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Victoria Javadi makes the right choices. She takes the right classes, makes the right impressions on the right people. She knows how to play the game, how to anticipate every possible chain of events so she is never caught off guard. She is always three steps ahead of the curve. She excels because she doesn't just try her best- she aims for perfection and doesn't fall short.
Rotations in the Pitt were always going to be a challenge but Victoria has never been one to shy away from adversity. An opportunity like this was difficult, sure, but not impossible. It just called for more preparation than, say, shifts at the VA. So she put in the work. Re-listened to lectures from semesters past, scanned and scoured and memorized notes on any possible procedure that could come up- peripartum hysterectomy, open cholecystectomy, even ones so unlikely that even if a patient’s case called for it the procedure would be unlikely to be performed by a student doctor. Her parents, tough as they are, were right on this: Preparation is the key to success. In Victoria Javadi's world, doing everything right should lead to the right outcome.
Except the Pitt is not a lecture hall or a cadaver lab, but a huge, terrifying, ungovernable organism comprised of illness and death, at all times careening toward its own complete and utter destruction, only managed precariously by the shaky hands of whichever attending God has abandoned alongside His creatures on any given day or night. Victoria learned on her very first day that even expecting the unexpected wouldn’t prevent her from leaving the hospital as the shell of the student she’d been that morning.
Her first day was unforeseeably out of the ordinary, that she was assured of- a random, horrible anomaly in the department for random, horrible anomalies. Victoria must've had the deepest REM sleep of her life that night. But it had been experience, real, hands-on experience that prepared her for the true worst case scenarios in this field, something that even she would admit hours of studying could never amount to.
Three weeks of surviving the Pitt should've been enough time for her to adjust to the breadth of variability that would come with each shift, and in a regular setting it would be. And yet she finds herself wading through a pool of self-doubt, aimless and anxious as she stares up at the board. Her eyes remain unfocused, color coded names and numbers streaming across her line of vision unseen.
"Want me to pick?" Doctor Abbot asks, tilting toward her on the other side of the counter. "Second appendicitis of the day is with Doctor King," he offers. Victoria likes him, possibly better than Robby, if only because the latter mildly scares her. "Uh, yeah. Okay."
"Kidding," he deadpans just as she shifts in her sneakers, ungluing herself from the floor. "Easy's not your style, Doctor Javadi. Go find McKay."
She glances at him, not understanding.
He gives her a chop chop look, one so reminiscent of her mother it almost puts a pit of anxiety in her stomach. On second thought maybe she does like Robby better. But she does as she's told, glancing around the ER for the red ponytail she's so used to searching for that it takes less than three seconds to locate.
The doctor in question is crouched in the hallway, pulling trash out from the wheel of Myrna's chair. "Thanks, doll," Victoria catches as McKay nods, turning to leave. "Oh, Javadi, I was about to come find you."
"Doctor Abbot sent me to find you."
McKay smiles, warm, and something about it wrestles Victoria's anxiety down just a little. "Well, good, because I have a patient presenting with acute eye pain, spotty vision, and nausea who I wanted you to take a look at." She guides Victoria into a room where a patient, middle-aged, frustrated, sits clutching an ice pack to his face.
"She's what ya had me waiting for?" he practically spits out, a loud Philadelphia accent grating in the small room. “Who the fuck is this, some immigrant child? I thought you were bringing a doctor to consult with?” he yells, exasperated. Victoria stands in the doorway, unsure.
“Doctor Javadi is a student doctor, Mr. Williams. One of the brightest in the emergency department.” She glances at Victoria, assuring. “I would like to consult with her because I trust her judgement.”
Victoria takes a step into the room, hesitant, but doesn't cower. “Mr. Williams, I’ve been told you're here because of pain in your eye as well as trouble seeing, is that correct?” She rubs sanitizer into her hands in a way that she hopes conveys conviction. He rolls his good eye. “Yeah. I think the ice pack probably gave that away.”
