The Game. They say a person either has what it takes to play, or they don't. My mother was one of the greats. Me on the other hand... I'm kinda screwed. I can't think of any one reason why I'd want to be a surgeon. But I can think of a thousand reasons why I should quit. They make it hard on purpose. There are lives in our hands. There comes a moment when it's more than just a game. And you either take that step forward or turn around and walk away. I could quit, but here's the thing... I love the playing field

"Daddy!" a shrill cry woke me from my deep sleep. My head was pounding from a nasty hang over and my stomach was doing cartwheels. I opened my eyes and saw the clock on the night stand and I shot up.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" I exclaimed shooting up, realizing I was extremely late. It was my first day as an intern at the hospital and I still had to get dressed and get Asher to daycare which meant I was going to be extremely late but all these thoughts escaped my head when I noticed an arm wrapped around my waist.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed again realizing the guy I hooked up with last night was still here. I the hell didn't I kick him out as soon as he came? My first hook up as a single guy and I messed up! I whacked him on the arm and got up. He groaned, rolled over and smiled when he saw me. The sheet slipped off his body and exposed his nakedness.

"Hey," he said groggily, seriously a guy's morning voice is the hottest thing. He reached for me in hopes of a morning repeat of last night.

"You need to go," I told him pulling away. I started scurrying around picking up his clothes and threw them at him. He smiled at him, his green eyes sparkling.

"Why?" he asked getting up and wrapped his arms around my waist, "how about a morning tumble?"

"No," I said pulling away from him again, "there are two big big BIG reasons why you need to go. One is I am going to be late for work and on the first day."

"Daddy!" Asher cried again. The blonde guy looked surprised and raised his eyebrows as he put on his boxers.

"And there is the second reason. He can't see you in here," I said throwing his shirt at him in hopes of speeding him up.

"When can I see you again?" he asked.

"Never," I said and he just smiled, "last night was a onetime thing. A celebration of sorts."

"For the new job?"

"No," I said and even though it was none of his damn business decided to tell him, "Yesterday my divorce was finalized and it was my first night as a single guy again. Now go! I need to get showered."

"Oh come on," he said, "I know you like me and I'm good with kids." Was he trying to sell himself to me? Oh my god.

"No," I said again pushing out of my room and down the hall, "Now go!" and then yelled to my son, "Be there in five minutes! Get dressed and be ready to go!"

"This is a nice house," the blonde said again dragging his feet.

"It was my moms," I said showing him with my hands.

"Oh I'm sorry," he said looking sad and I actually believed it and corrected my mistake.

"Oh she isn't dead. She's just… gone," I said trying not to think about it, " Now listen I am going to go back upstairs to get in the shower and get my son ready and when I come back down you won't be here," and with one final shove he left. I ran to the shower and quickly washed myself and got dressed. I put on a little eyeliner and blush and just a touch of lip gloss. Being a former model I put on makeup as a routine.

I found Asher in the kitchen and gave him kissing him on the head. He had dressed himself in jeans and a dark blue shirt with a train on it. His hair was brown and cut short, being spiked up just like his father wears his. God he was the spitting image of his father. I guess that was why he referred to Asher as his "Minnie Me."

"Morning bud," I said ruffling his hair before grabbing a bag of Pop Tarts. He would have to eat them cold which I knew he wouldn't like. He frowned when I handed them to him.

"I don't want Pop Tarts," he whined "I want cereal."

"Sorry bud but we're late," I said lighting a cigarette. It was weird I thought to myself as I tied my shoes in a cloud of smoke. The dirty dinner dishes were soaking, the house was still a mess, most of the stuff still in boxes, and I couldn't love my ex less or hate him anymore. I still felt the same as I did yesterday, before I got divorced.

Shaking my head I pushed those thoughts out of my head and ushered Asher to the garage and got in my mom's old Lexus. The house was nice, a mansion in Beverly Hills actually, but it was too much for me to keep by myself even with my mom's money. Brooke Diamond was the world greatest plastic surgeon and earned her fortune her in L.A. before starting her own cosmetic line. My mom has always been a sore subject with me and I tried not to talk about her too much.

Forty minutes later we got to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. I ran to the daycare, dragging Asher behind me, dropped him off with a kiss goodbye and found the other interns. I quietly approached them so no one would notice how late I actually was but luckily the Chief of Surgery was still doing his greeting. Dr. Griffin was a tall older man with white hair and was wore a dark business suit under his white lab coat. I remember him telling me once that it was important look the part, especially in this town.

We followed him to an OR and we all looked around in ah. Looking around I barely heard him say, "A month ago, you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play? That's up to you. Look around at the others in this room people, they are your competition." I'm so screwed I thought. We were shown to a locker room where we all immediately chose a locker and quickly changed into our scrubs.

"Can you believe this?" said the guy next to me. He was shorter than me and had short brown spiky hair. He looked around at everyone in disgust. "They're all idiots. You can tell just by looking at them. I even heard someone here was a model. What did she get bored smiling in her underwear and wake up one day and thought "hey I'm gonna be a doctor!"?" I cringed at his words and blushed slightly.

