Hotshot Doc(89)



I think about reaching out to Bailey, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea.

She asked for space earlier. She needs time to process everything I threw at her, and maybe that isn’t such a bad idea. I’ll respect her wishes, but I’ll use my time wisely.

I have a lot to do.

This grant is important to me because in the past, my work abroad has been limited to week-long medical mission trips. I’d assemble a volunteer team and we’d travel to the National Children’s Hospital in San Jose, Costa Rica. There, we’d have to race through a waiting list filled with hundreds of children in need of surgery. Every one of them was as deserving as the last, but with limited funds and time, we were only ever able to operate on a handful of them.

It wasn’t enough.

I want to do more, and now, with this grant, I can.

I’m not moving to Costa Rica forever. My goal is to be there for a year or two. I’ll use the aid to establish a clinic and train surgeons and staff at the hospital there.

I can’t do it on my own, though. I need a team around me. The nonprofit I’m partnering with will send a few people, and the hospital will have host surgeons and residents, but I’d like to have my own surgical crew as well, people who already know my methods, people I can trust.

People like Bailey.

With that thought, I grab a notepad, a pencil, and a cup of coffee, and I get to work in my home office. I don’t plan on leaving this spot for the rest of the evening. I need to make a proposal so damn convincing, Bailey can’t possibly turn it down. I need to explain everything clearly so there won’t be any more surprises.

I research everything from education options for Josie to rental homes around the hospital. I call my contacts at the nonprofit and they pass along helpful information.

I’m on a call with a friend of a friend who runs the pediatric department down at National Children’s Hospital, getting advice about schools, when I realize I haven’t eaten since breakfast and it’s already half past eight. I take my phone with me into the kitchen and continue talking as I make a peanut butter sandwich. After I scarf it down, I throw a handful of spinach into my mouth—for health—and then get right back to the grind.

I don’t stress over the fact that Bailey hasn’t reached out.

I don’t worry that she might have already made up her mind not to come.

I don’t consider that she might not forgive me for keeping this from her for so long.

Instead, I keep going. Keep Googling. Keep typing. Keep changing the fucking font on this Word document to something friendly and non-threatening. I’m looking for something that says, This proposal is a good idea. Listen to your boyfriend.

Move to Costa Rica.





Chapter 32





BAILEY



I’m a wreck. I keep wishing I could snap my fingers and go back to last week. I want to pick up the phone and beg Matt to come over so we can patch things up, but I don’t have my head on straight yet. Having him come over, dragging him into my room and onto my bed would only confuse me more.

Although would it? Maybe a good romp in the hay would really clear up this whole debate for me. I’d better call him right this second—

No. Bad Bailey!

Change is inevitable. In a few months, Matt’s going to move to Costa Rica and I have two options: go with him or stay here. The idea of going with him is still completely out of the question. Chances are, he wasn’t even being that serious when he suggested it. He was probably trying to spare my feelings. Even if he was serious and he does want me to come, how would that even be possible? I can’t just upend my life on a whim. Pack your bags, Jos, we’re going abroad!

Unfortunately, option two—him moving without me—is too hard to even contemplate.

So, you see, I’m stuck in the middle, feeling like a fool for how torn up I am over this. We’ve only been together a few weeks, and yet the thought of him leaving drags me right back to the dark place I haven’t visited since I lost my parents. I’m up at all hours of the night, tossing and turning. Food has lost its appeal. I walk around in a malaise, trying and failing to put on a good front for Josie. I force fake smiles she sees right through.

She knows something’s up, but I haven’t told her about the grant. I don’t think I should until I know for certain what I’d like to do. She’s as attached to Matt as I am at this point. She insists upon writing him a thank you letter for her Christmas gifts and asks why he hasn’t come over for dinner this week. She even tucks The Hunger Games into my purse so I can drop it off for him at work. “Just in case he wants to read it!”

I was stupid to bring him into our lives as quickly as I did. I should have made sure this was a real, lasting relationship before I introduced her to him.

Now when he leaves, she’ll be just as heartbroken as I am.

Over the next few days, I spend untold hours researching Costa Rica. I have a password-protected folder on my laptop codenamed “very boring work stuff” where I’ve saved everything I’ve found so far: information about the MacArthur grant, articles highlighting Matt and his proposal. I look into the hospital, and I even find pictures of Matt on past medical mission trips. One in particular guts me: he’s leaning over a hospital bed, handing a teddy bear to a girl no older than ten. She’s hooked up to a million machines, but that doesn’t dull her megawatt smile. The caption below explains that she’s just undergone a life-changing procedure thanks to Matt and his team. She’ll get to live a fuller, more pain-free life because of him.

R.S. Grey's Books