Love You More(24)

I went up to my room and called Erin. She didn’t pick up.

I tried Lesli. She answered—then said all the right things—but I still needed Erin.

I texted her: Please call me. It’s an emergency.

My phone rang right away.

“Are you okay?” she asked, quiet panic in her voice.

“No,” I sobbed. “It’s over. For good.”

“Fuck, Billie. Fuck. I’ll be right there.”

“Aren’t you in Madison?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I’m on my way.”



* * *



— Erin pulled into the driveway less than an hour later. I slipped out the door and climbed into her car. She leaned across the front seat and hugged me, my cheek pressing into her maroon Minnesota hoodie. She smelled faintly of cigarettes and vanilla body spray.

“I’m sorry I missed Lucy’s wedding,” I whispered.

“Oh, goodness,” she said. “I’m way over that.”

She backed out of the driveway, informing me that we were going to Culver’s.

“Frozen custard fixes everything,” she added.

My face was still wet with tears, but I managed a smile. After Culver’s, we drove around for a long time, listening to music and talking in our old high school rhythm.

When she finally pulled back into my driveway, I asked if she would spend the night.

“Duh,” she said, reaching across the seat to squeeze my hand.



* * *



—

On my final evening in Wisconsin, an email from the National Board of Medical Examiners landed in my inbox with my Step 1 score. I wasn’t ready for the results, but I clicked it open anyway, knowing I had to face a future without Mick.

The number 247 glowed at the top. A higher score than I’d ever dared to hope.

For a second, I felt nothing—as if success couldn’t touch the emptiness inside me.

Then pride rose anyway, thin and guilty.





Chapter 12


The third year of medical school—known as the Major Clinical Year—is when you stop studying medicine and start living it. We weren’t quite doctors, but we were more than just students, wearing our short white coats and rotating through eight specialties in four-to-twelve-week blocks.

My first rotation was Internal Medicine—a twelve-week marathon. Each morning I’d pre-round before dawn, skimming charts and memorizing vitals before our team descended into each patient’s room. I interpreted EKGs, managed hyponatremia, and polished my progress notes until they sounded like I knew what I was doing. The pace was relentless, the expectations high, and mistakes were exposed in front of everyone.

One morning, I misread a potassium level and presented it as normal.

My attending snapped, “So you’re saying 2.8 is fine? Maybe you’d like to send her into cardiac arrhythmia?”

My face burned. The memory of that slipped scalpel during my first week of medical school flashed through my mind—and how Mick had made me feel better about it. I shoved the thought down.

I told Lesli about the incident over omelets. Our rotations had no overlap, so we only saw each other for quick meals on the weekends.

“Minor mistake,” she said. “Don’t sweat it.”

“I know, but I feel like they’re keeping track of everything.”

“Um. Because they are,” she said with a laugh.

I smiled, then confessed my pang over Mick. How much I still missed him.

“They say it takes one month per year of a relationship.”

“So…six months?” I groaned.

“Yes, but do you know what else they say?” She smirked at me over her coffee. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else!”

I laughed. “As if I have time for any of that.”



* * *



— My next rotation was Emergency Medicine. It felt like being thrown into a raging river without a life jacket. The ER was fluorescent and loud, carrying the tang of bleach and blood. Patients came in bleeding, seizing, gasping for air, and you had to think fast, move faster. I got vomited on, sewed up lacerations, and assisted in resuscitations. I loved the energy, but there was no continuity of care or closure—just stabilize, chart, move on.

Surgery was intense in a different way. Adrenaline surged with every incision, yet there was a strange, almost eerie calm in the focus it demanded. I loved the teamwork and the satisfaction of seeing a case through, from start to finish. But I missed the patient interaction. It felt impersonal, like treating bodies without lives attached.

Pediatrics came next. It was what I’d often imagined myself doing, but I wasn’t prepared for how fragile children looked in hospital beds—or how easily their parents’ grief could flatten me. One day, a six-year-old boy with leukemia asked me if he was going to die. I froze, and my attending answered for me: “We’re going to do everything we can to help your body fight the cancer. And we’ll be with you every step of the way.” Afterward, I slipped into a bathroom stall and cried. Then I rinsed my face, scrubbed my hands, and returned to the floor. The work was noble beyond words, but I couldn’t imagine a lifetime of watching children suffer.

Family Medicine felt familiar, even comforting, with the smell of burnt coffee and the sound of nurses laughing together, like they’d been a family for years. One afternoon, an elderly woman came in for her blood pressure check, bringing a tin of homemade biscotti for the receptionists. “Just a little thank-you for your kindness,” she said. “You all are the best part of my week.” The specialty felt like the essence of care—warm, personal, and grounding—but I knew I needed a different kind of intensity and intellectual challenge.