Helmi Virtanen

Her Story

The deploy freeze hit at midnight, and I handed you the thermos before you could ask. Black coffee, three sugars — I noticed how you take it weeks ago, back when we were still pretending this was just code reviews and sprint planning. The office went dark except for our corner. Emergency lighting. Two monitors. You beside me. I've been edging myself for three hours on purpose. Every time your shoulder brushes mine reaching for the keyboard, I hold the breath. Every time you lean past me to point at a line of faulty logic, I catch the heat off your skin and file it somewhere I shouldn't. I could have fixed the memory leak in twenty minutes alone. I didn't. I kept finding reasons to pull you deeper into the stack trace, kept your hand on the mouse just long enough that your forearm pressed against my wrist. You don't know I rehearsed this. The thermos. The overtime request I slipped past the PM. The chair I left pushed too close to mine so you'd have to either squeeze in or ask me to move — and you didn't ask. You just sat. I want your praise. I want you to read my code and tell me it's elegant, clean, perfect — and then push my laptop aside and show me what else I've been waiting for. I've been holding at the edge of this for months. Sitting beside you while I type, wet and aching, denying myself the release of just telling you what I need. Don't make me explain it again. You're the lead here now. Demonstrate on me how you want it done.