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  “You’re the one that got amorous in the call room,” Alex pointed out.

  “I seem to remember you enjoying that moment, too,” Megan said, and Alex blushed, suddenly aware of the other people in the study carrels around them.

  “Shh,” she said, but they all just kept their heads down and she added with a smirk, “Fine, I’ll buy.”

  “I was just teasing,” Megan said as she scooped up her laptop and some loose papers and started putting them in her backpack. “I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee, as long as you don’t drink that sugary unicorn crap that costs seven dollars a cup.”

  “Oh, I forgot,” Alex said, tapping her fingernail on the cover of Megan’s expensive laptop as she slid it into her bag. “You’re broke.”

  “Completely,” Megan said. “I had to smash my piggy bank to take you out today, so you better be happy with a small black coffee.”

  “I’ll do my best to be a cheap date,” Alex said, shooting her a smile. It was always so easy to banter with Megan, and so much fun to push her buttons.

  She watched Megan pick up the remaining books on her desk and carry them over to a book cart at the end of an aisle, and then Megan waved Alex over, saying, “Hey, come here. I want to show you something.”

  “What?” Alex asked, following her into the stacks.

  Megan reached for her hand, sending excitement rushing into Alex’s cheeks. They’d spent a whole week sending flirtatious text messages back and forth to each other, and it was nice to feel Megan’s hand in hers after all that built-up tension.

  They made it about halfway down the row before Megan whispered her reply. “This.”

  And then she pulled Alex into a slow, smoldering kiss. Alex felt her cheeks growing even warmer, her whole body tingling from the softness of Megan’s lips. She’d missed that feeling, and she was apprehensive about it, too. What if Megan didn’t want to go slow, or wasn’t content with the flirtatious text messages they’d been exchanging? Alex’s heart leaped into her throat every time she saw Megan’s name flash across her phone screen, but she didn’t know how her body would react to her in person. She’d made a plan with her therapist to taper off her anti-depressants—she was ready to re-enter the world of the living as long as Megan helped her ease into it. But it would take a while to get all the medication out of her system, and in the back of her mind there was the lingering fear that she had sacrificed her sexual drive for a little bit of numbness.

  It had been so long since anything really felt good, and Megan was so beautiful, so seductive, it scared Alex.

  She pulled away from the kiss, intent on coming clean to Megan about the reason why she’d asked to take things slow, but before she got the chance, she heard someone clear their throat at the end of the aisle. Alex took a step away from Megan and they both turned to look at the source of the interruption—a petite girl with a comically large pile of medical textbooks in her arms who had paused at the end of the row to glower at them.

  “Crap,” Megan muttered as she caught sight of her, and they exchanged scowls before the girl went on her way.

  “You know her?” Alex asked when she was gone.

  “She’s my med school nemesis, Ivy,” Megan said. Then, shaking it off, she reached for Alex’s hand again. “Should we go get that coffee?”

  “Yeah,” Alex answered, grateful for this little interruption because she hadn’t quite gotten up the courage to tell this gorgeous, bewitching girl her darkest secrets. She added, “We better go before she reports us to a librarian.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Megan

  The coffee shop was busy when they arrived. Despite teasing Alex about drinking cheap black coffee, Megan ordered a mocha with extra whipped cream and chocolate drizzle—her favorite—and Alex ended up going for the plain brewed coffee after all.

  “You know you can order whatever you want,” Megan said as she pulled out her bank card. “I was teasing about the piggy bank.”

  “I know,” Alex said. “But I actually like regular coffee, and apparently you’re the hypocrite with a penchant for sugary unicorn drinks.”

  “What can I say? I like my coffee like my women—sweet and covered in whipped cream,” Megan answered with a grin.

  They found a couple of comfortable chairs near the back of the café and sat down. The rest of the coffee shop patrons moved around them, coming and going while Megan and Alex stayed put. They talked for a long time, finishing conversations started in text and beginning new ones, and most of their topics came back around to flirtation in some way or another. Megan was more comfortable that way—she didn’t have time to date, or the desire to, and if all they were doing was flirting, it would be easier for her to enjoy this moment instead of questioning it.

  “So what kind of meningitis research are you doing?” Alex asked as she sipped her coffee and Megan licked the whipped cream off of hers. That was another good reason to order a sugary drink, because she took a perverse amount of pleasure in watching the way Alex’s eyes zeroed in on her tongue, and the way she squirmed slightly—almost imperceptibly—at the sight.

  Megan smiled, washed down her mouthful of whipped cream with a sip of her drink, and said, “I’m mostly interested in the course of the disease, particularly the way that it spreads from one person to another. Did you know that there only has to be one more case of the same strain in order for the Centers for Disease Control to officially consider it an outbreak?”

  “No,” Alex said. “That seems so minor.”

  “Not for something as lethal as bacterial meningitis,” Megan said. “There are a lot of different bacteria that cause it and not much protection against it. If one person gets sick, everyone in the community is at risk.”

  “That’s pretty scary,” Alex said.

