Brenda, her supervisor at the lab, had tried more than once that day to ask if she was okay, but she’d only been able to smile insincerely and nod.
“Sure,” Ophelia said, flashing another wan smile. She gestured toward her eyes. “The pink is pretty. It suits you.”
A little deflection never hurt anybody.
“Thanks, girl.” She framed her gloved hands beneath her chin, fluttering her lashes playfully.
Ophelia’s giggle was weak, though genuine.
“Really, now.” Brenda crossed her arms over her crisp white lab coat. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing.”
Brenda arched a brow.
“Really,” Ophelia said. She refused to bring her drama into the workplace to burden others.
Logan had tried three times to pick up the horrible conversation about their sex life, but she kept changing the subject before he could tell her whatever his ‘halfway’ point was. She felt cheap, less human somehow. Like an object he’d grownbored of and wanted to share, if only to see what else could be done to it that he hadn’t thought of.
As she was mulling over that painful thought, the ‘control’ vase of flowers she was holding slipped out of her hand, clattering to the linoleum. She moved absently to pick it up, only to crunch a big piece of glass underfoot as she stepped wrong.
Brenda sighed. “Alright, that’s it. You’re going home.”
“W-what?” Ophelia blinked at her owlishly through her safety goggles. “No, I can’t. I’m supposed to process another dozen samples before the weekend, and I’m already?—”
Brenda snapped her gloves off, tossing them into the waste basket, then gripped her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “Go. Home. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but it’s clear you need a mental health day. Just go. I’ll take care of it.”
“Oh, I couldn’t?—”
“Yes, you can. You never use any of your time off. I’m ordering you to take a long weekend. Get some rest and come back fresh.”
She nodded in defeat. If she kept making mistakes, she was only going to set them back further from meeting their deadline. They were no closer to a solution for the weak half-life of the luminescence, but that wasn’t a problem she could solve today.
Reluctantly, she changed out of her lab coat and gathered her things. She took the stairs down from the twelfth floor, trying to drag things out. Of all the places she wanted to go, home was at the bottom of the list. Once, it had been the only place she wanted to be. A refuge from the noise and the chaos of the city. A nest where she could hide and lick her wounds before she had to go back to pretending to be normal all day.
Now, it was ground zero for the conversation that was sure to nuke her relationship.
She loved Logan so much, even now that he’d hurt her so deeply, even while his expectations cut her down to the size of an ant.
Her phone buzzed. It was another call from her mother. The ‘missed call’ counter ticked up to twelve as it rolled over to voicemail.
I’ll call her back.She’d been telling herself that all week, and she meant it. She would call her mother back… just as soon as she could stand the thought.
It was hard at this moment especially not to be filled with resentment. Her mother had never tried to treat her own anxieties, and Ophelia had become a receptacle for every paranoid fear her mother had ever dreamed up. Biting her nails would give her worms. Putting her hair in her mouth would cause cancer. Everything would cause cancer, actually. The sun. Sunscreen. The mulch at the playground. Anything edible in a fun shape or color. Everything had germs that would make her ill, possibly kill her. Everyone had ulterior motives that would result in her suffering.
So many neuroses, poured into her one drop at a time over eighteen years, until no amount of rationalizing could compel her body not to react to what her mind knew wasn’t true.
She should call her back, but… Last time they’d spoken, her mother had given a whole diatribe about a rare disease that was spreading on the subway, and then Ophelia had been stuck in her apartment for two months as she grappled with fear.
A text message hovered in a holographic bubble over her phone.
CALL ME.
Ophelia stuffed it back into her pocket.
She pulled her sleeve down over her hand and carefully pushed open the exterior door, but the wind ripped it from her, forcing her to reach out and catch it with her bare hands before it slammed into the far wall. Hissing in disgust, she jerked it shut and looked down at her hands, now damp with the bit of rainwater that clung to the metal handle.
Rain misted over her, clumping her lashes together as she stood there gaping at the invisible germs that she was sure now coated her hands. They trembled as she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a bottle of sanitizer. She squeezed out a cold glob and rubbed them together, ignoring the sticky way it lingered on her skin. The air was too humid to dry her off quickly.
