The Love Proof

by Madeleine Henry

  “It…” Sophie started.

  A beat.

  It became clear she wasn’t going to speak.

  “Well, we won’t hog you for the whole evening.” He patted Jake affectionately on the shoulder. “Sophie, you’re an impressive one. I look forward to hearing what you get into next. The next ‘least understood, most important thing in the world.’ ” He winked at Jake.

  “Love,” Sophie said.

  “Hm?” Lionel asked.

  “The least understood, most important thing in the world is love.”

  Giulia raised an eyebrow. She’d been as eager as Lionel to talk to Sophie. A neurosurgeon, she loved meeting ambitious young women in the sciences and was eager to help them achieve their goals. For someone with Sophie’s credentials, she’d expected a sharp, analytical mind. Wasn’t this girl on the edge of knowledge? Looking over the line between the known and unknown? She’d expected to learn something from Sophie—about time, the universe, or mankind. For Sophie to say something maudlin was disappointing.

  “What did she say?” Lionel asked Giulia.

  “Love,” Giulia said.

  “Love. Right.”

  Sophie’s pink cheeks turned red.

  “Well, coming from you, it’s very Good Will Hunting,” Giulia said. She was still smiling politely when slick-haired Tony joined the group. Sophie recognized him from Jake’s descriptions: the Harvard grad who wore too much hair gel and got sloppy drunk at work parties. Tony did decent work and was a scratch golfer, but there was a fratty side to him that didn’t click with Jake. Tony stirred a drink.

  “Good Will Hunting?” Tony probed.

  “Tony!” Lionel greeted.

  “What’s all this about Good Will Hunting?”

  “Sophie, Jake’s girlfriend, was a math prodigy,” Giulia explained. “Now, she thinks love is the most important force in the world.”

  “Ah. Now you’re ‘gonna see about a girl?’ ”

  “Tony,” Lionel sniped. “For Christ’s sake.”

  “What? Matt Damon doesn’t take the job. He says, ‘I’m gonna see about a girl.’ ” No one concurred. “Am I on mute? The deadbeat genius.”

  “All right, calm down.” Lionel didn’t want to watch Tony bludgeon Sophie’s sensitivity with a hammer. “Great to meet you, Sophie. Boys.”

  * * *

  Sophie’s legs hung between Jake’s as he stared out the train window. Yellow towns scrolled by in silence. They’d left the penthouse soon after chatting with Lionel. It had been a sprint to make the 9:01 p.m. Metro-North back to New Haven. She and Jake had barely spoken on the crowded subway to Grand Central. Now, sitting down, her ankles ached in red Xs under her shoe straps. She touched one of the wounds. The night had left its mark. She’d been unable to speak a full sentence to Jake’s godsend, the man who’d gifted him with a job, so much of his time, and enormous, priceless faith. But Jake knew that side of her already, right? He knew everything about her. So why was he acting so stunned?

  “Jake?” she whispered.

  His distance was odd. The night train rumbled like a washing machine.

  “The least understood, most important thing in the world is love?” Jake shook his head. He’d never heard Sophie say anything like that. The words stuck with him like flakes in a snow globe, drifting and unable to settle.

  “Jake?” she asked again.

  She poked him.

  He flinched with surprise.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What is it?”

  His eyelashes looked soft up close. From root to tip, they were the same length as his meticulous haircut. She wanted to kiss his eyelid, but the mood was strange. He turned back to the window and stared at ghost towns.

  “Introducing you to other people…” He kept his hands on her knee. His profile was distinct. “I saw you as they do, you know?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “You’ve changed since we met.”

  He hadn’t pieced it together until the judgment left his lips: she didn’t study with Professor Malchik anymore. She didn’t take any advanced classes. She only enrolled in large, “Introduction to…” lectures, and she didn’t seem to care about any of them. She never read physics for fun anymore. She used to want to figure out the universe. “The least understood, most important thing in the world is love?” When had her dream disappeared?