"Umm actually she is a he and he is me," I said barely able to make myself look at him. He looked me over once and shrugged.

"Sorry," he apologized putting on his lab coat, "I'm Logan."

"James," I said shaking his outstretched hand, "Who is your resident?"

"The Nazi," he groaned, "Hopefully he lives up to his name and actually teaches me something."

"I have him too," I said.

"You guys have the Nazi?" came an excited voice from behind us. We turned to find a Latino guy looking all excited. Logan and I exchanged a look and in that moment I knew I had made a new friend. "At least we will be tortured together!" The Latino and I followed Logan out the locker room. He stopped briefly and asked which one was Doctor Wainwright. The man pointed down the hall to a pretty black woman at the nurses' station.

"That's the Nazi?" Logan asked in disbelief as we walked towards her.

"Maybe it's just professional jealousy," said the Latino hopefully, "Maybe she is brilliant and really nice."

"You're just a big ball of sunshine aren't you?" Logan asked sarcastically earning a glare from the boy. We reached the station, a girl joining our group in the process. The Latino had a bounce in his step and extended his hand to the Nazi.

"Hi I'm Carlos Garcia!" Carlos greeted. The Nazi just looked him over like "what the fuck" and then ignored him.

"I have five rules. Number one is don't bother sucking up. I already hate all of you and that's not gonna change. Here are protocol books, phone numbers, and pagers. If you get a page you answer it." At this time she checked hers while we all grabbed ours, "Number two run!" we quickly followed her around the hospital and listened to her go on, "you are interns, nobodies. You run labs, fill out charts, and write orders. Don't think you're somebody because you are not." She opened a door and showed us a room with bunk beds, "On Call Room, Attending's hog the beds. Sleep where you can when you can. Which brings me to rule number three. If I am sleeping don't wake me unless the patient is dying. Rule number four is the patient better not be dead when I get there or else you'd have woken me for no good reason. Any questions."

I slowly raised my hand and said, "Five. You said there were five rules." She checked her pager that had just gone off.

"Rule 5 when I move you move!" she ran passed us and we followed her up to the helicopter bad where a young girl was being unloaded. They told us she collapsed do to seizure at an addition. We wheeled her inside and Wainwright started barking orders at us which we obediently followed. Finally we got the girl to stop seizing and a beautiful doctor came in.

"Everyone this is Doctor Phoebe Nachee Head of Cardiothoracic Surgery here," Wainwright introduced her. She was drop dead gorgeous and I noticed Logan was staring at her, mouth agape and blushing. I coughed to get his attention which it did and he started fiddling with the tools on the tray pretending he was doing something. Dr. Nachee ordered a full work up for the patient.

"All right people," Wainwright said, "Diamond get the girl for a CT. Mitchell do a patient work up on her. Vega you're in charge of labs." She turned to leave when Carlos spoke up.

"What about me? Dr. Wainwright… ma'am," she looked at him and smiled.

"Rectal exams," she said and walked out of the room. We all went about our exams. I took the now awake girl down to CT and I… kinda… sorta… got lost on the way and believe me she wouldn't let me live it down. While she was in the CT I snuck out and went outside to light up a cigarette. I know it was bad for my health but it was a good stress reliever. There were another doctor and some nurses outside. I was about half way down with my cigarette when it was suddenly snatched from me. I whipped around just in time to see my ex snubbing it out, grinning his douche bag grin at me.

"My god what do you want?" I asked, extremely irritated. I know applying for an internship where my ex was Head of Plastics was not the wisest thing but this was the hospital I grew up in, it's where my mom worked, and it was one of the best teaching programs in the country.

"Gee James I just wanted to see how your first shift was going," he said putting his hand over his heart pretending to be hurt.

"First off its Doctor Diamond and Doctor Stetson and second don't check up on me. Ever."

"So it's Diamond again huh? Didn't know you were changing your name back," he actually looked puzzled.

"Well my mom was THE BEST and the name Diamond is respected. Plus I don't want anyone knowing were married or have any connections at all," I said walking back inside with him following me.

"James we were married for seven years and we have a son together. You can't pretend it never happened." We reached the elevators and once inside I pushed the floor I needed and I groaned when I realized he was going to just follow me.

"Look," I said hoping to make him understand, "Yeah we were married. WERE. And we had some good time but that part of our lives is over. Besides I don't want to be your ex here or my mom's son. I want to make this on my own without people judging me and expecting me to be as good as your two. Can you just respect that? Please?"

"Yeah I suppose," he sighed when the doors opened and I stepped out.

"Oh," I turned around, "don't forget to pick Asher up before you leave."

"I won't," he grinned and the doors closed. When I got back the CT's were done and it showed nothing. I gathered them and the girl up, returned her to her room and went to find Wainwright. When I found her I filled her in on the CT and asked if I should report to Doctor Nachee.

"No," she said, "He's off the case. Take these to the new Head of Neurosurgery. Doctor Knight, he is right over there." I looked over to where she was pointing and was met by tall, blonde, and eyebrows. The guy from last night was my boss? Could my life seriously get any worse?