My blood ran cold.

"Sir, I appreciate the gesture-"

"No need to thank me," he smiled again. "The pleasure is all mine. After all, what kind of teacher would I be if I let my best student slip by without ever having the honor of performing a cadaver dissection?"

I stared at his name plaque because I was too enraged to endure his fake smile any longer.

"Something the matter?" He asked.

"No, Sir." I almost made it. I almost was able to turn on my heel and keep my damn mouth shut, but the tether around my ribs wanted to face him. It demanded to know where it's other half was. "Actually, yeah. Something is very much the matter, Dr. Brighton."

His eyes darkened. "Oh?"

"Oh," I nodded.

"Pray tell, Mr. Trovatto."

"Where is Everly? Why aren't we doing a differential today?"

Still acting too pleasant, he replied, "In spirit of the differential, I cannot comment on the patient, because that would be doing too much work for my students."

My heart thumped painfully. "She's sick?"

"Go to your class, Callum."

My anger flared. "Can you be human for a single moment? I only want to know if she's all right."

"I'm here," he said, "entertaining a classroom of flunkies, aren't I? If my . . . If Everly was in danger, do you think I'd be here with the likes of you, instead of attending to her?"

"So who is attending to her?" I begged.

"I told you to go to class." He pushed away from his desk and addressed the room as if nothing was wrong.

With twelve minutes to spare until Dr.Woodruff's class began, I ran myself to the Pediatric wing, and found Truscott's room.

"I saw her this morning," he told me. "She was here for tests."

"What kind of tests?"

"I'm not sure. She never talks to me about that stuff, but her dad found her in here and said, "It's time for your test." So that's how I know why she was here."

"Did she say anything about being in trouble?"

He looked up from his poorly-eaten bowl of oatmeal. "Why would she be in trouble?" He smiled then. "I mean, other than the obvious. She's always getting into some kind of trouble. That's why I love her so much. She won't lie down and just accept her fate."

I felt horrible about what came out of my mouth next, but it was the truth. "Everly was with me this weekend for the Fourth of July. I wasn't sure if she got in trouble about something we might have done."

He looked down to his bowl. "What did you do?"

"She burned her hand."

His head shook. "She can't get in trouble for that. She can't help it."

"I know," I said, "but maybe Dr. Brighton doesn't want her around me, since I didn't keep her safe."

Truscott pushed his tray away suddenly. "I think I'm gonna be sick. Sorry."

I grabbed the trashcan and held it under his chin as he vomited oatmeal. His mother walked in with an armful of books and other things he must have requested. They went sailing to the floor as she raced to his aid. Then the nurses came. And I was on the outs.

It was almost 6 A.M. by the time I got home and nevermore certain I was to blame for the canceling of the differential. On top of being assigned cadaver dissection, every E.R. chart issued to me on my rotation was Worst Case Scenario. I got all the GOMERs (Get Out of My Emergency Room), LOL's (Little Old Ladies), and pukey kids or kids with the runs. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I was given every chart that had to do with alarming things coming out of asses, or my finger needing to go up someone's ass.

Meanwhile, imbeciles like Logan were given charts about sore throats or achy backs. He charmed the nurses into doing most of that work, as simple as it was. I actually caught him around midnight in the lounge kicked back sipping a hot cup of coffee, while I had vomit dried on my shoes and Vick's Vapo lubed in my nostrils just to tolerate the multitude of bodily fluids I was being tortured with.