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Authors: Freida McFadden

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BOOK: Suicide Med
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Chapter 14

 

I stare into the yellow, empty skull of their cadaver. We removed the brain days earlier and now I can see all the nerves projecting from the empty cranial cavity. I look back and forth from the lab manual to the cadaver, trying to match up the drawing with the real life image.

This i
s hopeless.

“I have no idea what’s what,”
I finally announce.

Mason grins
at me. “Need some help?”

“No…”
I look back at the skull and bite my lip. “Okay, yes.”

Mason expertly points
out the different cranial nerves to me, starting with the olfactory nerve and ending with the hypoglossal nerve. We just started learning the cranial nerves yesterday and already Mason knows it like the back of his hand. What’s with him? How does he master the material so quickly? He’s some kind of insane anatomy genius.

“There’s a mnemonic for remembering the
twelve cranial nerves,” he says. “Ooh Ooh Ooh, To Touch And Feel Vinnie’s Girlfriend’s Vagina. Ah, Heaven.”

“Do you mind?” Rachel speaks
up irritably. She’s helping Ginny dissect the right side of the neck, but she still manages to flash Mason a disgusted expression. “I’m sure there’s a way to remember the cranial nerves that doesn’t involve fingering a woman.”

Mason looks like he’
s about to tell Rachel off, but Abe interrupts by coming up behind me and kissing me gently on the neck.

“Yeah,
stop talking dirty to my girl, Mason,” he says with a grin.

“No
kissing in lab,” Rachel snaps. “God, you two are going to make me vomit.”

Rachel’
s right for a change. Abe being a little affectionate in the anatomy lab doesn’t bother me
so
much, but I really don’t like it when he surprised me with a box of chocolates in here. “There’s a time and a place, Abe!” I said as I took the chocolates from my apologetic boyfriend and tossed them in the trash. Seriously, ew.

But
I don’t really blame him. He’s trying so hard to impress me that sometimes he just goes a little too far.

_____

 

The second anatomy exam is much less painful than the first, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t thanks to studying with Abe.
It makes me feel a bit like a loser that it took Seth’s tutoring to get me through pre-med courses in college, and now Abe is carrying me through anatomy.

“I
think I’m holding you back,” I sometimes say to Abe when I’m feeling especially guilty.

“No way,” Abe insists.
“I learn the material better when I go over it with you.”

It could be tru
e, although I suspect he’d help me even if it weren’t.

This time I wait until the grades are posted rather than stalking Dr. Conlon in his office.
I make Abe come with me for moral support, although he’s oddly uninterested in his own grade. The grades are listed on a piece of paper by our mailboxes, although thankfully our names aren’t used. We each have a five-digit ID number to locate our grades. I scan the list until I find my ID number, then let out a little involuntary squeal when I see my grade: seventy-six.

That’s a Pass!
Not even a
Low
Pass! It’s a bona fide Pass!

I throw my arms around Abe, an action that might have knocked down a smaller man.
But Abe just laughs and hugs me back. Then it turns into at least a minute of making out. When we finally separate, I cry, “I passed!”

“I figured that much,” he says with a grin.

“Not even a Low Pass,” I say proudly. Although I feel a little silly for being proud of what is essentially a C. “How did you do?”

I assumed he’d have done better than me, so I was prepared for that.
What I wasn’t prepared for is the confused expression on his face.

“Oh,” he says.
“I guess I should check.”

What the hell?
How could we be standing a foot away from our midterm grades, but he didn’t even bother to look at his own grade?

“A 91
,” Abe announces. He shrugs. “Pretty good, I guess.”

“Pretty good?”
I repeat, astonished. “Abe, that’s
awesome
! That’s Honors.”

“Yeah,” he says and allows himself the tiniest of smiles.
Although I can see in his eyes that he truly doesn’t care.

And that is just super weird
, folks.

 

 

Chapter
15

 

Although I’d been looking forward to Thanksgiving break as a reprieve from school, it ends up leaving me more exhausted than anything. My parents were in rare form and managed to pick on me nonstop nearly the entire long weekend. For example, the second I walked into the door of my parents’ house, my mother hugged me and said, “Heather, your hair smells.”