The tone stings, but Victoria doesn't react. She takes a patient history and makes sure to note ‘combative attitude’ in his chart before she braves her way to his side.
“Mr. Williams, can I ask you to remove the ice pack?”
He sighs, dropping his hand to his lap. Victoria inspects his eye with the ophthalmoscope Dr. McKay hands her. “General swelling as well as a swollen iris and irritation of the tear duct.” She glances at McKay. “Paired with pain and nausea… acute angle-closure glaucoma?”
McKay shrugs, but she's smiling, so Victoria knows she's right. “Is that your differential diagnosis, Doctor Javadi?” Victoria turns back to the patient, scanning his eye one more time with the ophthalmoscope, mostly because she’s rarely had the chance to look at anything interesting with one. “Wait,” she says. “Mr. Williams, you said you had spotty vision, correct?”
McKay sits up on her stool, watching Victoria intently.
“Yeah, spotty, like, uh, little spots. Dots of light floating around. I can't see through ‘em. But I have blurry vision sometimes anyway.”
Victoria puts the ophthalmoscope down. “Floaters, or myodesopsias, can be a symptom of diabetes-related retinopathy which can cause glaucoma if left untreated. Are- do you have a diagnosis of diabetes? I didn't see it in your chart. Blurred vision can also be a diabetic symptom.”
Mr. Williams clears his throat. “Uh, no. I mean I think they said I was prediabetic but that was years ago.”
“Your PCP told you this?” Dr. McKay chimes in.
“Yeah, well,” he waves a hand dismissively. “I'm out of network with that office, benefits issues, I don't know. I haven't gone to a doctor doctor in a few years.”
Victoria types somewhat frantically into his chart. “I’m sorry to hear you've had trouble with insurance, Mr. Williams. But it would be in your best interest to see an endocrinologist, if you've been formally diagnosed as prediabetic in the past. We have an on-call ophthalmologist who can see you today-” she briefly glances at McKay for reassurance, who nods in affirmation- “to relieve the immediate pressure in your eye, but retinopathy from diabetes can be a chronic issue, along with a lot of other problems if it goes unmanaged.”
Mr. Williams considers this, returning the ice pack to his eye. “You didn't catch that, Doctor McKay?”
She hesitates. “Uh, no, I didn't. But that's why we consult, right?” She smiles at both Victoria and Mr. Williams. “The ophthalmologist is with another patient upstairs, but he should be right down to see you. He’ll be able to figure out exactly what is causing the issue in order to fix it, but with Doctor Javadi’s observations, he should be able to help you make a long term plan for dealing with diabetes-related eye issues. We can also refer you to an endocrinologist. Good luck, alright?”
Outside the door, McKay grabs Victoria’s arm. “Great catch, Javadi. I mean, wow,” she mimics an explosion with her hands. “You were professional, thorough, and you caught something a senior resident didn't. I am very impressed!”
Javadi smiles, suddenly bashful under this kind of attention. “Well, I mean I just remembered a lot of the curriculum on eye disorders, I guess I lucked out on the patient.”
McKay scoffs. “You need to give yourself more credit.” She peeks around, presumably for an attending. “You know what, for that, you get to be let in on a secret. Follow me.” She half drags Victoria by the sleeve of her hoodie toward the break room.
“Only you, Mateo, and my son get to know about these.” She climbs onto the counter and roots through the top shelf of a cabinet, knocking a stack of cups into the sink. Finally, she pulls down a canister of ground coffee, brandishing it.
“Folgers..?”
McKay pops the lid, revealing an assortment of chocolates, candies, fruit snacks, and pieces of gum. “Some of these are from last Halloween, so eat at your own risk.” Victoria smiles, confusingly overwhelmed by this small act of kindness. She takes a Reese's peanut butter cup. McKay clicks her tongue at her. “Take at least three, you probably just gave that man fifteen more years to live.”
