Olive walks into the 24-hour diner in sweatpants and a hoodie and makes her way over to the table. I’m already two cups of coffee deep.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says as I stand up to give her a hug. “You look like shit. Are you eating?”

“I’m fine,” I mutter. The bags under my eyes probably speak for themselves. The past few weeks have been rough. Finishing up my fellowship hasn’t been nearly as satisfying as I anticipated. While I used to relish my routine of work, eat, and sleep, now I just feel like it’s worn me down into basically just a walking talking shell of a corpse, with no real inspiration or motivation other than getting through the next day.

“Did you order yet?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“Three more days,” I tell her, a thin smile forming across my face. Three more days and I will officially be a trauma surgeon. My boards are passed and I just have to finish up my fellowship. I had always pictured my graduation celebration would be more champagne and stilettos than milkshakes and truckers, but I don’t have it in me right now. Nothing in my life feels like a celebration. More like an arranged marriage.

“I know. I’m so proud of you. You think they’re gonna offer you a job?” she asks eagerly. “Or are you going to explore some other options?”

I KNOW they’re going to offer me a job. It’s already been discussed in depth. Dr. Peterman started hinting at it a few months ago, and the board of directors seems to agree that we need two of us at the hospital. In three days, my life will be exactly the same as it has been for the last seven years, except now I will be getting paid.

I thought I would be a lot more enthusiastic.

“Maybe,” I lie through my teeth. I don’t want to have to tell her my actual thoughts on the situation. Not just yet.

She flips through the menu and slides it to the end of the table.

“It’s been so long since I’ve talked to you. You’re like impossible to get ahold of anymore. How are you doing with everything else?” she asks. Part of me was hoping she wouldn’t bring it up, the other part was really dying to hear if she knows anything.

“I’m fine,” I shrug. “Nothing really to report here. Just trying to keep my head down and my nose clean. I’m sorry if I caused you drama at work or whatever, Ollie. You warned me and I fucked up. I hope it didn’t blow back on you.”

She lets out a deep sigh. “I didn’t warn you. I told you everything was going to be ok. Once I saw how well you guys were getting along, I thought you really had something going. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Maybe I was just being selfish for wanting you to be around more and be a part of my life.”

“In a vacuum, it would’ve worked out perfectly. There’s too many moving parts to that machine up there. I’m not one of them. He would’ve never been able to fully love me knowing what I did or where I came from. His family was waiting to rip me to shreds the first chance they had, and I know he has to take their side for the sake of the club.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You never gave him a chance to love you fully. You wrote him off before he had a chance to love the real you and everything that comes with it, Sloan. He’s a really good guy. He would’ve done anything for you. It doesn’t matter what his family says, he knows right from wrong.”

I haven’t cried to her yet, but Lord knows I’ve spilled a ton of tears over the last nine months. I keep waiting around, thinking Olive would be the one who would rip him to shreds for being a jerk and we could just go about our lives as two single chicks who always seem to end up on the losing end of relationships. Instead, she’s been distant and aloof.

It’s been a reality check.

I know I fucked up. I lost the first man who ever really made me feel like myself. Trying to justify letting him go has been challenging. I’ve spent the last nine months grasping at every straw I could possibly use to try and rationalize why things would’ve come crashing down eventually.

“I can’t be affiliated with people like that anyway, Olive. You know how it goes. He’s from a completely different world. I’m a surgeon, for fucks sake. Could you imagine what would happen if I showed up with him at a hospital function? When they ask what he does for a living what am I supposed to tell them?”

“You’re ridiculous, Sloan. That all ya got? You’re better than him? That’s the lamest line in the book. He graduated from college. Gave up law school so he could take care of his family. You would’ve known that if you cared about anybody but yourself. Now he runs one of the most successful businesses in town, but as long as you love each other how is that even relevant? You’re always so quick to remind me of how we ‘came from the same trailer park,’ and now you’re suddenly better than ‘people like that?’ People like ME?”

People are starting to stare in the booths around us, and our waitress is shooting us a look that is less than amused.

“You know what I mean,” I say, immediately putting my foot in my mouth. I know I’m coming across as a brat, but I don’t ever want to hurt her. “I didn’t mean it like that, Olive.”

She looks noticeably hurt. She purses her lips and just shakes her head at me as she begins to stand up.

“I’ve spent our entire friendship putting you on a pedestal, Sloan. Telling you that you have so much going for you, that you’re a good person, pushing you to finish school, standing behind you no matter what choices you make. You constantly drill me to have confidence in myself, that you don’t think you’re better than me, that you would never judge me, but right this second, I think you’re full of shit. You’re just an entitled brat.”

“And you don’t care about anything but dick. I’ve spent our entire friendship watching you jump from guy to guy and trying to keep my mouth shut. Obviously you’re going to take his side. It’s not the first time you picked a guy over me. For all I know, you guys have been fucking since the day we broke up. Knowing your track record, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

I know I’m talking like a crazy person. Internalizing what she’s saying isn’t making this any easier.

“You’re disgusting,” she says, staring into my eyes, grabbing her purse from the stool. “Maybe I’m brutally honest, but you’re just plain hurtful. Just because you hate yourself doesn’t mean you have to drag us all down to your level. Have a nice life with your ‘people,’ Sloan. I’m perfectly happy with mine.”

She storms off, not even looking back, and I make zero effort to stop her.

I one hundred percent know she’s right.

I one hundred percent know I’m just being hateful because I’m mad at myself.

I don’t feel like groveling right now. Just wading around in self-pity. Wading around in my self-created misery just like I have so many times in the past. It doesn’t matter.

Her words are exactly what I needed to hear to solidify the choice I need to make, and pushing her as far away as possible was a perfect way to do that. When you cut ties with the only person you have left that cares about you, THEN you’re totally free. And that’s really what I need. I’ll never be able to move on from this chapter in my life until I have nothing left to lose, and sitting in this crappy diner all alone, I realize, I really have nothing left.

The tears sting my face, not because I’m sad for myself, but because I hate hurting my best friend. The waitress comes over and drops my check, and I slink out of the diner, head hung low. I walk out into the cool evening air, reality hitting me of how truly alone I am in this world, and it’s all my own doing.