Dr Gardner cleared his throat. "The Avery Foundation Committee's policy has always been that no one is supposed to leak early information about its decisions. But, in light of your stellar performance you've done here at the hospital—I think you've earned the right to a little advance notice. I know how eagerly you've awaited this."
Lauren's heart began to race. Holy shit—this really was it.
"Which is why what I'm about to say is going to come as a surprise."
Lauren blinked. Surprise? That wasn't the word she wanted to hear right then.
He interlocked his fingers and leant forward on the desk, as this was something that he'd seen businessmen do on television, and felt a little aphrodisiac rush of power. "After much deliberation, the committee has decided to select another applicant for the residency."
Lauren felt as if she'd been smacked in the face. The air rushed out of her lungs. "Is this a joke?" She locked gazes with him, the briefest exchange of something Lauren didn't understand. "What happened? You said the spot was mine, you said..." The knot of emotion at the back of her throat made it difficult to speak.
"Something came up and well..." He rubbed his jaw, adjusted his glasses, and ran a hand through his hair. "The board decided to go in a different direction."
Through her surprise, it took Lauren a moment to process what Dr. Gardner was saying. A large pit was growing in her stomach because this conversation was headed in a very bad direction.
She leaned forward in her chair. "Dr. Gardner, you know I'm the best person for this job. I have so much to contribute to this particular field of research. I can't believe you're doing this to me a week before graduation," Lauren said, wincing when she heard the breathy, desperate tone of her voice. Her insides felt like they were on a constant spin cycle.
His face was impassive, but his eyes looked sad, defeated somehow. "Lauren, I can assure you that I know you are the best person for this residency. Your passion for medicine has far surpassed my expectations. But there are some things that are far beyond my control and this just happens to be one of them."
"So there's nothing I can do?" Lauren's voice cracked on the last word, and her lip trembled.
He shifted awkwardly in his chair. "I'm sorry, Lauren. The decision is final."
Lauren been torn, on the one hand she wanted to yell at Gardner, wanting to tell him what a chickenshit dickhead he was for promising her something that meant everything to her. On the other hand—cognizant of the fact that the decision had already been made and that there was absolutely nothing else she could do about it—Lauren had felt pressed to continue to exercise some professional decorum.
"Well thank you for the consideration," Lauren said while gathering herself. "I have to get back to work." She gave a forced smile. "These patients won't see themselves."
He gave her a curt nod of dismissal.
Lauren managed to maintain an expression of unconcern the entire walk back to doctor's call room. You've got to get it together. You've got to keep it together. Her plan was to not think about the self-deprecating thoughts that tried to swarm her mind. But all of her insecurities bubbled to the surface. Disappointment. Failure. Not good enough.
Her insecurities felt like a bruise that never went away. A bruise on her mind. Whenever she thought that it had healed, shit like this happened to remind her that she was not as fortunate as she would like to be. Sometimes being good enough just wasn't enough. Not for her anyways.
She pinched between her eyes. Lauren felt a headache coming on and was not in the mood to deal with anyone.
Lauren opened the call room door and blinked in surprise. Dinah stood there with a group of at least twenty people with excited expressions on their faces. The crowd let out a loud cheer when they saw her. Dinah squealed with joy before speaking. She held up a glass of non-alcoholic bubbly champagne. "I just wanted to take this moment to congratulate Lauren on all of her accomplishments. As Drake would say- she started from the bottom-"
Lauren winced at this, then bit her lower lip as she looked away. "Dinah, please..." she interrupted.
"Don't be shy, Laur..." Dinah stopped suddenly once she saw the vulnerable look in those green eyes.
Fighting for composure, Lauren tried to take another deep breath but her lungs just would not fill. She felt as though the walls were closing in around her. She needed to get out.
Now.
She slid past Dinah. "I didn't get the residency," Lauren whispered brokenly.
"Are you serious?" Dinah asked, brow furrowed. Her brown eyes were soft with worry.
Lauren nodded. "I just need some space. Please get Saunders to cover my patients." With that, she took off in a hurry toward the elevators.
