Him: It’ll be good to see you when you bring Boomer here.
My heart tugged with sadness and love. We’d had a good thing, Bobby and I. A second later, another text from him. How are your injuries?
Me: Much better. Looks like I’ll be filling in at the clinic here. Getting itchy to work again.
A pause, then: That’s great, hon.
Hon.
It was time to get out of this conversation before I said something I’d regret.
Thanks for talking, Bobby. I’m gonna make a sandwich and watch Naked and Afraid.
We used to watch that together.
Him: LOL. Sleep tight.
I didn’t have any intention of getting out of bed. That would be too scary.
Instead, I lay there, petting Boomer and wondering if Bobby and I would be married and expecting our firstborn if the Big Bad Event had never happened.
10
There’s a time in life when you rewrite your past. First, your teenage years. Just watch a reality-TV show. All those aspiring singers or models or designers or cupcake chefs talk about their tragic childhoods, their sacrifices and struggles. It makes for better TV if you talk about your “homeless” period, rather than the truth. “I was so mad at my mother, I slept over at my friend’s house that weekend.”
I rewrote my past, too, starting with the minute I walked into my dorm that cold January day. But I did the opposite. I didn’t want to be known for all the misery I’d been through. I wanted to be seen as the happiest person around.
And I was. God, I was.
With happiness came the end of my stress breakouts, my greasy hair, my nervous sweating. Because I wasn’t miserable anymore, I only ate when I was hungry, and my extra forty pounds slipped away. I went to the ridiculously posh athletic center, started running along the Mystic River, took yoga classes, swam, joined crew my sophomore year. In class, I spoke up and found that I was funny. I listened and found that I was a sought-after friend.
No one saw me as stealing a scholarship from the town’s golden boy; instead, my peers were filled with admiration that I was this year’s Perez Scholar, awestruck that I’d met him. And because of his generosity, I was able to buy clothes for my changing body, go out for pizza with the gang, take an interim trip to London. The scholarship provided ten grand a year in expenses. Because of this, I was practically a rich kid.
I started separating my old self from this new person. My island self from my Perez self.
When I did talk about some of the realities of my life, I stuck to the basic facts and was told I was so well-adjusted, so mature. When I described my childhood home, I said, “It’s a beautiful island. And very small.” I’d laugh ruefully. You know what I’m saying, it was good to leave that provincial burg behind, let me tell you!
But I never said anything negative about Scupper Island. I had a little islander pride, at least. And Scupper was still the place of midnight bike rides down Eastman Hill, of tidal caves and pine trees that seemed to whisper secrets.
I referred to Lily as my bohemian sister and not as the sister who was probably dealing drugs, possibly doing them herself. After Poe came into the world, I framed a picture of her and told the truth: I wished I could see my niece more. My mother...well. “She’s a classic Mainah,” I’d say. “She can fix a boat engine, chop her own wood and shoot a squirrel to fry up for dinner. She’s amazing.”
I didn’t mention that my mother and I hadn’t had a meaningful conversation in a decade. That she seemed neither proud nor impressed by me. On Parents Weekend, I acted like a tour guide, chatting about the buildings on campus, the programs they had, the food, my roommate. My mother nodded here and there, said little and left Saturday afternoon, saying she had work to do. Most other parents stayed till Sunday.
I aced the MCATs and got into Tufts School of Medicine, and those years rushed past in a blur. The workload was inhuman, the information endless, and half the time (more than half), I had no idea if I was parroting facts or actually learning. Some nights, I’d wake up from a sketchy sleep, terrified that it was all a mistake, that I’d be outed as an imposter, that I’d be kicked out of med school, denied a residency. I had nightmares that I killed patients, that I was elbow-deep in someone’s abdomen before remembering I hadn’t taken any math classes, that I was hiding in the hospital so the chief resident couldn’t fire me. That he did fire me, and I had to go back to Scupper.
But I held my own. When it came time to declare a specialty, and my peers were positioning themselves for the hardest fields—cardiology, oncology, surgery—I chose internal medicine with an eye toward gastroenterology.
It wasn’t as competitive. Most people didn’t die. If I made a mistake, chances were high it could be fixed. Despite having come so far, I still felt a little bit like an imposter.
My mother came to graduation. “So you’re a doctor now. Imagine that.” She smiled. Dr. Perez also came, hugged me and told me he was proud of me, then went off to donate another building.
Fast-forward through my residency, which was nothing like Grey’s Anatomy, shockingly—no plastic surgeons performing brain surgery, no bombs going off in the hospital. I got a fellowship in my field, and a year later was hired by Boston Gastroenterology Associates, one of the best groups in the state.
I rented a small apartment in a new building and didn’t have a roommate for the first time in my life. I could afford furniture...nice stuff, too. My house looked like a model home—the open floor plan with a small but perfect kitchen, a bedroom with windows on two walls. I kept it immaculate, overcome with the thrill of living on my own, being able to afford a painting, a pale green couch, plush white towels. I bought martini glasses with thin, elegant stems, modernistic lamps and a fluffy white rug. I made friends with Tyrese, the night security guard, and the Ambersons, the family with two kids in 3F. Avi, who owned the sweet little grocery store two blocks down, knew how I took my coffee and called me Doc. I belonged here.
Heady stuff.
I’d made it off the island, through one of the most competitive colleges in the world, through med school, residency, my fellowship. I was no longer fat, my skin had cleared up, I’d made friends with clothes, I was even reasonably attractive. I loved working in a hospital, those little cities rich with drama of every kind. The whole Lion King circle of life took place on our floors, and we doctors were at the heart of it all.
The imposter feeling faded. Nora the Troll, Nora whose father had left without even saying goodbye, the ugly sister, the boring sister, the girl who stole Luke Fletcher’s scholarship and put his twin in the hospital... She was a creature of the past. Now I woke up every day in my adorable apartment and couldn’t wait to get to work, figure out what was ailing my patients, do rounds in the hospital. I was a good doctor, if still new, and the partners in the practice liked me. I got great patient reviews. Some of my Tufts classmates were at Boston City as well, and we’d go out for dinner or drinks, to parties, to the Common or Back Bay.
I dated, went away for weekends with my girlfriends, spent the occasional weekend happily alone, reading, cooking, going for a run, ambling through Boston. I was so happy.
Enter Bobby Byrne.
I’d seen him—he was hard to miss. In the immortal words of Derek Zoolander, he was really, really, really ridiculously good-looking. Six-two; muscular build; thick, curly dark hair; aquamarine eyes that are usually only seen after Photoshopping. He was the best-looking guy I’d seen in real life. More beautiful than Luke Fletcher, even.