“The phones have been ringing off the hook,” Patricia says, leaning her head past the door and holding out a thick stack of messages for me. “I think everyone on Earth is trying to get in contact with you, but I’ve told most of them you’re too busy to talk. Dr. Lopez is holding on line one though. He didn’t buy my excuse.”

  I drag my feet walking to my phone. As the closest thing to a father figure Bailey has, Dr. Lopez isn’t exactly someone I want to speak with at the moment, but I can’t just ignore him. He’s so polite, he’d probably wait on the line all afternoon.

  I stay standing as I connect to line one, greeting him with a knot of apprehension in my stomach.

  “Dr. Russell!” he says, his tone full of excitement. “If it isn’t the man of the hour!”

  I grow uncomfortably hot.

  “Hey Dr. Lopez, good to hear from you. How’s retirement treating you?”

  “Oh, it’s fine. A little boring, but Laurie says I’m still adjusting to a slower pace. Truth be told, I’ve picked up about ten hobbies—grilling, gardening, woodworking—none of which I actually like yet.”

  I muster up a shallow chuckle.

  “Listen,” he continues. “I heard about the grant. What an accomplishment. You must be beside yourself.”

  Beside myself? Try depressed as hell.

  “It’s great.”

  Dr. Lopez hums skeptically. Maybe I should feign a little more enthusiasm. “I’ve been getting calls about it all morning. I’m really proud of you.”

  “Thank you for calling. It means a lot.”

  “While I have you here, I was also going to ask, how’s Bailey doing?” There it is, the question that makes my heart drop. I must hesitate for a moment too long because he laughs. “Don’t tell me you’ve already run her off? It’s only been a few months.”

  “No.” I scramble quickly. “I haven’t. She still works for me.”

  I can hear the smile in his voice as he continues, “Good. I’m glad to hear it. I hope you’ll try to find a position for her at the hospital before you leave for Costa Rica. Last I heard, the board is looking to bring on another surgeon now that you’re leaving, but if that isn’t a good fit for Bailey, tell her to give me a call. I can check around with a few of my old colleagues. I worry about her.” He sighs. “You aren’t stressing her out too much, are you?”

  Stressing her out? Well, I just proposed she move to another country with me—how’s that for stress?

  “No. I’m going easy on her,” I lie.

  “Somehow I doubt that.” He chuckles. “Well, all right, I can tell you don’t really want to be talking right now. You’re probably as busy as ever so I won’t keep you, but please pass on that message to Bailey and let her know Laurie and I are thinking about her. And congratulations, again. The work you’re going to do in Costa Rica will impact a lot of lives. You should be proud.”

  His words magnify my guilt tenfold.

  After we hang up, I sit at my desk, staring out the window, wondering how I could have possibly screwed up so badly. Just this morning, I woke up in bed with Bailey. Now, I’d be lucky if she even took my phone call. When Patricia speaks to me through the intercom and reminds me I’m running a few minutes late for a consult, I sigh and push to stand so I can head toward the conference room.

  I should have told Dr. Lopez the truth about my situation with Bailey and asked for his advice. He knows her well. Maybe he could have told me how to proceed. Then the thought makes me smile. Yeah right. More than likely he would have chewed my ass out for hurting her feelings in the first place.

  Admittedly, I’m not good at relationships. I’ve perfected every spinal procedure in the book, but when it comes to matters of the heart, I’m a complete idiot. Good thing I didn’t go into cardio.

  I push through the rest of my day, try to stay focused, and do a piss-poor job of it. After I mix up two patient files and nearly perform a pre-op exam on the wrong person, I decide to ask Patricia to postpone everything else on my schedule and knock off early. It might be the first time I’ve ever taken a personal day.

  Patricia is so confused by the request, she asks me if I need to be admitted to the hospital. “Are you dying?”

