Opposites

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Oliver

The phone's alarm didn't have time to ring.

I turned it off exactly at 5:29 A.M., a second before the vibration broke the silence of the room.

I got out of bed with calculated movements, without making the slightest noise.

The air in the dormitory was cold, impregnated with that unpleasant and pervasive smell of fresh paint, dust and humidity, typical of campus buildings.

I arranged the blankets by pulling them hard until I eliminated every single crease from the sheet, with an almost maniacal, rigorous precision.

At the orphanage, an undone or crumpled bed at 5:00 A.M. did not mean a simple stroke: it meant losing the shift for the hot breakfast, cleaning the bathrooms of the structure or earning corporal punishment for the whole day.

Certain survival habits never leave you, they get encrusted inside your bones, and you don't wash them away even when you change state or continent.

I opened the mini-fridge in the corner.

I took out an opaque plastic container with white rice cooked two days before, two boiled eggs peeled and some blanched vegetables of the night before.

Food without any flavor, cheap, but with the right caloric and protein intake to allow my body to keep going without collapsing until the evening.

I moved my finger on the visibly cracked screen of my old cell phone and opened the bank's application.

Available balance: $142.50.

I closed my eyes for a second, doing a quick mental calculation.

Second quarter university fees partially covered by the scholarship for absolute merit; used and underlined textbooks already purchased at the second-hand market; fee for the rental of the room already scaled at the beginning of the month.

I had exactly eighteen days left before the next salary of the restaurant where I worked as a dishwasher and kitchen helper on weekends.

One hundred and forty-two dollars and fifty cents for three weeks.

A margin of error equal to zero.

No medical emergencies allowed, no coffee to take away, no extra bus rides.

I tipped out on the paper calendar hanging on the wall next to the door the work shifts of the week: four hours on Tuesday evening, four on Thursday, twelve exhausting hours spread between Saturday and Sunday.

If I wanted to keep the average high and not lose the scholarship, I would have to study systematically between two and five in the morning every single day.

There was no room for missteps.

Not even one.

For me, the fall didn't mean a lecture from the parents: it meant ending up in the middle of the road.

"You're a clinical mental patient, Oliver. Has anyone ever told you that with a formal diagnosis?"

Damien's voice kneaded by sleep and laziness came from the back of the room.

He was sunk under a duvet that alone was probably worth more than my entire winter wardrobe.

"It's 5:45" I answered flat, putting on a faded black T-shirt and fastening my worn sneakers on my heels "In half an hour we have to be in front of the study room if we want to find a free table near the electrical outlets"

Damien pulled himself up with difficulty, his thick golden blond hair messed up in a natural way that seemed designed specifically for the cover of a fashion magazine.

He rubbed his eyes, showing the dark line of the well-made tattoos that went up from the collar of his shirt to his neck.

"The first lesson is at 9:00 A.M., Lee" he protested, yawning conspicuously before stretching on the bed like a listless cat "The normal world at this time is still sleeping or getting drunk. Who the f**k wakes up before dawn to go over the brachial plexus and pathological anatomy?"

"Who doesn't have a father partner of a famous law firm who pays his tuition and the apartment" I replied without a trace of acidity.

Damien grimaced, but didn't reply back on that.

We had ended up in the same dormitory due to an obvious error in the university's computer system —a boy from a rich family enrolled in Law and an orphan in the first year of Medicine— but after three weeks of living together we had found a strange balance, based on respect for each other's spaces.

"You're destroying yourself with work, dude" said Damien, finally getting out of bed and putting on a branded oversized sweatshirt "Every now and then you should unplug or your brain will fry. Look at you: you're always tense like a violin string. Sooner or later you explode"

"I'll explode if I lose my scholarship and they kick me out of the course" I retorted dryly, grabbing the worn canvas backpack "See you later"

Walking through the campus as the sun began to rise slowly behind the skyscrapers of Los Angeles was the only moment of peace of my day.

The air was still fresh, clean, far from the suffocating and smog-impregnated afternoon heat.

