Shredded:An Extreme Risk Novel

Epilogue





Z


“You’ve got this, baby.”

“I know.” I smile at Ophelia, lean down so she can give me a kiss for luck. It’s the last day of the Dew tour, the first of three Olympic qualifying events. I’m the top-ranked boarder going into the finals, with Ash ranked third and Luc ranked tenth.

Cam just finished the women’s final with a third-place ranking, so to say we’re all a little excited would probably be an understatement. Ophelia’s at least as excited as the rest of us, maybe even more. I know she’s certainly more nervous. Not that I blame her. I think there will always be a part of her that’s waiting for me to mess up. Then again, I could just be projecting my own shit onto her.

I nearly laugh at the thought. After spending so many years trying to stay out of my own head, now I’m voluntarily diving in, thanks to Ophelia—and to the damn shrink she’s talked me into seeing once a week. It’s not easy, and I f*cking suck at talking about my feelings and shit. But still, I’m trying. For Ophelia. And maybe, just maybe, for me, too.

I give her another kiss, this one more because I can’t keep my hands off her than because I think I need luck. At first I think she’s going to duck away—a million or so people are watching us, after all—but not my girl. Instead of pulling back, she wraps her arms around me and kisses me for all she’s worth. Her body melts into mine, her breasts press against my chest, and suddenly the run I need to throw down in a few minutes is the last thing on my mind.

“Z. We need to go.” Ash’s voice barely penetrates.

I tangle my hands in Ophelia’s hair, tilt her head back so that I can deepen the kiss. She tastes as sweet as ever—a mixture of the ever-present peaches and the caramel-flavored coffee she just finished.


I slide my tongue along hers and she moans, her arms tightening around my neck until our bodies are pressed as tightly together as they can get.

“Okay, seriously.” Behind me, Ash clears his throat. “We need to get up there.”

I’m still not listening, but Ophelia sighs, pulls away. “Go,” she says, pushing me toward the lift. “Do a bunch of turns and stuff.”

“Really? Still with that?” I shake my head. It’s embarrassing, really, how little she knows about snowboarding. I’m definitely going to have to do something about that.

“What do you want me to say?” she asks. Before I can answer, she continues, “Oh, right. Have a sick ride. And while you’re at it, I want to see at least one YOLO flip and a triple cork 1260. Got it?”

My mouth drops open. “How did you—”

She just smiles. “I’m dating one of the best snowboarders in the world. The least I could do is learn a little bit about the sport.”

“Yeah, but a YOLO flip? Do you even know what that is?”

“It’s a cab double cork 1440. Which means you get to do a whole lot of those little spinny things you like to do.” She leans forward, drops another kiss on my mouth, then turns around and heads toward the stands.

“You’re just going to walk away?”

She stops, turns back. “I think you’ve got a competition to win, don’t you? And I need to go find Ash’s family.”

“They’re not here yet?” Ash asks, looking surprised as he scans the crowd.

“They probably are. I just haven’t found them yet.”

“Come on, guys. Let’s go.” Luc shoves us toward the magic carpet. “We’ve got shit to do.”

We do. We really do.

With a last wave at Ophelia—yeah, I’m whipped, and no, I don’t give a shit—I climb onto the lift, wait impatiently for it to take us to the top. This time I am not going to choke. I need to prove it to myself as much as I do Ophelia and my friends.

Since I’m ranked first, I’m boarding last, which means I get to watch everyone else go. Jake, the kid from Colorado, throws up a good score, and then Gage, from Taos, comes out of nowhere and blasts straight into first place with a triple cork 1440. He just f*cking nails it. Luc throws down a good run, but again, this isn’t his event, so he’s happy when he lands in sixth place.

Then it’s Ash’s turn and his run is flawless. F*cking flawless. He doesn’t pull a 1440, but his 1260s are perfect and he slides right past Gage into first.

Then it’s my turn. The pressure isn’t totally on yet. I have one more run in case I f*ck this one up—we all do—but I want to nail it so bad I can taste it. I scan the crowd in the stands, find Ophelia’s silly pink-and-purple-striped hat.

That little glimpse is all I need, the extra bit of reassurance that settles nerves I never knew I had and gets me down to business. I shove off and jump onto the top of the dumpster they’ve got set up for us to ride. I spin off that, hit the ramp into a solid double back rodeo. The landing’s perfect, and I coast backward down two sets of rails, adding in a little flip at the bottom of the second one for the hell of it.

