Page 14

Although I’d been looking forwardto 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 of 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 finally 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 leave early on Saturday morning, and it’s not a moment too soon—I can’t wait to see my boyfriend. 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 straight-cut blue jeans, which seem 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 hair is sticking straight up, and it looks like he hasn’t washed it in weeks. He’s wearing a DeWitt 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.

Or on drugs.

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?”

I’ve never known anyone in my life who was on drugs. But when I look at Mason, that’s my only thought: This guy is definitely on something. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.

But it’s none of my business.

“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?”

The bathroom door is just off to the right, and there’s a puff of steam wafting 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.

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?

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 clouds with steam. The mirrors are completely fogged over so that I can’t even make out my own reflection. Abe’s voice echoes 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.

And then I happen to look down.

I hadn’t noticed Abe’s blue scrubs lying on the floor of the bathroom when I came into the room. But I get an eyeful of them now. They look different from the way they do in the anatomy lab.

They are covered in reddish-brown stains, which are still slightly damp.

What is that? It looks like… well, like blood. But it couldn’t be. If Abe had that much blood on his clothes, he’d be dead.

Or someone else would be dead.

I crouch down, trying to get a closer look at the stains. But I knock my elbow into the sink, and although I manage to stifle a cry of pain, the sound alerts Abe to my presence. He opens the shower curtain and discovers me standing there.

“What are you doing?” he cries.

“I… I…” I stammer.

“I’m in the shower!” he shouts at me. Well, duh. “You need to… to get out!”

“But—”

“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 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. What were those stains on his scrubs? It would have been easier to believe it was something innocent if not for the way he reacted. 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 heard him sound that way. He was furious but also something else, something even more perplexing:

He sounded terrified.

A minute later, the flow of water stops, and Abe emerges from the bathroom with one towel around his waist and another clutched in his hands. His usually pale face is very red and not just from the steam of the shower. He can barely make eye contact with me.

“Give me a second to get dressed,” he says. “Okay?”

While he’s in the bedroom changing, I sneak into the bathroom to see if the scrubs are still there. They aren’t. But since he wasn’t holding them when he came out of the bathroom, that means he must have wrapped them in a towel. Again, very strange.

Abe emerges from the bedroom wearing a clean pair of jeans and a baggy green T-shirt.The second I see him, I blurt out, “What’s going on, Abe?”

Abe doesn’t say anything right away. He sinks onto the couch beside me. “What do you mean?”

“What were those stains on your scrubs?”

“What?”

He’s stalling for time, pretending he has no idea what I’m talking about. So I tell him my suspicions, just to see his face. “It looked like blood.”

His face grows several shades paler. That’s not the reaction I was hoping for. I wanted him to laugh like I’d said something preposterous. Scrubs covered with several pints of blood? How could you think something so silly?

“I was helping Dr. Kovak with a procedure at the clinic,” he explains. “It… it got a little messy.”

And then I notice his hands. More specifically, I notice his fingernails. There’s a dark-brown substance caked into the nails that didn’t entirely come out in the shower.

“You weren’t wearing gloves during the procedure?” I ask.

He stammers out some sort of explanation that doesn’t make any sense. Whatever he said, it’s so clear that he’s lying to me. Except why?

“What were you doing, Abe?” I say.

His eyes drop, avoiding mine. “Just working.”

“You swear?”

His shoulders heave. “I swear.”

I have given him every chance to tell me the truth about what he was doing. And he’s still lying through his teeth.