Page 119 of A Really Bad Idea

And I made my decision. It was time to come home. I spent the next six months applying for positions in Manhattan, and the stars aligned for me, placing me in the hospital next to my father’s office. Her office. I didn’t have to see patients at Park Avenue Cardiology. The fact that my two favorite people were there made it an easy decision.

It was okay that Meadow didn’t love me. Watching her heal the wounds given to her by another man was horrible to watch. She might not be mine, but I’ve always taken my father’s advice. She needed a friend, and I’ve tried to be the best she deserved.

When she gets lost in her thoughts, I’m there to help her work through her problems.

When she needs a confidence boost, I tell her how desirable she is.

When she wants to become a mother, I am the first in line to be the father of her child.

Was it selfish on my part to make the offer? Yes. I did it with the best of intentions for her and for myself. To have a child I always wanted but just didn’t think it would happen for me in the next decade? I was all in. To make love to the woman I had wanted for half my life? Damn, it was the best night of my life.

Then, she reminded me we were still friends. That was like a knife to the chest. I told her that night to let me know if I was breaking her heart. I was talking to myself. Once I had her, I knew there would be no accolade, no amount of success in the world that would triumph over being with Meadow.

I was in love with her. Body and soul.

The last few weeks have been the best and worst.

I wanted to have a baby with her. Being a father had me excited for the first time in years. Still, I almost dreaded the day she’d say she was pregnant because I wouldn’t be able to pretend she was mine anymore.

Then, she told me she loved me.

And I told her we couldn’t be friends anymore.

“Well, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” my father says when I come to him with the story.

Meadow just ran out of here, and like the good friend I am, I let her run off.

And, yes, instead of going after her, I walked right into my father’s office at Park Avenue Cardiology to tell him this whole tale.

“She tells you she wants forever, and you tell her you can’t be friends?” He looks exasperated as he sits at his desk and taps his pen. “Am I missing something?”

“Nope.” I pull the ends of my hair and look out the window.

My father leans with an elbow bent on the armrest and massages his chin, looking at me in contemplative thought. “You’re a brilliant man. Got a fifteen forty on your SATs. Top of your class in med school and performing breakthrough heart procedures that only a handful of people in the world have the intelligence to master. You’re also the dumbest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”

I look back at him with profound shock. “What?”

“You heard me. You’re thick in the head for standing here right now when you should be chasing after that girl and begging her to be your wife.”

He’s right. I know he’s right, except he’s greatly wrong.

“She wants it all, Dad. She wants lasagna.”

“What does lasagna have to do with anything?”

“Everything.” I look out the window at the setting sun that leaves a shadow over the street. Leaning back on my heels, I fiddle with the coins in my pocket. “What if I hurt her because I can’t provide the life she deserves? What I did for Gail, it was a miracle. The possibilities that are now open to future patients, the technology that we can use to heal people … it’ll be my life, more so than it already is now. I have papers to write and boards to communicate with. I am one of three people in the world who have done this surgery, and I even found a new pathway to do it. This is what I’ve studied for. My plan, the dream of being director by forty, is on track and even better than before.”

“You’re going to choose a heart over love?”

“It’s not like she gave me much of a choice. She changed our plan, told me she couldn’t have a baby with me.”

“Because she loves you,” he reminds me.

I drop my shoulders. “She doesn’t want the life I planned out.”

He sits there a moment, his back leaning into his chair, making it creak as he thinks. “Did she ask you to give up your work?”

“She’d never,” I answer easily.