Victoria shakes her head, embarrassed, but she grabs a Dove chocolate and a pack of M&M’s. “Fifteen years, you really think?”
“Who knows.” She looks at Victoria from where she's leaning against the counter, ripping open an Almond Joy. “But what I do know is you caught something that changed that man’s life for the better. And he didn't thank you, so I am.”
Victoria bites her lip, on the verge of tears, staring down at her hands. “I didn't think it was that big of a deal, I just noticed.”
“Sure, it probably won't even be the most significant case you deal with today, but it won't go unnoticed. I hope you start taking the wins. You're incredibly intelligent, Victoria.”
She does tear up at that, and unable to hide it, turns away, pretending to fix her hair.
Unfortunately, McKay has the uncanny motherly ability to sense tears like an electromagnetic sensor. “Oh, honey, are you crying?”
Victoria shakes her head, but it's a pitiful attempt to mask the tears that drip down her face. “I didn't mean to make you cry-” McKay hesitates, “is it okay if I call you Victoria? It feels like we're on a first name basis at this point.” She laughs, distantly. “I mean I got arrested during your first shift.”
She laughs, half sniffling, and wipes her face. “Victoria is fine, yeah.”
“Then that means you can call me Cassie. If you want. Or stick with McKay like everyone else, that's fine, too.”
Cassie reaches in her pocket, pulling out a pack of tissues. “Here,” she offers Victoria. “Don't tell Harrison I let someone else have access to the candy and the Kleenex with the lotion.”
Victoria takes a tissue, wiping her eyes, and for a moment wants to cry again at how lucky Harrison must be. To be loved by someone like Cassie, unconditionally.
Cassie checks the clock above the door. “Shit, our fiesta must come to an end, amiga, we've already been in here for six minutes.” She clambers back onto the counter, shoving the canister into the top cabinet, and makes a run for it out the door. “More lives to save, Victoria!”
+++
The day wears down at her sliver of pride until, by three in the afternoon, Victoria is ready to visit Robby and Abbot’s infamous roof spot herself. At some point Cassie had been called to switch out with Mel on a case, which took the better half of the morning, and Victoria had been stuck with Santos. Better at keeping her nose out of trouble, and having developed an unlikely friendship with Whitaker, Victoria had actually found herself beginning to like Santos. But like all nice things, the Pitt seemed to find a way to rip that hopeful glimmer to shreds and spit it back in her face.
“Doctor Garcia wanted me to make the incision,” Santos says, following her out of the room, still-gloved hands gripping at her stethoscope.
“Well, you don't exactly have a great track record when it comes to scalpels, I’m just saying,” it's biting, and Victoria doesn't mean to snap, but she's upset and trying to hide it, which is not her strong suit.
“That was one time, Jesus! And if you weren't so uptight she wouldn't have had to take over. You couldn't even finish a lock-stitch suture. You choked!”
Victoria rolls her eyes, doing everything in her power to push down the lump in her throat. “Whatever. You can pick teams and be Garcia’s little sidekick, but I’m actually here to learn.” She turns the corner, tears threatening to sting her eyes for a second time today, when she spots a red ponytail. In disarray and looking worse for wear at this time of day, but a welcome sight nonetheless. “Doctor McKay!"
Cassie turns on her heels, catching Victoria’s eye from the end of the hall. She's still scrubbed in, a spattering of blood decorating her blue disposable scrubs. She sees Victoria’s eyes move down and seems to suddenly notice the blood as well. She starts pulling the soiled scrubs off as she approaches and Santos finally takes the hint that she's no longer needed to belabor the point, quietly retreating in the other direction.
“Big morning?” Victoria asks, turning to follow wherever Cassie is going. She blows her bangs out of her face as she walks, tossing her scrubs in the nearest bin. “MVA, four victims, two sent to OR. Subarachnoid hemorrhage and a spinal subdural hematoma.” She shakes her head, motioning for Victoria to turn. “Lost one and one probably won't make it.” Victoria realizes they're headed downstairs. “Are you free right now?” Cassie asks, clearly realizing she's stealing a set of hands from the ER for a second time today. “I mean I’m not stealing you away from a life saving procedure, or anything, right?”
