Four Ways To Ruin Me

Seraphina

My alarm goes off at 5:17 a.m.

I know this because I’ve checked the time every morning for the past three weeks, hoping that somehow, by some miracle, my phone will eventually take pity on me and decide that nursing school is a terrible idea and I deserve another hour of sleep.

It never does.

I reach across my nightstand, knock my phone onto the floor, and silence the alarm before it can wake the entire apartment.

For a moment, I consider staying in bed.

Just for five minutes.

Maybe ten.

I could tell myself I have a headache. I could fake a fever. I could throw my phone into the nearest body of water and pretend I’ve never heard of an alarm clock.

Instead, I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.

There is a small crack running from the corner above my closet toward the ceiling fan. I’ve been meaning to ask my landlord about it for two months, but every time I remember, I’m either leaving for class or coming home too exhausted to care.

The crack is probably nothing.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

“Get up, Seraphina.”

My voice sounds terrible.

I clear my throat and try again.

“Get. Up.”

My body remains unconvinced.

Eventually, the fear of missing my first lecture wins over my desire to spend the rest of my life beneath a comforter.

I drag myself out of bed.

My apartment is cold, even though it’s Florida and the weather outside is probably already preparing to feel like the inside of someone’s mouth. The air conditioner has two settings: arctic tundra and broken. I haven’t figured out how to convince it that there are other options.

I pull on a pair of gray sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt, then shuffle into the bathroom.

The mirror is not kind.

My dark hair is tangled from sleeping on it, my eyes are puffy, and there’s a faint crease across my cheek from the pillowcase. I look like someone who has spent the night fighting for her life.

Which, considering the pharmacology exam I have on Friday, might not be entirely inaccurate.

I brush my teeth, wash my face, and attempt to tame my hair with a brush. After several minutes of negotiation, I settle for pulling it into a loose ponytail.

Good enough.

Nursing school has taught me many things, but perhaps the most important is that there comes a point in every morning when you must accept defeat and move on.

Today, my hair wins.

In the kitchen, I start the coffee maker and open the refrigerator.

Half a carton of eggs. A container of leftover pasta. Milk that expires tomorrow. A jar of pickles I don’t remember buying.

I stare at the shelves.

The shelves stare back.

Breakfast is a granola bar.

I eat it while packing my bag, checking that I have my stethoscope, notebook, pens, water bottle, and the massive textbook I keep promising myself I’ll stop carrying around.

I never do.

The textbook weighs approximately as much as a small child, but every time I leave it at home, a professor decides that the information on page four hundred and twelve is suddenly essential to my survival.

I’m not taking that risk again.

By 5:52, I’m locking my apartment door.

The hallway smells faintly of laundry detergent and someone’s breakfast. A television plays behind one of the doors, the volume turned low enough that I can hear voices but not make out the words.

Someone has left a pair of sneakers beside the stairwell.

I step around them and head downstairs.

Outside, the morning air wraps around me immediately. It’s still dark, and the parking lot lights cast pale circles over the asphalt. My car sits in the third row, an aging sedan that has developed a concerning rattle whenever I accelerate too quickly.

I’ve named her Dolores.

Don’t ask me why.

Dolores has survived three years of college, two flat tires, one unfortunate encounter with a shopping cart, and more late-night drives than I can count. She may not be pretty, but she’s loyal.

Mostly.

I unlock the driver’s door and climb inside.

The engine turns over on the second attempt.

“Good morning to you, too.”

I put my bag in the passenger seat, connect my phone, and pull out of the parking lot.

The drive to campus takes twenty-three minutes when traffic behaves and closer to forty when everyone in Florida apparently decides that the same road is the only road available.

This morning, traffic is merciful.

I stop at a red light and take a sip of coffee from the travel mug wedged into the cup holder.

It’s too hot.

I burn my tongue.

“Perfect.”

The radio plays a song I haven’t heard in years, and I turn it up. For the next few minutes, I’m not a nursing student, not a daughter, not someone trying to figure out what she’s doing with her life.

I’m just a girl driving to school before sunrise, singing badly enough that the person in the car beside me glances over.

I ignore him.

He has no idea what he’s missing.

By the time I reach campus, the sky has begun turning a pale shade of blue. The parking lot is already filling up, and I have to circle twice before finding a space near the far end.

Of course.

I park, grab my bag, and hurry toward the nursing building.

My phone buzzes as I’m crossing the courtyard.

Bianca: Please tell me you brought coffee.

I smile.

Me: I brought coffee for myself.

Bianca: So that’s a no.

Me: That’s a correct interpretation of what I said.

Bianca: You’re a terrible friend.

Me: And yet you continue to associate with me.

