𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐦𝐞

𝟏. 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐚 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐳

I followed Cooper down the hall until we were out of the sight of Victoria."You don't have to be so uptight all the time y'know" my Spanish accent coming through in the last few words. "Sorry?" I watched him spin round causing me to take a few steps back, "you heard me" I rolled my eyes as he turned around to walk away. "Cooper." I pulled his shoulder causing his whole body to face my direction. "You don't have to be so uptight all the time, she almost just lost her husband and if it wasn't for you she probably would have. At least show some pride in you're job and the fact you save peoples lives on the daily, understood?" I held my tongue between my teeth to prevent myself from saying something I'd regret. He just looked at me sharing the same amount of frustration "Look here Dr. I've been working for the past 8 hours and I'd like to go home, but we don't all get what we want right?" The attitude was unfixable, I turned my body round again and walked away before he could utter another word. In which I heard his boots turn and walk in the other direction.

I spent the next 20 minutes sat outside Dr. Martindale's office staring blankly into space with a coffee in hand during my break wondering how I could've been nicer to Cooper. I suppose he was only tired, maybe I was overreacting?. I hear noise coming from his office, pressing my ear against the tainted glass and listening carefully to the conversation inside. "Cooper! Here he is." I flinched in my seat as Dr. Martindale shouted Cooper's name welcoming in a man after him with a slender stance and dark features, no older than 40. I heard Cooper welcoming in the foreign man. "Hello Sir." I let a deep breath out I didn't even realise I was holding as Dr Antony Martindale quickly started speaking, I listened closely to every word being said. "Dr. Richmond takes scholars, students and of course the finest surgeons in the state." My ears adjusted at the name, I recognised as one of my fathers friends. "You. Cooper Carbone from the surgery you just preformed on sir Brian Lewton, were chosen to represent me and your colleagues and all we've taught you and led you to this point, to claim your medallion for scientific achievement award, congratulations son." I slowly inched my face away from the glass as I felt the moisture roll down my cheeks. I was happy for Cooper, he deserved it, but I still couldn't help the heartache and feeling of jealousy and betrayal. My ear soon found its way back to the glass listening to the remainder of the conversation hearing Cooper actually say something. "Thank you so much Dr. I am so grateful for how far you and the team have brought me and you and this hospital will forever have a place in my heart, with pride and with joy."

I let out a deep breath as the room soon filled with sobs of all different emotions, the sadness of letting go and the happiness of starting over. I slowly stood up feeling sick to my stomach, I walked to the front of the office waiting for Cooper to exit, tear stains painted on his face as he stumbled backwards not knowing I heard the whole conversation, his tear stained eyes meeting mine as I held my hand out for him to shake. "How long have you bee-" I cut him off not wanting to hear the rest but him to shake my hand and move on, "congratulations Carbone", he just nodded and silently whispered a 'thank you' as he brushed past me not wanting to deal with the conversation.

It always hurt not being the best, my best friend Izabella once told me 'there is always someone out there better than you' and she's completely right. I didn't expect to be the best surgeon, I didn't even want to be a surgeon in the first place, I wanted to be an author or a journalist. Ever since I was little I had a passion to per-sue english literature, It was the subject I could fall back on since I was so called gifted. Mathematics was a subject I always struggled at, my mother struggled badly with accepting I couldn't do it, that I wasn't the perfect genius that would go on to be a lawyer or a doctor. My mother always hoped i'd become a lawyer and make her and her family happy regardless if I was or not.

Going right back to the start of my life ever since I was a baby my family struggled, my father never being home due to work and trying to provide for three of us, my mother had left her job to monitor over me. My father worked for himself therefore not earning more than the average which was quickly put towards either the house bills, food and my school funds. My father continued to work and my mother continued to blame every family problem on him which caused many arguments and conflict in the household. Later on in life I grew up taking care of myself and doing what my mother didn't do. I cooked and cleaned for myself, did my own laundry and took myself to school.

My elementary school experience was all around not great but a mixture of being sucker punched right in the jaw by a group of girls. Hurt like hell. Or being thrown over and under tables by my mathematics teacher. The principle not making any effort to resolve this but watch it happen. the moments I do remember from my childhood are the ones of being called on in class to answer questions I didn't know to humiliate me as everyone laughed, my heart hammered against my chest as the anticipation weighed down on my shoulders as I stood in-front of the class with them all looking up at me from their desks. The rest of the class felt like a blur to me. I spent the majority of the time staring blankly ahead of myself to face the backs of classmates heads. From this moment on I had no motivation to pay attention or look forward in this class. I read my notes over, and over, and over again wondering why I couldn't get it right. It has been said that people go back to the pain they know. That they are scared of changing because they've been stuck with the same issue for so long they no longer know who they are without it. I am one of those people. or, rather, I used to be one of those people, I am hard pressed to remember a time where I fully understood what my peers were doing or why, to remember a time when I was fully accepted for who I am. One of my earliest memories is of my preschool teacher giving me a blank stare as I told her I wanted to be an journalist. I remember the first days of kindergarten, when I realized the kids around me weren't going to be nice when I was.

Mrs. Harriet Jardine is one of these teachers that stare at you with a thoughtful look and ask you to stay after class to talk about your potential but in fact not ask you to stay back from class for that reason, but to hit you until your face bled or until you could get that one equation right. Failure gets punished with a mouth full of hot tabasco and a tirade of insults I sometimes dreamt about, yet nobody asked about the bruises or the flinching whenever anybody raised a hand. I always had an exquisite imagination and sense of security in these fantasies I imagined for myself, being a surgeon was in-fact not one of these fantasies, partially. This came as no surprise to me, as a kid I enjoyed the accelerated reader program and it deeply frustrated me when there were no more challenging books in my preferred genres, by the age of 11 I'd reached a level of high vocab that most published authors just didnt bother to write at for a variety of reasons. I started writing my own books to fill that empty feeling at around the age of 12 leading up to my parents messy divorce over christmas when I was 13 and and mother abandoned all responsibility and parental ownership she had over me not bothering to pay the child support or reach out, that was probably what lead me to cut her off when I turned 18.

"Mila? Mila!" I heard a click and a hand waving in-front of my face snapping me from my trance. I looked up to see Izabella looking down at me. Her eyes engulfed with worry and fear. I look around and it's as if I haven't moved from the bench I was on before I went to congratulate Cooper outside of Dr Martindale's office. "What are you doing here?" I looked around stunned, she let out a soft sigh of relief. "They found you unresponsive on the bathroom floor" she pointed to the door and there stood Billy and Marge the hospital cleaners. "In a building full of well qualified nurses and surgeons and they called you?" she laughed turning to the cleaners still stood in the door frame and rolled her eyes, "yeah you kinda put me on the emergency contacts." lifting her arm in a celebratory manner. Quickly turning to face me with a serious expression "que paso mia Puedes hablar conmigo. Siempre estoy aquí para ti." Izabella was the only person that worried about me when nobody else did, "nada iza estoy mejor ahora todo está bien, no hay necesidad de preocuparse." I smiled softly and she reciprocated the gesture.

"Lets get outta here, shall we?" I laughed as she pulled me up to my feet and we headed back to my apartment.