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“Lookto your left and look to your right.”

My eyes lift at the words of our dean of students at DeWitt Medical School, Dr. Marvin Bushnell. He has a huge, Santa Claus-esque belly and sweats with the mere effort of speaking. He’s been talking to us for about five minutes, and he’s already got a shiny forehead and huge pit stains. But he barrels on, totally oblivious to the amount of fluid his pores are secreting.

I obligingly look to my left because it’s clear everyone else in the auditorium is doing it. Two seats over is a male student with a messy brown ponytail and ratty leather jacket that smells of cigarettes and possibly some illegal substance. I can understand not dressing up in a suit and tie for your first day of medical school, but I’d think at least you’d want to shower.

And now for the look to the right: that one is my new roommate, Rachel Bingham. Rachel is not looking left or right. Rachel is rolling her eyes quite dramatically.

I had this fantasy in my head that my med school roommate and I would become BFFs and we’d braid each other’s hair and have pillow fights, et cetera. So far, I’m ninety-nine percent sure Rachel hates me. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it’s something about the way she’s looked at me since she arrived a week ago in our shared suite, her stringy brown hair falling in her face, ripped jeans held together by the grace of God, and only a single suitcase to her name. She even mocked my long-distance relationship with my boyfriend and soulmate, Landon. Hey, you might last a few months. Maybe.

I turn my attention back to Dr. Bushnell, who is about one passionate speech away from a serious cardiac event.

“In four years,” he says to the hushed crowd, “both of these people will be physicians.”

Rachel snorts audibly now. I try to flash a friendly smile in her direction, but she’s having none of that. She rewards me with another eye roll, and I focus my attention back at the dean. Fine. Rachel won’t be my friend. I’ll find another friend in the class.

Probably.

“It’s not true anyway,” Rachel stage whispers in my direction.

I raise my eyebrows at her. I’m so pleased she’s talking to me that I don’t even care that she’s speaking over the dean on our first day of medical school.

“What isn’t true?” I ask.

“We won’t all be doctors,” she says. She tucks her dark-brown hair behind her ear so that I can get my first good look at her deep-brown eyes.

“We won’t?”

Rachel laughs. “Don’t you know?”

“Know what?”

Her lips curl into a slightly evil grin. My roommate may be genuinely evil. Are people really evil in real life? Or just in comic books?

“In every class,” she says, “ten people flunk and need to repeat the year. Five drop out, never to return. And, of course, in the last few years, there’s always one who…”

Now she pauses and draws an ominous line across her thin white neck with a well-chewed fingernail.

“One who what?” I prompt her.

Rachel frowns at me. “You really don’t know?”

“Know what?”

She shakes her head. “Why do you think the school is nicknamed Dead Med?”

I did not know that nickname.

She can’t be serious. She’s just messing with me. She’s just pissed off that I left too many bottles of moisturizer in our bathroom. (I have really dry skin.)

Dean Bushnell is saying something that I completely missed, which is followed by a round of applause. I need to start paying attention and quit my doomed attempts to befriend my roommate. The dean shifts away from the podium, and another man walks up to take his place. This man is far younger than the dean, maybe fortyish, but he carries an old-man cane in his right hand and walks with a pronounced limp.

“Hello,” the man says, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. I can’t help but notice he’s wearing a bowtie. Who wears a bowtie in everyday life? “I’m Matt Conlon, your anatomy professor.”

Right—Dr. Conlon. When I interviewed here at DeWitt, the first-years had been singing praises about this guy. “Dorky but really fun,” they’d said. “He’s the best thing about the first year.”

Up on the stage, Dr. Conlon is now gesturing wildly as he describes how totally awesome anatomy is.

“The human body makes perfect sense,” he explains. “It’s the most intricately constructed machine in the world. And after you finish my class, you’re going to understand how that machine works, inside and out. And you’re going to realize how amazing it is.”

I don’t even need to look at Rachel to know that she’s rolling her eyes.

“Thank you for letting me act as your guide on this incredible journey,” Dr. Conlon says, and he gives a little bow.

Really, he bows. God, could this guy be any dorkier?

Following Dr. Conlon is a string of other professors: an elderly guy with a monotonic voice who will be teaching us biochemistry, a wild-haired female epidemiology professor, and a short, dapper man who will be jointly teaching physiology and histology. Lastly, a thin fortyish woman wearing a sharp blue dress suit steps up to the podium.

“My name is Dr. Patrice Winters,” she says. “But you can call me Patrice. I’ve been acting as the school’s wellness counselor for the last four years.”

Have you ever met a person who you just disliked instantly? For me, that’s Patrice Winters. I don’t know what it is about her exactly. Maybe it’s the way her makeup is applied so perfectly and not even a single hair in her blond-streaked pixie cut is out of place. Maybe it’s the way she talks to us like we’re a bunch of children who need to be told what to do. Maybe it’s her voice, which somehow grates on my very soul.

“Whatever happens to you,” she says, “I’m here for you. And I’d like each of you to make an appointment with me sometime in the next month.” She pauses meaningfully. “It’s not optional.”

Rachel leans in toward me now and whispers, “You know why we have to see her, don’t you?”

I’m afraid to hear the answer to this one. “Why?”

“They don’t want any more of us overdosing,” she says. “The drug problem is out of control here. Every year for the last three years, there’s been a student who OD’d and died.”

“That’s not really true.” I shift in my seat. “Is it?”

“Of course it is.” She says it like it’s common knowledge, which makes me wonder if it is. “Last year, the girl who OD’d did it in the bathroom by the anatomy labs. You can still see the crack in the sink where her head smacked against it before she hit the floor—they never fixed it.”

And then she leans back in her seat, smiling at the way my mouth is hanging open.

As I waitin the slow-moving cafeteria line to get lunch during our break from orientation, I mull over what Rachel told me about the drug problem at DeWitt. I never heard about it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true—med school is stressful, and it wouldn’t be surprising if some students turned to drugs in order to deal.

But not me. I would never.

I’m so deep in thought that I haven’t noticed the line has moved forward but I have not. Before I have a chance to get moving, a horrible weight lands on my foot, crushing the delicate bones that Dr. Conlon has not yet had a chance to teach me about. I gasp in pain as I instinctively grab my foot.

What the hell was that?

That’s when I notice a frightening bearlike creature looming over me. Actually, it turns out to be a human being, but he’s roughly the size of a bear. The foot that he used to crush mine with is practically the size of a tennis racket. This guy is big in all directions.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” the bear cries. “Are you all right?”

No, I am not all right. My foot is broken, you stupid bear. Well, maybe not broken. But definitely badly bruised.

Still, I manage to nod and look up at his face, which is nowhere near as scary as the rest of him. The bear has a shock of red hair that’s disheveled despite being very short and freckles pouring over either end of the bridge of his nose.

“I’m really sorry,” the bear says again. He looks like he means it. “I didn’t realize anyone was behind me.” He hesitates. “I’m Abe.”

“Heather,” I say. I release my broken foot just long enough to grab his outstretched hand. Thankfully, he doesn’t crush my hand in his when he shakes it. I hate it when men do that, and it’s pretty clear Abe could easily demolish my hand if he got the inclination to do so.

“You’re a first-year?” he asks.

Nope, I just hang out at med school orientations for kicks.

“Yep,” I say.

“Neat,” Abe says then appears to run out of things to say. He rubs his gigantic hands together, clears his throat, and awkwardly turns back to the lunch line to examine his food options. It’s going to be either arroz con pollo or fish. And the fish is scary looking. So chicken and rice it is.