.

“That’s what I’m wondering,” Reed said.

“Let’s play it again.” She reached for the mouse on his desk to hit replay on the security camera footage of their client, Clyde Johnson, a plumber from a small town south of Atlanta who, from all appearances, was guilty of assault and battery.

“Our client walks into the plumbing shop…” Reed said aloud, talking his way through the video to ensure they weren’t missing anything. “Has words with his former boss, Fred Prescott…throws the first and only punch…knocks him out cold…then takes off.”

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