Diary of a Girl from Seattle

Hot Box

Dear Diary,

I finished my second week of med school and it's been going really well! I had a biostat exam yesterday and felt pretty good about it. Now I just need to study for my lab quiz in Anatomy next week. I've still been hanging out with Grace and Jamie almost every day. I also met a guy named Enzo that's been joining our little group. He grew up in Venezuela, so Spanish is his first language. Some kid in our Anatomy lab made a comment to Enzo that was vaguely racist, basically assuming that he was better educated than Enzo so he should really be the one to take the lead on their dissection. Not wanting to start anything, Enzo ignored the comment but muttered an insult under his breath in Spanish.

My dad had taught me Spanish before he died, and I took it up as a second major at NYU to make sure I didn't' forget everything he taught me. Anyway,  I was sitting at the table behind Enzo, heard the whole thing, and couldn't help from laughing when I heard "la puta que te caíste" come out of his mouth. We both turned around and started speaking together in Spanish throughout the rest of the lab. I invited him to join Grace, Jamie, and me for lunch that day and he's been part of our group ever since.

Any way after another successful, but busy, week, I wanted to take the weekend to relax. I went to Arizona's to help her pack. We tried to do all of Sofia's things last so that she could have as much to keep her occupied as possible. Starting in the living room we started packing up knick-knacks and old medical journals. We leafed through some back issues, finding articles written by Alex, Meredith, Derek, Callie, etc. It became a game to see who could pack the most journals with articles by our friends in one box haha. As we packed we reminisced over the past 8 or so years that she's been in Seattle and all the crazy stuff we all did.

At one point I paused, and tried to figure out how to ask her something that's been on my mind.

Mattie paused with a stack of journals in her hand, looked up at Arizona, down at the box, then back at Arizona. "What is it?" Arizona asked.

"Nothing, sorry" Mattie said shaking her head. Arizona looked at her, pressing her to just ask the question. Mattie took a breath then asked, "When and how did you start to realize you gay?"

The question took Arizona a little by surprise but she answered nonchalantly "I was like 4 or 5? And I saw things about girls marrying boys and thought hmm thats dumb. I want to marry the princess not the prince. And that was just kinda that." She laughed a little then looked back to Mattie, "Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering," Mattie said before changing the topic.

We started to talk about her big move. I asked how it was going to find a place for the Robbins Herman center, and what it was going to be like to work with Nicole Herman again. She had been back at the hospital to see Amelia the day of April's accident, but I didn't get a chance to see her. Arizona mentioned that they were looking at some places near NYU's health campus, and that she found a great apartment on the upper west side. She said that it isn't far from Callie and is close to Sofia's school.

Upon hearing us mention her school, Sofia came bursting in to tell me all about it. She told me about her teacher who lets them take their shoes off during reading time, and doodle on the back of their papers. She rambled on and on about the boys and girls she plays with at recess; her favorite games are four square, tag, and playground princess (she explained it but I still have no idea what it is haha). I could tell that Sofia was really excited to go back to New York and be with both Callie and Arizona. While it won't make me miss Arizona any less, it definitely helps to see how good this move will be for her daughter. Later that afternoon, Arizona got called into the hospital. I decided to go with her since I hadn't been there in a few days. She got called into an emergency surgery so I took Sofia down to day care to hang out before heading up to the gallery to watch. The surgery lasted a few hours and it was starting to get late so I decided to head home for the night.

As I was leaving the hospital I ran into Ben on his way to surprise Bailey after her surgery. We paused to chat and he told me that I missed a crazy call. He told me all about how they tried to "stuff the turkey" and that Gibson, Herrera, and Bishop all got trapped in this super-reinforced garage and almost died. I stopped him when he said that and asked him to back up. They what???? He gave me all the details then mentioned that everyone was fine and at Joe's if I wanted to ask them about it. Then said that if I was going over there I should keep an eye on Bishop's hearing, she ran right at the explosive they used to bust out and she was right next to the thing when it went off. I thanked Ben and headed over to the bar. When I walked in, Andy was talking with Jack and Ryan and it looked heated so I sought out the rest of the team. I found Maya sitting at a table, walked over, and smacked her arm.

"What was that for?" Maya exclaimed as she realized it was Mattie who hit her. "And when did you get here?"

"You ran towards an explosive?" Mattie questioned, her tone seeping with judgement.

Maya tried to defend herself, "The pressure gauge was loose, I thought I could get to it in time."

"... You ran towards an explosive?" Mattie asked again, this time her genuine concern coming through.

"Yeah maybe it wasn't my brightest move" Maya laughed.

Mattie rolled her eyes and gave her a hug on her way to the bar, "I'm just glad you're okay."

Andy came back and sat with me and Maya, who asked how her conversation with Ryan and Jack went.  We talked through that for a while before the conversation found its way back to the garage fire. I stopped them for a minute to declare a new rule: I know the job is dangerous but any time someone from station 19 actually almost dies, someone needs to tell me. We laughed and they agreed. Then it dawned on them that they hadn't told me and asked how I even knew. Before I could answer they realized.... "Warren," they said in unison.

We stayed at Joe's until pretty late and I was maybe 3 drinks deep when Andy started teasing me about finding a guy to hook up with, or at least go talk to. I shrugged it off, told her I wasn't ready. In all fairness it had only been two weeks since Connor and I split. Vic heard us talking from the other table and came over to chime in. She started pointing out every guy in the bar within 10 years of my age and talking about them like I was on some game show. It was actually pretty funny. She'd point out a guy and say stuff like "and over here we have bachelor number 3. This is Wyatt, he works in software engineering by day but the man bun let's us know he's still holding out hope that he can get his music career off the ground, or become a small batch coffee connoisseur." Leave it to Vic to save me from drunkenly finding a guy in a bar at 1am. We closed down Joe's then headed home. It was a weird day, but honestly pretty great.

-Mattie