I sat back down, trying to catch my breath, my hand shaking from the confrontation as they reached for my water glass. I could taste bile at the back of my throat, but as I sipped the only thing that appeared was a loud sob barreling up at full speed. My head dropped into my hands, holding it in place as hot, angry tears dripped onto the desk, my shoulders heaving through each deep cry until I could no longer breathe.
What the fuck had happened to me? Hunter was right, I was soft and pathetic. I would never have cried like this three months ago, I would have never allowed him to treat me the way he’d been treating me.
“Oh my God, what on earth is wrong?”
I looked up to find Brooke staring in horror, her face filled with concern and kindness, which only made it worse.
I tried to speak, but all that came out were more hiccupped sobs. She took my hand and pulled me out of the chair and ontothe couch, while she sat on the coffee table in front of me holding the box of tissues.
“Did Hunter do this?”
I looked up at her, trying to focus through the tears. “What do you mean?”
“I came in because I heard yelling, then he stormed out and nearly took the building down when he slammed the door.” She topped up my water and passed it to me.
I sipped as I caught my breath. “He’s angry at me. He said I’ve gone soft and pathetic, and I don’t challenge him any more to be a better surgeon.”
Brooke’s mouth dropped open. “He did not!”
I nodded. “And I think he might be right.”
“What?!” She barked.
“I’ve been offered the Fellowship for next year.”
Her eyes went wide, just like Hunter’s had done. “Molly, that’s incredible. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“But you’re not happy about it?”
“I am, I’m honored. I feel like all my hard work has finally paid off, and women rarely get offered it.” The tears started up again. “But it’s a hundred hours and change a week. And with Felix travelling for his away games, we’ll barely see each other for a year, we barely see each other now. I want the Fellowship, but I want Felix, and I feel like I’ll only be able to have one, and whichever one I choose, I’m letting someone down.”
She frowned. “Have you talked to him?”
I shook my head. “No, not yet. I was trying to figure out a solution first, because he’ll tell me to take it. But I don’t want to spend an entire year feeling guilty for not spending time with him, then resenting him when he’s off doing things without me because I’m working or trying to catch up on sleep, and thenhe’ll get used to me not being around. That’s not a relationship. I don’t know what to do."
"You don’t think he’d support you?”
I shrugged. “I think he’d want to. He’s already been so amazing with every meltdown I’ve had about my working, and this is all on me. It’s not him. But it’s not the same as when we were just friends; there are more obligations. A year with someone you’d never see can’t be much fun.”
“No, but people manage it. Look at all the partners of people in the Armed Forces.” She patted my knee. “You know I have a boyfriend?”
I nodded, but I didn’t really know anything about him, we didn’t often talk about our personal lives, because we didn’t have time, something always got in the way to change the subject. Not because we weren’t interested or didn’t care, but because our work life took over.
“We’ve been together six years; we met my first year of residency. And he’s a lawyer. The first four years between us, we regularly cleared two hundred hours of work a week. Some months we were too tired to have sex.”
I blinked through my tears as they dried up, trying to comprehend what she was saying, because now I’d experienced sex with Felix, I couldn’t imagine going that long without it. My body craved him like a cold bottle of water on a hot day.
“Really? Wow, that must have been hard.”
“It was, and we had blazing fights because we were exhausted and we both thought our job was more important than the other’s. I was saving lives; he was keeping the criminals off the streets.”
“What did you do?”
“We worked through it. At the end of the day, we love each other more than anything else, and we support each other in ourown way. He moved to New York with me when I was offered this job. Do you and Felix love each other?”
I sniffed. “Yes. More than anything.”
