“I told you, I wanted to come and check on you,” he repeats.
“It doesn’t feel like it,” I tell him.
“How is that supposed to feel? What does it feel like?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “It doesn’t feel good.”
“My hearing’s coming up,” he says. “I’m a bit nervous about which direction it’s going to go. This kind of thing isn’t really looked on that kindly in my profession.”
“Why didn’t you tell them about Dr. Marcum? If you weren’t going to use the backstory you concocted, then why did you set it up in the first place?”
“When I was in that moment,” he says, “I realized that I couldn’t jeopardize another doctor’s reputation or security just to cover for myself.”
“How noble.”
“I get that you’re not feeling well,” he says, “but we knew this could happen.”
“I guess I just thought that we might try going for a different result,” I tell him.
“They had me,” he says. “Yuri sold me out.”
“Yeah, your groupie,” I tell him. “You probably should have done something about that a while ago.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you know how I knew your ex was cheating on you?” I ask.
“You said it was because being an…” he finally notices I’m not the only one with a chair in the chemo suite. He leans close and lowers his voice. “You said it was because of my second job and that she’s the one that convinced me to get it.”
“No, you moron,” I tell him. “I swear, men will not make it another step forward in this world until they learn to understand women.”
“What was it then?”
“It was the way she acted
,” I tell him. “It was the way she looked at you and talked to you in front of other people.”
“What do you mean?”
I sigh. “We’re really not that difficult to understand,” I tell him. “Most of us have developed a pretty good poker face out of sheer necessity, but you can always tell when a woman is asking for something she doesn’t really want. Do you really think that filming the two of you together was what she wanted to do? It was a fucking power trip for the other guy.”
“How does that even matter?” he asks. “Whatever the reason, the relationship is over, done.”
“Yeah, I get that, but what I’m really getting at is that you don’t pick up the signs that women are holding up in front of you. I could have told you after five minutes that Yuri’s got a thing for you. You can see it in the way she looks at you when you enter the room.”
“If you could have told me that, why didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t any of my business.”
“It wasn’t any of your — then what are we even talking about?” he asks.
“You wanted to know why you’re in the position you’re in,” I answer. “That is, unless I misread what you were saying.”
My phone rings.
“I just wanted to come and check on you,” he says. “What’s so complicated about that?”
“Well, I’m doing fine,” I respond.