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“Too long.”
“See? It’s just a dinner, Emma. Just one dinner. He’s, like, super freaking rich, you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
“So you know it’ll be somewhere very nice,” Diana replies. “It’ll be a good time, or at least a good story to tell me. Come on, you don’t have to sleep with him, it’s just a dinner.”
“Ugh.”
“Plus, he is incredibly hot.”
“Ugh.”
“And he did offer to pay for it all.”
I sigh.
“It’s not for me, Diana. Everything between August and me happened way too long ago. I’ve moved on past him. I’m living my life. I’ve set up my independence and my own little world. I am not going to invite a Penmayne into my life anytime soon. You can bet the house on that.”
“Suit yourself,” my best friend replies. “I would love a rich man to swoop in and buy me dinner, though. I’ll happily take up his offer if you’re not going.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, making me jump. I check it.
An email.
It’s confirmation of an audition from the dance school, and I can finally shift my attention from August and his handsome face and onto something decent.
It’s really happening. I’m going to audition in front of this panel. I’m going to dance.
And I actually feel relief. My life can finally move on. No more waiting around and freaking out about actually applying for this audition. It is happening.
Well, at least something good has come my way that’s not in the shape of a Penmayne...
37
AUGUST
“How’s it going, Ethan? How are you feeling on this bright day?”
The boy faces up to me from his hospital bed, still connected to all the medical machines and tubes and wires that nearly obscure his entire body from me. Even to a doctor, this all seems so unnatural. He’s a boy – he should be with his friends playing and having fun somewhere he shouldn’t be.
He shouldn’t have to be dealing with the very worst that life has to throw at him. He shouldn’t be in this building at all.
Every time I see a child like this, I want to give up and throw in my doctor's towel. But their strength – Ethan’s strength – keeps me going, just the amount they have in their hearts and their bodies. They deserve the very best care in the world when all of them are literal superheroes.
So much of my job doesn’t involve tending to children in extreme health circumstances like Ethan. There are a lot of routine operations and treatment instead. But sometimes a boy or a girl comes along that requires you to be at your very best – as a doctor as a man.
And I hope I can be my very best. For Ethan.
My patient nods weakly at my greeting.
“I’m going super,” he replies, putting on a brave face.
I try to avoid staring at all the medical equipment around his bed keeping him alive.
He must be in a lot of pain.
But it’s not just clinical, cold machines that surround Ethan, there is also a colorful array of cards and drawings that are plastered all around his bedside - flowers and toys and letters hang lovingly where he can see them wherever he turns in his sheets. Drawings written by his friends. A lot of them superhero-themed. His friends know him well, it seems.