I had just been driving for nearly six hours straight and that was
definitely not what I wanted or needed to hear.

Besides, I had showered just before I left.
Between you and me, the smell never entirely comes out from my hair. I looked online for solutions and had tried vinegar, tomato juice, Coca Cola, and even baking soda, but nothing quite gets out the formaldehyde. I barely even notice it anymore. And that worries me more than anything.

After we got off the subject of my hair, my mother gave me the third degree about my wonderful new boyfriend.
Abe and I had toyed with the idea of him coming to my house for the holidays, or vice versa, but we decided our parents would have a fit. But as my mother grilled me, I desperately wished Abe were standing by my side. If only to look imposing.

I left early on Sunday, and it wasn’t a moment too soon.
Abe promised he’d be home in time for us to get dinner that night, and I was holding him to that promise. I needed a long, relaxing night with my boyfriend to recover from three days with my parents.

When I get back to the dorms, I barely take a second to throw my bags in the room
and glance at my reflection in the hall mirror. I’m wearing a tight tank top and a pair of skinny blue jeans, which seems good enough. I suspect Abe would be okay with it if I showed up wearing a potato sack.

I
kick off my boots and slide sandals over my bare feet and hurry upstairs to Abe’s apartment. Usually we meet at my apartment because his is truly disgusting. A few weeks ago, I walked into the living room and there was a dead roach lying right in the middle of the floor. I pointed it out, and to my surprise, Mason and Abe seemed to already know it was there.

“It’s a warning to other roaches,” Mason explained.
“So they know what will happen to them if they come in here.”

Abe just looked embarrassed and scooped up the roach with a paper towel.

Anyway, roaches or not, I’m too excited to see Abe and I don’t want to wait around downstairs.
I knock on the door and Mason answers.

So here’s the weird part: Mason always seems really put together, but right now, he looks
awful
. His chestnut hair is sticking straight up and it looks like he hasn’t washed it in weeks. He’s wearing a Southside Med T-shirt that has a big brown stain on the front of it, and it smells worse than my hair. He’s got several days’ worth of stubble on his face, and those gorgeous hazel eyes are bloodshot.

“Mason?” I say.

I almost ask him if he’s drunk.

Mason blinks at me a few times, like he’s trying to place me. I practically expect him to ask me my name. Then his eyes narrow.

“What do you want?”

“Uh…” I squeeze my fists together. “I just came to see Abe.”

Mason frowns for a minute.

“Oh.
” His shoulders sag. “Right. Of course. He’s in the shower.”


He is?” I look at the bathroom door and see steam coming out from underneath.

“Yeah,” Mason says.
And then he adds, sounding very much like his usual self, “But I’m sure he wouldn’t mind some company.”

He smiles at me then, and before I can question his appearance any further, he slips out the door
to the apartment.

Actually, Mason had
an intriguing idea. How hot would it be if I get into the shower with Abe? Of course, it would be a bit of a surprise, but what guy wouldn’t get turned on by something like that? And it will certainly propel our relationship to the next level.

I’m going to do it!

I go down the hall, gently opening the door to the bathroom, and silently slip into the room. Once inside, I blink several times as my vision quickly clouds with steam. I look at the mirrors, which are completely fogged over so that I can’t make out my own reflection. I hear Abe’s voice from behind the white shower curtain, softly humming a tune. It sounds like Journey.

I
pull my shirt over my head and wiggle out of my jeans, accompanied by my panties. I then unhook my bra. Finally I’m totally naked in the middle of the bathroom, the steam curling my hair, becoming very aroused by the idea that Abe is naked too, just beyond the shower curtains.

I
tip-toe towards the shower curtain and rap my fist against the curtain, as if knocking.

“Hello, Abe,”
I say in my most seductive voice, feeling only slightly silly. “Got room for one more?”

Almost instantly,
I see Abe’s shocked round face peeking out from behind the curtain. Instead of looking pleased to see me, he looks horrified.

“What are you
doing here?” he nearly screams.

I
try to smile, ignoring my heart pounding in my chest. “I just came to—”

“Get out of here!”

“But Abe, I thought…”

“Get out!”
He really is screaming this time. I can see the veins standing out in his neck and his right eye is twitching slightly. “Now!”