Victoria shakes her head. “No, I’m totally free.” It’s technically true, she's not immediately needed on a case and was excused from the last one. “Long day.”
They wind up in the ambulance bay, at the side of the building away from the noise. “Dana comes here to smoke,” Cassie says, offhanded.
“You don't?”
She shakes her head. “Quit when my son was in elementary. Terrible habit. Plus I didn't want him to smell at school. It was bad enough with everything else, you know?”
Victoria nods even though she doesn't know. Cassie laughs, realizing this. She brushes her bangs out of her face and sits on the sidewalk, motioning for Victoria to sit next to her. “I guess you've probably never had a habit.”
Victoria shakes her head.
“Any vices at all?”
She thinks for a second. “Doomscrolling?”
Cassie laughs, louder, leaning back until she's practically lying down, resting on her elbows. “Oh, you really are the goody two shoes your mom thinks you are.”
Victoria lets out an unconvincing laugh, dropping her head between her shoulders.
“I'm sorry.” Cassie sits back up, straining on the way. “I'll stop bringing her up. It's just awkward, you know, because we're colleagues.”
She waits a beat, then says, “Man, it really must suck to work at the same hospital as your mom.”
Victoria groans. “God, it does.” She leans forward, bending her torso over her lap and turning to the side. “It really does, Cassie.”
She cringes immediately after she says it. “That was weird, right?”
Cassie shakes her head, but she's trying not to laugh. “No, no. Langdon calls me that, you can call me that.”
“It's awkward.”
“I don't want it to be.” She leans forward too, stretching the same way. “This hurts, you know.”
“I do yoga, I’m used to it,” Victoria says, stretching the tension out of her lower back. “I mean. It doesn't hurt me. Because of the yoga.”
Cassie nods, a smile playing at her lips. “Victoria who doesn't smoke, does yoga in her spare time, and whose worst habit is looking at her phone.”
Victoria stays in her stretched position, eyes trained on the cement. “Not my worst habit.”
“Oh?”
She sits up now, takes one deep breath, and decides, sure, Doctor McKay, her mentor, superior, and maybe-friend can know this. Equal exchange for candy access.
“I’m wearing a blue hoodie because it's Thursday.”
Cassie stares, trying to grasp how that information relates to the topic of bad habits.
“I tied my left shoe first and walked through the doors at an even digit on the clock, like I do every day.”
“Okay, those are compulsions, not bad habits. What are you getting at?”
Victoria pulls at the zipper of her Thursday hoodie. “I mean compulsions are habits. And I’m not supposed to do them, that's the whole thing.”
Cassie nods. “Hm. Does anyone else know this about you?”
Victoria lets out another awkward laugh. “At my parents’ place of employment? Absolutely not. No.”
“I'm the only one?”
Victoria nods.
“Okay. Wow. Thank you for telling me.”
“Give a secret, get a secret.”
“You want one of mine?” Cassie asks, turning to face her.
“No, um. The candy was your secret, right?”
Cassie just smiles. “I’ve got much better ones than that.”
“I’m sure I’ll find some out from the other residents. Use them as bargaining chips,” she jokes, biting back a grin.
Cassie mocks a gasp, nudging Victoria with her shoulder. “You know, there's a lot more to you than meets the eye.”
“Really?” Victoria asks, earnest.
Cassie nods. “Yeah.”
Victoria smiles at the ground.
+++
By five she realizes turning the day around is a hopeless endeavor. A liver failure case in a 26 year old patient that will most likely turn out to be fatal had really bummed her out, but the run in with her mother immediately after had been even worse. The advice McKay had given her earlier in the day still rings in her ears, to take the wins she gets, but it feels worthless by this point in her shift when the losses just keep piling up.
