“Why not?”
It was such a simple question. One Norah felt like she had a million answers to and no answers to all at once.
“For one, we’re working together. It’s incredibly unprofessional. John already knows and thinks I’m the world’s worst, I don’t know, everything. And if the others find out, they’ll lose all respect for me.”
“Then don’t let them find out. It’s no one’s business.” Again, Jamie with the oversimplifications.
“Okay. Then what about the emotional repercussions? Do I need to remind you that Chase completely wrecked me all those years back, to the point where I hardly survived it? Why would I ever give her the chance to do that to me again?”
Jamie shrugged casually
“Who says she’s going to?”
Norah felt herself growing frustrated with Jamie’s nonchalance.
“History usually repeats itself.”
“Usually. But not always. It’s been a long time, Norah. A long time. And I do believe people can change. Isn’t it possible that what Chase did back then messed her up badly enough that it motivated her to do just that?”
The frustration ebbed, and Norah let her head drop heavy into her hands.
“Yes. I suppose it’s possible. But how can I know?”
“You can’t. You never can. All you can do is trust.” Jamie put a tentative hand on Norah’s shoulder, the warmth providing a calming effect Norah hadn’t expected.
Trust. How am I ever supposed to trust Chase?
“I don’t know what could happen if you go down this road. You could get hurt again. Chase could get hurt. All I know is most people would give their right arm to have someone look at them the way that girl looks at you. And besides, you’ve spent so much time thinking about all the ways it can’t work out. How about thinking about the ways it could?”
Norah felt like a truck had hit her square in the chest. When had she stopped allowing herself to think about a good outcome? It was probably sometime around when Davey died, and Chase left, and Norah realized good things never stick around, so you might as well mentally dig down and prepare for the worst.
Chapter Fifteen
Norah probably shouldn’t have been surprised when she woke up alone the next morning. She had, after all, very abruptly rushed out of Command with hardly so much as a “good night” to the woman she’d just had wild, passionate, perfect sex with in the middle of the day in an army-issue jeep. But what was she supposed to do, play house with Chase like they were back in med school? A little fooling around was one thing, but this wasn’t a relationship, regardless of how they both felt.
At the morning meeting, John sat eating a blueberry muffin, his ruddy cheeks bloated to one side. Chase sipped her coffee out of a camp thermos across the room, narrowing her eyes to better focus as one of the epidemiologists presented the latest figures they’d collected on transmission rates.
“Things look like they’re actually, dare I say it, slowing. New cases were down by nearly seventeen percent this past week,” said the thin man wearing wireframe glasses and a polo shirt, no older than twenty-six, clearly bewildered. “My best guess is it’s—”
“It’s too powerful,” Norah blurted out.
“What do you mean?” asked one of the privates who’d been standing awkwardly in the back.
“Just like ebola. If a virus is too strong, or ‘virulent,’ as we like to say, it kills its host too quickly. Viruses are a sort ofparasite. They need a viable host to infect so they can continue the spread. If the host dies too quickly, it doesn’t have time for it to infect as many people, and so eventually it just sort of—”
“Fizzles out,” the epidemiologist said.
Norah nodded excitedly, noting John and Chase’s smiles of approval. “Exactly. This is good. This is really good. Without a realistic vaccine option, and without great treatments…” Norah immediately thought of the secret documents regarding the Birtamimab trial she’d received several days before she’d gotten sick and had yet to tell anyone else about. Her stomach turned violently, threatening to reject the piece of avocado toast she’d just eaten.
“This is as good as we could hope for,” Chase interjected. Norah noticed a wave of worry sweep over her face and remembered just how good Chase was at reading her.
“Hey. Where’s Jamie?” John asked.
Everyone in the room looked around at once, and Norah suddenly realized in a panic that she hadn’t seen Jamie all morning. She tried to remember the last time shehadseen her. It was lunch the day before. Something had to be wrong.
“I haven’t seen her,” someone mumbled from the back, and a chorus of grumbles chimed in.
“It’s not like her to disappear. Chase and John, can you guys finish up here? I’ll go find her,” Norah said.