I can hear the crowd cheering, but I can barely hear it above the adrenaline rush. I’ve got this. I can feel it in my f*cking boots. I’ve got this.

I hit the second ramp, pull off a nice little triple cork 1260 for my girl, do another rail, and push my speed as I head into the big ramp that marks the end of the run. I hit it hard, grab decent air, and that’s when I bust out with the YOLO flip. For a second, just a second, I think I’m not going to land it. That this has all been a dream and I’m going to f*ck it up like I’ve f*cked up so many other things.

But then Ophelia’s face flashes in front of me, her eyes shining a bright, bright emerald, and I know that it’s all real. That it’s all good.

I land like a dream, then coast down to the bottom of the hill as the crowd goes crazy.

Ash and Luc are waiting for me at the rope line, and they f*cking jump on me the second I’m clear. “Holy shit!” Ash screams. “Holy shit!”

“You did it!” Luc yells. “You f*cking did it!”

“The score’s not in yet.” But it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be good. We all know it. I barged that run. I f*cking barged it.

Instinctively I turn toward the stands, searching for Ophelia. She and Cam are battling their way through the crowd trying to get to me. The commentators are saying something, but all I can hear is my girl screaming my name.

She gets to me just as the score is announced. It’s perfect. A perfect f*cking score.

I won.

Holy shit. I won. Everyone has one more shot, but there hasn’t been another perfect score this whole competition. I f*cking won this shit.

The crowd is going nuts, and so are we—Luc and Ash, Cam and Ophelia. I try to maintain just a little bit of swagger, but it’s no use. I can’t stop smiling. I don’t think I’m fooling anybody, and you know what? For the first time, I don’t care. Nothing has ever felt this good.

My girl is in my arms.

My friends are all around me.

And there is a perfect f*cking score on that board up there.

If I never have another day like this, it’ll be okay. Because I have this moment and that’s everything.

My phone rings, but I ignore it. Nothing and no one is as important as right now.

“We’ve got to go,” Luc says after a couple of minutes, when my phone rings a second time. “We’ve got to get back up there before we’re all DQ’d.”

“I know, I know,” I tell him, then lean down and kiss Ophelia one more time.

“Thank you,” I whisper against her lips. “Thank you for giving me this.”

She shakes her head and cups my face in her hands as tears roll down her face. Before she can say anything, though, Ash grabs me by the collar and pulls me toward the lift. “Later,” I mouth to her.

She nods, her smile so big and bright that I’m nearly blinded by it.

We’re almost at the magic carpet when Ash’s phone rings. “It’s probably Mitch,” he says as he reaches for it. “Wanting to congratulate you since you won’t answer your phone.”

But he looks confused when he sees the number.

“Who is it?” I ask, suddenly feeling uneasy, though I don’t know why.

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t answer. If it’s important, they’ll call back.”

But it’s too late. He’s already dragging the phone open. “Hello?”

He doesn’t say anything else for long seconds, but his face slowly drains of color.

“Ash? Man? What’s wrong?”

Luc crowds in, too, looking as worried as I feel.

He doesn’t answer, but the phone slips from his grasp and hits the ground, hard. Seconds later he does the same thing.

“What the f*ck?” I glance at Luc, but he’s as baffled as I am.

“Ash?” I say again as I crouch down next to him. “What’s wrong?”

“My family,” he croaks.

“What?”

“Accident on the way up here. Logan’s in surgery and my mom and dad … My mom and dad are dead.”





Don’t miss Ash’s story




Shattered


Coming soon from Flirt





For my mom





Acknowledgments




As always, I have so many people to thank for this book. Sue Grimshaw, who is an amazing editor and who I, quite simply, adore. Thank you so much for putting up with all my whining and delaying when it came to Z—I hope it was all worth it in the end.


Thanks to Gina Wachtel and everyone over at Random House, especially the art department (I know I was a huge pain about this cover—thank you, thank you, thank you) for your support and excitement about my books. It means the world to me.

Thanks to Emily Sylvan Kim, intrepid agent and brainstorm partner extraordinaire. You are wonderful.

Thanks to Shellee Roberts, Emily McKay, Sherry Thomas, and Julie Kenner for all the brainstorming help/handholding that went into me actually getting this book on the page. You’re the bestest friends a girl could ever ask for.

