“I’ve told you not to call me that.”
Okay. No more warm-up.
“I saw him with another woman this morning.”
My sister resumes typing, her face smooth and indifferent.
“He has colleagues.”
“Does he hold hands with all of them?”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I’m not. I spoke to them.”
She exhales.
“As I said, I don’t have time for this. I have rounds, residents who can’t handle the pressure, and a donor event.”
She pauses.
“What I haven’t scheduled is petty melodrama.”
The untouched coffee sits between us, mocking me.
“You deserve a husband you can trust,” I try.
“Wrong,” she cuts in. “I earn. Everything I have, I’ve earned.”
Her gaze turns glacial. “I don’t have the luxury of collapsing over
something as insignificant as hand-holding.”
She looks at the screen again. “If that’s all, you’re dismissed.”
“I thought telling you was the decent thing to do. Now you know, at least.”
I turn toward the door. “Have a good day, Dr. Stone.”
She doesn’t stop me. Of course she doesn’t.
CHAPTER 50 – ANTONIO
Sophia got paged, so she can’t meet me after all. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.I’m a grown-up. Grown-ups manage. I glance at the clock on the canteen wall . Caspian said he’d be back “in a while.” I’ve never thought about it before, but“a while” is a dangerously abstract term.
To me it’s fifteen minutes, tops. To the universe? Eternity.
I take out my phone to type:
“How long do people mean when they say a while.”
The first result is basically a search engine’s way of flipping me off: a whilemeans a reasonable amount of time, depending on the context.
I translate that into my native language, Antoniose, and realize I’m screwed.
Reasonable is my number one enemy, and context comes as a close second.
Warily, I study my surroundings. I don’t like where I am right now.
