“Aaaaugh... this altitude is killing me.” She leans over, peering at me from her upside-down position. “Are you talking to your sister? Did you ask if she has any recommendations for me?”

“She would tel you the same thing I told you yesterday.

No over-exertion and lots of fluids.” Deb chuckles in my ear.

People—from friends and family to complete strangers—

have been asking her for medical advice since she began med school. “You’l feel fine in a day or so.” Gina flops back onto her bed. “God, I hope so. This is not cool.”

“You sure you don’t want to study medicine?” Deb asks, stil chuckling.

“I’m positive,” I whisper, hoping Gina wil go to sleep instead of butting in on what wil probably be my only conversation with my sister while I’m in Ecuador. “Now, let’s talk about you. Have you and Bradford progressed from making out in parking lots yet?”

The smile in her voice remains when she answers. “Oh, maybe…”

“Deborah Cantrel ,” I say, struggling to keep my voice low. “What are you hinting at? You sound absolutely guilt-ridden.”

“I’m tel ing you first, and then Mom and Dad, and then Sylvie…” Sylvie is Deb’s best friend from col ege. She married her col ege boyfriend, has a two-year-old and another on the way, and has been setting Deb up with every eligible friend of her husband’s for years. None of them have worked out, and a couple of them are only summoned to be witty anecdotes when she and her female med school friends discuss relationship-hunting fails.

“Wel this sounds promising… wait. Deb. Tell me.”

“He proposed last night.”

I forget to whisper. “What?”

Gina hangs down. “What? What is it?”

“He proposed? But you’ve only known him a few weeks!” I say, and Gina’s eyes go round as she makes an excited eeeeeeeeee sound. I want to knock her on the forehead so I can share this moment with my sister, alone, but of course I don’t.

Deb’s reply is calm, unperturbed after my outburst.

Expecting it, probably. “Dori, I know what you’re worried about—whether or not I’m sure. I am. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

“Oh my gosh.” My eyes tear up, but I’m smiling, and Gina is grinning ecstatical y, stil upside-down. A tear snakes down my cheek and I wipe it away. Gina disappears momentarily and reappears with a tissue. “Have you worked it out with hospital administration? When do I get to meet him?”

She sighs. “We aren’t sure how to reveal it or what it might mean once we do. No one at the hospital knows yet except a close friend of his and one of the nurses—who caught us kissing in an empty room.” She giggles, and I’m struck again by how sixteen she’s sounded since this man came into her life. “That was the first time he said he loved me. When she came in, I tried to pul away, but he held tight, smiled and said, ‘Marta, have you met the woman I’ve fal en in love with?’ She stared at us a minute and then said,

‘Wel , I knew something was going on, doctor. You’ve been so pleasant for the past few weeks that we figured you were either in love or dying. Glad to know it’s the former.’

We swore her to secrecy.”

I’m laughing and crying at the same time, and strangely, so is Gina, who hands me another tissue while she mops her eyes with her own. “Wow,” I say, stunned.

“I have a couple of days in a row off in September, so we’re planning to make a quick trip home then. I assume you can make it home from Berkeley for an evening?”

“Heck, yes. I wouldn’t miss it. When are you tel ing Mom and Dad?”

“As soon as we hang up, I’m cal ing them. But first, how are you doing with the Reid Alexander situation? Is the distance helping?” Hearing his name is a jolt.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Haven’t thought of him much at al .” I’m crossing my fingers under my leg.

“You haven’t heard from him, then.”

“No.” Like he predicted—he’s gone back to his life, and I’ve gone on with mine. “Out of sight, out of mind.” My voice rings falsely impassive in my ears.

“I can’t imagine any boy being stupid enough to put you out of his mind so easily, baby girl. Even him.” I’m real y glad that Gina, who’s stil eavesdropping shamelessly, can’t hear Deb’s portion of the conversation.

“Wel , thanks. But I think they’re al kind of the same.” Deb knows I’m referring to Colin.

“No, they aren’t, but guys like Brad are rare. It took me twenty-six years to find him, and look how far from home I had to go. What if I’d done my internship elsewhere? We’d have never met. Brad and I were meant to be.” I turn onto my side, repressing words I’ve said to Deb before, words I wil not repeat now because I’m determined not to take anything away from her happiness. I know Deb believes that God brought Brad to her. That they were fated to be. But if this is so, then were Colin and I fated? Was what he did to me meant to be? Or perhaps he was a test that I failed, foolishly trusting a boy who exploited some inadequacy that made me blind to reality.

I can’t believe either of these. What happened with Colin was simply a failure to heed my own common sense. I made a mistake in judgment, and I paid for it.

