Dr. Kraft is awesome. Dr. Saul is awesome. This woman’s EVD is awesome. It’s a simple procedure, but still, I am elated. I spend the hours afterward catching up on the paperwork I missed before and during rounds, keeping track of the neurosurgery patients currently admitted to floor three, answering pages from ER doctors, and helping my primary attending for the day: a friendly woman named Dr. Juan.
I pass Landon twice in the hallways, once on my way into the bathroom—he was exiting the men’s room—and again in the ER. At no time do I have to spend more than half a second in his presence, which is wonderful.
I scrub in once more around 4:30 p.m. on a six-year-old’s tethered spinal cord release.
By 5 o’clock, I realize that I haven’t eaten anything all day. I inhale two of my protein bars, step into and out of about six patient rooms for various tasks, and then return to the donut room at 7 to begin signing all my patients out to my night floater: a fourth-year resident, Dr. Tara Fairbanks.
In reality, I’m not finished passing her the torch until almost 10 p.m. I swing by the room of a teenager recovering from an aneurism, giving her a fidget spinner Dr. Juan wants her to play with, before I trudge to the stairwell, feeling elated and exhausted.
I survived my first day. Landon was here…and I survived.
I hear other footsteps in the stairwell, but my mind is elsewhere. I’m replaying the day, trying to absorb the fact that I’m really a neurosurgery resident. After all these years. The realization hits me full-force as I stride into the first-floor lobby. I’m a resident. I’m a resident. I did it.
I’m so emotional in that moment, I stop by a bench and blink a few times; I run a finger underneath my damp eyes.
You did it, Evie. You did the impossible.
And, God, so few will ever understand just how impossible it was. My sense of satisfaction, of unadulterated pride, is bigger than the building as I step outside—and find it’s raining.
Hmmm. Well, there’s a covered breezeway, plus a tunnel over the road to the far-flung employee parking lots. I find my car keys in my small purse, reminding myself as my fingers close around them to bring my briefcase tomorrow. There were papers that I could have taken home tonight, and maybe should have, but I didn’t have a bag to put them in, so I’ll have to access them remotely from my laptop.
One brisk walk across the street and two stairwells later, I’m behind the wheel of my maroon Subaru Outback, exiting the parking deck and heading toward my apartment. It’s not far from here: less than a mile, in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood.
I’m at the first red light on my trek, at the corner of the sprawling hospital campus and the children’s hospital next door, when I see him through my frenzied wipers—some poor guy getting splashed by passing cars as he strides down the sidewalk. One blink and my body lights up: Landon.
Shit. That’s Landon right there, walking down the street in drenched business attire, clutching a dripping leather suitcase.
My light turns green, and I have just a second to decide.
I pull over. One smooth move, and not a second thought.
I roll my window down and lean toward it, cupping my mouth before I yell, “LANDON!”
The monsoon drowns out my voice. I drive a few feet closer to him and try again. “LANDON!”
I’m not sure if he notices the idling car or me yelling—but Landon glances over his shoulder. I wait for him to recognize me, but he doesn’t. Not until he takes two long steps back, lifting a hand up to his eyes.
I watch his face morph in surprise as he leans down partway into my passenger’s side window.
“Evie? Is that you?” His voice rises above the clapping rain.
“Get in!” The storm has picked up even as I’ve idled here. It’s raining cats and dogs, and the car behind me has shimmied up right on my tail.
I see the tension in features, in the temporary stillness of his sculpted chest and shoulders. Then his mouth relaxes and he reaches for the door handle. I blink, and Landon’s in. He’s in my car and oh my gosh, he’s really drenched.
I can’t help laughing as I pull off from the curb. “You look like you went for a swim.”
He wipes a hand over his forehead, where water drips down from his hair in rivulets that glow green as I pass under another light. “I kind of did.” His voice is lower, but the same.
“Hey, you know, there’s a blanket in the backseat.”
He glances behind him, but looks back at the road. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”
I reach down to the console between our seats and flip a switch to turn on his seat’s heater right about the time it starts to hail. “These summer storms are crazy,” I say as we pass through another intersection.
“Where are you taking me?” His brows are arched. His rumbling voice sounds skeptical.
I laugh as I press the brakes. “Where do you live?”
He smirks. “You passed the turn.”
It’s so surreal to be here with him. For an aching moment, I feel as if we’re floating down the flooded street. As if the rain encapsulating my car is soapy water at a drive-thru car wash, and it’s 2007.
I struggle to find my voice. “I did?”
“You did.”
I get into the left lane, making a U-turn when I can. The roaring rain is all we have between us. That and eons. “So, a left up here?” I make a guess as I approach the area’s main drag.
“Yeah. It’s down two blocks.” He crosses his arms, clasping his big hands over his triceps.
“Here—” I turn the dial to make the heat hotter. “You must be freezing.”
“Nah. I’m used to cold.”
I think of Landon jogging in a Johns Hopkins T-shirt: a sight my sister thought she saw near our parents’ house at Thanksgiving in 2015. After Em thought she had seen him, I got out and drove around in search of a car with Maryland plates. When I couldn’t find one, I went down to his old room and sobbed. Remembering this while he sits next to me makes my face and neck flush with self-conscious heat.
“Oh yeah. You went to Hopkins.” Not for undergrad. He went to UNC for that…but Hopkins after.
Landon nods.
“And then you moved to another cold, snowy locale.”
“Colorado’s not that cold.”
I snort. “Says you. It’s pretty cold. Which I actually love. I love the cold. And snow—yes, please. People talk about summer here being the bee’s knees, but I like fall and winter. I think it’s better when the weather fluctuates when you’re inside all day, living life through windows.”
He regards me for a moment with his eagle eyes. “You feel like you live your life through windows?”
My heart pounds. “Not really. Kind of, though. I mean, it’s like a bubble, work is. You can be there twenty-four hours and it feels like five…or four hundred. Sometimes I look outside and see the Front Range, and I’m surprised it’s even there.” I laugh. “Happens mostly when I haven’t slept for days.”
The corners of his lips turn up just slightly: one of his old, familiar, measured smiles. “Did you enjoy rotations?”
“Surgery, yes. Psychiatry and pediatrics, not so much.”
His smile widens. “Don’t want to save the children, Evie?”