Love You More(26)

Lesli wanted to open our envelopes together, but I needed to be alone. I found an empty stairwell and sat on the cold steps. My hands shook so much I had to steady them on my lap.

I finally opened it and read: Columbia University Medical Center—Ob-Gyn Residency Program.

It was my first choice.

For a moment, I just stared.

A rush of joy followed.

There was a tiny beat where Mick crossed my mind, the ultimate what-if floating through me like vapor.

Then, something steadier rose to the surface. Not happiness exactly—but certainty. Certainty that wasn’t based on a man, or a friendship, or some inner desire to achieve, but instead welled up from something deep inside me.

I stood up and walked back into the lecture hall, letting myself believe in a future that I’d carved entirely on my own.





Chapter 14


Miraculously, Lesli had matched at Columbia, too, so after graduation, we both traded our student IDs for badges that read Resident Physician. Being an intern carried pride but also enormous responsibility. At the bottom of the residency hierarchy, we were punching bags for everyone above us. Attendings barked orders, senior residents expected perfection, and every misstep was magnified. The stakes were so much higher—our decisions carried real consequences, both medically and legally. Fatigue became constant—measured in skipped meals, trembling hands, and the constant fear of getting something wrong.

Still, there were plenty of small victories along the way: my attending praising me for catching a subtle arrhythmia on an EKG that everyone else had missed; successfully threading a central line under pressure in the ICU; calmly taking command of a team when a patient went into sudden hypotensive shock.

Each of these moments affirmed what I could already feel: I wasn’t just surviving intern year—I was excelling under fire.

It was also the year Lesli and I befriended Greer, a fellow intern, from Harvard Medical School. Greer was the yin to our yang, breathing fresh air into our duo. Somehow, she always looked rested, even post-call, showing up in Chanel and full makeup while Lesli and I looked like greasy ghosts. Greer insisted that we have lives outside the hospital. Having grown up in Manhattan, she introduced us to the glamorous side of the city, booking theater tickets, Sunday brunches, and downtown dinners.

Somewhere along the way, I followed Lesli’s advice and “got under” a few men. I even fell for one of them—an older photographer named Leo—but we broke things off when he decided to move to London. There was no way I’d ever do long distance again.



* * *



— By the third year of my residency, my impostor syndrome had mostly faded. By then, I was running my own continuity clinic, following the same patients over time, and scrubbing into complex gyn surgeries: fibroid removals, hysteroscopies, and laparoscopic endometriosis cases. But patient interaction was still at the heart of what I loved—helping people create families and offering hope where there had only been heartbreak.

That spring, I decided to apply to fellowships in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. Lesli was on the fence about her subspecialty, but one night over dinner, I floated my idea. “Join me in REI, and one day we can open our own clinic.”

“Well, that’s intriguing,” she said, her eyes lighting up.

“We could enlist Greer, too,” I said.

Lesli smiled. “She could fund the start-up.”

“She sure could.” I grinned.



* * *



— Early in my fourth year, I began applying to REI programs. I focused on New York—Columbia, Cornell, and a smaller academic hospital on the Upper West Side. Lesli cast her net slightly differently, targeting a Brooklyn program with strong clinical volume but less research, while Greer aimed for the prestigious Brigham and Women’s in Boston.



* * *



—

One afternoon in December, I was hiding in a supply closet, surrounded by IV tubing and latex gloves, scarfing down a granola bar, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Erin’s photo lit up the screen—backyard sunlight, her head tilted, laughing.

I let it go to voicemail, too drained to answer.

The two of us didn’t talk often, our lives diverging more with every passing year, but I could tell she was proud of what I was doing. I was proud of her, too. She’d moved back to our hometown, and for three years running, she’d ranked as one of the top producers in her hospitality company, selling conference packages, hotel stays, and catering services at a remarkable pace. It reminded me of our Girl Scout days, when she somehow managed to sell more cookies than Lucy, Anna, and me combined.

On the relationship front, we were both single, though Erin had an on again/off again situationship with Russ Kowalski, a guy from Arrowhead in the grade above us. I wasn’t a fan—he’d always seemed like a troublemaker—but I kept my doubts to myself. All that really mattered was that she sounded happy.

As I finished my granola bar, the phone buzzed again, Erin’s picture reappearing.

I took a deep breath and swiped to answer.

Silence, then a shaky hello.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” she whispered. “I’m pregnant.”

The word landed like a blow.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Two tests. Both positive.”