Page 147 of Alphas Like Us

“Lithium and thiazides.” He passes the hacky sack from hand tohand.

Correct.I don’t tell him since he already knows. “How was your shift yesterday?” I ask while I search for another card that looks morechallenging.

Farrow has been in his residency program for over a month now, and he barely ever tells me about his workday. And for someone who’s a kindergartener with stress—you know: he’s like rubber, stress is like glue; it bounces off him and sticks to you—working at the hospital has really stressed the hell out ofhim.

He just never tells me why orhow.

I don’t know…it’s been getting to me lately. Farrow never shuts me out, and I can feel him closing that door to his work life more and more as the dayspass.

Farrow chucks the hacky sack in the bin and tells me, “Nothing to rave about.” He ends there, and he sitsup.

And I’m determined to eliminate his stress, not bug him about it. So I don’t press on about thehospital.

Farrow opens his exam day baggie. Stealing the apple, he takes a large bite, and the longer I watch him, the more he lifts his brows at me. “You’re looking at me and not yournotecards.”

“Thank you for that update,” I say and tear my gaze off his smile that’s doing a number on me today. I read a card. “What do acanthocytes on a blood smear indicate? They also look like spur cells but with more roundedspurs.”

I flip over the card and read the answer. My stomachsinks.

“Maximoff,” he says in a silky but rough breath. He knows why I’ve stalled. He holds the back of my neck, his thumb stroking myskin.

The text on the card isclear.

Hypothyroidism, alcoholism, and liverdisease.

My grandfather died from liver disease. It’s weird how little moments that you least expect can creep up on you and make you remember people you lost. And the older I get, my feelings about my grandfather shift andalter.

“What are you thinking?” Farrow says quietly, putting the appleaside.

I flip the card back over. “I’m thinking about my grandfather.” I stare faraway. “After he died, I was terrified that my dad would go out the same way.” I motion to my head. “In my mind, if he even drank a tiny sip of alcohol, he’d just collapse. And that’d be it.” I glance at Farrow’s hand splayed on his kneecap, and I lift it up and slowly interlock ourfingers.

Farrowwatches.

“It was just a little kid’s fear,” I tell him, “but I still remember going to restaurants where my aunts and uncles would have alcohol. There’d be a beer beside my dad’s water, and I’d worry all night that he’d accidentally drink out of the wrongglass.”

“How’d you get over it?” Farrow asks, and he lets me slip his silver rings off his fingers and collect them in my callusedpalm.

“My mom,” I tell him. “I told her why I was scared, and she said that my dad’s liver was made of vibranium.” Off his confusion, I add, “The same indestructible steel that Captain America’s shield is made of. She said that it’d take more than a single drink to destroyhim.”

He breaks into a smile, lightness in his eyes. “That sounds like yourmom.”

I nod, and I recognize that I just veered off the studytrack again. But while the wheels are off, I think about the hospital. His residency. One moretime.

One lasttime.

I need to say this so I can just leave it alone. “I get that you can’t tell me anything about your patients,” I say to him. “HIPPA and all of that, but I’m still here if there’s anything you want to share. Stuff about your coworkers or what fucking cafeteria food you had for lunch. But if you want me to drop it, I’ll dropit.”

“Drop it,” he says, too quickly. Really goddamn quickly. And he’s serious. He’s not joking or fucking withme.

It hurts. God, I wish it wouldn’t. “Alright,” I nod, more tense, and I try to unthaw my frozen body and examine another flashcard. I close my hand around the rings I slipped off hisfingers.

Farrow rubs his eyes, and then he swings his legs off my lap. Standing up, he takes his half-bitten apple and nears the mini-fridge underneath aThor: God of Thunderposter.

This was the inverse of what I wanted to happen. Taking a breath, I focus on the flashcard. “What do you give a kid with chronic daily headaches?” Iask.

He squats to the mini-fridge. “A tunasandwich.”

“What?” My browsfurrow.