The Chemistry of Love(3)

“I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m on the dock, watching you head for that giant iceberg.”

My relationship with Craig was not the Titanic. Before I could respond, there was motion at the edge of my peripheral vision.

It was one of our colleagues, Zhen, getting up from his workbench at the far end of the room. Catalina followed my line of sight and sighed happily. She had had a huge crush on him for a long time, and he was one of the few guys in the lab who was nice to both of us.

“He and I are going to have the smartest babies,” she whispered to me as he started walking toward us. I wondered if he had any idea that he was about to be totally conquered. Any time my best friend set her sights on a man, she got him.

It was an ability that we did not share.

“Wait. I thought you were dating that Steve guy.”

“Dating is a strong word. We were more dating adjacent,” she said. “Whatever it was is over. I’ve decided I’m done dating hot guys. They’re awful.”

“Me too.” I mean, I never actually dated a hot guy. I had hopes of that changing in the not-too-distant future, though.

“Zhen is good looking, but not in that you-need-to-activate-the-tracking-app-on-his-phone kind of hot. Plus, he’s smart and nice. I could use some of that in my life.”

Yes, she could. So could I.

Catalina flicked her long, dark hair over her shoulder, positioning herself into a dramatic lean against my workbench. I moved the beaker she’d given me to my left so that she didn’t accidentally knock it over while she was, as my grandpa would say, showing off her plumage. She understood all the intricacies of a mating dance, while I was helplessly inept in that particular area.

To my surprise, Zhen didn’t stop to talk to us and veered off to the left at the last second. He did manage to mutter two distinct words, “Lab coat,” in passing.

Uh-oh. Catalina and I exchanged worried glances. It was a code phrase. That meant Jerry was in a terrible mood. He generally tolerated what he considered to be our lack of discipline and respect to the lab by not wearing our lab coats. They were so annoying. Impossible to keep clean, and the sleeves were so baggy that they constantly got in my way so that I might have, on some occasions, spilled some not-so-safe materials all over the countertop.

Catalina scurried off to her workbench while I pulled the bottom drawer back out to grab my coat. All the other chemists were donning their own coats as well.

My lab coat was definitely dirty. I tried to scrub at one of the more obvious stains from a bright red pigment. I grabbed a beaker and filled it with water from my sink and dipped my fingers in it, applying it to whatever color I’d managed to permanently imprint on my lapel, but no luck.

I dumped the water out and then, reconsidering, filled it up again so that I could get a drink. I pulled a long swig and had just set the beaker down when I heard Jerry’s door open.

When I’d arrived earlier, I’d deliberately not looked toward his office, using some childhood logic that if I didn’t see him, he somehow magically wouldn’t know that I had been late. As his highly polished shoes crossed the epoxy-resin-sealed concrete floor, my heart started to beat a little faster.

I was definitely in trouble.

I stood up slowly, hoping that he might stop at some point and call me into his office. But his stride never faltered and instead he made a beeline to my workbench.

I groaned. I should have known. With me, it was always public humiliation.

He glared down at me. “Miss Ellis? You and I have a problem.”

If I’d been paranoid about everyone staring at me before, there was no question that it was happening right now. For some reason, I was the only chemist who Jerry disciplined in the middle of the lab. Everyone else he dealt with privately in his office. But me?

My suffering would be seen by all.

He seemed particularly angry today, though. Was it just the tardy thing? I’d done other things that weren’t great. I’d thrown out my fair share of beakers that were too hard to clean, claiming they’d been chipped. But everyone did that.

My boss didn’t know about that, did he? Were there security cameras in here? My gaze darted to the corners of the ceiling. Had someone been filming us the entire time?

Okay, I was overreacting.

But so was Jerry.

“Problem?” I echoed his last word. I hated this feeling. I’d never been great with confrontation, and talking to Jerry always gave me this icky feeling, like I’d been coated in a soap residue that couldn’t be rinsed off.

“Yes. I don’t appreciate you coming in late.” His words were clipped, furious. Again, I didn’t know why I seemed to elicit so much venom from him. Other people had been late; I certainly wasn’t the first. Jerry usually seemed annoyed when other people did it, but this wasn’t just annoyance.

He always made me feel like a little kid who’d been called up to the teacher’s desk to be made an example of in front of the rest of the class.

I hated it. Really, really hated it. I could feel my face warming—wishing I had the courage to say something back, to call out the inequality in how he treated me in comparison to my colleagues. Catalina shot me a sympathetic grimace, but I was on my own here. My pulse felt wonky.

There was a moment when I really let myself savor the prospect of standing up for myself, but I took the meek route. “I’m sorry about that. It was—”