----- Grace Hartin

“Is there anything else I can do for you Sean?” I always knew that I couldn’t be a pediatrician, but it didn’t mean that I couldn’t visit the kids sometimes. There was just no way that I could bring myself to stick a baby or a kid with a needle while they sob and spit. Especially if the kid was anything like me about shots. When I was younger there were multiple instances of me hopping off the examination table and taking off down the hallway. A couple of times I even made it to the elevator or stairs and had to be tracked down on another floor of the medical building where my doctor was.

Sean did a quick survey of the things I had brought him: sports magazines, his Nintendo, strawberry yogurt, markers and a pad of paper. “Nope, you got everything.” He opened his yogurt and licked the aluminum lid, “How’d you know my favorite flavor was strawberry?”

If you paid enough attention you could learn a lot about people. When we had first met the day before we talked about the food in the hospital cafeteria and everything that he mentioned loving was a soup or had strawberries in it. I thought I was safe to assume that he didn’t want soup flavored yogurt, but leaving him speculating would be more fun.

“I guess I’m just good at guessing,” I opened the solid grey door into the glossy white hallway, “If you need anything you know what to do.”

Floor 5 was usually a very busy place with kids going in and out and it wasn’t somewhere that I frequented often. Occasionally I had patients on the floor, but more often than that I used my time on the floor clocking extra hours or doing community service just hanging out with the kids like Sean.

This time I had a patient, Jared Miles in room 594. After scampering down the hall to avoid getting hit by one of the meal carts rolling around with lunch I stopped outside his room to peek in before I entered to see what I was about to encounter. Inside I saw the boy on the bed with his mother beside him clutching his hand. He wore a neck brace, but in his file I didn’t see anything on him getting one so it must’ve been from home. That meant a parent who was probably a little bit paranoid or overly concerned to make it ‘politically correct’ as some would say.

I understood the feeling, when I learned about the high concussion rates in girls lacrosse I almost stopped playing, but there were only so many paran- ‘overly concerned’ parents I could deal with in one shift.

“Hello Mrs.Miles. I’m Dr.Hartin and I’ll be helping you guys today. Can you tell me what happened?”

The mother stood and grabbed my hand before I was even in the door, giving me the most violent handshake I had ever received, “Hi, thank you for seeing us. While I was driving I came to a very abrupt stop and because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt he flew forward and hit the back of my seat hard. Afterwards he couldn’t move his neck very well and I drove him straight here.”

“Okay,” I made sure to use my most soothing voice which she responded to by sitting down, “and you gave him the neck brace?”

Mrs.Miles stroked her son’s hair, even as he shook his head to dislodge her hand, “Yes, I didn’t want him to hurt it more.”

“How do you feel Jared?”

“I feel fine. I got a concussion once in soccer from heading a ball and getting kicked as I fell, this was nothing.”

Good thing I stopped playing soccer.

“Don’t say that Jared, I heard the thump. This was something.” I never understood why some people insisted that there had to be something wrong with someone. Getting him checked out was a good idea but wouldn’t she want her son to be okay?

“Do you mind stepping out Mrs.Miles so Jared and I can talk and do some quick tests?”

For a second she looked like she was going to refuse although with the irritated look Jared was giving her she got that it was time for her to go. “Alright, I’ll be in the hall.”

“So Jared,” I began after the door shut behind her, “is that exactly what happened?”

I was relieved to hear him say ‘yes’. Another worry of mine: having a child patient with an injury inflicted by a parent having Munchausen syndrome by proxy. I did a project on it in middle school and since then I had never forgotten it.

“Can you take off your neck brace for me?” As he did that I asked him the routine questions. Do you remember the past 30 minutes? Do you have a headache? Did you throw up? Did you suffer a seizure? Can you move all your limbs? Were you under the influence of drugs or alcohol?

He laughed at my last question. “Have you met my mom? I wish I was using something.”

Unfortunately responding to that would be unprofessional, but from what I saw I understood where the kid was coming from.

“I take that as a no. She said that you had trouble moving your neck. Can you try doing that for me now?”