As I crossed the tree-lined avenue, my mind, against all my conscious will, returned to the episode a few days earlier.

To the French girl.

Céleste Garcia.

I still remembered with extreme clarity the sensation of the impact, her things scattered on the ground on the granite and that expression of pure disdain, of superiority printed on her face.

Hair of an intense shade of copper, eyes of an emerald green and that ridiculous tailoring jacket that shouted 'privilege' from every single seam.

The way she had looked at me in that auditorium —as if I were an unpleasant insect accidentally hit on her luxury carpet— had made my brain bleed.

A spoiled girl.

That's what she was.

One of those people who had never had to fight for a piece of bread or for a heated room in their entire lives, born with the future already written, asphalted and flattened by money and the name of their parents.

She was probably in Medicine just to make her daddy happy or to collect a prestigious title to show off at the galas of the beautiful Parisian society.

And now I had to take her as a bench neighbor for an entire academic year.

I shook my head with fervor, dying away that bitter thought.

We had absolutely nothing in common.

She was the embodiment of everything that had always been denied to me; I was the embodiment of everything she probably despised and avoided.

I arrived at the auditorium forty minutes early, taking a seat at Row 12, Seat 4A.

I took out my lined notebook and started going over the notes from the day before, ignoring the slow and progressive filling of the classroom by the other students.

Five minutes from the start of the lesson, I felt a light scent, a discreet trail of lavender and vanilla, making its way through the chaos of a classroom that smelled of coffee and humidity.

I didn't even need to look up to know it was her.

Céleste paraded along the central hallway with her usual rigid, elegant, almost royal bearing.

She was wearing a cream cashmere sweater and dark cigarette-cut pants.

When she arrived at Seat 4B, she hesitated for a split second.

Her green eyes crossed mine for a moment before she looked away.

She sat down keeping as much physical distance as possible between us, resting her dark leather bag on the ground and arranging her latest generation tablet with measured and precise gestures.

Neither of us said a single word.

The silence between us was so thick, loaded with an electrical voltage, that it could have been cut with a scalpel.

"Good morning, everyone" began Dr. Harrison's amplified voice from the microphone "Today we will immediately move on to field practice. Split in pairs with your assigned deskmate. On your screen you will find the medical record of a forty-four-year-old patient who went to the emergency room. You have twenty minutes to make a differential diagnosis and indicate the first three instrumental tests to be available"

I immediately picked up the printed specification sheet.

Symptoms were evident: acute abdominal pain located in the lower right quadrant, moderate fever, marked leukocytosis.

"It's an acute appendicitis" I said immediately, holding the pen to fill out the group form "We ask for an emergency abdominal ultrasound and an immediate surgical consultation for the appendectomy"

Céleste tilted her head slightly to the side, staring at the monitor in front of her with a detached expression, almost absent, but analytical.

"It's not that simple. Look at the complete blood picture and don't stop at the first line. Platelets are low and there is a slight high conjugate bilirubin. It could be acute terminal ileitis or inflamed Meckel's diverticulitis"

I looked at her, reluctantly surprised.

She knew the theory, there was no doubt.

Her voice was precise, but there was a strange, subtle listlessness in the way she spoke, as if she were reciting by heart an academic text learned for duty, without any real interest in the human patient who was hiding behind those figures.

"Meckel's diverticulitis are extremely rare in this specific age group" I objected, marking my voice firmly "Appendicitis is the epidemiologically most likely and quick response. It makes no sense to waste precious time with rare tests when the clinical picture requires timely intervention"

Céleste slowly turned towards me, her bright green eyes contracted by irritation and a sudden spark of defiance.

"Medicine is not a race to see who shoots the most obvious answer first to make a good impression with the teacher, Lee. A hasty and superficial diagnosis can kill a patient as much as a retarded one"

"I don't shoot hasty answers, Garcia" I replied, getting a little closer to her side of the desk "I look at practical reality and efficiency. Not all of us can afford the luxury of theorizing for hours in a living room while the patient gets worse on the bed"

"You always want to control everything, don't you?" she rumbled in a low voice, crossing her arms over her chest with a defensive attitude "Do you really believe that your arrogance and fervor are a valid substitute for clinical prudence?"