Bianca: Unfortunately, you’re the only person who understands my suffering.

I slip my phone into my pocket before she can send another message.

Bianca Moretti has been my best friend since we were children. She’s the kind of person who can turn a five-minute conversation into an hour-long discussion about absolutely nothing, and somehow, I always end up participating.

She is also the reason I have learned to mute notifications during lectures.

The woman has no respect for academic survival.

I find her outside our classroom, sitting on a bench with her backpack beside her and an expression of profound betrayal on her face.

She looks up when she sees me.

“Tell me you have something edible.”

“Good morning to you, too.”

“Seraphina.”

“Bianca.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

She presses a hand to her chest.

“I haven’t eaten.”

“You said that yesterday.”

“And it was true yesterday.”

I unzip my bag and pull out the second granola bar I packed.

She takes it from me with the reverence of someone receiving a life-saving medical intervention.

“I love you.”

“You love my snacks.”

“Both things can be true.”

We head inside together.

The classroom smells like coffee, printer paper, and the faint chemical scent of disinfectant that seems to follow us everywhere these days. A few students are already seated, their laptops open, their faces illuminated by screens displaying lecture notes.

Someone near the front is reviewing flashcards.

Someone else is asleep.

I envy both of them for entirely different reasons.

Bianca drops into the seat beside mine, opens her laptop, and immediately turns toward me.

“Did you finish the reading?”

“Most of it.”

She narrows her eyes.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I read most of it.”

“Did you understand most of it?”

I hesitate.

She closes her eyes.

“Oh, we’re doomed.”

“We are not doomed.”

“Seraphina, the cardiovascular system is trying to kill me.”

“The cardiovascular system is literally keeping you alive.”

“Not emotionally.”

I laugh, and she looks pleased with herself.

That’s Bianca’s particular talent. She can make me laugh when I’m exhausted, stressed, or convinced that my life is falling apart over something as insignificant as a quiz grade.

Sometimes, I think that’s what friendship is supposed to be.

Not grand declarations or dramatic promises.

Just someone who knows when to make you laugh and when to sit beside you without asking questions.

Our professor walks in before I can answer, and the room gradually quiets.

I pull out my notebook.

Time to become a responsible adult.

Or at least pretend to be one for the next ninety minutes.

The lecture begins with cardiac function, which would be fine if my brain hadn’t decided that sleep is more important than oxygen delivery.

I take notes anyway.

The electrical conduction system. Cardiac output. Stroke volume. Heart rate.

Words I’ve read so many times that they’ve begun to lose their meaning.

I force myself to pay attention.

This is what I want.

I remind myself of that whenever the workload feels impossible.

I want to become a nurse.

I want to be the person who notices when something is wrong before everyone else does. The person who can explain a frightening diagnosis in a way that makes it feel less terrifying. The person who can sit beside someone on the worst day of their life and make them feel a little less alone.

I don’t have some grand childhood story about dreaming of medicine since I was five.

I wasn’t the little girl who carried a toy stethoscope everywhere or wrapped stuffed animals in bandages.

The decision came later, after I understood how vulnerable people can feel when they’re sick and how much it matters to have someone in the room who knows what they’re doing.

I want to be that person.

It’s a simple reason.

It doesn’t make the exams easier.

By the time the lecture ends, my hand aches from writing, and my coffee is long gone.

Bianca stretches beside me.

“If I ever become a cardiac nurse,” she says, “I want everyone to know that I did it out of spite.”

“Spite?”

“Yes. I refuse to let an organ defeat me.”

“That’s a terrible reason to enter healthcare.”

“It’s a powerful reason to enter healthcare.”

We gather our things and head toward the cafeteria.

The morning rush has begun, and the line for coffee stretches almost to the entrance.

I stare at it.

Bianca follows my gaze.

“We could leave.”

“We have lab in twenty minutes.”

“We could leave emotionally.”

“That isn’t a thing.”

“It is if you believe in yourself.”

I buy another coffee anyway.

We sit at a small table near the windows, where sunlight spills across the floor and the noise of the cafeteria becomes a steady background hum.

For a few minutes, we talk about ordinary things.

Bianca complains about an assignment.

I complain about the cost of textbooks.

She tells me about a guy she matched with on a dating app who described himself as an entrepreneur but apparently considers selling sneakers online a personality trait.

I nearly choke on my coffee.

“Don’t laugh,” she says. “I gave him a chance.”

“You went on one date.”

“One date too many.”

“What happened?”

“He spent forty minutes explaining cryptocurrency to me.”

I wince.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Did you at least get dinner?”

She looks offended.

“I paid for my own dinner.”

I shake my head.

