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“Well, I don’t know her signals. Look, if it’s so important to you, maybe you should go talk to her yourself.”
“Agnes doesn’t want to talk to me.”
That was nearly enough to shock Agnes into action. Cora thought that Agnes didn’t want to talk to her?
Well, she supposed that kind of made sense. Agnes had made no attempts at contact since calling Cora into her office that one time. But it wasn’t because she didn’twantto talk to her. She wanted that more than anything; she simply knew that it was not a good idea.
She couldn’t commit to a relationship with Cora. Agnes had considered the idea of trying to revive their friendship but discarded it. As much as she longed to have Cora in her life, she had already proven that she was incapable of doing so without hurting her.
Hurting Cora was the last thing Agnes wanted. She would rather be miserable and alone than hurt her again.
“You’d be surprised. She misses you.”
“What are you talking about? What did she say?” Cora’s tone was suddenly wary.
“She didn’t say anything. I just… Well, I don’t know what kind of fight you two had, but it’s clear that you’re both hurting over it. Maybe the two of you should think of going to couples therapy.”
“We’re not a couple, Kate.”
“Sure.” It was clear from Kate’s tone that she didn’t believe Cora one bit.
“What makes you think we are?”
“You mean, what does everyone else think?”
“Yeah,” Cora admitted. “That’s kind of what I’m getting at.”
“I can tell you the rumors, if you’d like to hear them.”
Agnes wasn’t sure whether she wanted to hear the rumors, but her feet seemed glued to the ground.
“I suppose it’s better to know than not.”
Cora was a braver woman than Agnes was.
“Well, everyone knows you guys are together. Were. No one is really sure since the fight. But you were happy, before. I haven’t been here that long, but people who have known Doctor Frame for years say they haven’t seen her so light in ages. They felt like she was finally getting past what happened to Jackie.”
Agnes closed her eyes as a familiar shard of pain pierced her insides. Would she never be able to leave Jackie behind?
“What evidence do they have?”
“Evidence? This isn’t a trial, Doctor Hope.”
“It could be. Such a relationship would be strictly off limits.”
“No one is going to turn you in. Honestly, you should worry less about that and more about how you’re going to patch up whatever fight you had.”
“Kate, there is no patch—”
Cora broke off to the sound of frantic beeping. All around them, pagers suddenly started going wild, Agnes’ included. She hurried away from the consultation room where Cora and Kate were talking, just in time to get around the corner before they burst out, practically sprinting toward the ER.
Agnes glanced down at her pager. Massive trauma heading their way. It was going to be all-hands-on deck.
She gave Cora and Kate half a minutes’ head start before hurrying off after them.
It didn’t take long for the ambulances to start arriving.
It looked like there had been a pileup on the highway. Agnes had seen this all before, but you never really got used to it. You just learned to distance yourself from the horror.
