Everett Ramos is a resident surgeon at Mercy West Hospital in Seattle, Washington. She's on the uphill climb to becoming one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the world, studying alongside her best friends and hoping one day to make a difference...
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THE PAST five years of her life have gone towards this moment.
All that time in the hospital, flitting between surgeries, perfecting patients' diagnoses, building strong foundations with other surgeons, all of that could be gone in mere moments. All of that means nothing when faced with the very real threat of the boards.
She's off to a random city to be asked random questions by a random examiner. Her insides are churning. Her heart thudding against her ribcage. Her mouth dryer than the towels they'd left hanging outside per April's weird request as some sort of good luck ritual they don't understand.
Callie squeezes her hands tightly. They're standing outside the bus, near Hunt shaking the hands of the rest of the surgeons she never really got the chance to know. Callie's showing her pictures of Sofia, as if smiling photographs of her goddaughter is going to calm her shaking nerves.
This is her make or break moment.
"Callie–"
"Okay. Sorry, sorry. Just look at her little tongue, though!" Everett shakes her head, managing a laugh through her painfully gritted teeth. Her foot has been continually tapping against the tarmac in an attempt to hide how shaky her legs are. It makes her look like she's ready to get the show on the road, but in all honesty, all she wants to do is wrap up under every blanket she owns and hide away until this is all over.
What if she fails?
"You have everything right?" Everett nods, hands stuffed in the pockets of her old leather jacket. Callie looks over her, doing a double check to make sure her boots are tied tight and her hair isn't out of place. Everett tries to flatten the curls just a little bit, but Callie is quick to stop her. "You're going to blow them away. You have no need to be worried."
"You sure? What if I mess up, or they ask me about something I don't know, or I freeze. Like, they say something about, I dunno, osteoporosis and I just freeze up like a tiny, little clam."
"Do clams freeze up?"
Everett stares at her Attending for a few moments. If this goes wrong, if she somehow fucks up or says the wrong thing or comes across as completely unlikeable, she may never work in a hospital again. This may be the end of her surgical career.
And Callie is laughing.
"Oh come on, you have to lighten up. I wasn't nearly this nervous."
"No," Bailey calls over, chuckling to herself at the sight of all the residents cowering away to the surgeons who have tried their best to teach them. "You were worse!" Callie rolls her eyes at the general surgeon, forcing back a witty comeback to pull her resident into a bone-crushing hug.
