No, there was no more room in my life for distractions. I had found out the hard way what happens when I lose sight of what’s important. As amazing as that night was with Chad and Ted, it was too much for one person to have. I flew too close to the sun and was consequently burned.
I would start over, and I would be okay. There was no other option for me at this point. I would move to a new hospital, make new friends, and date well-behaved boys who wouldn’t dare get me into any trouble. Life would be a little less exciting, but it felt like a good payoff for all of the problems I’d made for myself here.
As I sent out job applications all around the country, I made a promise to myself to limit all distractions. I was
a doctor first, and anything else in life was just superfluous.
Chapter Seventeen
Chad
Ted showed up at my place with a six-pack around eight o’clock the night that Whitney resigned from the hospital. He looked terrible, like someone had kicked him in the gut. I had a feeling I knew what was going on.
“Are some of those for me?” I asked, pointing at the beers. He nodded and handed me one.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” I asked after he nestled himself among the blankets on my couch.
“I went to Whitney’s house and talked to her.”
I quickly sat down next to him, ready to hear every little detail of their encounter. I wanted to hear that she had feelings for me, the kind that makes it hard to settle down with anyone else.
“Tell me everything.”
“First, I apologized for what happened. I think she believes that I wasn’t in on the plan. She seemed to think that it was some sort of conspiracy between us.”
“Seriously?” I felt guilty. I would never have intentionally done anything to upset her. I just got so caught up in the moment and I couldn’t help myself. I just wanted to make the moment last forever.
“Yeah, but I think I convinced her that it was just your stupid, drunken idea.”
“Okay, good. So is she still mad at us?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s really the problem. I mean, that’s not really why I wanted to talk to her.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling slightly uncomfortable. I could tell that Ted really liked her, and I certainly wasn’t making things easier for him.
“Yeah,” he said, cracking open another beer. “I couldn’t stand not knowing what I meant to her, so I gave her an ultimatum of sorts.”
“You did?” I winced.
“I simply asked her to consider choosing me over you,” he said hesitantly. We both struggled to look the other in the eyes. “It’s nothing personal, but I love her, man. I didn’t want to continue on, never knowing if she felt the same way. You get that, don’t you?”
I nodded. In fact, if things progressed any further, I probably would have had the same conversation with her at some point. It was just a strange situation to be in in the first place.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how in love with Whitney I was. I desperately wanted to be with her. On the other hand, I had a brotherly love for Ted that made it nearly impossible to go behind his back to try to win Whitney over. I was stuck in the middle.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Ted continued. “She doesn’t want either of us.”
My heart stopped. “What do you mean?”
“She said she had feelings for both of us. But, she said it wasn’t fair to any of us to choose just one of us to be with. So, her compromise was to choose neither of us.”
“Seriously?” I groaned. I knew that if she chose one of us, the other would be miserable, but wouldn’t that be better than having all three of us be miserable?
“This sucks, man. I really love her.”
“I know,” I replied. “I think I love her too.”
“How did we get into this mess?”
I let out a strangled chuckle. “I have no idea. Beautiful women do crazy things to us. At least we had that night in the hotel room, right?”
“The eye of the storm,” he replied. “By the way, do you still have those videos?”
I shook my head. “Unfortunately, no. I thought it was best to get rid of all the evidence. Besides, I don’t know if it would be as enjoyable now.”
He smiled. “Probably not. It’s all for the best, though. I think it will be a long time before I forget that night.”
We sat in silence for a while. I wondered if he was replaying the infamous night in his head, too. I couldn’t get the memory of how soft her skin was, the smell of her sweet perfume, or the way her lips parted into a smile every time I touched her. She was absolutely enchanting and incredible in every way.
“So what do we do now?” I asked Ted. “We were both rejected by the girl of our dreams and there’s no going back.”
“I guess we just drink and try to move on,” he answered.
I tapped the neck of his bottle with mine, but I knew that neither of us believed what he said. We would both still pine after Whitney until enough time passed where we couldn’t remember our time together. It was like a bad breakup for a relationship that never was.