“You okay?” Mel asks as Victoria speed walks past her in a daze. “What? Oh, yeah,” she shakes her head. “Yeah, yeah. Just stressed.”
“I have a minute, can I get you something?” Mel asks. Mel, the saving grace of the ER. Victoria has always really liked her. Of course, if anyone would notice her struggling, it would be Mel, who wouldn't judge her for it.
“No, thank you, no. I'm good.” She hopes the frantic smile she gives is convincing, although it’s unlikely given the concerned expression it garners from Mel. “Well, I have a patient, so,” she gestures down the hall. “You should eat something if you haven't.”
Victoria nods gratefully. “Yep, thanks, Mel. I will.”
She should find her locker and eat the protein bar she packed this morning, yet she feels frozen in this hallway, stuck pacing down its length. She’s not avoiding her mother, who is in Room 15 consulting Doctor Collins. She just happens to be across the department, in a hallway out of view.
“Victoria?”
She turns toward the voice, and as if suddenly wrapped in a warm blanket, she’s soothed by just the sight of Cassie. “I was looking for you, I have a juice from the cafeteria, a couple bags of Cheez-Its, and some Jello cups, if you're interested.” She makes a show of displaying the pile of food in her arms.
Victoria smiles, relief flooding her body, and she feels momentarily untethered from the stress of the day. “Yes, God, thank you so much,” she practically beams.
Cassie lets out a small laugh, tilting her head. “You act like I just handed you two hundred dollars.”
“I was starving, I was just gonna sneak a sandwich when you showed up.” She rips open the bag of Cheez-Its. “I love these.”
Cassie smiles back, pleased. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
They tear through the snacks, not even bothering to leave the hallway. “Thank you, Cassie. Really.”
She nods. “I worry about you, you know.”
Victoria looks down into her bottle of orange juice. “You don't have to.”
“Not because I feel like I have to, I do it because I care. About you. I’ve seen students at your level who burn themselves out and I don't want that to be your fate.” She leans down to catch Victoria’s eyes. “Come to me if you want to talk, okay? Even just to decompress.”
Victoria smiles, squinting up at her. “Thanks. I- thank you. It means a lot. To me.”
Cassie nods, dismissing it. “I said I wouldn't bring her up again, but,” she gestures through the window of the room they're standing next to. “Is the fact that you're hiding out back here related to Doctor Shamsi consulting on a case with Collins over there?”
Victoria sighs, leaning back against the wall, cold and grounding. She feels like she's coming back to earth, the din of the hospital rushing into her ears. She can feel the waistband of her scrub pants, the strings tied a hair too tight. She's on the brink of a headache, only minorly staved off by the juice. “When I was in kindergarten I used to practically sob in the car on the way to school if my shoes weren't tied exactly the same way.”
She glances at Cassie, who's just watching her, expressionless. “I wouldn't get out of the car until my dad re-tied them. Sometimes it took three or four tries.” She stares at the wall in front of her. “It was this feeling of being out of control. Like, I can't control the world around me, so the things I can control have to be perfect. The shoelaces were just one small thing, but if they weren't right it was like-” she looks over at Cassie. “Like, if even one thing within my control is wrong, how could I ever do anything right?”
Cassie’s expression doesn't change. She looks like she's thinking of what to say.
“Being here really makes me feel out of control.”
Cassie lets out a hesitant laugh, agreeing.
“But I kinda think it's a good thing. I get to take risks. I get to take control of chaos. I think it's good for me.”
Cassie smiles. “I'm glad you see it like that.”
Victoria waits a moment. She’s teetering on the edge of saying too much. Somehow, though, she feels like that invisible boundary doesn't exist with Cassie.
“Being around you feels like I don't always need to be in control. Like, around my mom, I’m constantly terrified of making a mistake, but even if I don't, she’ll find fifteen things I should've done differently anyway. I spend my life holding my breath around her. But with you,” she turns, glancing at Cassie out of the corner of her eye, “it's like, I don't know. Like I don't have to.”
