Bend (5 page)

Her laughter comes from deep in her throat, and the knot at the back of my neck loosens a bit. This is how things are supposed to be. Just me and Mia, shooting the shit. Talking about life and work and everything in between.

For a few seconds, I actually forgot about all of the garbage that’s weighing on me, trying to crush me—this ugly, unresolved issue with Mia being just a part of it. It’d be great if I could turn back time and freeze that moment, bookmark it, and return to it whenever I needed to.

The timer on Mia’s phone chimes. Walk’s over. She reaches across herself to tap the screen strapped to her arm, and then we start jogging.

I have to take it easy when I’m running with her. She’s in great shape, and she’s not slow, but when I’m by myself I usually do about one mile per hour faster than she does. So I hang back and let her set the pace.

Three Oaks is one of our favorites. Its woodland trail is low-impact and great for running, winding through what feels more like natural wilderness than a manicured and manufactured park. The farther into it we go, away from the traffic and bustle of the surrounding suburban sprawl, the denser and more lush the vegetation and the louder the quiet grows. The peace and silence covers the landscape like a canopy, amplifying the birdsong in the trees and the rustling of small animals in the bushes.

All these trees even makes the air smell almost clean. Just almost, though. It’s still Southern California, after all.

“Anything else interesting happen last night?” Mia asks casually.

I’m kind of wishing she wouldn’t talk—being chatty is a chore today—but at least answering her questions about work doesn’t require much effort.

“A pediatric appendicitis case. Teenage suicide attempt. Only one trauma case, a stabbing. Not serious. No GSWs.” My shifts are always better when there are no gunshot wounds. I hate gunshot wounds. I have nightmares about gunshot wounds.

“Slow night then?”

“Relatively speaking.” I’ve never figured out how to explain to her what working in the ER is really like without sounding like a gargantuan crybaby. If I do mention the pressure, the workload, or the almost constant, nagging fear of screwing up, then I never tell her exactly how bad it is. I chose this career, and I don’t need or want anyone’s sympathy—not even Mia’s. Especially not Mia’s.

Dirt and gravel crackle beneath our slapping shoes. My heart is pumping faster, my breathing still calm and even. Ahead of us, a red squirrel scurries up a tree. We’ve reached the part of the trail where it slopes gently up toward a pond that marks the first mile of our route.

Before we get that far, another runner comes barreling down toward us. He’s your run-of-the-mill gym monkey: veiny biceps, wife-beater shirt, bulging thighs straining the seams of his short tights, sun-bleached hair, and a grilled-hot-dog tan.

Mia moves over in front of me to give him room, and he zeroes in on her as he approaches, slowing down and leering at her the way only a dude who thinks he’s hot shit can do. When he looks behind her and meets my eyes, though, his expression shutters, and he seems to shoot past us in a hurry.

I’m not really sure what he saw in my face, but I guess it wasn’t pretty. I can’t help it. Mia’s not my girlfriend, but he didn’t know that. It’s so goddamn aggravating when I’m out in public with her and other guys blatantly check her out or, even worse, actually hit on her.

“What did you do yesterday?” I ask as she falls back in beside me, because it redirects the topic away from myself. And because it makes me feel more normal and less like I’m running next to a stranger.

“Nothing, really.” Her voice sounds calm, not even a little winded. “Paige called. They found out the sex of the new baby.”

I wait for her to elaborate. Mia has two siblings. Her brother, Cameron, is four years younger and about to graduate from Stanford with a bachelor’s in computer science. Paige, who lives in San Diego, is the oldest at twenty-nine, an attorney who’s married with two kids and pregnant with the third one. Their mom, Gwen, is also a lawyer, and then there’s Mia’s dad. Frank Waters is an anesthesiologist with over thirty years of experience, Vice-President of Medical Staff at a university hospital, emeritus professor—and the most intimidating guy I’ve ever met.

To me, Mia’s family is…incomprehensible. Before I met her, I didn’t even know families like hers existed outside of TV sitcoms. They’re tight-knit, loving, and supportive. Sure, they’ll fight and have issues with each other, but that stuff never shakes the foundation. In every way that matters, they’re perfect. And yeah, I’m envious. If our childhoods were mythical characters, hers would be Santa Claus while mine was the monster under the bed.

“And?” I say when she doesn’t continue. We’ve reached the pond and are crossing the small wooden bridge that stretches across the narrowest part of it, at the north end of the calm pool of water, which is enclosed by grass, large rocks, and trees.

“Oh.” She sounds distracted. “It’s a boy.”

A boy who’ll have two big sisters to bully him. Poor kid. “Your sister’s so old-school. Don’t most people announce that stuff on Facebook?”

At Mia’s huff, I look sideways at her. She’s shaking her head, lips in the slightest of pouts. “She just likes to call so she can ask invasive questions about my life.”

“She asks because she cares.” I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve reminded her of this. Mia knows it, but when she’s annoyed with her sister, she tends toward temporary memory loss.

“And because she’s nosy and a control freak,” she supplies.

“I’m just saying.”

“Yeah, I know. Better to have a family of busybodies than one where no one gives a crap.” She takes a breath—but only one—before she keeps talking. “Hey, have you heard from your uncle lately?”

For a split second, it feels like my muscles are going to lock up and stop my legs from moving. Her question, asked so innocently, slams into me like a face punch.

