✧ NAME: Dr. Anna Valero ✧ AGE: 31 ✧ LOCATION: French Quarter ✧ TIME IN NOLA: Since birth, recently returned ✧ OCCUPATION: Cardio-thoracic surgeon at NOLA Medical
“That one has a little bit of the devil inside of her” It was the family joke, her grandfather started it one thanksgiving after Anna begrudgingly handing over $20 after a comment about underdogs during a soccer game turned into a handshake and the eventual purchase of a new lipstick. Sure, ever since she was little, Anna had been the loud mouth determined to get her opinion across, never ready to quit an argument, absolute in proving in control. But her parents had raised her right - encouraged her to work her backside off and take advantage of the opportunities given to her, to embrace the unquenchable thirst for knowledge that the young girl had and to run with it. So she did. Anna’s parents were two of the hardest working people she knew, both ensuring that their children would want for nothing, but also set on exposing them to the struggles such a life would pose.
Medicine never felt like a choice, looking back it seemed almost inevitable that the girl would find herself in a white coat. Anna had remained at the top of her class since she started school, skipping several grades, much to the chagrin of her older brothers – both regretting the rich competitive nature they had engrained into her from a young age. Success had to be the end result, she had to be the finished product of her parent’s hard work and loving support, she had to make it all worth it.
After being accepted to Tulane medical school after finishing her premed studies in Boston, she stumbled upon the biggest pain in the ass she’d ever met. Oliver Clarke. The pair sparred for weeks, neither willing to admit that they were weaving their way into each other’s futures, their friends always rolling their eyes at the sheer ignorance of how perfect they were for one another. Anna was always insistent that Oliver kissed her that night after their shifts had finished and they’d collapsed on her couch, but of course, whenever asked, the stubborn bastard would shake his head and mutter something about her being unable his charms. That’s how they were for the next two years, completely in love and yet somewhat unwilling to admit just how in love they were, for fear of inflating the others ‘unbearable ego’. Well almost two years…. until she proved her Grandfather’s long running joke to have been true all along.
During the first few weeks of dating Oliver, Anna found herself waking next to the biggest mistake of her life. She had exhausted every excuse she could think of, but regardless of how many empty glasses littered the bar or how many patients flat lined that shift, she knew nothing could provide any sort of viable explanation. She fucked up. She fucked everything up and there was no fixing this, no amount of CPR or surgical staff could repair the damage. Initially denial had been a trusted companion, allowing her to fall deeper and deeper in love with Ollie, but eventually she was drowning in guilt – every time he looked at her, it only aided the ever increasing self-loathing. The ring on her finger was the final straw, that dorky smile beaming up at her was everything she wanted in life and yet nothing like the fate she deserved. But most importantly, nothing like the fate that he deserved.
How could she don a white dress and float down an aisle paved with nothing but lies and deceit?
So one night she finally plucked up the courage to tell him, she watched him break and attempt to piece himself –them - together, but it would never work. It was always present, a shadow that would never allow them to enjoy anything in the same way, and eventually they stopped using we. Her parents broke the way he had, unwilling to admit that Anna would commit such a sin, reluctant to admit that their little girl would be so selfish as to lie for so long – but how wrong they were. They were both extremely close to Oliver, both ecstatic that Anna had found happiness and more than excited to welcome him into their home. The disappointment in their eyes was the final straw. She handed in her resignation that week, her attending’s words of wasted potential echoing behind her as she fled the hospital and eventually the state. New Orleans held nothing but broken pieces of the people she loved the most and Anna couldn’t bear to expose them to further pain. So she arrived back in Boston, armed with recommendations from her attendings and superiors, ready to fight her way into any hospital in the city. 5 years later, Anna was now a cardiothoracic surgeon, someone who spent every waking hour in the hospital, determined to fix everything she could get her hands on – including herself.
But now her father was sick, a lifelong torrent of warnings hadn’t deterred him from smoking cigars at his desk, the self-proclaimed ‘mountain man’ would only challenge you to some sort of physical competition and swerve the conversation in a different direction. So Anna swallowed her pride and found herself back home, after assurances that Oliver hadn’t been in contact with her parents for years and thus must have moved away, she was ready to walk the familiar halls of NOLA and push down the crippling agony that came with it.
Anna’s words are usually laced in sarcasm, her wit – throughout the years – had become less of a comforting quality and more a defense mechanism. She was somewhat colder than she’d been before, after losing the love she’d worked so hard to earn and deserve, the idea of warranting it again had never crossed her mind. Though Anna was still a Valero, whilst perhaps muttering insults, she would do whatever she could to help anyone around her – deep down, determined to return to the girl she once was. She puts 100% into everything she does, her competitive nature and perfectionism settling for nothing less – and if that isn’t achieved, the fall is mighty. She cannot face any more disappointment, a factor which only fuels her pursuit of lost causes and impossible challenges regarding a patient’s health – the feisty brunette devours papers on clinical research and promising techniques. It is inevitable that she will always have questions and will be immediately calculating the most effective solution, regardless of whether she is asked or not.
The hospital has become her sanctuary, her patients envelop so much of her brain that sometimes she forgets everything that has happened and finds herself back in the mindset of the old Anna. It’s so much harder to feel sorry for herself when she’s surrounded by death and vulnerable patients who find themselves in her operating theatre through no other reason than simple bad luck. In those moments, she is the girl her parents always wanted her to be, thinking of any one but herself and absolute in helping people in whatever way she can. The only problem is now a-days she isn’t sure whether it’s because she genuinely wants to or because it hurts less that way.
ANNA’S FACECLAIM IS LANA PARRILLA AND IS PORTRAYED BY AMY.
