“You’re welcome,” Tessa said, unfazed. She sat forward and looked Emily dead in the eye. “Now, spill the beans. What’s the real reason you aren’t doing backflips right now? You should be celebrating instead you look worse than Sad Sack Sally.”
Emily didn’t want to speak about Bette and she sure as hell didn’t want to say her name out loud, but judging by the way Tessa was looking at her like she wouldn’t hesitate to lock Emily in a room until she spilled every last morsel of her heart, there wasn’t much chance of dodging the conversation. Not now and not later.
And maybe Emily did want to say it out loud. Maybe she’d even feel better once she got this weight off her chest. Though she doubted it. Talking about Bette, thinking about her, felt like setting fire to the fuse of a bomb. A bomb she was pretty sure she couldn’t disarm.
“I saw Bette this morning,” Emily muttered into her coffee cup. “She didn’t know I’d been approved for surgery. She looked surprised. Shocked even. Like she didn't approve.”
“Well, did you ask her about it?”
“No,” Emily said, shaking her head. “I walked away.”
“You walked away?” Tessa asked, looking all judgy.
Emily stiffened as heat rushed to her cheeks. “What was Isupposedto do, stand there and wait for her to tell me that she thinks I’m not ready for surgery.”
“Hmm,” Tessa hummed, clearly unimpressed, which only made Emily feel a hundred times worse. Wasn’t this coffee date supposed to make everything feel less complicated?
“Look,” Emily huffed, slouching back in her chair. “It’s my career. I was the one working my ass off to get back to this point. If she doesn’t think I’m ready, that’s her problem.”
“Why do you care so much what she thinks?” Tessa asked, tilting her head to the side, her voice annoyingly calm. “It’s not like she even said that. You didn’t give her a chance to talk, remember?”
Emily took a long sip of her way-too-bitter coffee just to avoid answering. She wasn’t about to admit that Tessa had a point and considered getting up and leaving. Whatever celebration Tessa had intended with his impromptu coffee date was not worth sitting here, feeling like her emotions were on trial.
Yet Emily didn’t move. Her butt stayed firmly stuck to the chair.
The truth was, she cared entirely too much about what Bette thought. About what Bette felt. She wanted to believe that Bette saw her as more than just another surgeon, than just a patient or an acquaintance. It was ridiculous, really, because why did she care so much if Bette saw her as capable, or strong, someone worthy of being close to, someone Bette could let her guard down with?
“Look,” Tessa said, leaning forward again and cupping Emily’s hand in hers. “You’ve been through something most people can’t even imagine. You almost died, Emily. You should know better than anyone how short life can be. Why are you wasting it running away from something, orsomeone, you clearly care about?”
“I’m not running,” Emily snapped back, not sure why her temper was suddenly as short as a matchstick. Usually, she had much more patience for this kind of thing. “I’m just mindfully walking in the opposite direction.”
Tessa pulled a face, not going with the joke like she always did. Which only meant one thing—Tessa was getting serious.
“You’re scared,” Tessa said like she could sniff out Emily’s fear. “And that’s fair. But what’s the worst that happens if youtake a chance? Bette doesn’t reciprocate? Fine. At least you’ll know, and you can move on.”
“But what if I don’t want to move on.”
“Hah!” Tessa said, her lips tugging into a grin. “I knew you cared about her. I knew it the moment you spoke about her after those first few sessions. You haven’t talked about anyone like that in years. Which means that Bette made one hell of an impact.”
Emily opened her mouth, then closed it again. She had no comeback for that. Not a single word. It seemed Tessa didn’t have much more to say either.
For a long minute, they just sat in silence listening to the buzz of people coming and going. Emily finished most of her coffee and was about to leave her friend to get back to rounds when Tessa finally spoke.
“Em,” Tessa said, her voice softer now. “I’ve never told you this. Well, honestly, I’ve never actually told anyone this.” Her gaze flicked down to her coffee cup and stayed there. “When I was sixteen, I had this best friend. His name was Thomas, and we did everything together. I know people say boys and girls can’t be friends, but they were wrong…” she tugged on her bun, letting a few strands of hair drop to her face, “until they weren’t. I liked him, a lot. And I knew he liked me too but neither of us said anything. I think we were trying to preserve our friendship or show people that it could be done. I honestly don’t know.”
Emily had no idea where this was going. She’d always thought she knew everything about Tessa. The woman was an open book, the kind with pop-up pictures. The fact that she’d never heard of Thomas shocked Emily.
Tessa’s voice grew even softer. She was still looking down at the table. “He got sick. Or more so, he got sick again. Thomas had leukemia as a toddler and for some reason, the cancer came back.”
Emily’s heart sank all the way down to the floor. She knew where the story was going and it was completely heartbreaking.
“I never had the guts to tell him how I felt, and he never had the chance to tell me how he felt,” Tessa said, glancing up for the first time. There were tears in her eyes, but she blinked them away before Emily could even hand her a tissue. “I know it’s not the same, but I still carry those what-ifs with me. What if I just told him? What if I had taken the risk? Of course, it wouldn’t have changed anything. Cancer is a fucking bitch. But maybe my whole outlook on relationships would be different, you know?” She let out a heavy breath. “All I’m saying is don’t let the chance slip away. Don’t let fear keep you from finding out what could’ve been.”
“Alright,” Emily relented, mostly to please Tessa who looked so fragile and vulnerable for the first time in her whole life. “You win. I’ll talk to her. I’ll risk it.” She saidrisklike she was preparing to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. “And it isn’t because you guilt-tripped me into your tragic, unresolved love life.”
Tessa grinned and winked. “The story is all true. And forgive me if I’m just trying to save my best friend from any future regrets.” She reached for her cup and finished off the last bit of the coffee. “Now I assume you’ve got somewhere else to be.”
“You’re right,” Emily said, standing up. “I’ve got ward rounds.” She kissed Tessa on the cheek and walked away before Tessa could get another word in.
