My sister and I walked the same road—same medical school, same sleepless nights. But when it was over, our parents cleared her debt… and left mine behind.

The work. My project had a title long enough to fill a grant abstract—Dual-Path Neurovascular Regeneration After Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury—but what it meant, simply, was a shot at helping injured children heal better and faster. Mornings were for the animal lab, afternoons for imaging and data, evenings for revisions that never quite felt finished. At night I walked along the Inner Harbor under strings of lights, the water black as velvet, and reminded myself that loneliness and purpose often look like twins from the outside.

Jessica called after her first twenty-eight–hour call as an intern at Detroit Medical Center. “I cried in the stairwell,” she admitted, voice raw. “Then a senior handed me a granola bar and told me to cry faster.”

“Welcome to residency,” I said, easing onto the stoop outside my door. A siren threaded the street like a second voice. “What happened?”