Thanks to my mom who always comes down to help me manage the craziness that is my life just when I need her most. Love you, Mom. You’re the best!

And finally, thank you to my guys, whom I love more than I can ever say. I am grateful every day for the chance to be your mom.


Read on for an excerpt from



Third Degree





by Julie Cross

Available from Flirt





@IsabelJenkinsMD: Got another medical myth to debunk for you today.

@IsabelJenkinsMD: Myth—humans only use 10% of our brains.

@IsabelJenkinsMD: This very inaccurate theory is most likely the result of some pseudo-psychologist from 1900 trying to employ motivational tactics

@IsabelJenkinsMD: in his/her patients on the order of “it’s physically impossible for bees to fly” so let’s all be inspired to do the impossible.

@IsabelJenkinsMD: The bee flight issue has recently been clarified and there is now a scientific explanation.



“It’s diabetes.”

Justin taps his fingers on the receptionist’s desk outside the lab. “The kid’s been in the ER five minutes and you have a diagnosis. Bullshit.”

I flash Justin a grin so I can keep from grinding my teeth. I don’t hate him. That would require a level of caring that we never reached. I loathe him. Him and his smaller-than-average penis. “He’s been here at least an hour, especially if you factor in the time in the waiting room.”

“Why do you do that?” Justin snaps. “You know what I meant by five minutes. I know you did. You’re stalling because you don’t really have specific reasons to believe it’s diabetes. You’ve done some freakish statistics in your head and odds are in favor of diabetes.”

Idiot. “And this is exactly why physical intimacy is all we were ever good at.”

Justin’s eyebrows lift up. “Physical intimacy is all you were good at, Isabel.”

Okay, so that stings. Not because I care what that stupid prodigy (though, if we’re getting technical, I started med school much younger than he) thinks, but more that I’m secretly petrified he’s right and the label will haunt me wherever I go. But the intern mantra, Show no fear, plays in my head a few times, giving me a surge of confidence. “Oh, so you admit that I’m good in bed?”

A flicker of regret flashes across his face, but like me, he knows the mantra. “I don’t recall any beds being involved. Floors, yes. A couple of walls.”

A lab tech walks toward the front desk and stops when he sees us eagerly waiting. There’s a snort of laughter, followed by, “I bet the two of you would fork over some serious cash for the contents of this folder.”

I snap my fingers. “Hand it over. Now.”

“Ignore her, she has no people skills,” Justin says before turning to me, calm as anything. “A hundred bucks, the next three enemas, and a round of kindergarten booster shots on the line. Still going with diabetes?”

He should know better than to doubt me when giving shots to a kicking, screaming kindergartener in the free clinic is involved. “Yes. Are you still going with lower intestinal bacterial infection?”

The folder lands in Justin’s hand, but he continues to stare at me, not opening it. He plays this part of our game so well. It drives me nuts. I used to think it was sexy, but now I can’t stand him. Or his penis. The guy didn’t even start med school until he was nineteen. Some prodigy.

“There’s no family history of diabetes. The kid’s only been sick for five days,” Justin repeats as if I don’t remember details of a patient exam that happened minutes ago. “He was in f*cking Mexico last week!”

“Enough,” the lady behind the desk hisses at us. “If Dr. Rinehart knew you were betting money on a patient’s diagnosis, you’d both be written up.”

Everyone knows Justin and I play this game, but getting caught doing it by our boss is an entirely different thing. I lower my voice and snatch the folder from his hands, “Yeah, a posh all-inclusive resort where everything is imported from the States.”

I open the folder, scan the blood-work numbers, and keep my face completely under control as I close it and pass it to Justin before walking off. I’m all the way to the ER doors before he comes jogging up behind me, the folder tucked under his arm. He pounds his palm against the button providing access to the ER.

“I was right, wasn’t I?” he says. “You did some statistics thing in your head.”

“Nope.”

“We both know you didn’t go with a gut feeling because Isabel Jenkins only diagnoses with evidence.”

I stop in the middle of the hallway and spin around to face him. “There might not be a family history of diabetes, but there is a family history of B-cell autoimmunity.”