  “Just keep taking your antibiotics and you’ll be fine,” Megan said, enjoying the way this doctorly advice sounded coming out of her mouth.

  She’d been researching the disease all week and knew her odds of contracting it were slim, but she could imagine how worrisome it might be to someone without that specialized knowledge. She thought it might be a good idea to change the subject—to avoid scaring Alex and also because bacterial meningitis didn’t make the best bedroom talk—but Alex spared her the trouble of thinking of something new to talk about.

  “I can see how passionate you are about all of this,” she said. “What made you want to become a doctor?”

  “My mom’s an acute care nurse,” Megan said. “She used to bring me to the hospital on Take Your Daughter to Work Day when I was a kid and I was always fascinated with all the people who were there just because they wanted to help others get better. Granted, bodily functions aren’t really my thing, so I when I got older I decided that being a doctor meant less chance of getting puked on than being a nurse like my mom.”

  Alex laughed, and then Megan went on.

  “That’s not the only reason I chose medical school, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t weigh into my decision,” she said. “You, on the other hand, are probably going to be elbow-deep in bodily functions as a paramedic.”

  “God willing,” Alex said, laughing again and putting her hands together as if in prayer.

  “You’re a sick individual,” Megan said, grinning at her.

  Alex asked, “What do you have to do to become a doctor, anyway?”

  Megan let out a sigh and then laughed. “A lot.”

  “Tell me,” Alex said, her lips curling into a very subtle smile.

  “Well, you start with an undergraduate degree, and once you pass the MCAT exam, you get to choose a medical school,” Megan said. “I went to Northwestern for both. In medical school, you take two years of lecture-style classes on campus—I’m in my second year of that—and then you do rotations at a hospital for another two years before you earn your degree. After that, it’s a three to five-year residency during which you pick your specialty, and then finally—if you pass your board exams—you’re licensed to prac
tice medicine.”

  “Wow, you’re going to be an old woman before all that’s through,” Alex said teasingly. “So what are you going to specialize in?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Megan said. “I guess it will depend on how the rotations go, but my interests are definitely piqued when it comes to pathology. I might be a future Dr. Markovich, a Medical Examiner. What about you? Why EMT school?”

  “Well, it’s kind of a long story,” Alex said.

  “My schedule’s wide open until four o’clock,” Megan offered.

  “Alright,” Alex said, but she didn’t start right away. She shook her mostly-empty coffee cup and said, “I don’t have enough caffeine in my system for this story. You want another?”

  “Nah,” Megan said, curious at Alex’s sudden agitation. She wondered if she had made a mistake in asking that, and whether it would evoke the same flight response as the call room had. Alex didn’t run, though. She went to the front of the café and refilled her cup from the carafes near the counter, then came back and sat down with a deep breath.

  “Well,” she said, taking a sip. “I guess I have to start at the beginning, two years ago. It was my first year of college and I was studying middle-grade art education at the University of Illinois.”

  She paused for a long time, and Megan guessed what was waiting in the silence. When she was sure that Alex wasn’t going to continue of her own accord, Megan asked quietly, “And then your dad died?”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. Her voice was very matter-of-fact, like she was telling someone else’s story. “It happened right before the start of my sophomore year. I took a semester off because I couldn’t bear to go on with my life like nothing happened, and I didn’t go back to school in the spring either because my mom still needed me. I was going to therapy and… well, I was taking anti-depressants. They made me numb so I could keep functioning, but my mother was the one who really fell apart. I left school to take care of her and do the things that she and my dad used to do back when we were whole people—paying bills, buying groceries, that kind of stuff.”

  “She’s lucky to have you,” Megan said, not entirely sure what to say that would be of comfort. She wondered if she should have just kept talking about meningitis instead of forcing this traumatic story out of Alex, but she hadn’t thought much of the question at the time. Now, the connection between Alex’s decision to become an EMT and her father’s death was obvious and Megan wondered why she didn’t see it before—the way she’d looked away when the ambulance pulled into the loading bay of the Medical Examiner’s Office should have been a big, flashing sign.

  “I’m lucky to have her, too,” Alex went on. “She’s the one that encouraged me to get my life back on track, even if she’s not ready to do the same yet. She wanted me to go back to the university but I couldn’t imagine moving back into the dorms. My mom spends most of her days compulsively buying junk from the Home Shopping Network as her way of coping and if I left her alone, she’d end up building an As Seen On TV tomb around herself.”

  Megan reached over and took Alex’s hand, then asked, “So why EMT school? I think that would be the last profession I’d want if I went through what you did.”

  Alex told her about the paramedics that responded for her father, and what a big impact they had on her. She said they were fast and skilled, and also empathetic and comforting to her, and that the best thing she could do with her life was to try and give back that kind of support to other people who were going through similar tragedies.

  “They were just doing their job, trying to help my dad,” she said, “but they made it a little bit easier for me to get through the worst day of my life, and I’ll never forget that.”

