“Firstly, don’t ever compare yourself to Travis Giles. He is a talentless asshole with the personality of a used tampon. I won’t let you degrade yourself like that,” she said, and smiled when he let out a tiny breath of laughter.
“Secondly, this place is the pits.” Dan scoffed but she persisted. “I’m serious, it is. This school tries to break you. It pushes you to the ground and stands over your body, taunting you. It makes you wonder why you decided to do this because everything about it is an uphill battle. But you get up. Over and over. Just to take another punch, another hit.” She reached for Dan’s hand and held it to her chest.
“But when you get up, that one final time, battered and bloody and not sure you can take one more blow, it teaches you how to heal. And then you go out and heal others.”
Dan looked away from her, lost somewhere she couldn’t reach him.
She moved a hand to his chin and turned him to face her. “It isn’t just you, Dan. No one can get it until they’re going through it. We have final exams every week, eight hours of class every day. Clinical rotations, lab time, service hours, competencies—it’s too much. Everyone finds it hard, they just aren’t willing to be real about it.” She stroked his cheek with her hand. “Your honesty about it makes you wonderful. It makes you real. And that’s what’ll matter when you’re out practicing—that you’re a real, live, human being who can relate to people, not that you can recite every enzyme and product in gluconeogenesis or lipid metabolism.”
“I won’t ever see a patient if I can’t get a handle on these classes.” He still wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Don’t look at the big picture. What do you have this week?”
“Osteology and musculature of the skull. There are over three hundred structures to memorize. And then insertion and origin and—”
She brought a finger to cover his lips. “Hey. I’m going to help you. Okay?”
“You have your own stuff to learn.”
She put her hands on his temples and forced him to look at her. “Let me help you. We’ll give it half an hour and then I can go back to my stuff. But let’s at least work through the first bit. Together.”
He hesitated a moment longer, then nodded.
She beamed at him, studying his face. “This is as good a place to start as any,” she said, squeezing gently where her hands rested on his temples. “This is your temporal bone. This front part, where my hands are, is the squamous portion of it. It’s one of the most fragile spots on the skull.”
Dan’s green eyes were locked on her mouth, watching each word form.
“The muscle over it is called the temporalis. That’s easy to remember, right? It’s fan-shaped.” She stretched her hands, fingers tangling in his silky hair. “Its origin is actually on the parietal bone”—she drummed the tips of her fingers where they extended toward the top of his head—“and travels all the way down to here.” She dragged her hands down his skin to where his lower jaw met the upper. It felt so good to touch him, the heat of his skin warming her from the center of her body. Dan closed his eyes. “It allows you to open and close this smart mouth of yours.” Harper gripped his chin and lifted it up and down. Dan smiled, his dimple peeking out.
“I have the smart mouth?” He laughed. “That’s rich.”
“Hush. I’m teaching.”
He arched an eyebrow, his lips ticking up at the sides.
“This”—she traced hungry fingers over his teasing brow—“is raised by your frontalis. It also wrinkles your forehead.” Harper scratched her fingers lightly against the golden skin, letting them wander back into his hair and rub his scalp. Dan’s lips parted, soft puffs of air tickling her forearms, goose bumps rising along the path. She needed to touch every inch of him, learn and map him so she could trace him in her mind when miles and obligations separated them.
“I can’t forget this,” she said softly, dragging the pads of her fingers to his cheeks. Dan sucked in a shaky breath.
“You know one of my favorite things about you?” She began stroking lightly at the corners of his mouth.
Dan gave a small shake of his head. Harper felt the tension he held in every muscle, taut and ready to snap.
“Your dimple. It drives me wild.” She rested the edge of one pinky where the devious indent usually made its mark, her other hand mirroring the position. He smiled and it popped to life below her touch. She smiled too.