His face falls so fast, I almost feel guilty. Almost. “The uncle with lupus … shit, I didn’t even—”

“And the paternal grandfather with rheumatoid arthritis. And then on top of that, did you smell his breath? A kid who’s been barfing his guts out and not eating shouldn’t have fruity-smelling breath.” I pat him on the shoulder. “It’s all right. I’m sure those questions weren’t on the intern exam. You probably did just fine. The chief is going to have all kinds of residency options for you … what with all the county hospitals in major cities desperate for subpar surgeons who can perform operations for half the cost of those fancy private hospitals. Like Johns Hopkins.”

Okay, that was one step too far. It’s so hard to hold back the trash talk when Justin and I are in competition mode. He pushes me and I push him. It seems horrible, but we’re both better doctors because of our head-to-head battles. But maybe we do need to seek out a healthier method of increasing drive. That’s a goal I can add to my when-I’m-a-resident-at-Johns-Hopkins list.

Justin shoves my hand off his shoulder. “Go screw yourself.”

I want to be pissed at Justin for not taking his loss like a man and being an idiot, but at the same time, I’m not an idiot. Which means I’m aware of how difficult I can be. If I could figure out what to do about it, I might change, because being the difficult one does get lonely and often comes with large doses of guilt. Which is probably how I ended up naked in a locked on-call room with said idiot (also naked).

After delivering the orders for treatment meds to the nurses’ station, we both have to walk together into the patient’s ER room, where our boss is waiting for lab results.

“It’s diabetes,” I say before she can ask.

Dr. Rinehart turns around and eyes me and Justin. Justin’s busy studying his shoes like a patient just bled out on top of them. Sore loser.

“Dr. Jenkins,” Rinehart says to me. “You have the lab results?” Her eyes flit in the direction of the fifteen-year-old kid in the hospital bed and his mom seated in the chair in the corner of the room.


I glance at them for a split second and then focus on my boss. “Yes, ma’am. It’s type 1 diabetes—”

“Diabetes?” the mom says, then she points at Justin. “He said it was probably food poisoning.”

“He was wrong.” The grin sneaks up on me for a second, but I smooth my mouth into a straight line again.

“Wait.” The kid pulls himself to a sitting position. “I have to, like, give myself shots and stuff? I hate needles.”

“Insulin,” I say. “You’ll need to regulate your body’s blood sugar levels.”

“For how long?” the kid and the mom both ask.

I stare at them blankly. Is that a real question, or is she being sarcastic? “Forever.”

The mom immediately bursts into tears. The kid snatches his cup of water and throws it across the room, splashing the clean white walls.

Dr. Rinehart opens her mouth to speak, her eyes narrowing at me. “Dr. Jenkins, perhaps you should backtrack a little, start with how you came to this diagnosis.”

I take a good five minutes to go through each symptom presented and how it connects to the diagnosis, and then I move on to the family history connection. By the time I finish my report, Dr. Rinehart is rubbing her temples and a nurse is hooking up the insulin pump I ordered for the patient right before coming in here to deliver the news.

“I’m not doing it!” the kid shouts at the nurse, fighting her, not allowing another needle to enter his body. “This is f*cking bullshit! None of you know what the hell you’re doing!”

My gaze sweeps the room, taking everything in—the sobbing mom, the adolescent with the flailing arms. Jesus Christ, these people are dramatic. “He’s going to be okay, you know?”

The mom points at her kid. “Does this look like okay to you? He’s sick and you’re telling me he’s gonna be sick forever. We came here so you could make him better.”

“He’s alive,” I point out. “He’s not dying. Diabetes is manageable.”

“Get her out of here,” the mom shouts to Rinehart. “I don’t want her anywhere near my son.”

I expect Rinehart to defend me, but instead she turns to Justin. “Dr. Martin, I’d like you to get the patient admitted to the pediatric floor, talk the family through the next few steps and let them know what they can expect to see with their son’s health, and then call up our support group specialist.”

“Yes, Dr. Rinehart,” Justin says.

I clamp my teeth together, my jaw tense with words of protest. As soon as we’re outside the room, heading down the hall, my mouth opens again, “You’re leaving them in Justin’s hands? He completely missed the family history and odor in the kid’s mouth.”

“I realize that,” Rinehart says. “But Dr. Martin is only human. He missed something and you caught it. The patient will receive appropriate treatment. His case is nonsurgical, so after he’s admitted we’re all done. Besides, the blood work would have provided the answers we needed regardless of whatever pre-results game the two of you were playing.”

Dr. Rinehart was the lucky doctor assigned to supervise the youngest medical interns in the history of the University of Chicago Medical Center. And I have to admit, she does have unending patience. It can’t be an easy job.