  “That’s really noble,” Megan said, squeezing Alex’s hand.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alex

  Suddenly, Alex got a little agitated, taking her hand back and fidgeting in her chair. “While we’re on dark subjects, I think I should tell you something that I’ve been kind of avoiding. I didn’t want to mention it but I feel like I probably should.”

  “Okay,” Megan said, not sure what to expect.

  Alex took a deep breath, then said, “This feels so awkward to say, but I’ve been having so much fun texting you this past week and I don’t want you to think I’m leading you on.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I told you the anti-depressants I’m on make me numb,” Alex said.

  “Yeah,” Megan nodded.

  “Everywhere,” Alex said, feeling like she ought to just crawl underneath the nearest table and disappear. How mortifying it was to admit such a thing to this beautiful girl who she’d been sending increasingly flirtatious texts to for days and days. She peeked up at Megan to see how she was taking it, and maybe it was the medical training kicking in, but Megan had a pretty good poker face on. Alex soldiered on, saying, “I just wanted you to know that I’m having a lot of fun getting to know you, but our texts have been so flirtatious that I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “Okay,” Megan said. “So you’re saying that you don’t want to fool around with me because you wouldn’t feel anything if we did.”

  “This is officially more embarrassing than your moment in the autopsy suite,” Alex said. Why on earth had she felt the need to admit all of this? She wished they could just go back to talking about nonsense, like Megan’s medical school nemesis or her penchant for sugary unicorn drinks.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Megan tried to reassure her. “I mean, we should probably put the brakes on, anyway.”

  Alex’s heart fell into her gut. This was exactly the reaction she’d been afraid of. She felt like it was important to be honest with Megan, but she knew there was a possibility that finding out just how messed up Alex was would push her away. And now she was taking a big metaphorical step back away from Alex.

  “We should?”

  “Medical school is really demanding,” Megan said. “I have to give it pretty much every single one of my waking hours, and it sounds like you have a pretty full plate yourself, between school and everything you do for your mother.”

  “I could make room for you,” Alex offered quietly. She wished she could just go backward in time by about ten minutes and decide not to tell Megan about her sexual dysfunction. It had been too much, too soon, and it was ruining every nice moment they’d had in the past week. Alex had so few nice moments lately, she couldn’t afford to lose any of them.

  “I guess I should tell you,” Megan said, “since we’re doing the whole full-disclosure thing, I don’t really date. I don’t do relationships.”

  “Okay,” Alex said, and then she wasn’t sure what else there was left for them to discuss. She’d just thrown a cherry bomb into the fragile beginnings of their relationship, and now it felt like there was nothing left except shards of porcelain. She shrugged and said, “I should probably go. I have to study, and I’m sure you do, too.”

  “Oh, okay,” Megan answered with a strained smile.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” Alex said.

  “You’re welcome,” Megan said, trying to stand up before Alex was gone, but by the time she had shuffled her drink onto a little side table and stood, Alex was already walking away.

  Megan drained the last of her coffee and then headed back to campus, walking at a leisurely pace because she still had almost an hour before her evening lab was scheduled to begin. There were a lot of conflicting emotions running through her head about Alex, and she really was at a loss to determine exactly how she felt about her.

  For a moment, she thought it might be wise to explain her history with Ruby. Alex had opened up to her about her father’s death and her struggle to overcome the grief that accompanied it, and Megan was sure that Alex would have listened just as attentively to Megan’s own struggles. But what good would it do to explain to her why they couldn’t be together? Megan just needed her to understand that she wasn’t capable of being in a relationship—that was all
. She didn’t need to bring all of the skeletons out of her closet and put them on parade for Alex’s sake.

  Megan felt frustrated by the time she got back to the academic building where her lab would be held. Alex had just told her that she was incapable of having a casual relationship, of hooking up, and Megan was incapable of the exact opposite, a committed relationship. Where did that leave them?

  Ever since she ended things with her first serious girlfriend, Ruby, she was all hook-ups, all the time. The closest she’d gotten to having a girlfriend was during the previous summer, when she’d spent most of her break in bed with a cute girl who lived two thousand miles away and was only in Chicago for the summer. They both knew it was nothing more than a summer fling, though.

  She wasn’t the slightest bit interested in replaying the disaster of a breakup that she’d experienced when her relationship with Ruby had ended. She’d handled it so badly, abruptly pushing Ruby out of her life because she felt like it would be easier if it was sudden, and all she’d managed to do was hurt Ruby ten times more and damage a lifelong friendship.

  Megan didn’t want that coffee shop date to be the last she saw of Alex, but maybe it would be better if it was. She was telling the truth when she said she didn’t have time for anything except school.

  Alex’s next class was difficult, piling on to the confusion that she felt about how her coffee date with Megan ended.

  Mr. Chase spent over an hour giving a lecture on cardiac emergencies, covering symptoms that Alex knew all too well. He discussed the paramedic’s role in treatment, and the majority of the things he listed would have been inapplicable for her father.

  Calm the patient. Administer nitroglycerin and/or aspirin. Not for someone who was unresponsive by the time the ambulance arrived.

  CPR for those in cardiac arrest with no breathing or pulse. That was more like it.