Dinah's dark eyes widened as the shock settled in. Everyone in the room was following this conversation like they were at Wimbledon in the final match, but all eyes had landed on Dinah now, waiting breathlessly for an explanation.
Dinah awkwardly cleared her throat. "Uh, did anyone try the chicken?"she said with a forced smile. She walked towards the table to grab a plate. "The chicken seems really lovely."
----------
The fourteenth floor housed the hospital's medical library. With grand cathedral ceilings and sunlit stained-glass windows, the library's grandeur befitted a different era, a time when physicians consulted books for information. In the post-Internet days of online research, however, it was rare to find a living soul amongst the library's elegant two-story mahogany bookshelves.
Nearly four years ago, getting lost while looking for the orthopedic floor, Lauren had stumbled upon the medical library (it wasn't even included in the new student tour) and had been charmed by its quiet calm. It was an oasis of serenity amid the chaos and bustle of the other hospital floors.
Truthfully, it was also pretty much the only place in the entire building to which an employee could escape without being called, emailed, sent for or paged, due to the horrible wireless connection.
Lauren burst into the library, relieved to see that it was empty as always. She hurried past the librarian's desk en route to her favorite "thinking" spot: the Cardiac archives shelves in the far back corner of the medical library.
"Hello, Ms. Agnes," she said politely as she breezed by.
Agnes turned at the sound of Lauren's voice. Eighty years old, the librarian's vision wasn't the greatest. She smiled and waved in the wrong direction, addressing the air.
"Hello, Ms. Jauregui!" Agnes sweetly called out.
Lauren headed to the Archives section, and when she was safely tucked out of sight, she came to a stop. She leaned against the bookshelves and took a deep breath. And another.
Keep it together, she told herself. It wasn't the end of the world.
Before she could stop it, tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. She looked up at the ceiling. No, no, no, she would not do this. Not here, not now. She stood there for almost an hour, picking apart the reasons why she could have lost the residency. Lauren went through every case, every article, even pulled up her application to see if there was any discrepancy that she might have over looked. Things just didn't add up. It didn't make sense.
It was at that moment that Lauren heard Agnes call out in greeting to someone else. She peered through the bookshelves and saw her girlfriend standing at the entrance of the library. She had a frazzled look on her face, as if she rushed across the city searching for Lauren. Dinah must have called her, Lauren thought.
She watched as the dark-eyed beauty headed over to Agnes's desk, saying something she couldn't hear.
Lauren glanced around, hoping to spot another exit out of the stacks. She really couldn't deal with Camila right then. She couldn't deal with the sympathetic looks, the cheesy speeches on how everything was going to be okay. But most of all, she knew as soon as her person looked at her, Lauren would fall apart. And Lauren didn't want to fall apart. Not here. Unfortunately, there was no other way out. Peering through the books, she saw Agnes point to the Archives section where she was hiding. Camila nodded, then began walking straight toward her.
Lauren quickly brushed away the tears from her eyes, praying that her mascara wasn't smudged. She needed a cover—fast. She saw a nearby step stool and climbed up. She grabbed the first book she saw off the shelf and cracked it open just as her girlfriend rounded the corner.
"Laur," Camila said with a look of concern. Her chestnut hair was pulled up, away from her face, and twisted into a single long braid. "Babe, are you okay?"
Lauren feigned disinterest, peering up from her book. "Me? Yeah, I'm fine. Just doing a little research."
"Dinah told me that they didn't choose you for the Harper-Avery residency." She fiddled with the silver pendant around her neck.
Lauren climbed down from the step stool, still striving for nonchalance. "Yep. Apparently being the most qualified applicant doesn't necessarily get you the position." The green eyed one shrugged while she fiddled with a book. "But I'm sure you're happy, right?" She forced herself to look indifferent as she turned around.
Camila seemed embarrassed by the question. "What do you mean . . ." she trailed off awkwardly. "Of course I'm not happy. Why would I be happy?" She tilted her head, looking a bit confused.
Her green eyes flashed. "Because you get to keep me here. I'll stay here and we'll work together and get a new house and puppy and we'll have that perfect life that you've planned out for us..." She looked at her girlfriend, feeling so fragile she could barely breathe.
