What We Couldn't Save

Aaron

We finally made it.

After years of medical school, residency, endless nights at the hospital, and more sacrifices than I could count, I'd landed my dream position as Lead Attending in General Surgery at Grace Baptist Medical Center, one of Atlanta's premier Level I trauma centers.

And somehow, the best part wasn't the title.

Adeline and I were moving to Atlanta, and for the first time in two and a half years, I'd be working alongside my best friend again.

Evan Coleman and I met in high school and became fast friends. Baseball started it, but surgery cemented it. Even as teenagers, we both knew exactly what we wanted to do with our lives.

Senior year, we applied to the University of South Carolina and both got in. Four years later, after applying to medical schools across the country, somehow we both landed at the Medical University of South Carolina.

That's when the jokes about us being a package deal started.

Then Match Day came.

When we both matched into general surgery residencies at MUSC, even we had to admit it felt like more than coincidence. Our professors and mentors certainly thought so.

Kingsley and Coleman. Coleman and Kingsley.

If you found one of us in the hospital, the other usually wasn't far away.

Our friendship pushed us. We were competitive enough to make each other better but close enough that neither of us ever wanted the other to fail. When one of us struggled, the other picked up the slack. When one succeeded, it felt like we'd both won.

But Evan wasn't the only person who changed my life at USC.

There was Adeline.

She was an engineering student who landed in the same freshman chemistry class as Evan and me. None of us knew when we walked into that classroom that the three of us would still be intertwined all these years later.

I started dating Adeline freshman year, and somewhere between chemistry exams, late-night study sessions, medical school applications, and residency, she became the center of my life.

Adeline never doubted me.

Not once.

She had this quiet, stubborn faith that I would become the surgeon I'd always said I wanted to be—even during the years when I wasn't nearly as convinced.

When I got the call from Grace Baptist, I expected her to cry.

Instead, she smiled at me.

"I bet on you when you were nothing," she said. "And I won."

I'd never loved her more.

The last two and a half years had been different without Evan. He'd left MUSC to chase his dream of trauma surgery at Grace Baptist, quickly building a reputation as one of the best young trauma surgeons in Georgia. I'd stayed behind, building my career in general surgery and waiting for the right opportunity.

Now, at thirty-four, we'd somehow ended up exactly where those two teenage boys with baseball gloves and impossible dreams always said we'd be.

Surgeons.

Good ones.

And finally, together again.

Grace Baptist.

Atlanta.

Evan.

Adeline.

For the first time in years, it felt like every piece of my life was falling exactly where it belonged.

Adeline, of course, had her own explanation for why everything had finally worked out.

According to her, fate had absolutely nothing to do with my career.

We were moving to Atlanta because it was finally time to find Evan a wife.