“Yeah, he’ll be in town in the middle of July,” I answer as sudden panic slices through me, a desperate need to hide my reaction from her.

Uncle Warren is the only person in my family worth knowing. Everyone else is a piece of shit. Starting with the minor pieces of shit, of which I used to be one, and increasing in degrees of shitbaggery—my mother landing somewhere in the middle on that scale—until you get to the de facto grand ruler of all the pieces of shit: my father.

Being reminded that my uncle is visiting is not the problem. It’s the reason he’s visiting that’s gutting me.

And I can’t let Mia see it.

“You guys meeting up?” is her next question, and I sneak a glance at her, because it’s surreal to me that she doesn’t notice how jittery I am. She’s watching the path ahead, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses.

I’m sucking in air, drawing a deep breath. Muscles and diaphragm contracting. Oxygen flowing in through my nose, down the trachea, and through the bronchi into my lungs. My diaphragm relaxing to reverse the process, releasing CO2.

All good things.

I say, “That’s the plan.”

“Good.” Another quick look reveals her smiling at me. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen him, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah. He’s busy.” Which is true. For the past twenty years or so, Uncle Warren has worked in the field with Relief International. Right now he’s in South Sudan, working as a senior technical logistician, which essentially means he’s in charge of making sure the entire operation runs smoothly.

I spent the summer when I was sixteen with him in Ethiopia—which was his attempt to help straighten out the angry, confused, and lost kid I was then, and it worked—so I know firsthand what his job entails. Calling him busy is an understatement.

But my answer was still curt. I know it, and I can’t help it. I need her to not ask any more questions about my uncle.

Well, there’s an easy way to stop her.

“Ready to pick up the pace?” I ask.

“Uhh.” She sounds reluctant. But Mia has a hard time backing down from a challenge, so I’m not surprised when she says, “Sure.”

I increase my speed slowly, my legs steadily pumping a little faster, knowing she’ll either start to lag behind or get too out of breath to speak.

Either one is fine with me.

We’re finally back by the restrooms where we started. Mia veers off the path into the grass, where she collapses onto the ground. In between her gulping and gasping for breath, she says, “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Figured with such a short distance, you could push yourself by upping your speed a little.” I sit down a couple of feet away from her. It’s an appropriate proximity for a friend, and a few days ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But now I can’t shake this hyperawareness of her, the prickling knowledge that she’s so close I can easily reach out and touch her—and that she would welcome it.

“I’ll have a snappy comeback to that,” she says, pushing her sunglasses up on her head and crossing her arms above her eyes, “right after I puke my guts out.”

Smiling and saying nothing, I lie down, too, folding one arm under my head and crossing my ankles. The grass smells fresh and earthy, the sky is a soft baby-blue above me, and despite the squealing from the kids on the playground and Mia’s short-winded panting close by, I can still hear the soft rustling of an insect near my ear.

You’re a whiny little bitch.

It’s true. I used to be better at just taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. My life is good now. The best it’s ever been. Yeah, residency is tough—stressful, exhausting, even overwhelming at times. But I’ve got the basics covered. Got everything I need: health, enough money to get by, and a career that’s going exactly where I want to be headed and where the rewards far outweigh the negative.

Plus I currently don’t have any shitty people in my life. Only good friends. The best one lying next to me right now. Still within touching distance.

I don’t know that I ever really thought I’d have that kind of relationship with a woman. It’d probably surprise my court-ordered therapist back in high school. Dr. Lerner was a pompous ass who basically said I had very little chance of ever having a healthy relationship with a woman, in any shape or form. All because of my mom being such a selfish, neglectful, and emotionally distant cunt—my words, not his.

I thought he was full of it then, and now I know he was. I decided that for sure a few months after my roommate dumped Mia. After he and I graduated college, he moved on, and I found myself keeping in touch with her instead of him. Because the way he’d treated her made him the kind of shitbag I didn’t want anything to do with.

And her…well, she was crushed. Completely heartbroken. And all I wanted was for her to be happy again. I wanted to
make
her happy again. Then one day I realized she’d become my friend. So yeah, to hell with Dr. Lerner, because there she was, a girl I liked and respected, and I didn’t spend time with her because I wanted to fuck her.

All right. Not
just
because I wanted to fuck her.

Because I did.

Do.

Whatever.

Back to my original point: I need to chill. Also, sleep. I really need to get some sleep, but it feels less urgent than an hour ago. Running has lifted the brain fog, left me loose-limbed and lighter. Spent, but in a good way. Endorphins are great.

“Okay, so,” Mia says. “Friday night.”

Turning my head in her direction, I see her lying on her side, watching me, head propped up by her hand.

“I’m sorry,” she goes on. “If I’d known it’d upset you so much, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

When Mia apologizes, she always sounds like she means it. Because she does. And she never says it like she’s only sorry you got offended and is pitying you for so easily getting upset. No, she honestly feels bad that something she said or did was hurtful to you.

Which makes it hard to stay angry with her for any length of time.

“So we can forget it. If that’s okay.” She’s talking more quickly now, a staccato outpouring of words.

I’m just staring at her, my jaw clenched. Friday this would’ve been exactly what I wanted to hear. Before I had a chance to really think about it. But now it’s too late. Now there’s nothing she can say or do that can erase that night and her questions from my memory.

“I don’t think we can forget it,” I say tightly. “I definitely can’t.”