And now for the look to the right: that one is my new roommate, Rachel Bingham. Rachel is not looking left or right. Rachel is rolling her eyes quite dramatically.
I had this fantasy in my head that my med school roommate and I would become BFFs and we’d braid each other’s hair and have pillow fights, et cetera. So far, I’m ninety-nine percent sure Rachel hates me. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it’s somethingabout the way she’s looked at me since she arrived a week ago in our shared suite, her stringy brown hair falling in her face, ripped jeans held together by the grace of God, and only a single suitcase to her name. She even mocked my long-distance relationship with my boyfriend and soulmate, Landon.Hey, you might last a few months. Maybe.
I turn my attention back to Dr. Bushnell, who is about one passionate speech away from a serious cardiac event.
“In four years,” he says to the hushed crowd, “both of these people will be physicians.”
Rachel snorts audibly now. I try to flash a friendly smile in her direction, but she’s having none of that. She rewards me with another eye roll, and I focus my attention back at the dean. Fine. Rachel won’t be my friend. I’ll find another friend in the class.
Probably.
“It’s not true anyway,” Rachel stage whispers in my direction.
I raise my eyebrows at her. I’m so pleased she’s talking to me that I don’t even care that she’s speaking over the dean on our first day of medical school.
“What isn’t true?” I ask.
“We won’t all be doctors,” she says. She tucks her dark-brown hair behind her ear so that I can get my first good look at her deep-brown eyes.
“We won’t?”
Rachel laughs. “Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
Her lips curl into a slightly evil grin. My roommate may be genuinely evil. Are people really evil in real life? Or just in comic books?
“In every class,” she says, “ten people flunk and need to repeat the year. Five drop out, never to return. And, of course, in the last few years, there’s always one who…”
Now she pauses and draws an ominous line across her thin white neck with a well-chewed fingernail.
“One whowhat?” I prompt her.
Rachel frowns at me. “You really don’t know?”
“Knowwhat?”
She shakes her head. “Why do you think the school is nicknamed Dead Med?”
I didnotknow that nickname.
She can’t be serious. She’s just messing with me. She’s just pissed off that I left too many bottles of moisturizer in our bathroom. (I have really dry skin.)
Dean Bushnell is saying something that I completely missed, which is followed by a round of applause. I need to start paying attention and quit my doomed attempts to befriend my roommate. The dean shifts away from the podium, and another man walks up to take his place. This man is far younger than the dean, maybe fortyish, but he carries an old-man cane in his right hand and walks with a pronounced limp.
“Hello,” the man says, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. I can’t help but notice he’s wearing a bowtie. Who wears a bowtie in everyday life? “I’m Matt Conlon, your anatomy professor.”
Right—Dr. Conlon. When I interviewed here at DeWitt, the first-years had been singing praises about this guy. “Dorky but really fun,” they’d said. “He’s the best thing about the first year.”
Up on the stage, Dr. Conlon is now gesturing wildly as he describes how totally awesome anatomy is.
“The human body makes perfect sense,” he explains. “It’s the most intricately constructed machine in the world. And after you finish my class, you’re going to understand how that machine works, inside and out. And you’re going to realize how amazing it is.”
I don’t even need to look at Rachel to know that she’s rolling her eyes.
“Thank you for letting me act as your guide on this incredible journey,” Dr. Conlon says, and he gives a little bow.
Really, hebows. God, could this guy be any dorkier?
