8
Mason is staringinto the chest cavity of our cadaver, a perplexed look on his irritatingly handsome face.
“That’s odd,” he says.
I look at where Mason’s staring. He’s looking at the spleen, I think. “What?”
Mason dives into the chest cavity with his gloved hands and pulls out the heart.
“Look at this heart,” he says.
I look at it. I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Um…”
Mason’s hazel eyes meet mine. “It’sperfect.”
“You think I did a good job on the coronary arteries?” I feel a little burst of happiness. I really thought I butchered them.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Mason shakes his head. Damn.“I mean, look at Gladys at the next table. Her heart is the size of a cabbage. Bernie at Table Eight has black lungs. We know why practically all these people died.” He pauses. “But not Frank.”
“So?”
“So don’t you think that’s a little strange?” Mason asks.
I never thought about it before. I guess he’s right, though. Frank seems healthier than most of the other cadavers in the room. He’s a big guy and seems like he’d been strong as an ox. But even if there isn’t an obvious cause of death, there must have been a reason. After all, he’s dead.
Abe joins us at the table, getting close enough to me that I can smell the coffee on his breath, which I actually sort of like. That guy drinks more coffee than I do, and that’s saying a lot, but I guess that’s the only way to manage both med school and a part-time job. At this moment, he’s practically levitating with caffeinated energy.
“You need to lay off the coffee, Abe,” I say.
“Look who’s talking.” He snorts. “When I said we were dissecting out the fascia lata yesterday, you asked if I said fascialatte, and you almost started salivating.”
“No, you’re way worse,” I say. “I think you’re developing a tremor.”
Abe holds out his left hand, and we both lean in to inspect it. He’s definitely shaking a bit—more than I would have expected.
“Ineedcoffee, though,” he says. “It’s my drug of choice.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he freezes. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay—it’s not like it’s a secret that there’s a drug problem at the school.” I drop my voice, glancing at Mason, who is too entranced by the dissection to pay attention to us. “Do you have any idea where all the pills are coming from?”
“No.” His answer comes quickly. “No idea. Not my thing.”
I crack a smile. “Who needs drugs when you’ve got extreme-caffeine coffee?”
“Exactly,” he says. But he doesn’t smile back.
9
Our first anatomyexam is today. I didn’t sleep at all last night.
I meant to sleep. Believe me, it wasn’t my intention at the beginning of the night to stay awake for twenty-four hours straight and leave myself feeling like I’m about to collapse.
I went to the library yesterday after spending several hours in the lab, going over anatomy. Abe insisted that I leave with him at midnight, and I did it only because I knew he wouldn’t go until I did. But when I got back to my room, I continued studying. My room looks like an anatomy tornado hit. Every time I even contemplated closing my textbooks, it just seemed like there was too much that I didn’t know. By four in the morning, it just felt pointless to try to sleep.
I’m pretty tired.
At eight a.m., I change into my green scrubs and join the large group of my classmates in front of the anatomy lab, waiting for the practical portion of the exam to begin. I can almost see the nervous energy radiating from the group. I showered this morning, but it’s obvious many of my classmates didn’t bother. We’re a pretty scruffy crew.
You could probably fill a small lake with the amount of coffee we’ve had to drink this morning. Several dozen of us are clutching identical white Styrofoam cups. This is my fourth cup in the last two hours, and I’m starting to have palpitations. And there’s a very real chance I might wet my pants.