I’m dismissed with the wave of a hand, and then a nurse drops a stack of charts into my arms. I sigh and begin sifting through them, screening them for Rinehart to review later. An intern from another team breezes past me saying, “O’Reilly wants you in his office, stat.”

I straighten up. “Did he say why?” My heart is now drumming twenty extra beats per minute. There’s only one reason for the chief of surgery to call me into his office today.

My residency assignment.

The girl shrugs and then gives me a patronizing look. “Come on, Isabel, you know you got Johns Hopkins. There’s no way they’d let any other hospital snatch you up.”

A surge of confidence floods through me. I take the stairs two at a time up to the ninth floor, reciting the stats I’ve come up with to mathematically predict which residency program is most likely to accept me. It’s always been Johns Hopkins. That’s where my dad completed his cardiothoracic surgical residency. And that’s where I plan to be in a couple of weeks.

When I arrive at O’Reilly’s office, the door is open and my dad’s occupying one of the chairs across from the desk, his white lab coat hanging off the side. Why is he here? This must be good news, and the chief wanted Dad to share the moment with me.

O’Reilly looks at me, his face unreadable. “Have a seat, Isabel.”

I toss my long brown hair over one shoulder and tuck my coat neatly under me as I sit.

O’Reilly’s forehead wrinkles and he tosses a manila folder onto his desk, opening it and revealing a stack of pink pages. “I’ll get right to the point, Isabel. You haven’t been accepted into a residency spot at this hospital—”

“I understand completely.” Johns Hopkins, Johns Hopkins, Johns Hopkins. It’s so close I can taste the Baltimore crime-capital air.

Dr. O’Reilly’s gaze zooms in on mine. “You’re not accepted into any residency program.”

I stare at him, my jaw slack, mouth hanging open. “Wait … what?” From the corner of my eye, I can see that Dad hasn’t moved or reacted. He’s staring down at his hands. Did he already know?

“Your score on the emotional readiness portion of the exam wasn’t high enough to grant you a license to practice medicine without supervision,” O’Reilly explains, his voice flat.

Emotional readiness exam? “You mean that psych evaluation you made me and Justin take?”

“Yes, that would be the one. And scoring in the adequate range is a condition you and Dr. Martin agreed on when I allowed you into this surgical program despite your age,” he says, even though he’s fully aware of my inability to forget facts and details like these.

What the hell was wrong with my answers? I play back every bit of the hour-and-a-half-long session with the psychologist and find nothing I said that would deem me incapable of handling the job.

“The consensus among all the hospitals that considered you for residency programs is that you don’t have the ability to see consequences, to understand the impact your actions have on others, and though we have no incident to report of you making a poor medical decision for a patient—”

“Exactly,” I interrupt.

“—it’s still a big risk none of the programs, including this hospital, are willing to take,” O’Reilly finishes. “You would be in charge of five interns, overseeing their education. You’re not ready for that, Isabel. You’re eighteen years old.”

“Eighteen and three-quarters.” My chest is tightening. I can’t breathe. No, I’m breathing. But struggling.

“Given your age and short trip through med school, there was always a chance you wouldn’t be ready for this next step.”

A chance, yeah. But I never thought it would happen. “That’s it? I’m done? I can’t be a doctor? Why the hell did you let me get this far if I couldn’t keep going?”

Dad wraps his arms around my shoulders. “It’s all right, honey. Take a breath.”

I inhale and exhale slowly before lifting my eyes to look at O’Reilly again. “Is this because of what happened today? The diabetes kid?”


He points to a stack of pink papers. “That’s just one of many similar reports.”

“Does it say anywhere in that report that Justin wanted to diagnose him with food poisoning? Please tell me he didn’t get into any programs, either.”

O’Reilly looks down at his hands.

“He did, didn’t he?” I shake my head. “God, that’s f*cked up.”

“Isabel,” Dad warns, releasing me and turning his attention to his boss. “What are her options, then? Another year as an intern?”

“This hospital has already filled its intern quota for the fall,” he says. “You can apply to other programs, but I’m sure it would be the same situation. I can recommend her for a position in lab research. There are a number of facilities in the Chicago area—”

“I’m a surgeon. I’m not going to work in some lab, cutting up rodents.” I shake my head in protest. “I’m the best intern at this hospital and you know it.”

