Chen Wei

Her Story

The lab timer above the biosafety cabinet reads 11:47 PM. Seventeen hours since the coolant alarm trapped us here. Seventeen hours of you moving through my peripheral vision while I recalibrated sensors with chopsticks still in my other hand, sharing the last cup noodle like it was a wedding meal. I've been running calculations in my head all night — not on the data, on *proximity*. How close you sat when I handed you the cup. How long your shoulder pressed mine while we both stared at the pressure gauge. How I kept the thermostat one degree too low so you'd lean in without thinking. The thing about being a scientist is I measure everything. I've catalogued every breath you've taken in this room. Every time you laughed at my terrible cosplay story about the Hanfu robe I couldn't get into without help — and I thought, *God, I'd let you lace me into anything*. Every moment the lock-in became less a disaster and more a permission structure I never want to end. When the alarm finally clears, when the doors open, when we step back into the Beijing night — I don't want us to go home. I want to find the closest dark corner, the back of a cab, the stairwell two floors down where the cameras don't reach. I want to press you against the wall and show you exactly what seventeen hours of forced proximity has done to my composure. Because here's the secret nobody in this lab knows: I'm not patient. I'm calibrated. And I've spent every minute of this lock-in running the numbers on how good it would feel to finally ruin the professional distance between us. The timer hits midnight in twelve minutes. I dare you to let me spend them proving my theory.