Page 40 of The Doctor's No-Strings Deal

“And all for nothing,” Megan added with a grimace. “Charlie and I are through. There’s no point in seeing him anymore anyway. He’s not the person I thought he was.”

Kayla sat down on one of the benches. “He’s an asshole,” she said. “But I think he was probably pressured into taking it. His family is all about medicine. I doubt he was ever even allowed to consider another line of work. If he rejected a fellowship his dad secured for him, he’d probably get forty lashes or something. You have to feel a little sorry for him.”

“Well, I don’t,” Megan said.

“I’ll feel sorry for him for both of us, then, so you can be as angry as you need to be for as long as you need to.” She stood and hugged Megan goodbye. “Take it easy tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow. I just wanted you to know that it probably wasn’t malicious. He doesn’t hate you — he’s just afraid of his own family. I don’t know if that makes it better for you, but it would for me. Seriously, he’ll be punished for this. He’s probably already punishing himself. He’s going to hate it the whole time.”

Megan smiled a small smile. “He did look pretty miserable when he told me.”

“See?” Kayla grinned. “He’s suffering already. Karma’s a bitch, and you can take comfort in that. He’s going to hate this fellowship and wish he’d never taken it.”

“One can hope.” Megan patted Kayla on the shoulder, feeling a little better already, and headed out to get her bike.

She barely remembered the ride home. It was so full of overthinking and overanalyzing her situation that the ride itself was almost automatic. That was very unlike her. Normally, she used her bike ride home to decompress, get a little of the stress out, but this time it seemed to build with every mile. By the time she walked in the front door, she was shaking with a mixture of exhaustion and rage.

Her mother was already in bed, and Megan was grateful for it. She didn’t want to have a conversation with her mom right now. She didn’t want anyone to tell her to look on the bright side. For once in her life, she wanted to wallow in her own misery. Not only had she lost probably the biggest career opportunity she would ever have, she’d lost the best boyfriend she’d ever had along with it — that is, if he was even half the man he pretended to be. Megan wasn’t a person who dated around. On the whole, she just didn’t have time. So, far from a planned and calculated relationship, this one had felt so natural. But it had been a mistake.

She buried her face in her pillow and let herself cry when she thought about all she would be missing. And then she cried harder when she realized that she would have given up the fellowship in a heartbeat if it meant she got to stay with Charlie, but he hadn’t been willing to do the same thing for her in the end. Why did she always wind up loving people more than they loved her? Her mom was the only exception to that, and that was the relationship she should have stayed focused on. People like her didn’t get involved in romantic entanglements. People like her had no time for it. Every ounce of energy had to be put toward her goals. At least now she knew the game was actually rigged.

CHAPTER 20

CHARLIE

Charlie absolutely, unequivocally hated everything about his new fellowship, starting on day one. He treated several patients with his father’s friends staring over his shoulder, commenting on his performance compared to that of the rest of his family. He also noticed a lack of diversity that would have been extremely troubling at the hospital he had come from. Even the patients seemed like a monoculture of old money.

Our Lady of Mercy itself was decorated like a hotel with attractive wood trim and warm lighting in the halls. The beds looked so plush and comfortable, Charlie was tempted to lay down in one and just crash for the rest of the day. He should have been more comfortable in an environment like this over the one he’d come from. But he missed the water stains on the ceiling, the flickering florescent lights, and the sound of the nurses’ shoes squeaking on the floors. In contrast, this place felt too much like the home he’d grown up in — expensive, elite, and full of things that were far too easy to break.

By the time Charlie’s first day ended, he realized he felt devoid of any kind of urgency, competition, passion, or any sense of fun. For the first time in his life, he seriously questioned his devotion to medicine. Maybe he wanted to drop out and join a circus or something. It all felt equally meaningful now. Especially if there was no integrity in the field. Maybe being a circus clown would give him a sense of integrity.

The break room was a previously unknown level of hell. Several of his father’s friends were there, joking amongst themselves. To Charlie’s supreme disappointment, they turned to him and asked if he wanted to join them for post-work cocktails. He didn’t feel he could refuse them. In his father’s world, any socializing he did after hours was just an extension of his work day. Knowing the right people could get you into programs, help with funding, and aid in other ways generally not acknowledged in the field. He’d be a fool not to befriend these men, so he thanked them and accepted their invitation.

The old boys all went together to the nearest golf course, and Charlie begrudgingly joined them. The place looked like every other golf club restaurant he had ever been to, which were many. There was a certain quality to them, a soul or lack thereof, that Charlie could never quite wrap his head around. Everything was beige — the carpet, the walls. But there were rustic touches, too, a wooden grid on the ceiling, and old-world chandeliers. Tall windows looked out onto the course like it was a real, picturesque wilderness rather than an oversized, frequently mowed, sprayed, and watered front lawn.

Old men in electric carts puttered around in view, and Charlie was reminded of his father and grandfather — the networking they always did and expected he would do when he got older. Well, here he was, older, and networking with those same men.He wondered when he would be expected to take up golf and cringed at the thought.

He ordered and ate without really listening to their conversation. Charlie had never been great at socializing. Hopefully, his father had already complained about that so it wouldn’t be too surprising when he failed to participate as much as these men expected. Hopefully, they wouldn’t suspect how uncomfortable he was around them or the bad taste this entire experience was leaving in his mouth. He couldn’t even focus on the conversation as it was. He assumed it was about medicine, so when one of them turned to him and asked him what his handicap was, he almost chided them for using outdated medical terminology. But, no, they were talking about golf. Of course it was golf. Because golf was networking, and networking was all that really mattered to them. Treating patients was just a side hustle.

Charlie answered, “I… don’t really golf, I’m afraid.”

All their smiles dropped at the same time. It wasn’t anger or unhappiness he saw in their expressions as much as pure disbelief. A Sullivan who didn’t golf?

“Well,” one of them finally said, “we’ll just have to change that, won’t we? What do you say, Charlie my boy. Shall we have a game?”

“Right now?”

“No time like the present,” another man said.

“You all have clubs with you?”

The first one laughed like he’d never heard anyone so naïve speak actual words. “Of course not, but we havepeople. Don’tyou have people, Sullivan? Your father has people. Surely, you can just borrow some of his. Borrow his equipment, too.”

The second man, who was named Jeffery Thornton, quipped, “Those will be some big shoes to fill… literally.” And all three of them burst out laughing.

Charlie joined in because what the hell else was he supposed to do? He was probably the worst golfer he’d ever seen, but at least it was amusing to the men he was with. They started treating him like a kid, showing him which clubs he should choose and how to swing them. They were some sort of multi-headed version of his own father, and Charlie became more and more frustrated by them as the evening wore on and the cocktail he’d had began to wear off. At least he was making them laugh, though. Well, at least he was giving them something to laughat, which he imagined was the furthest from what his father would have expected of him.

The thing was, it just didn’t seem to matter anymore. He could just stop trying entirely, and his life would continue in exactly the same way. Nothing he did made a difference, in the end.

At some point, the men took to asking Charlie how he enjoyed the new hospital and how it compared to the one he had come from. Charlie answered all their questions with the words he imagined they wanted to hear — Our Lady of Mercy was such a step up from his old hospital, the facilities were so much better with such impressive, Ivy League doctors, etc.

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