I was about to answer her when the imposing shadow of Dr. Harrison was projected on our desks.

"Is something wrong with the case, guys?" the teacher asked, squaring the frame of his glasses on us.

Céleste instantly recomposed her impeccable mask of perfection.

"No problem, Professor. We were evaluating the differential diagnosis. We believe it is acute appendicitis, but we also requested an ultrasound to rule out an involvement of the terminal ileus given the slight alteration of bilirubin"

Harrison looked at the form, then let out a nod of approval.

"Excellent integrated reasoning. The practical and direct approach combined with theoretical scruples. Keep it up"

When the teacher walked away, Céleste didn't even look at me.

I just let out an annoyed sigh.

She was a thorn in my side, a constant presence that made me nervous.

***

At lunch, the university canteen was an open construction site of noise, slamming dishes and colored plastic trays.

I sat at a table near the main window with Damien, who was lovingly ignoring his sandwich to play cards on his cell phone.

"So, how did the first integration test with your personal nightmare go?" he asked me, without looking up from the screen.

"She's simply unbearable" I replied dryly, chewing a bite of my rice "She thinks she knows everything, she looks down on everyone and has the clinical enthusiasm of a sleeping sloth. I don't even understand why she chose to do Medicine if she has to treat the subject as a burden"

Damien looked up, then his eyes looked beyond my shoulder.

A mischievous and amused smile was slowly painted on his face.

"You're talking about the beautiful redhead with the queen's posture who's eating down there?"

I turned around a little, just enough to take a look.

On the other side of the crowded room, sitting at a well-lit table with two girls, there was Céleste.

She was playing with a salad without really touching it, while her friends were talking animatedly.

"Yes, it's her" I muttered, returning to my food.

"Well, I have to say that your nightmare has an impeccable taste in dressing" Damien commented, squaring her with open male appreciation "And she's incredibly beautiful, Lee. Don't tell me you didn't notice it, unless you went blind by dint of studying"

"I only noticed that she is a spoiled egocentric with the stench under her nose" I said with ruthless firmness "She is the last person on the face of the Earth with whom I would have a chat, let alone date her"

Damien let out a low and wise chuckle.

"Yes, of course, Lee. The more you repeat how much you hate her, the more it seems to me that you have done nothing but stare at her since this morning"

I gave him such a cold look that he stopped laughing, but his amused expression did not disappear at all.

I spent the rest of the afternoon within the austere and silent walls of the central library.

There was an almost sacred silence, interrupted only by the rustling of the turned pages and the light tapping on the computers.

I found a table in the most isolated corner of the second floor, submerged by three heavy volumes of pathological anatomy and physiology.

I had been immersed in reading for almost two hours when I felt a silent movement next to me.

Céleste was standing near the free chair in front of mine.

The library was completely packed and there were no other places available in the sector.

We looked into each other's eyes for an interminable second.

She seemed almost about to turn on her heels and leave, but then, with an imperceptible sigh, she pulled back the chair and sat down gracefully.

We didn't speak to each other for over an hour.

But the silence between us was not peaceful at all.

It was a cold war made of stolen looks and tension.

When I turned the page too impetuously, she raised her eyebrows imperceptibly; when she tapped the silver pen on the notebook, I stiffened.

Her mere presence attracted my attention as a continuous disturbance on the frequency of my concentration.

Around 5:00 P.M., Céleste began to slowly collect her things to leave.

Her eyes were tired, her head elsewhere.

As she lifted her heavy leather bag, the side zipper, accidentally left open, got caught in the wooden edge of the table.

The bag fell over from the side and several sheets and notebooks slipped on the wooden floor, ending up right next to my feet.

"Damn..." she murmured through her teeth, immediately bending over with apprehension.

I instinctively bent down to help her collect the papers before they flew away.

