“Fuck.”
I want to scream, and it’s all I can do to resist the urge to chuck the phone out the window. I just stare at it until I jump when it starts to ring. Icy fury takes hold when I finally swipe the screen and hold the phone to my ear.
Before he can get out any platitudes or any “let me explains,” I snap, “I’m fucking done. It’s over. Goodbye, Barnaby.”
And I hang up.
Then I let out a frustrated roar of anger that makes Yazmin glance warily into the rearview mirror. “Everything okay back there?”
“No!” I bark. “I wasted five years on that asshole! What the fuck was I thinking? Five years! I could’ve been fucking surfers or had a torrid affair with a celebrity, or . . .”
The mysterious, rough-looking man from the hospital this morning pops into my head and I sit back and groan.
Yazmin chuckles and shakes her head. “Girl, I’ve asked myself the same damn question so many times. Do I need to turn around and take you back?”
I shake my head, swallowing down angry tears that threaten to flow. I won’t cry. He doesn’t deserve it. “No, this trip wasn’t about him. He can go fuck himself. Or whatever snow bunny tart he has stashed in Aspen. Gah!”
“You know the best way to get over a man?” Yazmin asks. “You get under another one.”
I meet her gaze in the rearview and can’t help but laugh. “You sound like my best friend Nina. That’s definitely something she’d say.”
She nods. “So you have a support system. Good. Girls gotta stick together. Most men aren’t worth the damn rubber on the bottom of their shoes. Or whatever’s stuck to it.”
I’m not that uncharitable about men in general, but I agree with her anyway. Our conversation for the rest of the drive is mostly about all of the myriad bullshit either of us have put up with from men over the years. It becomes painfully clear to me how very little time I’ve spent single, much less dating more than one man.
I didn’t even take advantage of those few months Barnaby and I were broken up because they were some of the most grueling months of my residency. I didn’t have the energy for random hookups, much less going on actual dates. I didn’t even get asked on dates because I never bothered revealing that I was single. Now I wish I had.
The last time a guy hit on me, he died.
The shock of that death had served as the catalyst for my split with Barnaby to begin with. That man—J.J. Santos—had been the first man I’d connected with on such a visceral level since . . . well, ever. I still couldn’t explain that feeling any more than I could explain his death.
Ever since, I’ve resigned myself to never knowing the truth on either count. I only heeded that lesson briefly and distanced myself from Barnaby because I knew he never once made me feel that way in all the years we were together.
But I forgot. I missed some of what being with Barnaby had given me, even though, deep down, I knew it was never enough. Now I realize saying yes to his proposal was a mistake. I may never again have that feeling my dying patient had given me, but I have a far better chance now than I did yesterday.
I stare down at the small diamond and garnet ring on my left hand, then slip it off and drop it into my purse. It doesn’t even leave a mark, I wear it so rarely. Pretty jewelry and brain surgery don’t exactly mix, so the ring has lived in a box on my dresser most of the time I’ve owned it. I only wear it on days off, or when I’m about to see the man who gave it to me. So it doesn’t exactly feel strange not to have anything adorning my finger anymore.
When Yazmin pulls up to the busy curb beneath the Southwest Airlines sign at LAX, I’m fighting off a sense of despair. I’m thirty-one and single. Sure, I have what is likely to be a brilliant career ahead of me, thanks to all the work I put in, but I have no one to share it with. I have nothing but my work. That, and this one week a year I allow myself to have fun.
Shoving my self-pity aside, I take my suitcase from Yazmin and impulsively pull the curvy driver into a tight hug. “Thanks for the talk. I hope you have a happy New Year, okay?”
She squeaks in surprise, then laughs and hugs me back. “Oh, it was nothing. Just be sure to five-star that shit on the app, okay? And don’t you settle for anyone from now on who doesn’t worship the ground you walk on. You are a goddess, honey. We are all goddesses!”
I grin as I wave goodbye, then haul ass inside. The baggage check line is blessedly short, but the airline attendant says they’ve already started boarding my flight, so I only have a few minutes to get to my gate before they close it. I don’t have an assigned seat, which means I’ll probably wind up with the worst seat on the plane, especially if it’s full.
I make it through security, then sprint down the concourse and make it to the gate within minutes, breathlessly apologizing as I fish my phone out of my bag and swipe to open the airline app to find my boarding pass. Then I’m through and boarding, face just as flushed from the run as from all the stares I get from the seated passengers as I scan for an empty spot. There are none near the front, naturally, so I keep moving down the aisle until a flight attended catches my attention.
“Here, miss,” she says, pointing to a seat in the emergency exit row, which would be a godsend if it weren’t smack in between two