“You’re stronger than me.”

“I’m aware.”

For a little while, everything feels easy.

School is stressful, money is tight, and I have approximately six hundred things to do before Friday. But I’m here with my best friend, drinking overpriced coffee, laughing about terrible dates, and worrying about exams.

It’s ordinary.

And lately, ordinary has become one of my favorite things.

People underestimate how comforting it can be to know what comes next.

A lecture.

A lab.

A shift at work.

Dinner.

Studying until my eyes cross.

Sleep.

Then doing it all again.

There’s a certain safety in routines. They give your mind somewhere to rest, even when your body is exhausted.

I like knowing where I’m supposed to be.

I like knowing what I’m working toward.

I like believing that if I keep showing up, keep studying, and keep making the right decisions, I’ll eventually end up somewhere I’m proud of.

Maybe that’s naive.

I don’t know.

For now, it’s enough.

Our lab instructor appears in the cafeteria doorway and calls for students to head upstairs.

Bianca groans.

“I hate this place.”

“You said you wanted to be a nurse.”

“I contain multitudes.”

I laugh and stand, throwing my empty coffee cup into the trash.

The lab is two hours of practical exercises, awkward mannequin positioning, and repeated reminders that patient safety matters more than speed.

I take it seriously.

I always do.

Sometimes I worry that I take everything too seriously.

I worry about my grades, my future, whether I’m doing enough, whether I’m falling behind, whether everyone else has somehow received a handbook explaining how to become a functioning adult that I missed.

But then I remember that most people are probably making it up as they go along.

That thought helps.

A little.

After lab, I have an hour before my next class, so Bianca and I sit outside beneath a large tree near the student center.

The shade is welcome. The sun has become relentless, and the humidity is already working against every strand of hair I managed to tame this morning.

I pull my knees up onto the bench and rest my chin on them.

Bianca scrolls through her phone.

“Are you working tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Again?”

I look at her.

“Rent exists.”

“I know. I just wish you’d let yourself breathe sometimes.”

I don’t answer immediately.

She isn’t wrong.

Between classes, studying, and work, I have become very good at filling every available hour with something productive. If I have free time, I start thinking about what I should be doing instead.

It’s a difficult habit to break.

“I’ll breathe after exams,” I tell her.

“You said that last semester.”

“Then I guess I’m consistent.”

She gives me a look.

I smile, hoping she’ll let it go.

Eventually, she does.

We sit quietly for a while, watching students cross the courtyard.

Some are laughing.

Some are talking on the phone.

One guy is running toward a building with a backpack bouncing against his shoulders and a sandwich hanging out of his mouth.

I feel a sudden, ridiculous affection for all of them.

We’re all just trying to get somewhere.

Some of us know where that is.

Some of us are pretending.

Most of us are probably tired.

My next class passes in a blur of lecture slides and handwritten notes. By the time I’m finished, the campus has shifted into the noisy afternoon rush.

I check my phone while walking toward the parking lot.

Two missed calls from an unknown number.

I frown.

Probably spam.

I get those occasionally, usually offering to lower my student loan payments or sell me an extended car warranty for Dolores.

I delete the notifications without thinking much about them.

My phone goes into my bag, and I keep walking.

The afternoon sun hits me the second I step outside.

I squint against it, unlock my car, and drop into the driver’s seat.

For a moment, I sit without turning the key.

My reflection looks back at me from the rearview mirror.

Dark hair pulled into a ponytail. Tired eyes. A faint smudge of ink on my thumb.

Twenty-three years old.

A nursing student.

A woman with a car that makes strange noises, a textbook that weighs too much, and a refrigerator that desperately needs groceries.

I have a quiz to study for, laundry waiting at home, and a shift at work that will probably leave my feet aching.

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up before sunrise and do it all again.

It’s not glamorous.

It’s not extraordinary.

But it’s my life.

And for the moment, I’m happy with that.

I start the engine.

Dolores rattles in protest.

“Don’t start with me,” I mutter.

She settles into a familiar hum, and I pull out of the parking lot.

I have no idea what the future holds.

I don’t know where I’ll be in five years, whether I’ll end up working in a hospital or pursuing another specialty, or whether I’ll ever feel like I’ve finally figured everything out.

I don’t know what kind of woman I’ll become.

I only know the woman I am today.

The one who gets up when her alarm rings, even when she doesn’t want to.

The one who worries too much and sleeps too little.

The one who keeps going because stopping feels more frightening than being tired.

The one who still believes that if she works hard enough, she can build a good life for herself.

So I turn up the radio, merge into traffic, and head home.

I’ve got an exam to study for.

And right now, that’s the biggest problem in my world.