"Father, please help me," she whispered as she paced frantically around her room. "Help me in the ways I need help, the ways I don't even know that I need help". She prayed this over and over again. She woke up that morning in a panic and had no clue why. So she prayed. It was the prayer that she prayed when she suddenly felt the urge to fast.
This fast was a bit more particularly than the ones she normally did, which were normally twenty-four hour complete fasts. This one consisted of removing certain foods from the diet, particularly sugar and meat.
During the fast, she felt the urge to pray the Chaplet of St. Michael. She picked up the rosary and ran the beads between her fingers, still pacing around her room. She saw the individual prayers in her mind, loop into one. From the prayer of one celestial choir of angels to another, she saw them intertwine and separate, simultaneously. The previous one was needed before the other could be accomplished, but also were accomplished at the same time. It was astounding. As she prayed, she felt the air lighten a bit around her. When she had finished, she felt like she could breathe better.
In the next seven days, she could feel a difference in her body. Her mind felt more focused. Her joints felt looser and her body felt more nimble.
She felt creative today. She wanted a project. Something to unleash the creativity on. But what? Suddenly she remembered that she wanted to alter the waist of her pants by two inches so she could stop wearing the heavy belt that kept weighing her down. She was actually on her way to shower and had already taken off her pants when the idea struck her. So she donned her black shorts back on and pried the windows back open since it was so damn hot (which was why she was going to shower for the third time today). She went to her closet and pulled out her three pants. Had she altered clothes before? No. Did she have a clue as to what she was doing? No. Were these pants going to be altered?...
...you bet your ass.
She knew two stitches. She flipped the pants inside out, measured two inches on her fingers and began sewing. After praying to God that the pants came out good, she tried them on after knotting the end five times (just to be safe) and they fit perfectly! She smiled at her reflection in the mirror and admired her handy work. Maybe being a surgeon was a good idea after all. The stitches were straight, clean and most importantly, invisible. Since she was on a roll, she decided to try it again. She grabbed a much too large top that she initially thought was a waste of money, and set to work. Ten minutes later, she now had a beautiful royal blue top to go to the hospital with.
She thanked God, until she was sure he was tired of hearing her say it over and over again. She felt free. That freedom feeling leaked into the next day. She was thinking of what resources she could use to study for her upcoming exams and was stumped. It was a notoriously difficult exam and she had yet to begin studying for it. She ran through all the people she thought may have done it already and messaged them. Then she froze as her brain threw her a curveball:
"Adam may have written it too"
The very thought of messaging him had her heart in a frenzy. She got off her bed and paced. She bit her nails. Her palms were sweating and she asked God for advice: "Should I message him? What if he doesn't reply? Did he even write it? Should I really message him?" She was practically panicking at this point. Then she convinced herself. She did not hate him and knew he did not hate her. He seemed easy going enough to message about something like this. Although they had not interacted in a while and he may have forgotten her name by now...but then again...it wouldn't hurt to ask... right?
She walked around her room maybe fifteen minutes, staring at his contact number. She had deleted all traces of him from her phone, except this. She vowed not to message him again unless he messaged first. And now here she was. Fighting with herself. Eventually, she sat down and drafted the message. She liked to use capital letters, comas, emojis when she saw fitting. She sent so many of them like that for her Mom that it was practically engrained in her. So she drafted it out. Before she could psych herself out of doing it, she hit send.
Her heart beat in her throat and she realized she could not sit still. She left her hall to walk to the library, to buy fast food, to just walk around and do something instead of waiting for his message that may never come.
An hour later, her phone chimed.
"Hey Lucy, I'm not sure. Will have to ask around".
She felt relieved that he responded. She really could not be sure that he would and was just relieved that he did not leave her hanging. She smiled so brightly that it reached her heart.
She was free. There were no longer these inherently restricting rules that she had lain for herself.
Adam:
Today was a good day. He could feel it in the air as he stood next to his car in the parking lot of the hospital. It was two in the afternoon and he was already leaving the hospital. He had strolled into the ward at ten this morning, pestered the students with questions, taught them, the interns, the junior and senior residents. And leaving the hospital four hours later. It was a good day.
He looked at his phone to check the time again and he froze. There was a message from Lucy. He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. Had she really messaged him? Why would she? He opened the message and smiled when he saw the paragraph format and punctuation marks that he rarely used.
"Hi Dr. Fineman, so sorry to disturb you"
She was so respectful it was sometimes infuriating.
"Would you happen to know which resources would be good..."
Ah, she wanted resources. He would love to help her, but that exam that she was writing...he never wrote it. It was totally different to their own school exam and he had no idea what they used to study for that. From what he had heard, it was a bitch of an exam and harder than the exams his own school used.
He had to think about how to respond. She never responded immediately to him, so he knew that she did not expect him to do that. He would mull it over on the ride home.
When he finally entered his house, immaculately clean and smelling mildly of pine, he sat on his couch and replied to her. He decided to use her format; full stops and comas and capital letters. An emoji for good measure and more than one sentence in a single message. He realized that her mode of writing made her seem more mature and so he decided to use it himself. It was a pain in the ass, but it looked better...more...consultant-like.
Anyway, who cares? She was only a student and would only see him as her superior anyway. And so damn respectful all the time, he hated it. Maybe it was better they never got together. He did not think he could be with someone so naive. So obedient and clueless and flat out...dumb. No wonder she was a virgin. She probably came from such a sheltered home and did not know what a hard life was. From what he had heard from Jess was that she was mean and treated her badly. Jess was so sweet that he could not believe Lucy would treat her like that. And for Lucy to say she did not like Jess was all the proof he needed to confirm that what Jess said was true.
Lucy was a bitch. He would not help her. Let her find the damn resources on her own.
