lunch,” I said by greeting.
“Sounds healthy.” She was not concerned about me. She was only half-listening, which was good for Katy. She never did just one thing at a time. Unless she had a scalpel in her hand. Then she was all there. But the rest of the time? Her brain was focusing on the number of germs on the surfaces around her, why they hadn’t invented a sleep replacement, or how she was going to get chief of surgery. Minor emotional breakdowns and writer’s block didn’t really make it on her radar.
“I can’t write anything,” I said, staring at the laptop and trying not to let the blank page stare at me. Which, of course, was impossible. It stared at me in my fucking dreams.
“And this is a surprise?” Katy asked, her voice not warm, concerned, but not impatient either. She was giving me more attention now. For someone who only read medical textbooks, articles on the latest pandemics awaiting civilization, and whatever medical journals cited new studies on productivity, she still gave me respect for my craft. She didn’t understand creativity. No logic to it. But she respected mine.
“Well, yes,” I said. “I’m away from all distractions, I’ve—”
“Run away from all your problems?” she finished for me.
I scowled out the window. The lake was calm. Sky was blue, which was a trick since it was chilly as all Heaven out there. I’d tried stepping out with my morning glass of wine, wearing underwear and nothing else, and quickly scampered back indoors. I did like the cold, normally. But my nerves were too exposed right now.
“Jesus, Katy,” I muttered. Again, normally such an unfeeling cold response would’ve been as welcome as a chilly morning, but my skin was paper thin right now.
“What did you expect me to say?” Katy asked, her attention waning back to halfway. And now, a little impatient. “Join in on your pity party or lie to you to make you feel better about yourself? No, that’s not my style and that’s not what you need.”
“What do I need then, Dr. Sanders?” I asked her with a bite to my voice.
Yes, my best—read, only—friend was a doctor. No, not just a doctor. But a fricking neurosurgeon. So, she repaired people’s brains on the daily and I fucked them up even more.
The thing about surgeons is while their wit might be as sharp as the scalpel they cut into flesh with, they are blunt in every other area of their life. Katy did not have time to care for people’s feelings. She couldn’t. As someone who dealt with death, illness, and trauma every day, she couldn’t care about the people she treated. Well, she did, she wasn’t a psychopath—I didn’t think—but she couldn’t invest in them. Their families. Because she was already trying to focus on cutting into their skull without damaging their brain, trying to diagnose shit, deal with hospital politics, insurance problems, all of this done on roughly three hours of sleep on average. There simply wasn’t room, even in a brain surgeon’s brain, for care.
Which was why we were friends.
We weren’t bullshit Sex and the City toxicity and blathering on about how being single was ruining our lives. We were focusing on important things. She was the much more serious, slightly more well-adjusted, version of myself. And she was smart enough to cut into someone’s brain and not kill them.
“You need to get over yourself,” Katy said into the phone.
“That’s not new information.” I sighed.
“Yes, but you have no distractions now. You went there to finish a book, right?”
Start a book, technically. I may have fudged to her and everyone else—most importantly, my agent—that it was halfway done.
“Right.”
“And it’s not coming to you,” she continued.
I nodded.
“I can’t hear you say anything but I’m taking an educated guess and saying that you’re nodding,” she said. “So, you’re sitting around, eating food that does nothing for your brain, drinking before noon and not washing your hair.”
“Right on all counts,” I replied.
She sighed. I knew I was getting close to losing her. “So, I’m going to go back to my earlier statement. Get over yourself. Go on a hike. Learn how to compost. Tend to the garden I’m guessing you’re letting wither and die right now.”
“I like things withered and dead,” I countered.
“Well, it’s either gonna be the flowers or your career. You pick.”
I pouted because she was right.
“I’m not going to delve into the reasons why you’re blocked right now because I repair brains with my