"Hey, Mona, are you free today? That movie you've been looking forward to is out. Let's go see it together. I booked the whole theater."
"No, there's work in the lab. I have to go. Don't call me unless it's important..."
"Hey, Mona, CoCo is sick today. He misses you and has been waiting for you at the door. Are you coming home today?"
"Alan, I told you, I'm busy lately. Stop calling me all the time. If CoCo is sick, take him to the vet. I'm not a doctor. I'm hanging up..."
"Wait... I miss you too..."
For several months, Mona had been avoiding me, not coming home. I knew she's busy, but was she really too busy to even take a call?
A friend of hers told me that she's been getting close to Jeff lately, and I should be careful.
5
I was hospitalized because of an illness, and coincidentally, so was Jeff. Even more coincidentally, the hallway outside his room was where I ended up. I got sick in the middle of the night and went to the emergency room, but there were no beds available. I remembered Mona had interned at this hospital, so I called her.
But she didn't answer. I called several times, and she finally picked up, but she sounded extremely impatient.