Cassie reaches out an arm and rubs her shoulder lightly, just a graze of her palm.
“Oh, I just got Cheez-It crumbs all over you.”
Victoria glances down, and it's true, an offending orange dust adorns her shoulder. She laughs, and then Cassie is laughing, out of breath, and Victoria is trying to wipe her hoodie off with a free hand, pouring juice directly onto her sneakers in the process. “God, we’re a mess,” Cassie is saying, the laughter in her voice like music to Victoria’s ears.
+++
By seven Victoria is, like at the end of most shifts, a zombified version of herself. But unlike most shifts, there's a small, warm sense of hope under the layers of exhaustion and sweat. Just a glimmer, a fleeting little feeling, but it gives her the push she needs to make it through the last few mindless minutes of charting. When she grabs her bag, poised to practically run out of the building, she finds herself stopping just before the door. “Santos?”
“Yeah,” she asks, fishing an AirPod out of her bag.
“Have you seen McKay?”
Santos ponders for a second. “Um, I think she was talking to Robby by the elevator.”
“Okay, thank you,” Victoria smiles. “And I’m sorry about this afternoon, by the way.”
“Huh?”
“I just mean- I was kinda mean and it was uncalled for. I’m sorry.”
Santos smiles, actually genuinely smiles at her, seemingly amused. “I’m sure whatever I said was worse, but thanks, Crash. I apologize, too.”
Victoria gives a salute that she immediately regrets, jogging away with a renewed burst of energy.
She finds Cassie in the elevator, the door about to shut, and manages to squeeze in at the last second. “Hi,” Cassie says, “haven't seen enough of me today?”
Victoria bites at her lip. “Do you ever hang out in the park after shifts? Like, with Mateo and the nurses?”
“Uh,” Cassie responds, head tilted curiously, “not usually, why?”
“Oh.” Victoria didn't account for that response. She'd only followed Mateo there a couple times, usually too bone-tired at the end of the day to make it anywhere but the train home. McKay was never there, but she thought maybe she'd just missed her. “Do you want to? Go somewhere? I mean, if you're free- I- unless, Harrison-”
“I’m free,” Cassie says, catching Victoria’s frantic eyes. “I don't have him until this weekend. I’d love to get a drink with you.” She pauses, “coffee, of course. Or matcha, or something.”
Victoria smiles, relieved that Cassie always seems to rescue her from her own short sighted trains of thought. “We could get ice cream?”
Cassie smiles, sweet and genuine, in a way Victoria rarely sees, and it makes her weirdly nervous.
“I’d love to get ice cream with you, Victoria.”
There's a McDonald’s down the road, but there's a frozen yogurt shop even closer, so they end up there instead, taking self-serve cups to go. The place mostly has novelty flavors, so Victoria ends up with a cup of pineapple coconut birthday cake yogurt. Cassie takes a more conventional route with a cup of cookie dough dulce de leche.
Victoria scrunches her face at her first spoonful as they meander down the road. “The pineapple is stronger than I thought.”
“Can I try it?” Cassie asks, and Victoria lets her take a heaping scoop right off the top. Cassie grimaces at the taste. “You're right,” she swallows, making a show of disgust that makes Victoria giggle.
“Give a spoon, get a spoon?” Cassie asks, offering her cup. Victoria digs her spoon in, taking a much smaller scoop. “Oh wow,” she says as the cookie dough yogurt melts on her tongue. “That's so good.”
“Right? Your loss with that horrible concoction you made,” Cassie says, shrugging. Victoria laughs. “It sounded good in my head.”
They end up circling the park anyway, far enough away that they're obscured by the bushes, unlikely to be noticed. From where they're walking Victoria can see Doctor Abbot and Perlah chatting. She nudges Cassie. “You don't hang out with them after work?”
