Page 28 of Ward D
“You brought that for me?” I ask.
“Well, I saw you were going to be here with me tonight, and I know they’re your favorite…”
Cameron’s hair is falling slightly in his eyes again, and once again, I get the urge to push it away. That’s the sort of thing I used to do before he broke up with me for a test. It’s one of the first things I did before he kissed me for the first time.
It was at a party. Where else? One of those medical school parties, celebrating the end of yet another exam, with far too much alcohol. As opposed to college parties, by now we were all old enough to buy alcohol without a fake ID, so we always went a little nuts.
It took place the night of our big pathology exam. I had studied so hard for that exam, but this was one of the times it didn’t pay off. The exam was just so random. Our professor, Dr. Miller, asked questions along the lines of, “In the textbook, what did it say on page 121 paragraph three about the etiology of lung cancer?” That was anactual questionon the test. How do you answer something like that? The only way is to look at the four choices, close your eyes, and point randomly to one of them.
So that night, I was utterly convinced I was going to fail and determined to get drunk enough to forget it.
I was only on my second beer of the night when I literally bumped into Cameron Berger while I was on my way to the bathroom. It was easy to bump into him, because he took up about ninety percent of the hallway.
I had never been friendly with Cameron. He hung out in a different crowd than I did. Weirdly, medical school reverted to high school social patterns: there were the popular kids, the geeks, the stoners—you get the idea. Cam was one of the more popular kids in our class—very good-looking and had top grades and an easy kind of charm. He even had these white, perfectly straight teeth. It was almost maddening. Mostly, my friends and I made fun of him for being just a little too perfect. For trying just a little too hard.
But this time Cam had that same haunted look as a lot of the other kids at the party. The look of somebody who was pretty sure he had failed pathology. And he was somebody who really wanted that top grade. After all, how else was he going to match in an orthopedic surgery residency?
I raised my beer bottle.Screw Dr. Miller, I said, which was the official toast of the night.
He stared at me for a moment, then his face broke into a smile. And I realized for the first time that his teeth weren’t quite as perfect as I had thought. His second incisor on the left had a tiny chip on it, which he later told me was from a football tackle.Screw Dr. Miller, he said.
And thank God for grading on a curve, I added.
We hope, he said.
We hope, I agreed soberly.
For a moment, I almost felt like I needed to introduce myself, even though we had been classmates for an entire year in a class of only a hundred students. I hardly knew him, yet I knew him really well. I already knew he wanted to do ortho, he played college football, and he askedwaytoo many questions in class about the professors’ research. I also knew he had a girlfriend in our class named Jess, although rumor had it, the two of them were on the rocks—and she had left the party half an hour earlier, claiming to be sick to her stomach.
But one thing I didn’t know about Cam and learned later that night was that he was averygood kisser. And also, after that last beer, he stopped drinking so that he would be sober enough to drive me home safely.
I didn’t expect to fall in love with him though. I thought after we made out that night, he would wake up in the morning, thinking to himself,Oh God, what did I do last night?I didn’t expect him to call me the next morning to see if I was feeling okay and ask if I felt up for having some dinner. When I asked him about Jess, he told me he had just officially broken up with her.
Because of me, apparently.
I definitely didn’t expect to date him for an entire year. And when he dumped me, I didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did.
Even though it pains me, I put the Ring Dings down on the couch. “I don’t want this,” I say.
“Of course you do.”
“No, I don’t,” I snip at him. “I don’t want your Ring Dings. I don’t want your protection.” I grit my teeth. “Frankly, it would be perfectly fine with me if I didn’t see you ever again.”
Cam’s shoulders sag. “I know you’re mad…”
“I’m not mad,” I say. “You did the right thing. I mean, it’s not like we were going to getmarriedsomeday. It’s good you ended it. Now you can have lots of hot sex this year with nurses.”
“Amy!” Cameron’s broad face turns pink. “That’s not what I want.”
“Liar.”
He brushes the hair out of his own eyes. “What if I made a mistake?”
Is he serious about this? Because if he is, I really might lose it tonight. Yes, it sucked when he broke up with me. But it’s over. It’sdone. I can’t start this up again. If for no other reason, because Gabby will legit kill me if she has to comfort me through another breakup with Cameron Berger.
“Cam, don’t do this,” I say.
“Why not?” He offers a lopsided smile. “You can’t say we weren’t good together.”
