“Congratulations,” I say. “You figured me out.”
I storm off in the direction of the door, but before I get there, I hear his voice.
“Hold on, Rachel. Where do you think you’re going?”
I turn and see him playing with the handle of his cane.
“What?” I say irritably.
“You’re still failing anatomy,” he reminds me. “What do you expect to do about that?”
I hate him. I really truly hate him.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Pop a bunch of pills till I stop breathing so none of this matters?”
Dr. Conlon’s face darkens. He doesn’t seem to appreciate my joke, probably because there were several students who really did that. But honestly, I’m not entirely sure I’m joking.
“I’m holding special tutoring sessions,” he says. “For the students who did abysmally on the exam. I’ll email you the times—I suggest you show up.”
“I guess I don’t have much of a choice now, do I?” I snap at him.
“Nope.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Good luck, Rachel.”
Yeah, I’m going to need it.
37
Remedial anatomy isthe most humiliating experience of all time.
It’s me, Victor Pereira, and Marissa Dunne. We are apparently the dumbest three people in the whole class. Dr. Conlon instructed us to arrive at the anatomy lab at four p.m., so here we are, standing in front of a dead body, waiting for him to show up.
I don’t care for Victor or Marissa. Marissa is a real girly girl. She has these long, long eyelashes and wears so much mascara on them that I’m a little worried her eyelashes might smack me in the face. She’s also wearing high heels in the lab, which is just ridiculous. Victor, on the other hand, always seems like a ball of jittery energy and talks so fast that he trips over his words.
I really wish I weren’t here.
“I didn’t know you were failing anatomy, Rachel,” Victor says when I walk in.
“Yeah,” I mumble, not wanting to get into a conversation with him.
“I know,” Marissa agrees. “I totally thought you were really smart.”
Where the hell is Dr. Conlon?
He shows up a few minutes later, dressed in blue scrubs, clutching his cane in his left hand. I can’t help but notice that his blue scrubs make his eyes looksoblue. I shift slightly in my sneakers—I need to stop thinking about him being attractive. Especially since I hate him.
“All right then.” He gently tugs the plastic off the body in front of us. “Let’s get started, okay?”
Victor and Marissa nod eagerly. I just stand there and glare at him.
Dr. Conlon starts wrestling a glove onto his left hand while he says, “For starters, can you guys tell me the five major branches of the facial nerve?”
Crickets chirp.
“You don’t have to know all five of them,” he adds. “Just one. Can you tell me one branch?”
“Ophthalmic?” Victor guesses.
Dr. Conlon pauses in his attempt to pull on the glove.