“I’m glad you found each other, Deb,” I tel her, turning onto my back. “I hope you’l be real y happy.” She sighs blissful y. “We already are. It’s almost too much joy.”

I shake my head and smile. “No such thing.”

“I hope you’re right. You can probably expect a giddy cal from Mom soon. I think she thought I was al ergic to boys—

or they were al ergic to me. I love you, baby girl.”

“I love you, too, and I’m so happy for you.” When we hang up, it seems that Gina has forgotten her altitude sickness for the time being. She tel s me she’s a hopeless romantic who drives her husband crazy buying every romantic movie ever made. “I think I’ve watched The Notebook about a thousand times,” she confesses, without even a hint of embarrassment. “I want to hear al about your sister and her new fiancé, but first—who is this boy you left behind? Was it a breakup? Not because of your volunteer efforts here, I hope.”

“No, nothing like that. We only went out once. It was nothing.” I’m crossing my fingers under my leg again, though I’ve spoken nothing but truth.

“Not meant to be, then,” Gina says, and it takes al the control I can manage not to rol my eyes. Holy cow, you’d think people never made their own decisions about anything, weren’t in control of any direction their lives took.

“Yep. Not meant to be.” I force myself to uncross my fingers. Nothing I’m saying is a lie or a fib or even a disputed truth. Whether or not my life is orchestrated by God or some form of fate or nothing but the choices Reid and I make individual y or together, we’re not meant to be.

Chapter 32

REID

In three days, I’m leaving for Vancouver, a two-hour flight away. I could jump back to LA often during the next three months if I wanted to, but barring any emergencies, there’s no reason to bother. I need a break from everything here. I definitely need a break from my best friend, who’s walking the ragged edge of shit-for-brains-annoying at the moment.

“Look, I can’t maintain the kind of muscle I’ve been adding while drinking and getting high every night. I thought you got that.” I’ve tried to explain this to John multiple times in the past several days, but he’s smashed and missing al of my drop-it cues. We just got back to his place from a party, the first one we’ve left together this week.

“I know, I hear you. It’s just… you’re just…”

“I’m just what?”

“You’re not only cutting back on alcohol or whatever.

You’ve been crashing here for the past week, and not only are you almost always stone-cold sober, which is kind of a damned drag, you haven’t brought a girl back with you at al . Not once.”

“And?”

He sighs. “Nothing, man. But you aren’t yourself.” Sometimes my best friend seems perceptive, though I’m never sure how much of his insight is actual comprehension and how much is guesstimated bul shit. We don’t have what you’d cal a dig-deep sort of relationship. “Maybe I’m trying to develop some self-control.”

“C’mon, man— no alcohol, no weed, no girls? What the hel is this? It’s like you’re someone else. I usual y work just to keep up with you, and now I’m drinking alone ninety percent of the time,” he gestures to my Perrier with his beer, “and I’m stoned by myself, and the only thing you’re screwing with is my head.”

I give him half a smile. “What’s the matter, John? You wanna break up with me?”

He laughs and shakes his hair out of his eyes. “No man, the bromance is stil hot as ever.” He eyes me for a moment. “Oh, no way. It’s that Dori chick, isn’t it? You never screwed her, did you?”

My gaze narrows, fingers digging into my leg. “Don’t go there, man.”

He sits up and points at me, grinning. “That’s it! The last time we talked about her, you were just gonna do her and get over it. Don’t tel me you grew a conscience because of her little do-gooding act.”

I can’t believe we ever had that conversation, that I ever said something like that to John about Dori, but I know I probably did. I’m sure I was drunk and talking shit—a lifetime ago. Before I kissed her. Before I stopped being a complete prick long enough to know her at al . “I’m serious, John. Shut up.”

He takes a drag from his cigarette and I think he’s going to comply. No such luck. “I’m just saying, dude—you’ve got a couple more days in LA. Look her up, throw a bag over her head or whatever, and screw her respectable brains out so you can get back to normal.”

The combination of John being hammered and me being the farthest thing from it curbs my temper just enough not to beat the ever-loving shit out of him, but it doesn’t stop me from yanking him up by his shirtfront and slamming him back into his chair so hard his head snaps back. “Don’t ever fucking talk about her like that again. I mean it, John.

Don’t.”

“Okay, man, okay. Shit. Chil . I’m s-sorry,” he stutters, eyes wide and startled, hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry.

Shit, Reid. I get it.”

I straighten, shaking, run a hand through my hair as I turn away from him. He’s right about one thing. I’m not myself.

*** *** ***

Dori

My flight was delayed half an hour because of a freakishly torrential but fast-moving rainstorm, but I’m not worried about missing my connection because the layover wil stil be over two hours. Plenty of time to get through customs in Miami and make the flight to LA—I hope. By 9:00 tonight I’l be home.