“You’re the most knowledgeable intern in the surgical program,” O’Reilly agrees. “But there’s a lot more to being a doctor than knowledge and diagnostic ability. Your practical surgical skills are above average, but not the best.” O’Reilly leans back in his chair, drumming his fingers together. “Perhaps this is simply an issue of lacking typical life experiences for someone your age. At least that’s one of the theories Dr. James presented in her evaluation. She pointed out that the majority of eighteen-year-old females are either just beginning college or starting out in the work world and have no real concept of their long-term plans. Dr. James believes your certainty may be a mask for avoidance of important age-related milestones.”

What a bunch of bullshit. Even O’Reilly doesn’t sound like he believes any of that. I scowl at the memory of the pinched face, pressed pants suit, and perfectly in-place hair that came with Dr. Winifred James, Ph.D. She doesn’t even have a real medical degree.

“I’ve spoken to the AMA,” O’Reilly adds, obviously uncomfortable with the topic of female adolescent milestones, “and they’ll allow you to retake the emotional readiness test, but not before at least six months have passed. That gives you a little downtime to do some thinking and experiencing.”

“What am I supposed to do for six months?” My whole life I’ve been on the fast track, never waiting for those age-related milestones. I’ve never had downtime. I’m not even sure I know what it means.

O’Reilly and Dad drone on about options for me and my destroyed future, but I can’t listen. All I can do is think about that stupid psych evaluation and getting my hands on it. Dr. Winifred James, Ph.D., what else did you write about me? I need to know where I went wrong. I need to know how to pass next time. But getting hold of it would be completely illegal and require a great deal of hacking—something I’m fortunately very capable of.

My devious and illegal planning is interrupted by O’Reilly’s secretary poking her head into the office. “Dr. Jenkins?”

“Yes?” Dad and I both say, twisting around in our chairs. I’m sure he’s replaying his patient list for today in his head like me, attempting to guess who might have taken a turn for the worse or be in need of further consultation.

“This Dr. Jenkins,” she says, pointing at me. “You have a speaking engagement in thirty minutes?”

I groan, remembering. “F*ck,” I mumble, but not low enough to avoid being heard. I stand up and wiggle my chair back into place. I’m only an intern for a few more weeks, so what will O’Reilly do if I skip out on this stupid task?

Dad looks like he wants to say something more, but I wave him off and bolt out of there. I don’t want to hear any patronizing speeches about everything turning out okay.

And to add an extra blow to my day, I have to face Justin and the smirk he’s wearing right now. He knows.

How the hell does he know already?

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment and take a deep breath before approaching him. Justin holds out a wad of twenty-dollar bills.

“Who told you?” I say, staring down at the money.

He shrugs. “Word gets around. And no, I’m not going to say I’m sorry you flunked your test, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“We both know you’re not sorry.” I glare at him. “Put your f*cking money away. I don’t want it.”

He has to jog to keep up with my brisk pace. “What are you gonna do now? Where are you going to go?”

My fist pounds against the elevator button. “Somewhere you’re not.”

“Well, I’ll be here, so …” His grin broadens.

It’s hard to keep the shock from my face. As the elevator doors open, I reach over and snatch the money from his hand. “On second thought, I’ll take the cash.”

“You’re right.” He leans against the elevator wall. “I’m not sorry you failed, Izzy. And it’s quite possible I hope you fail in your next somewhere-that-isn’t-here location.”

I can’t freakin’ believe O’Reilly’s giving him a resident position in this hospital. My dad’s home base. My second home, practically. My stomach sinks, replaying every piece of the conversation I’ve just walked out on. My body has physical aches at the thought of this failure, of my lack of direction. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

I’ve been around this campus and university hospital since I was twelve years old. Leaving this and moving to Baltimore wouldn’t have been easy (though I’d gladly accept the challenge), especially not for someone like me, who places a lot of value on staying in the same spot for long periods of time. I’ve lived in Evanston with my parents since I was five, but there’s still always that fear that something might happen and I might go back to not having a permanent home, like when I was with eight different foster families during the first five years of my life. It was so lonely it hurts to think about. In fact, I haven’t let myself think about this in years.

But right now I feel a hollow emptiness that comes with having my life thrown off track. It’s no different from when I was floating between homes—I wasn’t good enough for the last family, or the one before that. And now I’m not good enough to be allowed to practice medicine on my own.