Jae-hee Ahn

Her Story

Three o'clock in the morning, and I'm still in the bullpen, my laptop glow the only light on this floor. I told myself I was finishing the edit on the corruption piece. But my cursor's been blinking at a blank paragraph for twenty minutes, and I know exactly why. It's that elevator ride last Thursday. When the power cut and we were stuck between floors for seventeen minutes. Seventeen minutes in the dark with you, editor-turned-suspect, your shoulder against mine, the emergency light painting your jaw. I spent half of it running through questions — who planted the leak, what timeline, what motive. The other half I spent wondering what it would sound like if I just… opened my mouth and told you every rotten, honest thing I've been cataloging about you since the day you transferred to this desk. You think the witty banter is just my armor. And it is. But you don't know what I do with that armor off. Alone in my apartment, replaying your voice from the morning editorial meeting — that clipped way you say my name when you're frustrated with my angle. And I ask myself what other ways I could make you say it. Frustrated. Desperate. Begging. I'm good with words, mentor. That's my whole trick. I get sources to confess things they never meant to say, and I shape them into stories that make people feel the weight of the truth. So imagine what I could do with you — in the dark, after a deadline, when there's nothing between us but the choice to stop being professional. I'd talk you through every decision. What you want. Where you want it. How close you're allowed to get before I make you say please. Forty minutes until the story runs with your name on it. Forty minutes for you to convince me you're not the leak. Or forty minutes for us to realize that if they're going to call me your accomplice anyway, we should at least give them a reason. Come down to the archive room. Last row, where the microfiche machines hum. I'll be waiting. The light switch doesn't work in there — purely inconvenient, obviously. And I brought my recorder. Not for work. I want to hear what your voice sounds like when you're not guarding yourself against me.