Suicide Med Read Free Page A

into my palms. It’s nice that for once, I’m not the object of Rachel’s wrath.
    “No,” Rachel says, her voice low and angry. “Like, I don’t eat dairy or meat.”
    “Wow,” Abe breathes. “You mean you don’t eat eggs?”
    Rachel shakes her head.
    “What about butter?” he presses her.
    “No.”
    “Ice cream?”
    “No.”
    “Cheese?”
    “No.”
    Abe bites his lip. “Cream cheese?”
    “ No .”
    Abe is shaking his head, looking mildly traumatized. I have to say, I’m with Abe on this one. I don’t think I could live without cream cheese or ice cream.
    I grab my phone from my purse, and surreptitiously check if Seth has sent me any text messages. He’s starting his first day of med school today too, and we promised to keep in contact. I sent him a couple of texts first thing in the morning, but I haven’t heard a thing from him so far. But I’m sure he’s getting around to it—he’s just busy.
    Unfortunately, Rachel catches me looking at my phone. “Texting with your boyfriend again, Heather?”
    “No,” I answer truthfully.
    Before I can say anything else, Rachel announces to the table: “Heather is dating some guy at another school about a thousand miles away and they text each other every five minutes.”
    “No, two hundred thirty-eight miles away,” I mumble. I committed the number to memory last year, when Seth and I were debating if we could make our relationship work long distance. I’d offered to hold off a year, and reapply near his school. But Seth didn’t want me to give up anything for him. Especially since, as he rightfully pointed out, I only got into one school and it was off the waiting list.
    “You know ,” Rachel says to me, “about 80% of long-term relationships end during medical school.”
    Where does Rachel find these stupid statistics anyway?
    “Have you been with him long?” Lauren asks me.
    I nod. “Three years.” I notice her eyes flit down to my left hand and I quickly add, “He wanted to get engaged, but I thought it was better to wait.”
    That’s not exactly a lie. Except it’s sort of the opposite. I had been pressuring Seth for a ring at the end of senior year, but he wanted to wait. “What’s the rush, Heather? It’s not like we’re getting married soon.” Except two of my friends got engaged and neither of them were dating their boyfriends as long as Seth and I were together. Neither of us could imagine a future apart from the other, so why not make it official?
    But maybe it’s better this way. There’s no point in complicating things. Plus it would be a pain to figure out what to do with an engagement ring during anatomy labs.
    “Three years is a really long time,” Lauren says kindly. “I bet you’ll be in the 20% that stays together.”
    I bet we will too.
    I mean, I’m pretty sure.
     

Chapter 2
     
    Seth is supposed to call me tonight at nine p.m. and it’s now one minute after nine. With each passing minute, I’m getting more and more ticked off.
    I don’t want to be that kind of girlfriend—the kind where he has to call at the exact time he said he would or else I get all pissy. But then again, how hard is it to call on time? Is it really so difficult to pick up the phone and call me at the time I asked him to? I mean, he knows it’s my first day of school and I’m all keyed up. Why is he doing this to me?
    It doesn’t help that Rachel is driving me completely crazy. First she started tacking up some pro-choice poster on the wall that had a huge picture of a zombie baby on it. I’m pro-choice too, but that doesn’t mean I want a zombie baby poster on my wall. It was awful. When I asked her to take it down, she started lecturing me on feminism and women’s rights. Apparently, she wants to be a surgeon and it’s people like me who are holding her back.
    Look, I want women to have rights. I just don’t like zombie babies on my wall!
    The other weird thing is that Rachel hasn’t bought any books. Not even Dr.