“For the record my neck never hurt, she just told me that it must.” He rocked his head forward and backwards then drew a circle in the air with his head without any discomfort or difficulty. After rubbing my hands together to make sure they weren’t too cold I looked for any bruising or cuts on his neck, pressing slightly to make sure no bruises just hadn’t formed yet. I didn’t expect to find anything, but if I could tell his mother that I did everything other than a scan without anything out of the ordinary popping out then there was no reason for her to ask for one.

“Looks like you’re fine,” I announced, but it was obvious to both of us that he already knew.

Through the window in the door I motioned his mother in and told her what I found. I had prepared for an onslaught of rapid fire questions that would eventually become unrelated to situation at hand, but once I told her that nothing was wrong she seemed more embarrassed than anything and left in a hurry. That left me with no more patients and free to clock out and go home.

----- Katie Srednicki

“Okay who put the egg in the pile of clothing on my chair?” As expected my question received the response of laughter from two of my roommates who, when the other was gone, played pranks on me like we were still in elementary school. “Come on guys, that was all clean stuff.”

Sara, whom I had known since kindergarten, paused putting her hair up in a ponytail with a small section of her puffy, curly, sandy brown hair (her latest obsession), “Don’t whine. You’re the one who went to sit on clean clothing.”

She was followed by our friend Emma who had been the new kid at our school in 5th grade, “Since when do you wear clean clothing anyways? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you do your own laundry, just Grace doing your laundry for you.”

Grace had also gone to our school since kindergarten, and we’d all been close since. When people talking about us they tended to split us into two pairs: Sara with Emma and Grace with myself. Not that Grace was always loyal to me. She played a more pansophical role whom we could always talk to. “Shut up, she does your laundry too. I’m pretty sure she’s the only one who remembers to.”

“That’s a lie,” Emma leaned over and picked up her basketball, “Sara and I put our clothing in the wash. We just forget to move it to the dryer.”

“Still, now I have to get Grace to do my laundry again and it’s all your guys’ fault, so when she gets back you guys can tell her what you did.” At 5’4” I needed to stand up on my tippy toes to look Emma in the eye, but when it came time to go out to dinner and I had the option for ridiculously high heels to match their 1 or 2 inches I always made sure to rub it in their faces.

They claimed that they didn’t care, but I doubted that.

As Emma walked by me she pretended to throw the ball in my face, barely catching it before it bumped my nose. In high school when she really got into basketball she learned the trick and while nowadays she always pulled the ball back in the beginning she only did a pretty good job. There were a few times when it slipped from her fingers and the ball hit me, and those were the times that still made me flinch.

“I’ll see you guys later. There’s a pick-up games of sorts with some girls from the basketball team and they invited me,” behind her the lock jiggled and if Sara and Emma weren’t with me I would have probably taken off down the hall to my room until whoever it was identified themselves.

Grace’s familiar reddish brown hair appeared in the crack of the door and the wall, “I know you think I’m skinny guys, but I’m not this skinny.”

Both Emma and Sara turned to me with hellfire burning in their eyes. “I put the chain on while you guys were napping,” I said sheepishly. Before I had finished my sentence Emma was already making her way to the door to take the chain off, “Hey! You can’t blame me! At home we had three locks and one of those poles that work like a chair under the door handle. I was trained to be like this.”

“Yeah well,” Grace puffed her way to the kitchen with what looked like four grocery bags on either arm, “we trained a dog once. I don’t think it should be too hard to change your ways.”

The three of them broke out into laughter together as Grace began putting away groceries and we all gravitated over to help. “Funny,” I tried to snap, but as always I couldn’t bring myself to be even a little mad at them.