I picked up a small black leather notebook that had opened when it fell.

My eyes fell involuntarily on the wide-open page.

They weren't medical notes.

There were no anatomical patterns, chemical formulas or Latin terms.

It was a hand-drawn complex musical score with an extraordinarily precise handwriting.

Above the notes of a pentagram there were words written in pencil.

Before I could read another line, a hand snatched the notebook from my fingers with unexpected violence and speed.

I looked up, surprised.

Céleste was standing above me, her face completely colorless, pale, and her emerald green eyes grained with a mixture of anger and terror.

She held the leather notebook to her chest as if it had been the most dangerous of state secrets.

"It's none of your business!" she said with a slightly trembling voice, a mix of fury and vulnerability that I had never seen on her in these days.

"I was just picking up your fallen things..." I tried to say, standing up to equalize her height.

"Don't ever touch my personal things again. Clear?" she snapped, suddenly slipping the notebook into the bag, before turning around and walking away with quick steps towards the exit of the library, without looking back even for a moment.

I stood still for a few seconds, alone in the middle of the library lanes.

A music notebook.

Handwritten texts.

And that reaction so disproportionate, as if I had caught her committing a crime.

For the first time since I met her, I realized that perhaps Céleste Garcia's smooth, perfect and icy surface hid much deeper and darker cracks than I had ever dared to imagine.

When I returned to the dormitory room, the sun was already setting, dyeing the room with a dark orange light.

Damien was intent on carefully adjusting a black leather jacket in front of the mirror.

"Perfect timing, my friend!" he exclaimed, seeing me enter and dropping the comb "Tonight there is the first real party of the year of the brotherhoods. The whole campus will be there, including the people of the first year. Do you move to change or do you want to go there dressed as a depressed student?"

"I'm not coming" I replied dryly, dropping the heavy backpack on my desk "I have to review three chapters of physiology and then this weekend I have double shifts at the restaurant. I can't afford to waste time or be late"

Damien turned slowly, staring at me with an expression suspended between the exasperated and the deeply caring.

"Oliver, listen to me carefully for once. If you continue with this inhuman rhythm, you will get a piercing ulcer before December. It's just a party. There will be music, free drinks and normal people who don't talk about anatomy or exams for an evening. Come with me for an hour. If you're bored or uncomfortable, I'll walk you back to the dormitory"

"Damien, I told you..."

"Just an hour, Lee. Just an hour. I'm asking you as a personal favor, so I don't have to go there alone and look like a loner"

I looked at the heavy open textbooks on my desk.

My head hurt slightly from the fatigue accumulated in recent weeks, and the image of that black leather notebook did not want to leave me alone.

I let out a long and resigned sigh, running a tired hand over my face.

"Just an hour. Sixty minutes split, then I come back here to study"

"Deal!" Damien shouted, pulling me a clean shirt.

Before leaving the room, I approached the small bedside table next to my bed.

I opened the top drawer and, with cautious gestures, moved a couple of T-shirts to take the worn wooden frame that I kept hidden at the bottom.

Inside there was an old color picture slightly faded by time.

My mother smiled sweetly at the camera lens, stroking my hair as I sat on her lap in the small garden of our house, just before the disease took her forever.

I must have been four years old.

It was the only concrete thing I had left of her, the only clean link with a life lived before everything became a ruthless, steep and lonely climb.

‘I won't fail, mom’ I thought silently, brushing the cold glass of the frame with the turgor of my thumb ‘I promise you. No one will ever take away what I'm fighting for with nails and teeth’

I put the picture back with extreme care in the drawer, locking it.

The cell phone resting on the desk emitted a beep.

It was a text from Damien, who had already gone down to the dormitory hall.

Damien: No last-second excuse, Lee. Disappearing for an hour tonight won't make you fail the exams. Move down!

I looked at the phone screen, then the darkness of the night outside that enveloped the entire campus.

"In one night absolutely nothing will change..." I muttered to myself in a low voice, slipping on my dark jacket and leaving the room.

I still couldn't know how wrong I was.