An Atom of Affection

She sat in her brightly lit office, journals and books sprawled on the table. She was exhausted but dauntless to have at her enquiry once again. Through her window she saw the moon stamped onto the sky. She heard the cold wind wheezing through everyplace. She hadn't brought along her jacket because she'd not planned to stay out this long. She still sat in, lethargic, about to relish in the joys of true independence, of not being accountable to anyone, of being divorced from the incessant need to be anywhere else right now. Having done the chores of two days in one, she could sleep here if she wanted to. The chair creaked when she started stretching backwards to relax. Then suddenly, she jerked to her feet.

- Oh shit!

Her hands tried to seek out her bag amongst the clutter on the table and while at it, return some materials to some form of arrangement.

Footsteps rustled outside of her office. She paused for a minute trying to decipher whose feet they were. The person was coming into her office. One knock. Then two. She said they could come right in.

- Ah, Judith. Still here, he said.

Her colleague at the university, Jones, stood behind the door he closed just slowly behind him.

-Yeah. Tryna pack up, actually. Been here a bit, she said.

She did keep late nights but, infrequently.

- I noticed, he said, prying at her table with a fierce curiosity typical to scholars.

He summed up the boldness to inquire.

- What were you working on?

She only sighed.

- Not now, Jones. I just need to get home first. It's late, she said.

- True. Just surprised you're still here. Jaime and Georgina should be sorely missing you.

- Exactly. That realization...that's the mad rush you just met me in.

She turned from her side of the table, having found her bag.

- Let me take you home, his hands went to move her shoulders along, supposedly steadying her from clumsiness.

She gave her office the vacant treatment, putting it to sleep as she stepped out with him. Out of the department of chemistry. Onwards the parking lot.

The moon was way brighter than indoor lighting had undermined.

She assured him she was interested in walking briskly, that she'd understand if he was too weary to. She kept her promise and the time barely afforded them chitchats. But he did manage to chivalrously get her into her Ford.

- Sleep well. Say hi to Jaime and Georgina for me, he yelled as she drove off.

Along the road, she took a turn and stopped by her favorite coffee shop. She hoped they'd have the snacks in-house that she'd want. Famished, all she wanted was a really quick meal, something to drive home on.

- Rogers, how're ya doing?

He was just coming out from the back when she sat down. He owned the place and was fond of her.

- Been awhile we saw ya out this late, doc.

- Something wild's ongoing in my stomach.

- Just why I'll stay in business forever.

They laughed. She fed. She left.

She was in the office in the morning, continuing her work. Jones snuck in; asking of her wellbeing, Jaime and Georgina and by extension, her work. She responded in affirmative awkwardness to everything.

- All fine, she replied impassively.

He went his way and did his job.

She'd began to think of Georgina and Jaime. They were her siblings. Now in her forties, they were in their twenties and thirties respectively. She'd mothered them over the years because no one did. She never did have kids but she'd known the mothering stuff too well. She was the efficacious one, preferring to give her siblings the more honorable circumstances of life.

She'd initially come from a wealthy home. Her dad died tragically. Her mom remarried, gave her and her siblings away to be raised by strangers. Well they didn't raise them; they rather ignored and often beat them up. She survived the cruelty through time and shielded her siblings. She sighed, shrugged it off and tried to continue her notable work. It'd be about to get to that laboratory-worthy stage and she wouldn't stall it. Everyone knew she'd never stall anything. That's how she'd gotten her PhD.

Not very long after agonizing over the details, she'd get to the lab and do her thing. Alongside her assistants and interns. This very day, they'd be an incident. There'd be a fairly dangerous chemical spillover on her body but it'd be neutralized immediately. A casual moment for her, a gasp for her assistants and a panic for the interns. Just a regular work hazard, an inflammation at best. She'd clean up and go home.

Next time she'd stop by Roger's, he'd see the pigmentation on her left hand as he stood over her. He'd ask about it. She'd wave it off but he stubbornly wouldn't let it go. She'd gotten away with so much atrocities done to self. Unless she secretly was a masochist, he'd want better answers. She'd get down to explaining the incident at work.

- You don't care 'bout yourself enough. Doubt you even know how to, he shrugged.

- Why would you say that?

- You went to work the next day. And probably right back into that lab.

- Well it's my job, she shrugged, nonchalantly.

- Of course it is.

He drew out a seat and sat across her, staring. Her legs stimulated.

All the while as he spoke, she could've felt pesky. But she didn't. She was introspective.

Everything she'd ever ran away from or towards was because of fear. She dreaded the loss of control that came with fear and never wanted it for anyone. Especially not her siblings. She believed herself to be lost once when as a child she was rejected by family; she never wanted anything else to escape or get lost since then.

Everything simply had to stay intact.

In reality, she wanted to be wanted as a mole or an asset is, but she never did dare to want anything herself. She never permitted herself to.

Rogers rose up and went for the door. It was still early in the day and she was his only customer yet. He turned the notice on it to closed.

- You should really relax today, Judith.

He'd be the first person she'd ever know to snatch her away from her routine to impose sympathy on her. It was utterly weird at first, this piteous thing.

But somehow she stayed and time kept piling up. The intermittent silences taught her. It'd be the first time she'd perfectly understand the dialect her heart spoke. Her thoughts strode along with it's beating.

- I've not paused for anything in a while in my life, she said in a fit of self-realization.

Her heart translated some more. She saw the kindness in what she previously presumed to be Roger's intrusiveness. Her heart exclaimed with a shocking pleasure, as did her mouth.

- Goodness!

With that atom of affection she now felt, she came alive to what she understood had enveloped this place for as long as she had been coming.