Lucas Thatcher and I have been in competition with each other since day one. Yes, the actual day one, the day on which we were born, all of 58 minutes apart.

I crawled first. He spoke first. I walked first and he potty-trained first.

And so it went.

Our parents dressed us up in matching outfits and planned joint birthday parties. I’ve seen the photo albums, filled with two little infants: one a quiet angel, the other, a brash hellion. My favorite photo, one I liked to use as evidence, depicts us sitting side by side at a Halloween festival when we were almost a year old. They’d plopped us down on haystacks hoping for a sweet photo, but Lucas had turned on me, tearing off my small yellow bow with his uncoordinated infant fingers and throwing it on the ground. They’d snapped the photo just as I’d retaliated with the few teeth I wielded at the time.

Obviously infants aren’t born with innate hatred pumping out of their tiny hearts, but I use our births as a starting point because nobody can pinpoint an exact date when our competition began. My mom swears we turned on one another when Lucas was chosen to be the preschool line leader. I tend to disagree—after all, you can’t place all the blame on Mrs. Hallow, even if choosing Lucas over me was the biggest mistake of her entire career.

In light of the sheer longevity of our rivalry, people always want to know what terrible event had transpired to precipitate it all. The truth is, we’ve always been this way. I am the Annie Oakley to his Frank Butler and I firmly believe that anything he can do, I can do better.

A rivalry like ours sustains itself by constantly evolving. In elementary and middle school, the tactics were juvenile: vandalized finger paintings in art class, stolen soccer balls on the playground, sabotaged shoelaces in the school play.

These crude encounters inevitably produced a certain amount of collateral damage. Letters were sent home about school property and behavioral correction. I endured my first and only detention because of Lucas. We even lost friends—the ones who weren’t willing to become lieutenants in our little war—but most importantly, we started to forfeit the respect of our teachers. As we grew older, we recognized the significance of these authority figures and the grades they doled out. The report cards sent home on thick white cardstock suddenly became our objective means of comparison, our apples to apples. Every six weeks those marks told us who was better, who was winning.

Now there are no more teachers, but there is Dr. McCormick, and I catch a lucky break when I run into him at Hamilton Brew the morning after the party.

I was planning on dropping by his house later, but this is better, casual. He sits in the corner near a window with the Sunday paper and a large coffee. I make note of the two empty sugar packets beside his cup.

He had seemed old to me in high school, but I now realize he’s only got a year or two over my mother. His brown hair is salty and he’s taken to growing out a white mustache. In all, I’d say he’s a suave version of ol’ Saint Nick.

“Dr. McCormick,” I say with a winning smile. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Daisy!”

He’s genuinely happy to see me, which I’m glad for. We shoot the breeze for a few minutes as only people from small towns can. There’s rambling talk of a new housing development and a Wal-Mart.

“Next thing you’ll know, we’ll have a Whole Foods,” he says with a shake of his head.

Without asking for permission, I sit down across from him and get down to business.

“I heard Lucas is back in town. Weird, right? I mean, what are the odds?”

My gaze is on the latte, but my attention is on him. He shifts awkwardly in his chair and reaches for his coffee. It’s still steaming—too hot to drink—which means he’s stalling.

“I thought I’d have another day of peace before you two found out.”

My heart drops.

“So it’s true? He’s working with us?”

“Starting tomorrow, just like you.”

I inwardly crumble, remember he’s watching me, and force a smile.

“Can I ask why? Surely only one of us can take over the practice when you retire, right?”

He rubs his chin thoughtfully and I can’t help but feel like I’ve overstepped my bounds. Still, he doesn’t sidestep my question.

“To be honest, it wasn’t something I planned, it just happened. I let it slip to a few people at church one Sunday that I was considering retirement, and wouldn’t you know it, I had two emails and two voicemails waiting for me Monday morning.”

“Me and Lucas?”

“Bingo. I guess that’s what I get for opening my mouth.”

I want to ask him who emailed him first, but I bite my tongue as he continues.

“I was proud that you two had both gone into family medicine, but shocked that you both wanted to return to little ol’ Hamilton after all these years.”

Lucas and I both had high enough scores for the more difficult specialties. Plastic surgery, dermatology—the few with flexible hours and big bucks. Family medicine spots aren’t typically in high demand, or anyone’s first choice.

“But as an old doctor is likely to do, I turned this problem on its head and looked at the silver lining. As you can see, Hamilton isn’t as little as it used to be. Do you know I’ve had to skip lunch every day for the past five years just to meet the demand?”

I can see where he’s going with this, and I don’t like it. My fake smile is making my cheek muscles cramp.

“My point is, there’s enough work for two doctors, maybe even three.”

I don’t need lunch. I’ll work Saturdays—Sundays even. I want my own practice. It’s my dream and he’s slowly crushing it.

All I actually manage to say is, “Right.”