"Lauren," Camila whispered. The way she said her name, all sad and drawn out and slow, sent a shiver along Lauren's spine. She looked at Lauren, hurt in her eyes. "But that's what we both want. When did that change?"
Lauren held her breath as her girlfriend reached out a hand and caught a lock of her hair, letting it slide through her slim fingers.
Lauren's lips pursed for a moment as if she were considering the question. The older one suddenly felt tears threatening once again. "It hasn't changed." She groaned softly and ran her hands through her hair. "I'm sorry Camz. I'm just not the best company right now. But I'll be fine," Lauren said, turning her back to Camila. "Just leave me alone. Please."
She felt Camila's hand on her shoulder. "Don't do this. Not here, not now, not ever. If you want to fight, go pick a quarrel with someone else but don't try and pick one with me."
Lauren trembled, the effort of holding the words in almost too much. But through the tumult and silent rage another emotion churned. Shame. Because Camila was right. She was trying to pick a fight, trying to deflect her hurt on someone else.
The feel of Camila's soft hands on her skin reached deep inside her. Every insecurity rose up all too easily. "Why am I not good enough?" Lauren whispered, finally saying the words she had fought hard to hold back. Her voice was soft, but the words seemed to echo off the pale marble walls. Even as she blinked furiously, doing her best to rid herself of the tears, Camila's hand curled around her upper arm just above her elbow. It felt warm against her chilled skin. She looked up at Camila, feeling so fragile she could barely breathe.
Camila saw vulnerability in her green eyes and a deep-rooted sadness that touched her in a way that was familiar, as if she shared her feelings of rejection and loss. "Come here," Camila murmured. "You don't have to be strong for me."
Camila's arms came around Lauren and tightened until the older one lay fully against her. Her skinny shoulders were stronger than they looked. Lauren allowed herself to lean against them, to let her girlfriend bear her weight and finally, finally stopped fighting the tears she had swallowed back for so long, shudders shaking her whole body as the sobs tore out of her.
Lauren didn't do it prettily, either. She sobbed and gasped and sniffled. By the time she was done, Camila was smoothing loose tendrils of hair out of her face with one hand. The fear and anger and sadness had eased; the physical act of crying seemed to have washed away the hard knot that had formed in her chest.
"Better?" Camila asked.
"Yes." A sniffle caught her by surprise. She was more surprised when Camila produced a wad of tissues from her bra and handed it to her.
Lauren smirked. "Tissues in your bra?" she asked with a hint of humor, in between a hiccup and another sniffle. She made good use of them, drying her eyes, wiping her nose, resting comfortably against her all the while.
Camila softly giggled. "I couldn't find my padded bra this morning."
Lauren gazed at Camila through half-lidded eyes. "I'm sorry for taking out my frustrations on you." She gave her a light kiss on the lips. "You don't deserve that."
"And I'm sorry things didn't work out with the residency," Camila shifted her eyes away before letting her go. "But you do have a lot of great options here in Boston. You're still one of the most sought after graduates here at Harvard."
Lauren sighed. "I know but I really needed a spot on this particular residency. It's the only clinical trial in the world that's researching the effect of stem cells in pediatric congenital heart disease." She drew in a staggered breath. "Camz, I feel like I'm constantly trying to prove myself. It's like I'm a stringed puppet manipulated by the cruel hands of chance and I'm just fighting to cut these strings and be free."
Camila's brown eyes were alight with tenderness and a trace of something else. Guilt, perhaps. Why guilt, Lauren thought. Her complexion had also shifted from pale to paste. The change was so minute Lauren couldn't tell but she'd swear it had. Before she could identify it, Camila swiftly turned back to her. She fumbled through her bag before pulling out a long velvet box.
"I was going to wait for graduation to give this to you but.." Camila held an open velvet box in front of Lauren. In it, a beautiful gold chain with a sun-shaped pendant that caught the light, and for a moment it seemed as if it, too, belonged in the sky.
"Camz...," Lauren said, her voice a low, emotion-filled whisper. "It's beautiful."
