Save Me by Africa Fine

Author:Africa Fine
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-58571-610-4
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2012-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

May 1999

Back in March, I returned from the book tour with Calvin, determined to call Angela. But when I sat down to do it, I couldn’t think of anything to say. What did I want from her? She’d cheated on me with Jason, there was the baby that might be mine but no longer existed. Not even I was naïve or romantic enough to think that we could go back to the way things had been last summer. I forgave her, but I didn’t know if I loved her anymore. I didn’t know if she’d ever loved me. So what would be the point of calling?

Instead, I focused on Calvin’s advice at the bookstore in Miami. Finish strong. Focus on my future. Maybe it was time to face the fact that Angela wasn’t meant to be a part of that future.

I didn’t walk for graduation. Instead, I received my diploma without the pomp and circumstance, in a heavy blue folder that came in the mail one day. I let myself focus only on what was ahead: medical school, years of grueling work and paying dues, and the eventual rewards of all my hard work. Since all I had to do was maintain the grades I had, the end of senior year was all about getting through each day with a minimum of emotion or human contact. I spoke little in my classes, kept my head down when I walked the quad, and I ate my meals alone in my apartment or at off-campus restaurants frequented by locals instead of college kids.

The key was precision. I planned my days down to the minute, because spare time meant time for reflection, and I wanted none of that. Routine was my friend. Routine was my savior. I thought back to those eight months when Angela and I weren’t speaking, after she left me for Jason and I spent those strange days with Calvin. I reminded myself how it felt to be numb. I tried to recapture that numbness, tried to ignore the searing melancholy left by Angela’s absence, by the loss of a child who had never been. I found that pretending to be numb was almost as effective as the real thing. Almost.

When I received the acceptance letter from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, I didn’t even open the other letters. I glanced at the return addresses on the envelopes, most of them thick, full of scholarship offers and housing information. Those schools didn’t matter. I was going home. After living in Durham for five years, I was going home to Chicago. When I went to college, I chose Duke because Maren needed me to stay close. I didn’t trust my father to take care of her, and even when it turned out that Maren could take care of herself, I never considered moving. But Maren was going to be a junior at Florida next year. She wasn’t even in Durham most of the time, and so I didn’t need to be, either.

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