The world was different. Lucy had never felt this light. Free. Whole. She felt like she had somehow been put together. She did not feel that lost, empty feeling that was so constant in her life that it had felt like had become a part of her. She felt humble. Humble enough to know that a lot of things she did simply did not matter. Life would go on.
"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning".
There was no lust. There was no loneliness. There was not even anger. There was not happiness, but instead joy and hope.
She got a message from Sonia. "Hey Luce, how yare you?"
Lucy scowled at the message. She was sure that she blocked both Sonia and Priya from seeing her status. It was a little too coincidental that she would message the very next day that she posted her message. A few hours later, she got a message from Priya, "Hey Luce, how's the rotation going?" Now she knew for sure that they had both seen her status, but it was not directly. No, it had to be through some bastard who had her number that she had not blocked. She hated that they tried to get information out of her like that. Why couldn't they just be direct and say "Hey Luce, this person showed me your status, just concerned about you. If you need to talk, I'm here". Lucy would have appreciated that way more than that sneaky way of trying to get her to spill her business to them. She hated it.
She would have appreciated a bit of honesty. The worst part was that they only wanted the information from Lucy so that they could tell the person who showed them Lucy's status what the problem was! It was so they could know what was going on. She really despised all three of them in that moment. And who the hell was the snitch?
She responded maybe eight hours later. She had to allow herself to process it with a calm mind before she responded. She sent them both the same message, worded slightly differently, so that when they compared stories later, they would both have the same information. Nothing more or less than the other. She told them that she was fine and when Sonia pressed and asked "how is the rotation going?" Lucy told her it was well and she got to scrub in, today.
That much was true and she had a lovely time with Dr. Melody. That was the second time she was scrubbed into a surgery. She loved the comradery of these doctors. The entire room was female, from the nurses, to the students to the surgeons themselves, to the gay anesthetist behind the curtain. It was pleasant and it was peaceful.
She could not help but compare it to her first time scrubbing in with Dr. Fineman. Her focus slipped a bit when she remembered the feel of Adam's hands on hers, his body against hers, their foreheads pressing against each other. His soothing words in her ears. She shuddered and almost did not hear the nurse telling her to hold the suture for Dr. Melody.
Without the lusty distraction of Adam, Lucy was able to appreciate the surgery. She was able to identify the structures, ask Dr. Melody questions. She had never realized how peaceful it was when doing the surgery itself. How quiet the world seemed to get when you were looking for the ligament to sever or the artery to clamp. How therapeutic it was to cut through the fatty tissue and the suture the skin back together. That sense of accomplishment when the uterus, corrupted with fibroids, was finally out of the patient, was simply unmatched. Lucy learnt later that they were going to reschedule the surgery to next week but the patient was so distraught that Dr. Melody had bit the bullet and told them she would do it today.
This was the kind of doctor that Lucy aspired to be. Competent, approachable, funny...warm. Dr. Melody had a very maternal, soft way about her that enchanted Lucy. Sweet as she was, she also had a strength to her. Like she had people counting on her but did not let the stress of it get to her.
Lucy loved it. She loved her.
She knew that kind of strength did not come easy. To remain sweet and warm in such a harsh, male, demanding environment was damn near impossible. Yet, she managed to do it. Even when she looked at the speculums she would grimace and say "Must be some old man that made that" and Lucy would crack up.