What Little Worlds

Twenty

Amelie's leg had been shaking under the table for the past twenty minutes as she waited for the minute hand on the clock at the front of the lab to move to 12. Time had been stretching for the past hour to make it feel like she had been glued to her chair for a week.

She turned to glance once again at the clock behind her. Still 11:47. Damn. She could have sworn a minute had passed already.

There was no work she could do to distract herself for the thirteen minutes that remained before she could go on her lunch break. Thirteen minutes before she could run to the hidden gym to practice magic for the first time since she had successfully produced something for the first time.

If she started any work she would no way wrap it up enough to leave in exactly thirteen minutes. She glanced at the clock. Twelve minutes. And, it was likely she could get away with walking out of the building at exactly noon, not leaving her desk at noon so that gave her an extra two whole minutes. Ten minutes left.

Amelie put her head in her hand and stared at her computer screen, passively, waiting. There was a light knock on the door and she jolted upright in her chair and quickly pulled up her email on her computer.

She looked up into the perpetually irritated face of Cathy.

"Hey Cathy. How's your day going?" Amelie asked politely.

Cathy huffed and said, "It's been a long day already. We hardly got anything done yesterday with you gone so I've spent the morning catching up."

"Oh yeah, I'm really sorry. It was just the end of a really bad cold and I was worried I might sneeze and contaminate some of the samples or lab equipment," Amelie said.

"Ah yes, I understand. I appreciate that you emailed me, although in the future try to take better care of yourself so you're not out during critical work time again. I'm glad you spent most of the weekend sick so that you didn't miss more work days," Cathy said.

Amelie pushed her lips together into a thin smile and nodded. In her head she was contemplating ways that Cathy could fall down the steps and 'miss critical work time' herself.

"Anyway," Cathy droned, "I came in here to ask if you could take only a fifteen minute lunch break today so that you can make up some of the work from yesterday. There is quite a lot to do."

Amelie sucked in a sharp breath. "Sure thing," she said, and turned back to her computer screen. Sure that if she spent any more time speaking to her boss Amelie was in danger of lashing out at her.

"Thank you. Also, if you could stay an extra two hours tonight to run a PCR I'll have ready around five that would be great." Amelie bit down on her tongue to release some of her anger.

"Actually, I have plans tonight. Can you ask Jesse to stay late today?" she replied as sweetly as she could, working to keep the disappointment off her face.

"Do you have a date or a sorority pep rally to attend? No. Jesse said he can't tonight. Don't give me that face. This is a big-girl job honey. You can work late a few nights."

Cathy walked out without another word and Amelie's face dropped onto her desk with a groan of defeat. No magic today. If she didn't get to practice tomorrow that would be a full week since she had last used magic.

After her lunch "break" she texted Adrien that she couldn't make it to the gym that night. A few hours later she received a response.

Adrien: :( Ok, I'll miss you. How are you feeling, btw?