Page 129 of The Love Operation

Then I run.

I make it to the professor, start the test late in another room, and finish before anyone else.

This was the moment I should’ve remembered when everything fell apart. But I let it fade. I let it get buried under questions and pain and time. I forgot how much he loved me.

Quiet tears stream down my present-day face, like the rain on that day in the memory. It takes me several moments before I’m able to move on.

The end:

Benedict stands by my bedroom window, his back to me, hands deep in his pockets. We’re in my childhood room—still technically mine—at my parents’ house. I like bringing him here. It makes everything feel seamless—past, present, future, all in one place.

“What if I told you I didn’t want to be a doctor?” Benedict asks, his voice low and testing.

I can’t see his face. Lately, it feels like he’s always looking out a window.

It’s time to start applying to med schools. The next big step. I know Benedict’s been anxious, but I’ve been doing everything I can to reassure him, to steady him when his doubts start to spiral.

“I’d tell you it’s been a long day, and no one should make a complex life decision in one day, especially an emotional one,” I say gently. “And then I’d remind you that you’re one of the smartest, most capable people I know. You’d be an incredible doctor. You will be. It’s where you belong. Where we do.”

He turns around, his hands flying out of his pockets, suddenly animated. “But do you ever doubt it?” he asks. “Like—really doubt it?”

“Of course,” I say. “Everyone does. You just . . . work through it.”

He nods, but I can see it—he’s wrestling something bigger. I’m determined to help him out of it. That’s what we do. We carry each other.

“Benedict, you are—”

“You’ve always wanted this,” he says, cutting me off. “To be a doctor. You’ve always been so sure.”

“I have,” I admit.

He nods slowly. “And I see it in you—your passion, your purpose. You want to change the world. You want us to change the world. I just . . . I don’t know if I want it in the same way.”

His words land like a rock in my chest. But I don’t flinch. Not yet. If he’s feeling lost, then maybe it’s time I let him see what anchors me.

I pat the bed beside me. He hesitates, then sits.

“My great-grandmother was one of the first Black women to become a doctor in her state. She worked twenty-four-hour shifts on top of med school. No one took her seriously. Not as a woman. Not as a Black woman. But she kept going, because she saw the injustice—her people dying of preventable diseases, her community overlooked. She fought to be the change.”

This part isn’t a secret, but it’s not something I shout from the rooftops. When you start talking about injustice, some people roll their eyes and look at you differently, even when they don’t mean to.

“My grandmother followed in her footsteps. She made it to medical school, one of five women in a class of over a hundred—and the only Black woman. All the women were dismissed, treated like ornaments.”

I pause to gauge his response. He’s listening.

“Go on,” he says.

And so I do. “The best cases and internships were always reserved for the males. And in their weekly guest lectures, where a prominent doctor would present a difficult case and ask for diagnoses and treatment plans, the women were never called on. So they formed their own study group. They taught themselves what the institution refused to. Then one day, finally, they were called on. The doctor thought he’d humiliate them.”

I smile, even as my chest aches.

“But they nailed it. My grandmother gave the final diagnosis. The doctor turned red and said, ‘You must think you’re going to be a pretty good doctor.’ And she looked him in the eye and said, ‘No, sir. I know I’ll be a great one.’”

Pride rises in me. I’m proud to come from that kind of determination.

“Despite everything, she made it happen.”

Benedict takes my hand. Tears are in his eyes.