Her hands were shaking. Her mouth was dry.

Had this really taken her almost four months to realise? Really? Was she so blind to her own emotions?

Though, in reality, hadn’t she been that way for years?

Miserable in a marriage and never crawling to get out.

Her fingers fumbled with the phone in her pocket.

“Lisa?”

“Cora, hey! Want to have lunch?”

Looking blindly around the room, Cora couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do more. But she was stuck at work. “I just ate.”

“Damn, I’m craving a burger. You sound weird. What’s up?”

“I think I like women.”

A pause.

Then Lisa said, “Like, how?”

“The same way I like guys. Apparently.”

“Well, no shit.”

Cora squeezed her eyes shut, her lips tugging up as she suddenly felt like she could breathe properly. “You knew?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

A sigh echoed in Cora’s ear. “I don’t know. I thought about it, but I tried to nudge you there and you shut down. I guessed you just needed to figure it out on your own.”

“I kind of just realised.”

“What, like, now?”

“Yeah.” Cora felt giddy. Like things had clicked into place she’d never known weren’t in place. “Literally.”

“And you called me?”

“Yeah—why?”

“Nothing, that’s just…sweet.”

“You’re my best friend.”

A chuckle from Lisa was soft in her ear. “So, what now?”

Cora licked her lips and stared at the wall. What now? She had no idea. Right now she felt a little high. The fact that her marriage was ending in a divorce—a fact that she hadn’t yet mentioned to her parents—was barely on her mind. It barely registered that, really, Frazer should be the last thing on her mind.

“Cora?”

“I’m here. Just processing.”

“As flattered as I am that your first thought was to call me, I thought you’d be dragging a certain woman into a room somewhere in that hospital…” A pause. “Unless you don’t want to?”

“I, uh, kind of angrily told her to leave me alone last week.”

“Oh.”

“Really angrily.”

“Good one,” Lisa said.

“I thought so.”

“Your level of denial is amazing, Core.”

Cora sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“I thought you wanted to be friends?”

“Uh, well, I saw her with another woman and yelled at her.”

“Very friendly.”

“Apparently. So I freaked out that I was jealous and told her to go away.”

“Did you pull her pigtails?”

“You,” Cora said, “are hilarious.”

“I know. So, what are you going to do?”

“I have no idea?”

The door behind her opened, and Cora turned to apologise to whichever nurse was entering and found herself face-to-face with Frazer. A very red-faced, opposite-of-calm-looking Frazer. If Cora didn’t know her better, she’d imagine Frazer looked ready to punch her.

“Lisa, I’ll call you back.”