Suicide Med (22 page)

I hate myself for doing it, but I’m beginning to realize that there’s no other way.
Frank couldn’t feel what I did to him. This aggression, this anger… it has to go somewhere.

I keep
slicing until I feel too tired to go on. I put back the dissection kit and cover up Frank’s body. I pull off my gloves, then go straight to the bathroom and cry for the better part of an hour.

I’m not sure what it is, but Patrice looks really beautiful today. Something about the way her skirt rides up over her slim knees. Something about the way her blouse stretches over the curves of her still firm breasts. I can’t stop staring at her.

“You’re very quiet today, Abe,” Patrice notes.
“Especially considering how eager you were for an appointment.”

My hands are restless, especially my left hand.
I have them at my sides, then on my lap, then grabbing onto my knees.

“Is there something specific you wanted to talk about?” she asks.
She checks her notes. “Heather?”

I can’t focus.
I keep staring at her breasts.

“Abe?”

I lean forward, resting my elbows on my thighs.

“Patrice, if you had somebody like… I don’t know, Ted Bundy, as one of your clients, do you think you could have helped him?”

Patrice becomes quiet. She absently tucks her very short hair behind her ear. Her tongue moistens her lips.

“Why do you ask that?”

“Just wondering.”

“Have you done something you’d like to tell me about?”

I can see that Patrice’s hand holding the pen is trembling slightly.

“It’s just a question,” I say innocently.

“Then the answer is yes,” she says. “I believe I could have helped him. If he got to me early enough.”

Do I believe her?
Does she even believe it herself? “What would you have done?”

“I would have reminded him that he’s in control of his actions,” Patrice says.
She uncrosses and recrosses her legs, and her skirt rides up to mid-thigh. She tugs on it slightly to pull it down. “No matter what your impulses are,
you
are
always
the one in control.”

“Do you really think that would have worked?”

Patrice lowers her eyes. During our sessions, I always felt that she was the one who dictated everything that was said and done. But now it’s clear that she has somehow lost that upper hand. She looks up at the clock, probably hoping that the hour is over and she can dismiss me. I stand up.

“Sit down,” she says.

I don’t sit down. I move towards her.

She drops her pad and pen on the floor and stands up so quickly, her chair topples to the floor behind her.
She takes a step back, scanning the room. Looking for a weapon? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Me against her? She has no chance.

“You are in control of your actions, Abe,” she says, the fear now plain in her eyes.

I grab her by her upper arms and push her hard against the bookcase. She begins to struggle, but I restrain her easily. I see the terror in her face as her fears become reality.
That’s what you get for working at Suicide Med, Patrice.

I have her on the carpeted floor, ripping her blouse from her chest.
She’s wearing a light pink bra underneath, pushing her firm breasts close together. Even though she’s trying to fight me, it’s almost pathetic how ineffective her weak kicks and punches are. She tries to scream, but the sound of her voice is lost through the layers of insulation in the wall.

“You’re in control of your actions, Abe,” she says breathlessly.
“You don’t have to do this!”

I have her forearms pinned against the floor.
She’s breathing very fast so that I can see her bare chest heaving.

Don
’t do this, Abe.

I lower myself onto…

Don’t do this, Abe.

…her body and
her skirt…

Don
’t do this, Abe.

…is ripped open, exposing…

Don’t do this, Abe!

I blink.

Oh my God, what am I
doing
?

My right fist releases Patrice
’s forearm, and I sort of have to pry my left off of her. As I let go of her, I can see red marks where my fingers had been. I crawl off her, staring at her now half-naked body. My hands are shaking badly.

Patrice is struggling to her feet, wiping her hand across the smeared lipstick on her mouth.

“I am
so
sorry,” I start to say, but before I can get any other words out, Patrice has slammed her desk lamp into the side of my head. The glass in the lampshade shatters on contact with my skull. I scream and grab the side of my head, which is now bleeding. I stare up at her, shocked. Well, I probably shouldn’t be
that
shocked.

“There are consequences to every action, Abe,” she says.
She lifts the phone off the hook. “Now get out of my office before I call the police.”

She begins dialing a number on her phone and I scramble to my feet, still holding my head.
I run out of her office, out of the hospital, and into the parking lot, where my car is waiting for me. It’s dark outside by now and it’s started to rain icy drops of almost-snow, although it does little to clean the blood from my face. She hit me very hard and I still feel dizzy. There’s blood staining my now drenched shirt and soaking through my fingers. I don’t quite feel safe to drive, but I know a security guard is going to see me if I keep wandering the parking lot.

I get in my car, holding pressure on the side of my head.
I can see my reflection in the rearview mirror and the dark red of my blood mingles with my bright red hair. I rest my head against the steering wheel for a moment, trying to figure out what just happened.

It was like somebody was talking to me in that office. Somebody was telling me to do the right thing, to release Patrice. I know the eye is gone, but some of the brain tissue is still left. I think my brother is still alive, in some form. I think he
’s still with me.

So maybe I
’m not
all
bad.

I take my cell phone out of my pocket.
I could have called for an ambulance, but I don’t want to attract that kind of attention. I don’t know if Patrice made good on her threat to call the police. Instead, I call the first number on my speed dial list: Heather.

I’m very relieved when she picks up the phone, even though I’ve been avoiding her for days.
I hear the impatience in her voice: “What is it?”

“I need your help,” I say.
“Please.”

I wait for her in my car, watching the icy rain fall down and hit the windshield.
I see Heather’s car pull up and she comes out without an umbrella, hugging her coat around her. I unlock the door to my own car and get out to greet her. She initially looks irritated, but when she sees the blood streaking across my face and on my shirt, her own face goes pale.

