“Sure thing,” Mal said.
To his relief, Jo didn’t make him stick around to take more photos. Instead, after less than a minute of small talk with thebookseller about some admittedly adorable enamel pins she had up for sale, she cocked her head for the exit.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Jo said once they were outside.
Mal sighed mightily. He wasn’t sure whether to be upset with her for forcing him into that interaction or grateful that she’d initiated it. When he was honest with himself, ithadn’tbeen too bad. He’d been too focused on Jo to notice the other customers, and the bookseller had seemed genuine enough in her interest that he didn’t feel like a bumbling fool. Most importantly, the entire exchange had lasted two minutes at most, a finite interaction. Mal realized that all along he’d probably been the reason his bookstore escapades always felt excruciating; he spent too much time hemming and hawing before revealing his intentions. The Celtic knot his stomach had coiled itself into was already unwinding.
“Well, I survived,” he allowed.
“Exactly,” Jo said, one hand on a hip. Her lips were pursed into a frown, but her eyes were narrow with laughter. “You survived. You’ll survive again.”
She was talking about visiting the bookstore, but Mal couldn’t help but think that her words were more apt than she knew. After Portia left him, Mal had felt like he was dying. But he hadn’t. And thank goodness for that, because the future without her that he’d feared so much was brighter than he could have ever imagined.
“Sure, fine, I’m alive,” he allowed. “But you owe me for putting me through that. We have to do something I actually like now.”
Jo responded to his brazenness by taking his hand. “All right,” she said. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jo
Posted: 1 month ago
[Image Description]Four images posted in a carousel. Image1: A woman in a pink taffeta dress poses in front of a carousel, tossing her hair playfully. Image2: The same woman, laughing, bumps plastic cups filled with bubble tea with an unseen companion. Image3: The woman, dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a tight-fitting shirt, poses in front of an arcade machine. She blows smoke from a neon orange gun while the screen behind her readsGame Overin pixelated font. Image4: A selfie of two women—one a dark-skinned Black woman with rhinestones placed at the corners of her eyes, the other a tan-skinned Asian woman with similar rhinestones placed above her eyebrows—under a black light. Their arms are around each other, and they are laughing.
[Caption]During my three years of internal medicine residency, I often felt guilty for having fun. When I wasn’t in the hospital, I put myself under a lot of pressure to read, study, do research, prepare for boards. Rest felt wasteful, even if it was necessary. Nowadays, I am doing my best to live my life authentically, toreach for human connection as much as I do achievement. What are you doing to refill your tank?
Photo credit: @malcolmjwaters
@therealezraadelman and 62,392 people liked this.
Posted: 21days ago
[Video Description]:A woman holds up three different intrauterine devices. She describes reasons why patients may choose one over the other. At the end, an image appears of a brand-name intrauterine device, which she presents as the most recent addition to the lineup.
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Posted: 18days ago
[Image Description]A woman and a man sit next to each other at a table in front of a filled bookshelf. The man holds up a book. They are both smiling.
[Caption]Thank you to everyone who tuned in to my Instagram Live for my chat with Malcolm Waters, New York Timesbestselling author of my favorite read of 2023, She Blooms at Dusk! Missed the conversation or want to meet the author in person? Follow him @malcolmjwaters for updates on upcoming events and appearances!
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“So I’ve been replaced, huh,” Dahlia said, after she asked if I wanted to get dinner with her and I informed her that I already had plans with Mal. “Would never have pegged you for the kind of girl who gets a man and ditches her friends.”
I stuck my tongue out at her, responding to Mal’sI’ll be there in ten minuteswith anI’ll head downstairs. Both Mal and I worked from home with no set hours, and so it was easy to get together and getting harder to justify being apart. The day he asked me to help him with his social media page, we’d stayed together until ten at night, wandering first from the bookstore to his favorite farmers’ market to a surprise summer street festival a few blocks away, before eventually settling in his apartment, where, to my chagrin, I passed out on his couch. He’d driven me home and asked, with uncharacteristic boldness, if he could see me again the next day. I’d said yes, and since then we fell into a routine: days that started withgood morningtexts,afternoons at coffee shops or bubble tea spots or park benches where Mal attempted to write his proposal for his second book and I dug through offers to collaborate with brands and emails from recruiters asking if I was interested in working at hospitals in “sunny West Virginia.” Evenings were spent checking out various Chicagoland events, typically initiated by Mal sending me a link and a text withInterested?and me responding with a briefLet’s do it. He’d evenjoined me last week to go dress shopping for Renata’s upcoming health benefit, under the pretense that he needed to check out a nearby photography equipment outlet to buy a new lens.
“As if you don’t abandon me all the time,” I said to Dahlia, counting off the evidence on my fingers. “Let’s see. Two weeks in Nebraska for locums. That weekend you left me to hang out with that dirty climber guy you’d just met off Hinge in the Indiana Dunes. Then four days in New York hanging out with your nurse friends. And that’s just in the last two months—”
“Okay, fine, touché, bitch,” Dahlia said. “Have fun with your man, I guess. You’ll definitely have a better time with him than getting arepas with me and discussing why Ezra Adelman is liking all of your posts.”
Ezra’s three-million-large following meant that he couldn’t interact with my posts without doing the social media equivalent of blasting an air horn. Of course Dahlia had noticed. A lot of my followers had too, and the comments section was peppered with the occasionalDo you know that Ezra Adelman follows you, girl?To which a seasoned follower would respond,They’re friends irl, old news,and a snoopier one would stir the pot further with aThen why doesn’t she follow him back?
I was careful not to respond to any of the speculation, even when it happened in real life.