Without asking, Camila moved behind her and brushed her hair over her shoulder. Drawing the necklace around Lauren's neck, she fastened the clasp. "If I'm the moon, then you're the sun. And just remember, even the darkest night will end and the sun will always rise."
Tears filled her green eyes and spilled over to her cheeks. "I love you." A tender smile touched her lips.
"I love you too," Camila whispered back. "Always." Then came the hug, and it was the hug that always made Lauren's heart mush. Serious grip, cheek to the hair, eyes closed, just a little sway. Camila's hugs mattered, she thought, and made her impossible to resist. Lauren leaned close and planted a soft kiss on the side of Camila's neck. She smelled wonderful.
"Ladies." Agnes stood at the end of the aisle, waving at them. Lauren could only imagine how it looked, the two of them wild-eyed and pressed up against each other.
But the amiable librarian was either extremely discreet or more likely—given the Coke-bottle-sized glasses perched high atop her nose—extremely blind. She smiled at them as they stood there, frozen.
"I just wanted to remind you that we close for lunch in ten minutes," she said pleasantly.
"Thank you," Lauren answered as she began to gather her things. Agnes nodded, then left.
As soon as Agnes was out of sight, Camila pulled the green-eyed one into her arms and held her tightly with such casual, automatic intimacy that Lauren knew everything was going to be all right. She reached out and ran her fingers through the tangle of hair at the back of Camila's neck and drew back slightly.
"Can you get away for a little while?" Camila asked. "It's lunchtime, anyway."
"Sure, Dinah got coverage for my patients." Lauren agreed. "How does Bella Noche sound? I haven't had one of their tacos in awhile."
Camila smiled and nodded her head in assent. "Perfect choice," she said as she took Lauren's hand in her own.
They didn't speak again until they were out of the building and weaving their way through the hurrying, dodging, sidestepping lunch crowd that filled the sidewalks.
When they reached Bella Noche, Lauren escorted her girlfriend into the Mexican restaurant that boasted 2 for 1 Margarita's and an extra-hot secret salsa dip that the owner's grandfather, Manuel Rodriguez created thirty years ago when he opened the restaurant's doors. The host stuffed them into a corner booth in a 12x14 room crammed with tables, chairs, red plastic jalapeno pepper tablecloths, and an assortment of parrot piñatas dangling from the rafters.
The relaxed, festive atmosphere calmed Lauren and by the time the waiter returned with their drinks, a Corona for her, a glass of red wine for Camila, she was in an almost pleasant mood.
Camila held up her menu and furrowed her brows. "I don't know what to order."
Lauren sighed. "Camz, you never know what to order," she pointed out. "But you always wind up liking what you choose."
"That's true. So why do I spend so much time agonizing over the menu? When the waiter comes I should just close my eyes and point."
"Wait. What if you point to guacamole? You're allergic."
"Oh, right." Camila sighed. "Maybe I'll get ..."
"Ladies? Can I take your order?" the waiter interrupted as he stood there impatiently.
Camila shot a look of minor panic at Lauren.
"Uh, just a few more minutes," Lauren said apologetically.
Camila batted her long lashes at the waiter. "Thanks sweetie," she added with a wink. "I promise we'll be ready soon." She was a natural flirt. Lauren knew it was harmless but she couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy.
The waiter smiled, said, "No problem," and walked away.
"He's nice," Camila said, returning to the menu.
"You're paying him," Lauren rolled her eyes. She felt an irrational stab of jealousy. "Why is he 'nice' because he's doing his job? That's what people are supposed to do. Their jobs," she said in an irritated tone.
Camila looked up from her menu and smiled. "You're cute when you're jealous."
"Whatever, Camz," Lauren said, planting both elbows on the table and leaning forward.
"Okay, I think I'm going to have the ... No, wait. Yes, definitely the chicken tacos."
The waiter returned.
Camila ordered the fish tacos, not the chicken, something with butternut squash, which seemed to be the hot vegetable at the moment. Lauren ordered the steak fajitas, medium rare.
