She Should Have Been There

Lecture started and it’s Dr. Hottie. Where are you?

It was the Friday before our free week, our designated study time before Block 6 finals. I planned to party all weekend with the less serious students for the next three days and then stay up all night cramming for the following four. I found balance in that routine, or maybe it was my propensity for extremism, but not Melissa. She would keep a schedule, up by seven, lunch at noon, dinner at five, gym at seven, bed by ten and hitting the books in between.

The overhead fluorescent lights bounced off of the empty chair next to me, highlighting the missing paint on its sides that had been chipped away from medical students of years past. Anxiously, digging their nails in and scratching it off as they tried to absorb mounds of information only to retain it long enough to regurgitate it for an exam. Sure, some of it would be helpful later, a foundation for useful clinical information to be built upon. But it wasn’t possible to keep all of the scientific facts we were taught stored in our brains forever, for everyone but Melissa. She was a machine. And she should be here.

What’s up? Are you sick?

The last time Melissa missed class I found her slouched over her toilet, her long wavy hair dangling at her sides, sweat dripping from her temples, and spit curling at the corners of her mouth. We had given each other the keys to our apartments during the first week of orientation. The way that her cocoa-colored eyes shimmered as her generous mouth of white teeth spread across her heart-shaped face, I knew right away that she was someone that I could trust. I laid a cold wet cloth on the back of her neck, helped her get into bed and then bolted to CVS to buy her Pedialyte and Saltines. When I returned, she was on the phone with her father, a cardiovascular surgeon in Maine. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but his tone wasn’t of concern. It was of fury.

Melissa gulped the lukewarm cherry flavored electrolyte drink designed for kids and we watched reruns of Friends until we both fell asleep on her couch. She was better in the morning, and we never tried to figure out what was ailing her. Which was odd for two med students who diagnosed everyone we came across.

Fine… I’ll take notes for you.

I opened my laptop and started typing what our forty-something-year-old professor with jade green eyes, and a salt and pepper five o’clock shadow explained about serotonin receptors on the epithelial cells of the small intestines. My own stomach began to rumble. Something wasn’t right. I could feel it. The very mind-gut connection that Dr. Subramanian was describing, was alerting me. And then I smelled it. Or maybe I heard it. I will never remember what came first.

“Dude, grab your stuff, let’s go. It’s a fire drill,” Danny said, nudging my shoulder and lifting his bushy eyebrows that slightly met in the middle.

I stared at the screen for seconds, frozen. Worried about Melissa, wondering if she caught a cold last night and passed out from too much Ny-Quill. Her condo building was just on the other side of the woods behind our school. Perhaps it wasn’t a drill. I slammed my laptop shut, grabbed my backpack and followed the herd out of the auditorium, through the atrium and out of the glass doors of The Michael E. DeBakey Building. We all stood in silence around the circular fountain that students jumped in on graduation day, staring at our phones. Tired students with backpacks full of books and notes, waiting to be told they could go back in and resume their endless learning.

Melissa please answer there’s some sort of fire drill at school. But I definitely smell smoke and it’s been like ten minutes and no one has let us back in.

I sat on the concrete with my knees folded, waiting for a reply. But nothing. I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello, you have reached the phone of Melissa Hilde, I am unavailable right now. Please leave a message and I will return your call as soon as possible.”

“Melissa, your voicemail still sounds like my mom’s. Also please call me back. I think there’s a fire nearby. Oh God there definitely is, I see grey in the sky. Call me back now! Here comes Dean Andrews…”

She walked towards us, her hair in a tight bun pinned above the nape of her neck, wearing a cherry red pantsuit. Her thin lips were tight, stoic, but her eyes had the look of someone who had a secret they didn’t want to be hiding.

“Students, there is a fire in the woods adjacent to the school surrounding the bayou. The fire department is on their way and the authorities are handling the evacuation of our hospitals, if that becomes necessary. As Dean of the Student Affairs, my responsibility is the students. We will be evacuating the first- and second-year students that are currently learning in our buildings. A bus will be taking you to one of our satellite hospitals ten miles north. Stay here, stay calm and thank you for your cooperation.”

The more I thought about it, the more worried I was for Melissa. Block 6 exams were GI and Cardiology. She had grown up her whole life learning about the heart from her father. She chose to come to medical school in Houston because it was the place where the first human heart transplant was performed. She probably made herself sick studying, and now she is sleeping and unaware of the fire. The air grew thick as a cloud of smoke hovered above us. One by one we filed into the old commuter bus and took a seat.

“Maybe exams will be postponed, that would be cool,” Danny said, sliding in next to me.

“Yeah,” I said, staring at my phone, waiting.

“Where’s Melissa? She never skips,” he said.

“I’m not sure. I think she’s sick,” I said.

“I thought you two were inseparable,” he said.

And he was right. The first day of school Melissa and I chose to sit next to each other and never moved, as if we were kindergarteners with assigned seats. We ate dinner together, spent the night together, and even when she chose to study and I chose to go out, I always knew what Melissa was doing. Except for after the holidays--she’d always go dark for a few days after returning from Maine. And she never talked about her time at home.

“Okay, students, follow me,” Dean Andrews said as the bus rolled to a stop at the back entrance of St. Peter’s Hospital.

We walked off of the bus to a hospital back door where Dr. Andrews spoke with a security guard who led us to a physician learning room in the basement. It was dimly lit with rows of long plastic tables and chairs. Students scrambled to get a seat and the remainder found empty spots on the floor. I sat on a square of maroon unraveling carpet along the back wall, gripping my phone, waiting for a reply. Danny plopped next to me.

“Students we will need to wait here until we know that it’s safe to return to the school,” said Dean Andrews from the front of the room.

Jonathan, one of the legacy students raised his hand.

“My dad said he can send some cars and we can all go out to my parents’ ranch north of here,” Jonathan announced to Dean Andrews.

“I’m sorry, but we have to stay here until I hear from the authorities. For your safety,” Dean Andrews answered.

“Authorities? Does she mean the Fire Department?” the students murmured.

There was the clanging of dishes and the sound of wheels rolling on top of course bristles, and then the smell of fresh fruit and cheap fish filled the room.

“Sweet, at least they’re feeding us,” Danny said, hopping to his feet and rushing over to tables of food that had been brought in by a hospital cafeteria worker dressed in a starched white shirt and black apron.

The cafeteria worker uncovered the dishes of food and exited. As he walked through the open door, a police officer with the build of an NFL player and a cappuccino complexion walked in and approached Dr. Andrews. The two of them walked towards the corner. I leaned my head in their direction trying to decipher their words. Could we go back? Is someone hurt? Is it Melissa? What if she came to school late, but we were already gone and she was hurt in the fire? Why else would a police officer be here?

A pain rushed through the side of my head. I scrolled my phone to Melissa and my text chain, double checking that she hadn’t sent a text that I’d missed. No, the last text message from her was yesterday at noon: I’m going to study the rest of the night.

Nerd. I had written back.

I checked Instagram, our student message boards, our student emails, Facebook, which we don’t even use, then Gmail. And there it was, an email from Melissa’s personal account written at two am last night.

Dear Shari,

You are one of the best friends I’ve ever had.

Nausea bubbled in my stomach and ascended up my esophagus, creating a bitter paste in my mouth. I clenched my back teeth, fighting it away. A thud crashed beside me, shaking my entire body. My arm rattled and my palm opened, dropping my phone to the floor.

It was Danny.

“Hey, I brought you some fruit and a bag of chips. Seems like we are going to be here a while. Get this…they think a student started the fire.”