  “Everyone’s changing,” she said. “We’re growing up.”

  “Yeah.”

  He couldn’t let it go.

  “But that thing you said about love?”

  “Nikola Tesla said, ‘If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world.’ ” She’d read that freshman year. “But what about love? What is love capable of? Some of the best thinkers have started work on love as energy, or on love as a force, but no one’s broken through. At the same time, there’s so much out there about how love changes people.” She’d read about the addictions people beat for a loved one; the miles traveled, years spent waiting, and the physical and mental transformations endured. Behind every great feat, there seemed to be a great love. Something about it could propel people up to higher levels of life. “It’s an area begging to be known. I used to think I’d be the one to do it.”

  Sophie remembered that phase. Freshman year, when she and Jake fell in love—and she finally felt accepted, an unimaginable peace—she started to believe that love was the most powerful, most important thing in the universe. In an effort to understand it, she read poetry that echoed what she was feeling. After a while, though, true connection was so fulfilling, she lost the desire to grasp its power. She was content with a simple life.

  Meanwhile, Jake latched on to the phrase “used to.” He squeezed her hand, feeling sad. Had he done this? She had the same passion, the same intellect; they just weren’t fueling a goal. He’d always loved her mind, but her lack of ego was keeping her from using it.

  “Are you happy?” he asked.

  “Of course!”

  She smiled.

  “If she’s in the way of your dream, she’s not the one.” But what if he was in the way of hers? For the first time, Jake breathed life into the thought of who they would be apart. The idea cut him deep. Sophie gave him complete intimacy, complete companionship, and complete freedom while he threw himself into his goals. She wasn’t chasing her own vision the same way anymore, but she understood what it was like to need to. She understood wanting to do something important, something specific, and to invest everything in that dream because she was the exact same way. They just understood. And their connection. They were ingrained in each other’s habits. She was almost always with him and always in his heart. Could he ever tolerate being alone again? After knowing what it was like to fuse with someone else?

  In all of Jake’s ideas for the future, their family was core to his vision. They hadn’t made any plans, only dreams. A couple of times, they’d been lying in bed and her hair happened to fall across his chest, painting a sunny sash across his torso. He’d picked up a strand and laid it above his lips in the image of their son. Jake suggested the name Fabio. She insisted on Legolas. Both made her laugh, hard as the rib-tickling she pretended to hate. He loved that sound and wanted to hear it every day for the rest of his life. Neither one of them had questioned that they’d always be together. They’d talked about living in New York when they were older, close to their parents. The more he worked now, the more they could share in the future. He really did believe this was just a phase. One day, they would decorate—but what would Sophie do until then? What could he give her in the meantime and what was he taking away?

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I love you so much.”

  “I know.” She looked puzzled.

  “I’m probably just tired.”

  The conductor punched their tickets, moved to the next row.

  “I just need to relax,”
Jake said.

  She kissed his thumb.

  “Can you teach me something?” he asked.

  She brightened—they only had this conversation in their closest moments. Jake leaned on her shoulder while her mind flipped through shots of outer space. She pictured the planet thirty-three million light-years away covered in burning ice; then, Hubble Telescope views of green and magenta clouds a hundred million light-years away, where matter was so dense that each tablespoon weighed one billion tons; and then, the hundreds of millions of planets with conditions to support life. As Sophie traced the veins on Jake’s hand, pictures of the enormous, the magnificent, and the strange faded. On their little blue dot in space, at an insignificant moment in their short lives, she couldn’t think of anything greater than the feeling of just being with him. Her fingertips on his warm skin was her entire world, and her mind was consumed with touch.

  “Okay, something about touch?” she suggested. He nodded. “Americans touch each other a lot less than people do in other cultures. In France and Latin America, for example, people touch each other hundreds of times an hour in public.”

  “I feel like I’m always touching you.”

  Their four hands became a focal point.

