Hearts Under Ice - CS Patra Page 0,55
on chasing boys and told her friends to butt out of her love life. She was not going to give her heart away so easily. She promised she would never go too deep until she was really sure.
Why does Donnie do this to me? She’d asked herself while she tried to sleep. He has got to have a flaw that would turn me off. No one is this good to me. They all show their true colors soon enough.
Things weren’t that much better when she got up and went to her office. The workday ended up going by rather slowly. As she’d suspected, Pam had left her a lot of things to file and type in. If Donnie was even here, she had no idea. Both Vijay and Leila had stopped by with some work for her, but they didn’t mention anything about Donnie. She thought about asking, but decided not to. He was on her mind often enough, and she still had a job to do. She had gotten much better at data input, and could get a lot more done in an hour. Despite all this, it was still a boring job. She wished that she had access to the lab so she could see what went on in there. The only time she was allowed in was to get and give out work. She couldn’t spend too long watching them run their experiments or listen in on their conversations.
The worst part about today was not seeing Donnie at all. She wouldn’t tell him of her plans, but she was anxious to catch a glimpse of his beautiful self. She wanted to see his ruffled dark hair or his freckles or anything of his right now. It was getting more and more strange. She told herself countless times that she didn’t have feelings for him. He had never showed feelings towards her, so it made no sense for her to care so much for him. She tried her hardest to forget him, but it was impossible. Every now and then, she would look up in hopes that he’d walk by, but he never came around.
In the middle of the afternoon, she heard him talking and decided that now was the good time to tell him her decision. He sounded a little disappointed, but his voice still made her feel warm inside. She was confident in her decision. Just as soon as she rounded the corner, Donnie was gone. Vijay and Leila were now talking to each other. Sighing, she approached them with her hands in her pockets. They both stopped as soon as she came up.
“Hey, was that Dr. Vaughn there?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, he wanted to know the latest test results of our current experiment,” Leila said. “Things seem to be going well, but not as fast he wants. That’s why he sounded so upset. He wants us to change the temperature and add a few things. We told him we would do that, but I don’t think that made him happier.”
“Is that why he’s depressed? He isn’t satisfied with the results?”
“We think so, but he seems to be distracted by something else,” Vijay added. “I’ve never seen him this gloomy before. I mean, he’s had his bad days, but he’s never looked like this. It’s like he’s not even there. His body is here, and he’s talking, but his life has been drained out. His brain is also working, but you can tell he has no enthusiasm.”
“Really?” Olivia began to feel awful. She wondered if he was depressed over the experiment, or something else. “Did something happen today that might have depressed him? It can’t just be the experiment.”
“No idea. We were hoping you would know. You two have been spending some time together,” Leila said. Olivia did her best to stay calm. Of course everyone else would be paying attention to them; Vijay and Leila had to interact with Donnie on a regular basis. They probably saw and heard things in the building.
“Truth be told, I didn’t know he was depressed. He seemed okay the last time we spoke.” Olivia shrugged. “I think I’ll stop by his office during my break and talk to him.”
“Yeah, you should do that,” Vijay agreed. “Tell him that we’ve made the changes, and will keep all results up to date.”
They left her alone, and the rest of the workday continued to drag on. She waited until three to go down to Donnie’s office and have a quick chat with