  I’m at a complete loss for what to do with myself when I get home. For the last few weeks, I’ve been at Bailey’s house in my free time. My cold, quiet home matches my mood a little too well. I turn on the TV in the living room just for some background noise. I check my phone to see if she’s called, and when she hasn’t, I check my email. It’s jam-packed with messages of congratulations. I keep scrolling, come to an email from Victoria, and opt to ignore it. I have enough on my plate at the moment. Whatever she wants to talk to me about can wait. By the way, I’m not just having one baby. It’s twins!

  I think about reaching out to Bailey, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea.

  She asked for space earlier. She needs time to process everything I threw at her, and maybe that isn’t such a bad idea. I’ll respect her wishes, but I’ll use my time wisely.

  I have a lot to do.

  This grant is important to me because in the past, my work abroad has been limited to week-long medical mission trips. I’d assemble a volunteer team and we’d travel to the National Children’s Hospital in San Jose, Costa Rica. There, we’d have to race through a waiting list filled with hundreds of children in need of surgery. Every one of them was as deserving as the last, but with limited funds and time, we were only ever able to operate on a handful of them.

  It wasn’t enough.

  I want to do more, and now, with this grant, I can.

  I’m not moving to Costa Rica forever. My goal is to be there for a year or two. I’ll use the aid to establish a clinic and train surgeons and staff at the hospital there.

  I can’t do it on my own, though. I need a team around me. The nonprofit I’m partnering with will send a few people, and the hospital will have host surgeons and residents, but I’d like to have my own surgical crew as well, people who already know my methods, people I can trust.

  People like Bailey.

  With that thought, I grab a notepad, a pencil, and a cup of coffee, and I get to work in my home office. I don’t plan on leaving this spot for the rest of the evening. I need to make a proposal so damn convincing, Bailey can’t possibly turn it down. I need to explain everything clearly so there won’t be any more surprises.

  I research everything from education options for Josie to rental homes around the hospital. I call my contacts at the nonprofit and they pass along helpful information.

  I’m on a call with a friend of a friend who runs the pediatric department down at National Children’s Hospital, getting advice about schools, when I realize I haven’t eaten since breakfast and it’s already half past eight. I take my phone with me into the kitchen and continue talking as I make a peanut butter sandwich. After I scarf it down, I throw a handful of spinach into my mouth—for health—and then get right back to the grind.

  I don’t stress over the fact that Bailey hasn’t reached out.

  I don’t worry that she might have already made up her mind not to come.

  I don’t consider that she might not forgive me for keeping this from her for so long.

  Instead, I keep going. Keep Googling. Keep typing. Keep changing the fucking font on this Word document to something friendly and non-threatening. I’m looking for something that says, This proposal is a good idea. Listen to your boyfriend.

  Move to Costa Rica.

  Chapter 32

  BAILEY

  I’m a wreck. I keep wishing I could snap my fingers and go back to last week. I want to pick up the phone and beg Matt to come over so we can patch things up, but I don’t have my head on straight yet. Having him come over, dragging him into my room and onto my bed would only confuse me more.

  Although would it? Maybe a good romp in the hay would really clear up this whole debate for me. I’d better call him right this second—

  No. Bad Bailey!

  Change is inevitable. In a few months, Matt’s going to move to Costa Rica and I have two options: go with him or stay here. The idea of going with him is still completely out of the question. Chances are, he wasn’t even being that serious when he suggested it. He was probably trying to spare my feelings. Even if he was serious and he does want me to come, how would that even be possible? I can’t just upend my life on a whim. Pack your bags, Jos, we’re going abroad!

  Unfortunately, option two—him moving without me—is too hard to even contemplate.

  So, you see, I’m stuck in the middle, feeling like a fool for how torn up I am over this. We’ve only been together a few weeks, and yet the thought of him leaving drags me right back to the dark place I haven’t visited since I lost my parents. I’m up at all hours of the night, tossing and turning. Food has lost its appeal. I walk around in a malaise, trying and failing to put on a good front for Josie. I force fake smiles she sees right through.