Cassie licks a spoonful of yogurt. “God, no. I like to keep my life separate from work. At least as much as I can. But it's not always in my control, you know.” She nudges Victoria back.
“But you'll hang out with me?” Victoria adds, playful, attempting to mask her giddiness at being the exception.
“That's different,” Cassie whispers, “The truth is I don't wanna be around the attendings for a second longer than I have to.”
The sun is still setting, dark orange over the city. Cassie finishes her frozen yogurt and tosses the cup in the trash, letting her hair down and shaking it out.
Victoria scrapes at her paper cup, the exhaustion of a twelve hour day finally and abruptly hitting her like a head on collision. There's an ache in her ankle that's begging for her to get off her feet, a twinge in her back, too, but she’s so desperate to stay here, in this moment, that it all fades to the periphery when Cassie turns toward her, bag hoisted over one shoulder. Bathed in late afternoon sun, she spins toward the breeze and stretches. For a moment she is not a doctor, not burdened by a title nor the massive weight of responsibility that comes with it. Victoria just sees a woman, carefree, whose hair dances in the breeze.
“Cassie?”
“Hm?”
She would never ask this of another colleague, wouldn't dream of being this vulnerable elsewhere, but something about this place, this moment, lets her walls come down. “Do you really think I’ll make a good doctor? Do I belong here?”
Her voice wavers in hesitation. Cassie turns to her, this sympathetic expression on her face that changes her entire demeanor, and Victoria is momentarily afraid of the answer.
“Of course.” She turns to fully face Victoria and clasps her hands onto her shoulders. “Of course you do.”
The gesture is so stabilizing, almost tender, that it makes something in her chest feel weird in a way she hasn't felt in what could be a century but is more likely a decade. The last time she felt this constriction in her ribs, an unplaceable emotion tucked against her sternum, she was thirteen and it was a fifteen year old girl, coincidentally also a Victoria, who was, like her, so far ahead of her peers that she was cast out of her class and into the same strange world Victoria Javadi inhabited. All she had wanted was for this girl, this older Victoria, with vivid red hair that glowed under overhead lights, to notice her. She wanted to stand next to her in the academic spotlight, sure, but more than anything she wanted to be worthy of her attention, not a professor’s, not even the dean’s. It had set something alight in her that she'd forgotten until this moment, standing in a park at dusk staring at the way the sunset gleams golden and red off Cassie McKay’s hair, as if it were her illuminating the sky.
“I have no doubt that you'll make a fantastic doctor. An empathetic, kind, and extremely competent one, too,” Cassie continues, and the praise washes right over Victoria, covers her in a euphoric kind of relief, so potent she nearly tips forward directly into Cassie’s outstretched arms. She catches herself before that, aware, even in her bliss, of the need to maintain a semblance of professionalism. But her heart stirs between her ribs, something she thought she’d forgotten how to feel. “Okay, okay, I believe you,” she responds, light and easy.
Cassie doesn't let go, instead wraps her in a hug, pulling Victoria into her arms, and the feeling in her chest expands outward, spreading up and across her face. She breaks into a smile, melting into the embrace. Cassie says into her hair, “You're amazing, Victoria.” The words evaporate into the night air, but not before she commits the sound of them to memory, the lilt in Cassie’s voice locked away in that small space in the thoracic cavity right next to her heart.
+++
Victoria Javadi does not always make the right choices. This afternoon she missed a stitch and almost dropped a hemostat into a guy's abdominal cavity. She doesn't always make good impressions on people. This morning she made a comment about grabbing life with both hands to a girl in a sling. She doesn't know how to play the game. The cards she's dealt can't always be anticipated. She is caught off guard, frequently- by her patients, her superiors, her feelings. She is rarely ahead of the curve anymore, but she does her best to stay on the right track. Victoria Javadi excels because she tries her best, she aims for perfection, and sometimes she does fall short. Her adaptability is her strength. Doctor Cassie McKay has always seen that in her, and finally, so does she.