BEAUTIFUL MESS [Book 2] | MIKHAIAH

12

My self-alienation ended that day. Knowing, or at least speculating, that I wasn't the only one been torn apart by the breakup made me feel better. I wasn't alone. And maybe, just maybe, there was hope. With that in mind, I reintegrated myself into my group of friends just in time to start our last rotation: Pediatrics.

Everyone I socialized with was standing around waiting for assignment duties. We had all gathered at Mass General at eight sharp ready for the last phase of core clinical experience. Sam and I had arrived together, then Steph and Jed. Last in, which had shocked me, was Amaia. The woman who was always early looked like she had struggled to drag herself out of bed that day and had skipped many preening steps to arrive on time.

I had no time to acknowledge her arrival before our new attending, Dr. Alcantara, greeted us all.

"Hello, everybody. I'm Dr. Nicholas Alcantara, and I'm your Attending for this rotation. If you could all listen to your assigned groups and stations, then we can begin." He assigned us into groups. Steph and Sam were in the same group, and Jed in another. I waited patiently for my name. Typically, it was the last to be called. "And finally, with me, I have Jean Flores, Amaia Alonzo, and Mika Lopez. Your mentors are waiting, so scurry along people."

The hall cleared as I tried to reconcile the fact I was going to be working with Amaia for the next three months. Partially thrilled, I was mostly petrified. Now what? Do we make up? Do we become enemies? Do we bicker the whole time, or do we formulate some kind of treaty? I wiped my sweating palms on my jeans.

"You're panicking," Amaia whispered.

I sniffed and crossed my arms before whispering back, "I'm not." I couldn't meet her eyes, but I did hear a soft sigh. I glanced over.

Amaia and I looked at each other. It was the kind of connection I'd missed. A connection that turned my stomach into a swarm of butterflies and made me want to close the distance between us and kiss her. I forced myself to look away. This was a potential disaster.

"Mika, I-"

"Follow me," said Dr. Alcantara, halting whatever Amaia was going to say. It was possibly a request for me to give her sweatshirt back...something I discovered among my things a few days ago and spent the night using it as a pillow. I couldn't help it, Amaia smelled nice.

I sighed as we walked along the corridors of the pediatric wards at the Children's Hospital to a ward that had Emergency written above it.

"Welcome to the Pediatric Emergency Ward. This is where you'll be based for the next few weeks." He pointed to a stack of folders and indicated we each take one. "Your schedules and protocols. Study them. Memorize them. Rounds at seven each morning. Rounds again at two and daily case conference at four. Friday lectures at two sharp."

I felt a bump at my side as Amaia flicked through her schedule and I had to shut my eyes at the contact.

Concentrating as hard as I could at ignoring the glances Amaia kept sending me, I listened and observed Dr. Alcantara and his colleagues like a champion that day.

The trend continued for weeks.

I was so attentive in my need to distract myself from Amaia that Dr. Alcantara began to give me odd little frowns and occasionally paused as I nodded like a fanatic when he diagnosed a patient.

"Miss Lopez, if you could follow me, please?" he said after three weeks on his rotation.

I skipped after him, catching Amaia's curious expression from across the bed of a four-year-old child with a compound fracture in her leg after a fall from a treehouse. We entered his office that felt like a fish bowl and I smiled at him.