  She knows something’s up, but I haven’t told her about the grant. I don’t think I should until I know for certain what I’d like to do. She’s as attached to Matt as I am at this point. She insists upon writing him a thank you letter for her Christmas gifts and asks why he hasn’t come over for dinner this week. She even tucks The Hunger Games into my purse so I can drop it off for him at work. “Just in case he wants to read it!”

  I was stupid to bring him into our lives as quickly as I did. I should have made sure this was a real, lasting relationship before I introduced her to him.

  Now when he leaves, she’ll be just as heartbroken as I am.

  Over the next few days, I spend untold hours researching Costa Rica. I have a password-protected folder on my laptop codenamed “very boring work stuff” where I’ve saved everything I’ve found so far: information about the MacArthur grant, articles highlighting Matt and his proposal. I look into the hospital, and I even find pictures of Matt on past medical mission trips. One in particular guts me: he’s leaning over a hospital bed, handing a teddy bear to a girl no older than ten. She’s hooked up to a million machines, but that doesn’t dull her megawatt smile. The caption below explains that she’s just undergone a life-changing procedure thanks to Matt and his team. She’ll get to live a fuller, more pain-free life because of him.

  The picture proves what I already know: Matt has to go to Costa Rica.

  On the Thursday after Matt and I had our fight in the on-call room, I’m sitting at dinner with Josie and I decide to broach the subject of moving.

  “Do you like it here?” I ask, trying to sound vague.

  She scrunches her nose, confused. “Like in this house? It’s fine. I mean, ideally I’d have a bigger room and more storage space for my books but—”

  “No, here as in this city, your school—that sort of thing.”

  She shrugs and takes a bite of spaghetti before she replies, “Yeah, it’s cool.”

  Fourteen-year-olds are some tough nuts to crack.

  I persist, trying to keep my questions general enough that she won’t grow suspicious. “Have you ever thought about living somewhere else? Like as a foreign exchange student?”

  Her gaze flips up to me and she looks concerned. “Are you thinking of shipping me off somewhere? Because I know I said I’d put away the clean dishes before you got home from work, but I was doing my homework and—okay fine! I was actually finishing up a reread of Twilight, but I swear I’ll do it right now!”

  Her chair screeches against the floor as she hops to her feet.

  I shake my head, trying not to laugh. “No! No, nothing like that. I just remember when I was your age, I always thought it’d be cool to live abroad for a year or two. A lot of my friends traveled in college, but I didn’t get the chance.”

  She nods and sits back down, finally understanding. “Of course. Duh. My friend Sarah went to live with her dad in France last summer and she came back with the coolest stories and a million cool pictures to post on Instagram—” She suddenly stops and glances up at me tentatively. “I mean, sure, it’d be fun, but all that stuff doesn’t matter. I like living here with you.”

  She waves to our kitchen and I realize she’s trying to spare my feelings. To her, this conversation is all hypothetical. We don’t have the money for travel. The closest she’ll likely get to going abroad is watching a documentary on the travel channel.

  I spend the rest of the night hunched over my computer, researching.

  The next day at work, I head straight to the operating room. It’s been my M.O. for the last few days and it’s proven successful so far. By hiding out in here, I limit the chances of having any awkward hallway encounters with Matt. We only see each other when we’re scrubbed in, surrounded by a dozen people, ready to operate. I hide under my layers, glad for the mask and protective glasses. If we speak, it’s about the case at hand, though there are still subtle hints that let me know this distance is killing him as much as it’s killing me. I see it every time our eyes meet. A storm. A longing. The words that live and die on his tongue.

  He doesn’t linger after surgery. He doesn’t try to corner me in the hall or ask me if I’ve thought any more about his offer, though now more than ever, I wish he would push a little. On Monday, I needed space. Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, I needed to get my head straight, but now—now it’s been five days since I’ve felt Matt’s mouth on mine, since his hands have been on my skin. I miss him in my bed. I miss having to make do with the tiny wedge of mattress between Matt’s body and the wall. Without him, it feels like I might as well be sleeping on a bed made for Shaq with the amount of room I have to spread out. I hate it. I miss him.