“Abe, oh my God,” she murmurs.
“What happened?”

I shake my head.
I’m not about to tell Heather that I’m bleeding because Patrice clocked me with a lamp after I tried to rape her.

“I’ll be okay,” I say.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” she asks, squinting up at me.

“No, I just need to get home,” I say.
“I’ll pick my car up tomorrow.”

Even though it’s wet and freezing out and I’m still dizzy from the blow to the head, we both just stand there, not moving. My left arm twitches, wanting to reach out and touch her, but I don
’t let it. It’s not the right thing to do right now.

Finally, I break the silence: “You know I’m crazy about you, Heather.
Right?”

Heather blinks droplets of water out of her eyes as she folds her arms across her chest and sighs, “Just get in the car, Abe.”

I decide that if all Heather is willing to give me is a ride, I’m willing to take it.

“Look to your left side, now look to your right side.”

I
roll my eyes as I look to my left. Just as I thought—Heather is doing it. Heather McKinley: my new roommate. Ugh.

I know Heather wants to be my best friend.
She keeps suggesting we go out for drinks and asking me questions about my life. But the truth is, I can’t stand her. She’s nice, I suppose. But she’s so freaking annoying.

First off, she brought
so
much stuff with her, you’d think she was moving into a mansion or something. Like five suitcases. And what’s the deal with all that lotion? I’ve literally never seen so much lotion in my entire life, except maybe in the lotion aisle of a drug store. And all her shampoos smell like fruit, which means Heather always smells like fruit. Usually peaches. I freaking
hate
peaches.

Plus all
she really wants to talk about is her stupid boyfriend Seth. He is just
so
wonderful by the way. Did you know his favorite food is deviled eggs and his favorite band is Macklemore? I know it. And the worst thing is that now I can’t un-know it, as much as I really wish I could.

Oh, and did I mention she sings?
Oh yes. She’s constantly singing or humming a song by Beyonce or Christina. And she’s really, really off-key. I want to stuff tissues in my ears.

I’m using like a fifth of our shared closet, yet Heather had the nerve to look uncomfortable when I hung a few posters on the wall.
She started mumbling something about how we were forbidden to use thumbtacks in the dorms. I think by the time I shoved the last thumbtack into the wall, she’d started to get it through her thick blond skull that the two of us will never be friends.

I can see it all laid out for Heather.
She’ll marry some guy in the next four years, if not her current loser boyfriend then some other loser in our class. Then she’ll become a pediatrician or something inane like that, and then probably quit to become a stay-at-home mom after popping out a few rugrats. Heather is not exactly a high-powered career woman.

Before I left for Southside, my mom said to me, “Rachel, please try to make some friends this time.”
Or something patronizing like that. She sent me to a shrink in high school because I had no friends. Which wasn’t my fault at all, trust me. Is it really my fault that most people get on my nerves? And anyway, you don’t go to med school to make friends. You go to
become a doctor
.

I
just wish I were better at studying.

_____

The truth is
, there’s a lot in anatomy that just doesn’t interest me all that much. Well, most of it, to be perfectly honest. There are just too many nerves, too many arteries… way too much to memorize.

So I fail a few quizzes.
Big deal.

Well, I can tell Dr. Conlon thinks it’s a big deal.
After I fail three quizzes in a row, I notice that he’s started paying a lot of attention to me in lab. He seems concerned.

“You realize you just cut through
the phrenic nerve,” he observes as he watches me.

Mason, who is working on the other side of the cadaver, says, “
Rachel cuts through everything. She thinks it’s all fascia.”

Speaking of people I hate.
I nearly reach out and strangle Mason for making me look bad in front of Dr. Conlon. He’s the most obnoxious person I’ve ever met. I sent out an email to the class about how disrespectful it is to name your cadaver and I asked him if he’d seen it. He told me he had and it was “hilarious.”

Dr. Conl
on ignores Mason’s comment and limps closer to me, squinting at my T-shirt through his spectacles.

“‘I am the doctor my mother wanted me to marry’,” he reads off the shirt.
He smiles. “I like that.”

“Yeah,” I mumble.

Dr. Conlon’s eyes meet mine, “It’s pretty amazing
that women now make up the majority of med school classes these days. It wasn’t that way thirty years ago.”

“
Yeah,” I say. “Too bad most women do peds, primary care, and gynecology.”

“What field a
re you interested in, Dr. Bingham?” he asks.

“Surgery,” I
reply without hesitation.

I
look up sharply as Mason snorts from the other side of the table. I really, really hate Mason. And the worst thing is, he’ll probably live out his whole life being that same arrogant asshole and never learn any humility. It’s just not fair.

Dr. Conlon waits
for me after lab that day. He’s changed out of his scrubs and is back in his slacks with a dress shirt. And a bowtie. That bowtie just slays me. Who the hell wears a bowtie?

“
Rachel,” he says as he takes me aside, concern in his blue eyes, “I just want you to know that if you need it, there’s help available for you. There are a lot of second year or graduate students I can recommend who will be happy to spend extra time with you in lab.”

I feel my
face turning red. We haven’t even had our first big exam yet and already I’ve set myself aside as someone who needs remedial help.

“And
of course,” Dr. Conlon continues, “I’m always available for questions.”

I’ll bet
. Between his obvious disability and being the biggest dork on the face of the planet, Dr. Conlon clearly does not have a rip-roaring social life. Every time I pass by his office, no matter what the hour, I can see the light on under his door. No wife, no girlfriend, no kids. He probably hasn’t had a date in years. Maybe it’s been so long, he’s given up hope that it’s going to ever happen again.

It is just so goddamn perfect.