Cameron and I have to choose patients to follow for the night.

The charts are all located at the nurses’ station, so we head over there to look through them and take our pick. Dr. Beck disappears

into his office, while Ramona mans the floor, although what she’s actually doing at the moment is flipping through a home living magazine.

The charts are arranged on a shelf above the nurses’ station, in order of room number. There’s only one chart that isn’t on the rack and is instead lying on the table below. The name SAWYER is printed on the label on the spine of the chart. That was the name of the patient in Seclusion One. Dr. Beck must have been looking through the chart.

I stare at the chart for a moment, seized by curiosity. Who is in that room? What kind of person needs to be locked up that way? Like an animal. It seems cruel and inhumane but it’s not my place to say it.

I don’t dare touch the chart. It feels like even doing that would be a betrayal of Dr. Beck’s trust. Or that if I opened it, the monster inside that room might come leaping out of the pages.

“Anyone you’ve got your eye on?” Cameron asks me.

“Why?” I shoot back. “Would you steal them from me?”

He clutches his chest. “Why would you say that? If there was a patient you were interested in seeing, I would give you priority. I’m a gentleman.”

“Oh right. Of course.”

He juts out his lower lip. “Come on. When have I ever been a jerk to you?”

“How about when you dumped me?”

“I mean, except for that one time.”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever. I don’t care. Pick whatever patient you want.

You always get what you want anyway.” “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean…” I drop my voice a notch so that Ramona doesn’t hear us. She doesn’t need to know all about the drama between me and Cam. “You weren’t on the call schedule for tonight. I don’t even understand why you’re here. Did Stephanie really ask you to switch?”

Cameron is quiet, for once at a loss for words. I had been hoping he would confirm his story that Stephanie had some terrible emergency and begged him to switch shifts at the last moment. But I’ve got a bad feeling that the switch was his idea.

I was legitimately shocked when Cam broke up with me. I didn’t think we were going to be together forever—I saw the writing on the wall for the two of us. There were couples in our class that were considering going into the residency match together to ensure they would end up in locations near each other after medical school, but that notion never once entered Cam’s thoughts. After all, orthopedic surgery is really competitive. Going into the residency match with another person would only drag him down and reduce his chances of getting a slot.

Even so, I figured we would at least date for a few more months. Maybe once our schedules got busy, we would start to drift apart. Or maybe we wouldn’t. Maybe we wouldn’t go into the residency match together, but we would end up both getting a residency slot in the city, and maybe we’d even keep dating. Maybe.

I didn’t expect him to just… end it.

I wonder what Cameron ended up getting on that board exam. I wonder how many points our breakup was worth to him.

“It doesn’t matter to me which patient you see,” I say as I push the thoughts of our miserable breakup conversation out of my head. “Take your pick.”

“If you’re sure…”

“Of course I am. Why would I care about that?”

He flinches slightly. “Look, I’ve been wanting to talk to you. And you won’t take my calls.”

“Hmm. Wonder why.”

“Can we just…” Cam glances over at Ramona, who is within earshot. “Could we talk sometime tonight? I feel like you got it all wrong.”

“I’d rather not, Cam.” “Please?”

His face is slightly scrunched up, and for a moment, I feel a stab of guilt for being so cold to him. Then I remember what he did to me. “I can’t talk about this right now. Let’s just figure out who we’re seeing tonight.”

Cam looks like he’s going to protest, but then he changes his mind. “Fine.”

I try not to think about Cameron as I study the line of charts up above the nursing station. My eyes dart between the labels and come to rest on the chart of the patient in 905. The one with the blue eyes flecked with yellow. My whole body turns cold when I see the name written on the chart:

CARPENTER

Oh no.