Page 73 of The Do-Over
ROB
Seeing the pictures of himself in a lab coat, or masked and gowned for surgery, was disorienting to Rob in a way that the pictures of his college basketball career hadn’t been.
Seeing himself as a basketball player had made sense. There was context for that. He’d spent his whole life playing basketball, and even though he had no clear memories of the specific events in the photos, it wasn’t hard to imagine himself in those situations. Even the Final Four, which was beyond his wildest dreams, was within the category of things he might have fantasized about in his life.
This man in the picture he was looking at now, though…
If it hadn’t been for the caption, he wouldn’t have even believed that this was him. The appearance had certainly changed. The man in the image didn’t look like the teenager Rob still thought of when he closed his eyes and visualized himself, but it also didn’t really look like the image he saw in the mirror every day. This man was somewhere in between.
He read the caption again. “Dr. Rob Honeycutt leads his field team in saving the lives of two airmen after a plane crash.”
Nothing about that caption felt like it was talking about Rob.
He knew he was a doctor, but it was still strange to see the title in front of his name. Dr. Rob Honeycutt sounded like someone else.
And saving the lives of two airmen? He must have done it, of course. There was photo evidence. But he couldn’t visualize himself doing it. He could imagine himself playing basketball—that was easy. But trying to conjure up a picture of himself saving lives—he couldn’t even imagine what he would have done. He had no idea what saving the lives of injured pilots would look like.
How could he accept an award for something he didn’t feel capable of doing? Just the idea of it made him feel like a fraud.
He clicked onto another article. This one showed a picture of him—close to the age he was now, this time—standing in front of a brick building he didn’t recognize, surrounded by people he didn’t know.
He squinted at the picture, read the stitching on the lab coat that said Dr. Honeycutt. As if on instinct, he lifted his fingers to his left breast pocket, where that embroidery would be if he was wearing the lab coat right now.
It was strange. He could imagine the way it would feel under his fingers. It was as if he had a sense memory of it.
I probably do. I’m sure I ran my fingers over those letters the first time I put the coat on.
But it still didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel like something he had actually done. It just fit properly into the story of his life that he knew to be true.
And he was going to have to be this person—Dr. Honeycutt, not Rob—in front of everyone in town.
It made him feel like a fraud. They were all going to look at him and honor him for something he wasn’t anymore.
It doesn’t matter that I used to be a doctor. The fact of the matter is, there’s no way I could perform surgery now. They’re going to honor me as a great surgeon, but that isn’t what I am. I’m no kind of surgeon at all.
He slumped in his seat, feeling discouraged.
Thea came into the office where she kept her computer. She was holding a cup of coffee, and she held it out to him.
“Thanks, he murmured. He took it from her and drank deeply. The coffee was hot and burned his tongue, but it was a welcome distraction from the thoughts that had been racing through his head.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You’re breathing kind of fast.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s kind of hard to look at these articles. They don’t feel like they’re about me.”
“They are, though,” she said gently.
“Even if they are…I just don’t see how I’m supposed to accept an award for these things,” he said. “I don’t feel like they’re a part of my life.”
“Rob, you’ve already gotten dozens of awards for this stuff,” Thea said. “It’s not like this will be the first one.”
“But it’s the first one I know about,” he said. “Don’t you see why that’s different?”
“I do,” she promised. “I really do. What can I do to make it easier for you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything. I don’t think this can be easy for me. No matter what, when I get up there, I’m going to feel like I’m lying to everyone.”
“Hey,” she said, taking his hand.