I
nearly slip on a puddle of water as I fumble to put my clothes back on. I’m so freaking embarrassed. As I pull my tank top over my head, I notice that the pattern of water droplets sounds different. The downpour of water is steady now—Abe isn’t moving in the shower. He’s just standing still, waiting for me to leave.

What the hell is going on?

I’m tempted to storm out of the room and go home, but curiosity and confusion keep me there. I sit on his ratty futon couch, avoiding a rather large new coffee stain, and wait for Abe to finish his shower. I will never forget the tone of Abe’s voice. I’ve never ever heard him sound that way. He was furious, but also something else, something even more perplexing:

Abe sounded terrified.

Eventually, the flow of water stops and Abe emerges from the bathroom, fully dressed in blue jeans and a baggy green T-shirt. His usually pale face is very red and not just from the steam of the shower. He can barely make eye contact with me when he sits down next to me on the futon.

“I’m sorry,” he
says. “You startled me.”

“I just…”
I shake my head. “I thought it was time for us to, you know, take the next step. You want to, don’t you?”

“Yeah, of course,” Abe
says, providing me with the correct, normal answer. But there’s a tightness in his voice that leads me to believe that he doesn’t want to at all.

What are you hiding from me, Abe Kaufman?

“Maybe we’re going too fast though…” I suggest.

Except we’ve
been together for well over a month, and done hardly anything besides kiss with our clothes on. If we moved any slower, we’d be going backwards.

“Maybe…”

“We don’t have to have sex or anything,” I say. “We could just… lie together naked.”

Abe just stares
at me.

I
flash back to the scene in the bathroom a few minutes ago. My memory is permanently imprinted with the horror on Abe’s face when he saw me standing naked in the middle of his bathroom. I remember all the cookies and snacks I’ve eaten while studying and suddenly it makes total sense. My clothes have been hiding the extra weight I’ve gained, and Abe was probably disappointed when that camouflage was gone.

“Do I… do I turn you off?”
I ask, bracing myself for the answer.

Abe blinks
at me, shocked. “No, of course not!” he answers earnestly. “My God, you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met in my life. How could you even think that?”

I
have to hand it to him, he sounds like he means it.

“But then why…”
I furrow my brow, trying desperately to make sense of what happened in the bathroom. Why did Abe freak out like that? Unless… “Are you afraid of
me
seeing
you
naked?”

Abe lowers
his eyes. “No…”

But
I can tell from his face that I hit the nail on the head. I feel relieved.

“Oh, come on,”
I say, nudging his arm gently. “I know you’re not a model or anything, but I like your body. Really.”

Abe does
n’t say anything.

I
slide my hand up his T-shirt, “Come on, let me see…”

I
feel his upper body stiffen as I run my hand over his bare chest, which is covered in a healthy layer of the hair, which I imagine is probably red. I feel his left nipple, then his right… no extra ones, as far as I can tell. He’s got a gut, but there’s nothing too shocking about that. His skin is smooth—no weird scars or anything. He tolerates my exploration until my hand moves to his back, when he grabs my forearm and forcibly pushes my arm away.

“Not right now,” he
says.

I
frown. “What’s going on, Abe?”

“Nothing.”

“Then strip,” I command him. “Right now.”

“You’re not serious…”

“I am totally serious.”

It seems that our whole relationship hinges
on his answer to this question. My eyes meet his and I know what his answer is going to be before the words leave his mouth.

“No,” he
says.

“Whatever it is,”
I plead, “I don’t care. I swear I don’t care. Is it… a tail?”

I
imagine a tiny little nub of a tail hanging off Abe’s backside. I could probably deal with that. Maybe.


No, it’s not a tail,” he mumbles. “Heather…”

“Is it…?”
I try to brainstorm the most horrible thing he could be hiding under his blue jeans and T-shirt. My mind draws a blank.

Abe looks
away from me. “I… I’m sorry.”

I
feel a mixture of anger and hurt that the man I was in love with won’t let my see him naked. But mostly, I just feel confused. This definitely wasn’t something Sleeping Beauty ever had to deal with.

BOOK: Suicide Med
10.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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