“Pia, you must know how I feel about you. I’ve tried to tell you a hundred times. More than that. Pia, would you look at me?”

Pia reluctantly turned to George. He had that earnest look.

“You know I worry about you because of my feelings for you. I love you, you must know that. I think about you constantly.”

On hearing the words, something in Pia’s brain fizzed into life. A laboratory animal learns to stop engaging in a certain behavior, like touching a red button, if it gets a painful shock every time, even if previously it got a reward, like a piece of food. In Pia’s mind, there was a connection between protestations of affection and pain. She had learned that the people who said those words would cause her pain, and should be avoided, like an electric shock.

Pia pressed the elevator button again, as it appeared that the car was stuck on the eighth floor. She said nothing.

“Our relationship can’t be totally one-sided.”

“What do you mean, ‘relationship’ . . . ? Look, George, this isn’t the time or the place for this.”

“When is the time, Pia? I’ve wanted to tell you I love you for years.”

The elevator finally arrived, the doors opened, and a cluster of students noisily piled out. A party had started in someone’s room and now was moving to a bar up on Broadway.

George pulled Pia aside as the door closed. She rolled her eyes.

“George, come on. Not now.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to say it. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t understand you.”

“That makes two of us.”

“But we need each other, don’t you think? I know I need you.”

“I don’t know what that means—to ‘need’ someone. Someone needing me, I don’t want that responsibility.”

The second elevator arrived with a straggling student who hurried to catch up with his friends. Pia got in the car and held the door for George.

“Get in, George, Jesus.”

Pia punched the eleventh floor for her room and seven for his. Message delivered. George reluctantly got in. Pia’s mind was already full of competing problems—Rothman, the Sisters, Africa, the rest of her life—and now here was another one. She wondered what it was like to think about someone constantly as George said he did of her. It was an alien concept. She glanced at George, who was looking at the floor. She had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. The elevator stopped on seven and Pia reached out and pressed the hold button. George hesitated for a moment, than stepped out.

“Good night, George,” Pia said.

George just nodded as the doors closed. To Pia he looked pathetic.

Chapter 36.

36.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
NEW YORK CITY
MARCH 24, 2011, 11:15 P.M.