Very few people understood the relationship that us four had. Ever since elementary school we enjoyed poking fun at each other and a couple of times we got in trouble for it. Sometimes the jokes went a little over the top, yes, but we could always work it out on our own. AKA without the guidance counselor who decided to use every single teacher fret as a reason to educate us on bullying. In high school we all began to grow apart and sometimes I felt like I was the only one slipping from the group because I was the only one that didn’t do a sport. Grace and Emma acted like me, but needless to say if anyone was to get sucked into the drama cult and lost forever it would’ve been me. I liked it there because everyone was nice and they always made sure to compliment me and call me cute. The relationships and conversations never delved deeper than fashion, complimenting me and having them talk to me about their problems even if I didn’t particularly care though and, while it took me time, I realized that I couldn’t go my whole life surrounded by these people. Sure they were nicer and made me feel really important (I love to feel important), but we lacked the real connection that allowed my now roommates and I to argue and insult each other without our friendship suffering.

“Are you going to put anything away?” Grace waved her arm in front of my face, “I didn’t carry all of these in one go for you to stand around holding a bag of Cheetos.”

I opened the cabinet closest to me and stuffed in the bag, “Well you didn’t have to carry it all in one go. I still don’t understand why you refuse to make more than one trip. Remember your mom used to tell you to, but you wouldn’t cause you’re too stubborn.”

Sara pushed me out of her way and grabbed the bag of Cheetos from where I left them. On second glance I saw the plastic cups, utensils and paper plates of our lazy cabinet where the bag used to be. When I looked up I expected to see Sara mouthing ‘dumbass’ at me.

Emma mouthed ‘dumbass’ while Sara stuffed the Cheetos in our snack drawer.

“I’m sorry Emma! So sorry!” I threw up my arms and theatrically shouted my apologies. Her mouth dropped open in a look of disgust, a typical reaction to my theater voice in the house, and as Sara whipped around to make the same face at me the end of her ponytail landed in Emma’s mouth.

As she spat and hit Sara I began my soliloquy.

“You see,” I leaned against the counter with the back of my hand pressed against my forehead, “sometimes I just think about our shared past.” With a mind of it’s own my hand flew forward and pulled me off the counter to the center of our kitchen where my gesticulations began. “The hardships we’ve persevered through and the wonderful times that we have been able to enjoy together have brought us close. So close that we graduated from elementary school and fought through high school to find ourselves here today in this very kitchen together and it is something that I am incredibly grateful for. You all might try to act like you don’t love me, but I feel your love, I have felt your love and I can see the love that you’re going to give as our friendship continues to blossom.” The three of them looked dead and repulsed, just how I intended.

“And with my blessing I will say now that we’re never going to leave each other.”

“Except my flight leaves in 4 hours,” Grace broke into a wild smile as she spoiled my moment, “which means you guys need to make sure you guys have everything that you guys need before that cause once I’m gone I’m gone. I’ve waited too long for this game: Lightning versus Blackhawks.” Her eyes seemed to glaze over at the end of her outburst and I felt entranced by her pause.

Bitch stole my thunder and I was the one minoring in acting.

As casually as I could manage I cleared my throat and she quickly spit out the end of her speech, “And of course I can’t wait to see my kindergarten buddy Amanda. It’s been too long and I could use the break from school.”

Choosing my embarrassment over Grace’s Sara ignored the awkward way she explained her trip and attacked me head on (only with words thank God), “Katie has to ask you for something.” Grace almost looked surprised that I needed something, but she taken over by a defeated expression that I knew all too well.

“What?”

I could feel Sara’s challenge hanging in the air. To ask Grace to do my laundry again or to not: that was the question.

“Uhh nothing,” I narrowed my eyes at Sara and Emma, challenging them to say anything, “I just hope that you bought eggs.”

There was a tension in the room between everyone that had become so normal for us over the years that it was easily recognized by us all and Grace wasn’t afraid to call out our bluff, “Bullshit, but okay. Anyone want lunch? I didn’t eat at the hospital today.”

----- Amanda Brown

“Come on pick up Grace.”

For the fourth time in the past 2 minutes that I hung up on Grace whose phone seemed to ring forever. My frustration getting the best of me as usual. I knew her well enough to know that she usually had her phone on her, and if it wasn’t on her then it was nearby. Plus, if anything she should’ve been calling me to tell me that she was on her way to the airport and that her flight would be on time. Then I would be able to begin the countdown until I saw my best friend and wouldn’t be alone in Tampa Bay anymore.