I try not to let dread show on my face. I moved back to Hamilton a few days ago assuming the practice was as good as mine, but part of being a doctor is being able to roll with the punches and adapt when things don’t go according to plan. So, I conjure up a genuine smile and resolve to fix this later.

I scoot my chair back, stand, and stretch my hand out across the table.

“Well Dr. McCormick, whatever ends up happening, I look forward to practicing with you.”

He grins, pleased.

As I leave Hamilton Brew, I take an espresso shot to-go…then think ahead and grab another. Tomorrow morning, I will come face to face with my rival, and there are a few things I need to take care of before then.

From Hamilton Brew, I walk down Main Street and head into the biggest salon in town. I haven’t trimmed my hair in almost a year. That won’t do. I ask for clean layers and have them shape it so it frames my delicate features. From there, I ask for every spa treatment they have. I don’t want to be pretty for Lucas, who, as a robot, isn’t programmed to register beauty. The primping is all for me. I’m a general preparing for battle, and while they buff my feet, I flip through my old medical textbooks, brushing up on the off chance I encounter some obscure, hard-to-pronounce illness tomorrow.

“What about your brows? Want us to shape them up a bit?”

I laugh because it’s a stupid question. “Yes. Do it. All of it.”

When I stroll into my mom’s house later, she’s sitting at the dining table flipping through magazines and talking on the phone. She looks up at me as I close the door and her mouth falls open in shock.

“I’ll have to call you back,” she says into the phone. “Someone that looks like Daisy just got home.”

I drop my shopping bags on the couch and walk into the kitchen. I’m taking a massive bite out of an apple when she comes in to join me. She’s petite, even more so than I am. Her blonde hair hides the few grays she has, and her regimented skincare routine means she looks 30 instead of 50. Usually her smile can light up a room, but right now, it lights up nothing.

“You’ve been busy today,” she says, waving her hand up and down my body. I’m not really the girly-girl type; there was no time for it during medical school and residency. This woman with glossy hair and smooth legs seems foreign even to me, but it feels good, as if I’m faster and more aerodynamic now that they’ve stripped most of the hair from my body.

“What’s in the shopping bags?” she asks as I munch on my apple.

“Work clothes.”

She arches a brow. “I thought you told me the other day you didn’t need anything.”

“That was before—” I hold my tongue and then pivot. “I just changed my mind. These clothes are new and I spent all afternoon with Mrs. Williams getting them altered.”

She smirks. “So you do know, don’t you?”

“About what, Mother?”

The use of the word hints at my annoyance with her, like when she uses my full name.

She rubs her temple and sighs. “I only found out a few days before you moved back. I was going to tell you, but I’m a selfish woman and I wanted you back here. You’ve been gone too long.”

“You still should have told me.”

She nods, agreeing. “I take it from the clothes that you’re not leaving?”

“Do you think I should?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Do you want to see what I bought then?”

It’s an olive branch and she takes it readily. Truthfully, I’m not that upset that she didn’t tell me Lucas moved back sooner; I understand her reasoning. She and I have always been close, especially since it was just the two of us for so many years after my dad got sick when I was little. She hardly wanted me to leave for college and now that I’m back, I have no plans to leave this town again. No, McCormick Family Practice is as good as mine.

We’re upstairs in my room picking out my outfit for my first day of work when my phone rings on the nightstand. It’s a number I don’t recognize and I nearly ignore it, but curiosity gets the better of me.

Waving my mom out, I lock the door and answer.

“Hello?”

“Daisy Bell.”

I haven’t heard his voice in 11 years.

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“I think you know.”

“Lucas Thatcher. I don’t recognize the number. Am I your one call from jail?”

“I called from a payphone. I don’t want you tracing this.”

“It’s 2017—where did you find a payphone?”

“That’s irrelevant. Listen, we haven’t seen each other in a long time, and I wanted to break the ice. I don’t want things to get ugly tomorrow.”

“I don’t have any clue what you’re talking about. I’m looking forward to working together, Lucas.”

“Y’know, after all these years, I can still tell when you’re lying—but it doesn’t matter. This is your chance to bow out, Daisy. Gracefully. You can tell everyone you got another job.”

“You’ll be the one bowing, Lucas, when Dr. McCormick sees the mistake he’s made in hiring you.”

“Not likely.”

“I’m going to bring him snickerdoodles. Dr. McCormick loves snickerdoodles.”

“We’re going golfing on Saturday and I’m going to let him win.”

“You hate losing.”

“Only to you.”

“Well then the next few months won’t be very pleasant for you.”

“Are you done? I’m about to have to put in another quarter.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t call collect and make me pay.”

I think I hear him chuckle, but it could be a crackle from the ancient payphone.

“I’ll see you in the morning then, Dr. Bell.”

I open my mouth, but then decide to end the call without dignifying him with a response.

Not if I see you first.