Sara crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. She had been on the telephone for over an hour with the CDC about a new Flu strain that had been identified in Milwaukee. The inside of this lab often felt like a prison with all the containment protocol and levels of security. Her cellmate, Zack, was obnoxious and a daily source of frustration. With her left foot, Sara rotated the rolling chair back and forth listening to her shoe squeak on the linoleum floor. Final instructions from the CDC recorded, she hung up and pushed back from the desk. Upon hearing the handset hit the base station, Zack walked over to Sara’s office.
“Ready to go to lunch?”
“Yes,” she said definitively.
“Let’s go to the deli on 5th, I’m craving their roast beef on rye!”
“Who said I was going with you?”
“Your eyes”, he replied, “They smiled when I walked in the room.”
She felt pathetic that his boyish charm could persuade her so easily. Standing, she straightened her blouse and donned her trench coat. In the elevator he smiled at her, never hiding or denying he was attracted to her. Sara’s father had always warned her not to become romantically involved with a coworker, so she kept her attraction to Zack hidden. Though concealed, it occasionally bubbled to the surface and she would slip, allowing her stone walls to crack. These were the moments she both feared and yearned for secretly. They walked to Maple Heights where the hospital loomed up the hill, its granite structure bearing witness to the deep roots this town had. Sara longed for the strength of the hospital’s foundation but Zack was charming and a bystander could clearly see she liked him as she touched his forearm, laughing at his joke.
But this weakness couldn’t be allowed to continue. As an internationally published microbiologist, her career came first. It was her greatest character flaw. As they sat down to eat, Zack remembered to wash his hands and left the table. It was easily enough time for Sara to put the toxin in his drink. A few sips and he would be done, he just wouldn’t know it. She felt slightly remorseful as they parted at the end of the workday. As she sat on her couch that night, she imagined what it would’ve been like if they married and had children. At that same moment, Zack was lying on his couch, choking on vomit, gasping for breath, and closing his eyes eternally.