It was a lovely city, but I didn’t haul ass all the way from Alabama for that. This trip was like our college acceptance trip all over again, except we probably wouldn’t be as lucky.

Not that our trip was all that lucky last time. It had started great and the night was even better, but Grace and I fucked up. She was too professional and Bostonian for her own good and I was the tipsy girl high off of adrenaline who only gave her number instead of exchanging like a normal person.

I was off my game and I accepted that.

Since then a ton had happened though and we had talked about it and we both decided that we should try again. That is if the term ‘we’ is used very lightly. I won Lightning tickets in a raffle at my school, so I planned our trip around them, told her about it and didn’t give her a choice in the matter whether she came or not.

My phone came to life in my hand, jolting me out of my quick runthrough of the next day and how we’d again get the attention of a couple of Blackhawks.

“Oh wow, look who decided to answer,” I used my most sarcastic voice to greet Grace, but when I heard myself speak I could’ve sworn that it was her normal voice that I heard coming out of my mouth.

She scoffed on her end, “You’re so funny! I was busy finishing the dishes so I can run out the door. What’s up?”

I feel back on my bed and imagined her rushing out the door five minutes late as usual, “I was expecting a call from you earlier. I thought you’d be at the airport by now.”

Grace grunted while she moved her luggage around I assumed, “Well you know me. Are you gonna tell me your plan for this game yet?”

Somewhere in the background a car door slammed shut and someone sounded exasperated like they’d been sitting in the car waiting for Grace, “Yeah, I’m ready this time Sara. Drive.”

“Okay,” she spoke to me this time. My mouth and my body was shaking with anticipation and it made it impossible to form words. I had put so many hours of thought into the best way to get the guys attention with the killer tickets I had won. Grace knew about the game, but she didn’t know we had glass seats. Glass seats. Literally no way that they could miss us, especially if we sat down during warmups which was all apart of the plan.

“Wait,” Grace sounded nervous, “I gotta take this. A minute tops.”

Just before she took the other call I hoped that she heard the most frustrated sounding sigh I forced out just for her. She wasn’t even a full on professional doctor and she was already struggling to get time off. Honestly, I had no idea how the medical degrees went, but from what Grey’s Anatomy taught me she was an intern or something at the moment. They worked their asses off, but Grace needed to save all the ass she had.

When Grace reconnected I heard her heavy breathing before she spoke and I already knew it was bad.

“Remember that thing called medical school and being an intern that I told out I got out of?”

Shit.

“They need me tonight because a bunch of people are sick.”

Shit.

“But Sara’s on the phone right now to try and get me tickets for tomorrow morning,” her voice leaped an octave up with the declaration of this optimistic plan, “I will try my hardest to get to the game tomorrow. I’ll bring my dress and everything just like you asked.”

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

“I guess that’s better than nothing,” I tried not to sound too hurt. It wasn’t her fault, but I would never understand the appeal of getting called into work as you’re crawling into bed. Especially if you were crawling into bed with a beautiful man.

“Fuck this sucks, I’m so sorry.”

Outside the hotel window the sun was setting, and I could hear the clubs hidden on the street start up their music. Since I didn’t have to go pick her up there was no reason for me to stay in. I could start redoing 5 years ago now, just without the irresistible man on my arm.

“It’s not your fault, I just better see your ass down here tomorrow.”

Notes

Do any of you have HBO? If you do, do you watch True Detective? My friend was watching it and I started on Sunday. I watched all 8 episodes and they're each like an hour long but by the end I was messed up. Honestly, between that show, the Following and Hannibal I'm not entirely sure how I sleep at night.

I would like to apologize for butchering the order of medical school, but ain't nobody got time fo' dat here.

Anywho, I hope you guys like getting to know Grace and co and little more, I love their friendship in the apartment together. If you have anything to say comment please. I don't know if you like talking to me, but I love hearing from you guys.