  “We’re an exception,” she said, sensing Jake calm down more with every word. “In America, couples touch each other less than ten times an hour. At the same time, twenty percent of those in relationships don’t feel loved. I think touch is part of the solution. When two people touch each other, their nervous systems relax: stress, heart rate, and blood pressure all come down. We feel less fear, less pain. There’s actually a correlation between time spent cuddling and how well your immune system is functioning.” She stroked his hand. “But what I find most interesting about touch is the shared part of it. You can’t touch without being touched. You can’t be touched without touching, and the benefits are the same in both directions. So, if I’m touching you, or if you’re touching me, it has the same effects on each of us. It’s like Newton’s third law: For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.”

  “Is Fabio gonna be as smart as you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Or is he gonna be a dumb animal like me?”

  “You’re no dumb animal.” She stroked his arm and was passively stroked in return. Finally, she felt him relax, but his peace was too new and delicate—now was not the time to mention she’d run into Professor Malchik that afternoon.

  * * *

  Hours earlier, Peter had been looking at his square of lasagna, but saw Sophie. The scalloped edge of his pasta was a screen for his projected memory. He’d spotted her leaving a physics class that afternoon and stopped short in the hallway. Her email freshman spring—I am unable to make our session—was still their most recent exchange. The few steps between them felt enormous. A black Nike tee dwarfed her tiny jean shorts. It didn’t look like anything she used to wear. She waved but said nothing. The shirt billowed as she left.

  How did they get into this stalemate? He used to imagine sitting in the front row of her Fields Medal award ceremony. Now, he only heard about her through the grapevine. Apparently, she’d shown up so late to a midterm exam in electricity and magnetism, she hadn’t finished. Sometimes, in the middle of his seminar, Professor Kotak found her zoned out with a dopey smile. Had she gotten into drugs? Opiates? It was a startling loss of ambition, as if she’d found the answers to all her burning questions and was content to live unstimulated. Meanwhile, Peter had returned to the life he had before he met her, left to wonder where her heart had gone.

  After this afternoon, however, Peter was sure she was seeing someone. That shirt was clearly not her own. He kept coming back to that point. Her style was so much younger, brighter than that black box hiding her like a candle snuffer.

  Benji cut into his lasagna.

  Zack chewed green salad.

  Peter hardly noticed his family around the dinner table. Instead, he wondered how long Sophie had been dating the man implied by her outfit. Had she been on her way to meet him earlier? Had he asked her to skip class? Was he a prodigy, too?

  “No Rachel tonight?” Maggie asked.

  Benji shook his head.

  “We broke up,” he said.

  Zack stopped chewing.

  Maggie put her fork down.

  Rachel, Benji’s girlfriend for the past year, had come over almost every day after school. Even Peter had liked her. She had endeared herself to him by slapping Benji whenever he said something unusually stupid in the house. “Is melted cheese a food or a drink?” Slap. “Seriously. I don’t chew it at all. What is it?” Slap.

  Peter was stunned and, with Sophie still at the forefront of his mind, he worried about the relationship he’d only just started to see. He imagined the owner of that Nike shirt leaving her as callously as Benji had left his girlfriend. It angered him.

  Only Benji kept eating.

  “Dude,” Zack said.

  “What?”

  “What happened?” Zack asked.

  Benji dragged a stiff finger across his neck.

  “Benji,” Maggie chided.

  “Answer the damn question!” Peter snapped.

  Everyone swiveled to face him at the head of the table. No one knew he’d been listening to—let alone was invested in—their conversation. His lasagna remained untouched. Now, he stared at Benji. His mind had returned from its trek to animate his eyes.

  “What happened?” Peter repeated.

  “Dude, what do you want me to say?” Benji demanded. “Like, you want me to say what happened between me and her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, I don’t even know. One minute, we’re dating. The next, it feels different.” He shrugged. “Can I go back to my dinner now?”

  “Is she okay?” Peter asked.

  Benji blinked. His dad rarely paid him any attention. When he did, it was usually with drudgery tapering into a yes-or-no question.

  “I have no idea,” Benji said.