  I won’t survive the weekend like this.

  I don’t care about Costa Rica or our future. Responsibility shmonsibility. I want to be impulsive and dumb. I want to put a pin in my decision-making process and feel like us again, even if just for a moment.

  The door to the OR swings open and Matt steps in. My breath catches in my throat and an electric feeling buzzes through me. It’s painful—being this close to him every day, keeping my thoughts carefully contained. He greets the team and checks in on the patient. Meanwhile, I stand at the operating table, unable to tear my eyes away from him. It takes him five and a half years to cross the OR and step into the gown I’m holding open for him. When our gazes meet, my stomach tightens. It’s a sucker punch every time.

  “Morning Bailey,” he says with a nod. “Everything set?”

  “Let’s not fight and I think you should go to Costa Rica and I wish I could go, but I don’t think it would work with Josie and we only just started dating and that navy scrub cap really brings out your eyes and I think I’m falling in love with you even though we haven’t talked in days. And were you serious about me coming with you because I might just be insane enough to take you up on the offer.”

  Those are the things I leave unsaid as I clear my throat and look down at the trays I finished setting up a few moments ago.

  “Everything is ready to go.”

  “All right then, let’s get started.”

  “Excuse me, are you the woman who was assisting Dr. Russell in the OR earlier?”

  I pause in between bites of my sandwich, annoyed that someone is interrupting my lunch. I’ve learned my lesson—I can’t eat in the staff lounge. All anyone wants to talk about is Matt and his grant and how I feel about it and are we dating and are those new diamond earrings really from him? So today I planned ahead and went down to the hospital’s lobby to eat my lunch. I’m tucked away in a massive leather chair in a corner near the front windows. I thought I was hidden pretty well, but apparently not.

  I hold a hand next to my mouth and hold up a finger—the universal sign for, Just one second, I’m chewing.

  “No worries.” The woman laughs softly. “I’m the one interrupting your lunch break.”

  I gulp down my bite and then force a smile. “It’s fine, really. Um, in answer to your question, yes, I was assisting him earlier.”

  She grins, pleased with my answer, and then she takes the seat opposite me.

  Alrighty then. Help yourself.

  I was sort of hoping this would be a two-second conversation—yes, I was in the OR. Okay, bye now—but apparently not. I longingly look down at the second half of my sandwich, and then I force my attention back to her. I notice then that she doesn’t really fit in with NEMC’s usual crowd. For one, she’s a total hippie. She’s beautiful, but not in an intimidating way, more in a salt-of-the-earth, ethereal-art-teacher way. The pattern on her long maxi skirt is made of abstract swirls of magenta and blue, and her cream turtleneck stretches adorably over a very round baby bump.

  “I’m so relieved to have found you. I’ve been trying to get in contact with Dr. Russell for weeks and I can’t seem to track him down.” She reaches into her purse and pulls out a small chocolate bar. “Do you mind?” I nod, dumbly, and she tears into it. “Sorry, this baby really likes chocolate. I wasn’t even really a fan of it before, but it’s all I want to eat these days.”

  “Umm…”

  I look around us, wondering if anyone else in the lobby can see this woman. Am I hallucinating? I know I haven’t been eating much lately, but…

  She must sense my confusion because she laughs and smacks her forehead. “Of course. Where are my manners? I’m Victoria, Dr. Russell’s ex-wife.”

  My mouth drops and I say very bluntly, “No way.”

  Her shrugs. “Guilty as charged I’m afraid.” Then she flinches. “Oh, don’t tell him I said that. It was meant as a joke, but now it just seems mean. He’s truly not such a bad guy. Not so good at returning phone calls—or emails, for that matter—but other that, he’s decent.” She laughs again. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You work for him—you probably know him better than I do nowadays.”