Page 9 of Wrong Number Right Doctor

I hit save.

There. Adult task completed. I have acquired the number of the academically soothing man for purely educational purposes.

Then I open Evan’s new contact. My thumb hovers. I’m only going to ask for notes.

That’s all. A normal message.

A dignified message.

A message from one future physician to another.

I type: Hey, it’s Maggie. Marco gave me your number. Any chance you can rescue me from the brachial plexus before Singh murders us tomorrow?

I read it once. Too needy.

I delete “rescue me.” Then put it back because honestly, accuracy matters in medicine.

Then I delete it again.

Then I write: [Gray’s atlas diagram] Tell me the innervation of the brachial plexus or I’m going to fail this exam. Maggie, here, btw!!

I hit send before I can overthink it.

Very composed. Very mature.

Very doomed.

Chapter Two

MAGGIE

By the time I get home, my apartment is cold, my stomach is sore, and my brain has begun chanting roots, trunks, divisions, cords, branches in the rhythm of a haunted jump rope song.

I kick off my shoes by the door.

My apartment smells faintly of instant coffee, old highlighter ink, and the vanilla candle Simone bought me after declaring my studio had “the emotional atmosphere of a storage unit with ambition.”

I drop my bag on the chair. “Okay,” I tell the apartment. “We are thriving.”

The radiator clanks. The apartment disagrees.

My phone buzzes in my coat pocket.

I freeze. Then remember.

Evan.

Right.

Evan: C5 to T1. Roots, trunks, divisions, cords, branches. Major terminal branches: musculocutaneous, axillary, radial, median, ulnar. Which part is killing you?

I stop halfway through pulling my sweater sleeve over my wrist.

That is a very useful answer.

It has no “lol.” No “haha yeah same.” No student despair. No hint that the sender has also spent today being personally victimized by neuroanatomy. I can’t even think of a flirty response to it.

Me: All of it?