Christina

Christina walked into the lecture hall with a stash of books in hand. Two empty wide-ruled ring notebook, a pencil case bursting with writing utensils, and a stack of texts made up the med student's pile. She was prepared, she was on track, she was ready for class. She took her usual seat, in the front row in front of the board and tied her jet black curls into a tight ponytail. The other members of the class shuffled in slowly and took to their recluses near the back of the room. Christina scowls at the men who laugh at her as they climb up the stairs.

"Oh no!," she whined sarcastically at one of the taunting boys, "you're gonna make little miss girl surgeon cry."

She gave them the finger and then pouted her lower lip as dramatically as she could. She turned to the front again as the professor walked in. Dr. Marlowe surveyed the room as he shuffled the papers in front of him. There was a gap of two rows between the class and Christina, he raised an eyebrow at the fervent student to which she stared blankly back at.

"Right then, last week we were discussing trauma to the abdomen and the liver. Can anyone tell me the steps taken to opening the abdomen?"

Christina's hand shot up before the question was finished. Marlowe nodded his head towards Yang and the class let out a collective groan. The professor was quick to scold.

"It's called manner class and until you learn some you won't see the inside of an OR until they're wheeling you in for your own surgeries. If it weren't for the standard Miss Yang set, half of you wouldn't even bother to show up."

Feeling liberated from her peers catty remarks Christina proceeded to answer with her textbook perfection.

"Perfect as usual, Yang."

"I know, sir, I mean thank you."

¨ · · ¨

It was going to be another gloomy day. It always seemed to be a gloomy day after she stayed at Marlowe's but she couldn't blame Mother Nature for her affairs. Marlowe lie half in half out of the bed. She threw the duvet back over his sleeping body as she got out and pulled on last night's clothes. Christina never left stuff at his apartment, never. As she made her way to bathroom to quickly wash her face she tripped over a lone shoe. The thud jolted Colin from his light sleep.

"Going already?" he asked, his voice still groggy.

"Yeah, I've got essays."

Dr. Marlowe got up and pulled on his boxers he walked over to Christina and gave her a deep kiss. Trying to keep it brief, she pulled away and said,

"Morning breath."

Colin looked slightly embarrassed pulled away even further and cleared his throat.

"I actually meant to show you some papers I got from a friend at Hopkins the other day."

Leaving Christina to wonder over the 'Hopkins package' Marlowe walked into the kitchen a shuffled through some papers. He brought back in a manila envelope, it looked official. Christina, smart enough to know that every year Marlowe picked someone from the class to go on a work experience to Hopkins Research Institute. Christina was also knew that Hopkins was the number one research lab in the world, when the world came upon the cure for cancer someone from Hopkins would be the one to find it.

Christina sat down on the mahogany chair opposite the bed where Marlowe was now perched. He opened the file slowly, licking his thumb and pointer before flicking through the pages. He went through each one slowly, trying to keep a straight face on.

Christina caught on quickly.

"Not funny! What does it say?"

Fine, fine, fine. My friend Dr. Daniel Silo asked me to recommend a student to send a student to come for work experience. This I thought was perfectly normal, but another note was attached with a form as thick as my thumb."

He held up the thick green wad of papers.

"He also asked me to recommend a student who would, after graduation, come to the Institute and begin work there. I recommended you and he has agreed you would be the perfect candidate for the position."

Christina was ready to laugh and cry. Hopkins wanted her. Hopkins was a research institute, they wanted to find new medicines to cure AIDS and cancer, not surgeries. She would have to go into internal medicine the wimps answer to a doctor.

"Well, what do you think? Oh and forgot to say, they're starting you off on a managerial position. That's a six-figure salary."

"Oh."

Something a surgeon had to be good at was making decisions quickly. If you didn't people died. Christina looked down at her feet for a moment.

"That's wonderful, Colin. I'm honoured, of course I'll go."

The last decision she would make as a surgeon.