  “That’s cold, bro,” Zack said.

  “Everyone handles it differently,” Maggie said gently.

  “Look, I dated her for a year already. Actually more than that, because she got me an anniversary gift. My point is I’d like a day off please.” He squeezed an empty bottle of ketchup onto his plate, squelching out a long fart noise without expelling any condiment. He squeezed again. “Ma, this ketchup is fucked.”

  Peter pushed his plate forward.

  * * *

  That night, Maggie and Peter did the dishes side by side at the sink. While Maggie loaded the dishwasher, rinsed plate by rinsed plate, Peter scrubbed the lasagna pan. He was rubbing the brush in circles when Sophie’s new shirt superimposed itself over the foam.

  “I know you’re upset about Benji and Rachel,” Maggie said as she closed the dishwasher. It rained behind the door at her hip. “I am too. But they weren’t right for each other. They’ll both find someone better suited. It happens.”

  Peter scrubbed harder.

  “She’ll be okay,” Maggie said.

  “You don’t know that,” Peter said, on another wavelength entirely. He wasn’t sure Sophie would be all right. Men her age—in the same bracket as Benji—could be selfish, careless, dense. He didn’t want her to suffer their faults. She’d always been so attuned to details. It hurt him to think how reactive she might be to something as massive as heartbreak. Only one question stuck with him as he rinsed the pan of soap: had she chosen someone kind?

  CHAPTER 8

  Sophie stood next to Jake in their office about to interrupt him. The view might as well have been through a telescope for how distant he seemed.

  Jake slouched in his sleek new chair, typing. He used to sit in the Yale-issued wooden one, but that hard seat wasn’t made for as much use as Jake gave it. So, a few months ago that fall, after three summers at Padington, Jake had bought a $79 replacement. Its spine curved between two cushions propping him up for his latest challenge. Jake had
been managing $200,000 of Lionel’s personal money since senior year began, the most he’d ever handled at once. If he returned more than the S&P 500 by graduation, Lionel would seed him with $1 million to start his own investment fund. So, Jake had been working in that chair more than he slept in their bed. Now, one foot in front of Sophie, he was light-years away in one of his states: dead still except for his impassioned fingers. His whole life was in his hands.

  “Jake?” Sophie asked.

  Nothing.

  “Jake. Jake.”

  He turned his chin but not his eyes.

  “Hey. Sorry.”

  That day, Jake had only left his new chair for water from the bathroom and napkin-wrapped food from the dining hall. He’d been working fanatically on Yetsa, a software company and major investment whose stock price had dropped 20 percent in a month. Jake’s December 1 birthday had come and gone since Yetsa started its decline. He’d been postponing their celebration for two weeks. On the few occasions he’d left this room to go outside, he’d felt like he was intruding from a different reality. Everyone was so slow, too calm—even Sophie. Tonight, though, he’d promised her time. He pushed himself away from the desk.

  “All right. I’m here.”

  Jake kissed her cheek.

  “You smell good,” she said.

  He stepped into the common area where they usually kept a brown coffee table from Isabel, a futon stuffed with sour candy dust, and a mini fridge. Now, the room contained only a dinner table set for two. The chairs were seated side by side. Jake held Sophie’s hand and, in the dim light, pulled her close with an expression mixing love with sadness.

  “This is too thoughtful,” he said, stern.

  She wasn’t sure it was a compliment.

  They sat. Sophie had forgotten what it was like to see Jake’s body up close. Thick biceps stuffed his zip-up. Each of his quads spanned twice the width of hers. She remembered they hadn’t kissed, not really, in a while. Sophie placed her hand on his thigh. She missed this body—his body, smelling artificially clean, Nike-wrapped, hard all over, with his unique pattern of chest hair. Even more, she missed the way he animated his body: the essence that emerged when he moved, the way he loved a good meal more than anyone else, the way he worked himself so recklessly and yet kept structure, the old soul of his music playing in the back rooms of his mind, and the way he held her waist in his two sturdy hands.