I’ve never been a fan of gyms. The monotony of the treadmill is what I hate the most about coming here. I miss running outside and seeing the different sights, breathing fresh air. Here, sweat, perfume, cologne, and chemicals permeate the air, and I have few options of things to look at; it’s either my own reflection across the room, other machines and people, or the TVs that are currently all set to a Spanish soap opera.
I close my eyes and beckon a memory that doesn’t hide far in the recesses of my mind. Visions of palm trees and stretches of ocean placate me while I seek a familiar burn.
After getting showered and dressed, I pull out my phone to check the time. Previously, my phone was an accessory I often misplaced. These days it’s a taunting shadow. There are no messages or alerts. No missed calls. When you ignore people long enough, they begin ignoring you too.
“Good morning, Harper. You staying warm out there?”
I turn to Gus, the guard at the front door of Mather’s Science and Technology and force a small smile. “Hey, Gus.” He’s also one of the few people that makes an effort to speak to me.
“You be sure you get some snow tires on soon!” His voice is raspy and deep, like his lungs have endured a lot of smoking over his fifty-odd years of life. He really should do something like commercials or movie introductions; it has the ability to melt the grimace from my face that is there too frequently these days.
“Thanks for the reminder.” I pull out today’s newspaper and lay it on the counter for him. I tell myself the reason I take the route that takes me ten additional minutes to get to the lab is so I can stop by this tiny, independently-owned convenience store so I can pick up the paper and my coffee each morning. It has absolutely nothing to do with avoiding Miller Ave. Nope. Nothing.
Or everything.
Too-early mornings. Gym. Paper and coffee. Work. School. This is my life.
“How did it go?”
Except … now there’s Fitz. Fitz helps.
I look over at him and take a long sip of my coffee, waiting to warm up before removing my jacket.
Fitz’s eyes grow wide. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t go! Harper, she can force you to go to a school counselor. This is serious!” he growls. “Dammit, you promised me.”
“She called and canceled on me, actually. She rescheduled it for tomorrow,” I explain after pausing long enough to gain a dramatic edge that I soften with a small smile. Fitz’s chin drops and his eyes narrow, looking more annoyed than relieved, which only serves to make my smile grow.
“You’re such a pain in the ass,” he mumbles.
“Aren’t you glad that I’m your pain in the ass?”
Fitz’s annoyance cracks and he shakes his head with a laugh. “So much,” he replies sarcastically. “Get all your snow gear off, California. Time to get to work. I’ve got a new hypothesis for us to start working on.”
I met Fitz last month after completing my orientation, which consisted of being passed around from different lab rooms and scientists that mostly regarded me with disdain and annoyance, only ever referring to me as “hey you.” I was assisting Dr. Schooner at the time. I wasn’t allowed to perform a lab by myself due to my lack of degree. However, I was able to help set up, clean, read the equipment’s results, take notes, and log outcomes in detailed journal entries for the doctors.
The day I met Fitz, I was cleaning up a lab I’d begun with Dr. Schooner. She was only thirty or so, but she had insisted that I call her Dr. Schooner.
We’d begun dissecting a new heart that day, something I was still trying to adjust to. Even though I was only ever observing, the first cut was always the most difficult for me. It felt like we were cutting at love, at opportunity, at life.
It had brought me back to a question Adam, my Philosophy teacher and my older sister Jenny’s boyfriend, had posed after I handed in my final back in June.
“Are they really gone if you’re able to keep the memory of them alive?”
“Of course they’re gone. Memories means past tense,” I replied angrily and grabbed my things from my desk.
“So what’s a greater tragedy? Someone dying and therefore not able to create more memories, or someone alive that refuses to live?”
“I’m still living, Adam! I’m breathing, and talking, and moving!” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder.
“You’re thinking with your scientific brain again, not your philosophical one.”
“It’s all one brain!”
“Don’t let loss make you lose yourself.” I glared at him and then stormed out of the room.
Adam’s look of defeat was haunting me as I continued staring at the heart, trying to hide images of my father as I forced myself to gather the tools used to reveal the internal surfaces and structures of the heart.
“Harper, this is Dr. Maxwell Fitzgerald.”
The scalpel I was holding clanged against the floor and my neck snapped up to see Ben standing beside a short, thin guy with light brown skin and spiky black hair. I’d seen him before in passing but had never bothered to learn his name. I glanced back at Ben, certain I must have imagined his words, as he apologized for startling me. The name still hung on my thoughts, distracting me as I looked down to see smears of blood staring up at me from the white tiles.
“Max. Just Max is good,” he said, keeping his eyes on everything but me.
“Max, this is Harper Bosse,” Ben said again when neither of us spoke. “Max here is currently studying aortic aneurisms, and I know that’s where you want to apply your focus, so I thought this partnership would behoove you both. I let Dr. Schooner know that she’ll be starting again back over in lab six tomorrow. If you can please make sure to deposit whatever she needs over there, you guys can remain in this lab.” It was the smallest of the few dozen, so I’m sure Dr. Schooner was thrilled to be out of here and away from me.
Max’s eyes roved across the small room, looking bored and disappointed to be paired with me. I didn’t blame him. I’d have been disappointed too.
Ben quickly gave a timid smile and then left.
I bent down to retrieve my scalpel, keeping my sole focus on the floor as I turned and headed to the sink used for sanitation. His name’s Max? Is this a joke? Maybe I heard him wrong?
I glanced in his direction again as I went to gather the other supplies that needed to be cleaned.
“Your name’s Max?”
He looked up from where he was circling around a vacant work station, carefully inspecting the blank space.
“And you’re Harper,” he answered in a bored tone.
“Do you mind if I call you Fitzgerald?” The question left my lips in a rush before I even had time to lower my voice to make it sound less pleading. As I moved back to the sink, I glanced over at him again. His shoulders were hunched as he hovered over the desk, but his face was tilted up, looking at me carefully in a way that was uncomfortably familiar. He finally shrugged, then his eyes fell back to the table, and I quickly scrambled to finish getting things washed and noted.
Dr. Schooner had requested for me to sit in and complete the dissection that we had begun a few days prior, and Fitzgerald had agreed, stating he needed to get organized. I was back in the lab with him, recording my notes from the day, because I hadn’t bothered moving my things for the short period. I was feeling annoyed and befuddled over how a forty-six year old librarian suffered a major heart attack and died in her sleep. Alone.
Being that I spent the majority of my time since coming out East alone, that small notation highlighted itself, causing my eyes to continue to scan back over it.
The woman hadn’t smoked, wasn’t a drinker, and worked in a profession we calculated as low stress. I thumbed through her file again, hoping something would expose itself.