The waiter went off to place their orders as Camila and Lauren sat back and sipped their drinks, talked, and took in the restaurant's ambiance. With slightly spooky hand-crafted modern light fixtures, a bar made out of concrete, and floors striped in alternate panels of oak and chocolate-colored walnut, it was a unique and funky salute to Crafts-movement chic, with a distinctly new millennium twist.
Their food arrived, and Camila picked up her taco, nibbled, and sighed happily. "I'll have to do an extra hour on the elliptical to pay for this, but it's worth every calorie."
Lauren was surprised by how hungry she was, so they ate in silence for a while.
Camila's attention shifted towards the crowded bar as she stared at an individual that sat at the bar. "Lauren, that guy" she whispered, "the one at the end of the bar, the one wearing the Red Sox cap. Do you see him?"
Lauren discreetly turned and nodded.
"He's had three drinks since I came in. Scotch, I think. That's three in less than half an hour. And without ice or a glass of water on the side!"
"Oh, that's Tony Rogers," Lauren said. "He's known mostly as Old Tony, though I don't think he's even sixty. He's a regular."
"A regular drinker." Camila frowned. "I wonder why he drinks so much. Maybe he's depressed. Maybe he's lonely or having a spiritual crisis."
"I don't think so." Lauren regarded Old Tony over Camila's shoulder. He was laughing and the man seated next to him, another local, put a companionable arm around his shoulder. "I think he drinks because he likes to drink. That is possible, you know. That drinking doesn't have to be a problem."
Camila crossed her arms over her small chest and tilted her head to one side so several brown springs of hair bounced off her shoulders. "My medical expertise disagrees. I'd say he has an addiction. Alcoholism is a disease."
Lauren shook her head. "Doctors don't know everything, Camila."
"They know enough to say he's destroying his liver, maybe even killing himself."
"Maybe he is," Lauren conceded, "but it's his business, isn't it? Old Tony doesn't have to answer to anyone but himself. He's got no wife, no kids, and no boss. If he wants to spend every day at Bella Noche drinking, let him. If you can't go to Bella Noche, where the hell could you go?"
"But...,"Camila was silent a moment."But then how does he get home? If he's driving drunk then—"
"No, no," Lauren said, "he lives in an apartment around back. Besides, no one would let him drive when he's drunk. He's got friends, you know. People like him. People look out for him."
Camila frowned. "People are enabling him is more like it. I'm sorry. I guess I can't be so nonchalant about it as you obviously can."
Lauren's shoulders lifted and fell."It's just not my business to get all worked up about," she replied. "You can't control the world around you, Camz. You just have to let some things go."
"Live and let live?" Camila replied while collecting her long hair and drawing it over her shoulder.
Lauren smiled. "I'll drink to that." She held up her beer and took a sip."I'm so lucky that you're not like that with me," she added silently.
"Like what?" Camila replied.
"Stifling," Lauren said. "You've never tried to control me or my decisions like you've tried to control everything else around you. I'm very thankful for that."
Pink seeped into her cheeks. Camila nervously toyed with her napkin, folding it into small, symmetrical squares as she forced out the next words. "As if anyone could ever try to control you?" Camila muttered beneath her breath in a slightly guilty tone."Everything I do, I do out of love. I think love justifies even the craziest actions." She clasped her hands around her wineglass and quickly changed the subject. "You're not on call on Saturday night, are you?" she asked.
"No. I'm actually not."
"I was thinking we could do a little getaway this weekend?"
Lauren's eyes lightened. "That's a great idea."
"Ally's uncle has a villa in Parson's Park, right on the water's edge. I could see if it's free?"
Lauren reached up, framed the younger one's face and then pressed her lips to Camila's forehead. "That sounds like a perfect plan to me."
Camila's mouth curved into the familiar half smile and Lauren had to curl her fingers into a fist to stop herself from reaching out to trace its line. Her life may not have gone exactly as planned but Camila was her constant. Everything else could be turbulent but her girlfriend was always the one thing that didn't change. And she felt pretty damn lucky to have that one thing.
Author's Note- I posted the first part of the next chapter because I felt bad about leaving a cliffhanger. They suck, I know! I hope you forgive me :) Happy reading! -Ella Ellaj96