The Love Hypothesis

by Ali Hazelwood

  Dammit. She was weepy, again. In front of Adam, again.

  “She sounds lovely,” Adam said.

  “She was.”

  “And to be clear, I’m not afraid of needles,” he repeated. This time, his tone was warm and kind. “They just feel . . . disgusting.”

  She sniffled and looked up at him. The temptation to hug him was almost irresistible. But she’d already done that today, so she made do with patting him on the arm. “Aww.”

  He pinned her with a withering look. “Don’t aww me.”

  Adorable. He was adorable. “No, really, they are gross. Stuff pokes at you, and then you bleed. The feeling of it—yikes.”

  She got out of the car and waited for him to do the same. When he joined her, she smiled at him reassuringly.

  “I get it.”

  “You do?” He didn’t seem convinced.

  “Yep. They’re horrible.”

  He was still a little distrustful. “They are.”

  “And scary.” She wrapped her hand around his elbow and began to pull him in the direction of the Fluchella tent. “Still, you need to get over it. For science. I’m taking you to get a flu shot.”

  “I—”

  “This is nonnegotiable. I’ll hold your hand, during.”

  “I don’t need you to hold my hand. Since I’m not going.” Except that he was going. He could have planted his feet and stood his ground, and he would have turned into an immovable object; Olive would have had no way of dragging him anywhere. And yet.

  She let her hand slide down to his wrist and looked up at him. “You so are.”

  “Please.” He looked pained. “Don’t make me.”

  He was so adorable. “It’s for your own good. And for the good of the elderly people who might come in any proximity to you. Even more elderly than you, that is.”

  He sighed, defeated. “Olive.”

  “Come on. Maybe we’re lucky and the chair will spot us. And I’ll buy you an ice cream sandwich afterward.”

  “Will I be paying for this ice cream sandwich?” He sounded resigned now.

  “Likely. Actually, scratch that, you probably don’t like ice cream anyway, because you don’t enjoy anything that’s good in life.” She kept on walking, pensively chewing on her lower lip. “Maybe the cafeteria has some raw broccoli?”

  “I don’t deserve this verbal abuse on top of the flu shot.”

  She beamed. “You’re such a trooper. Even though the big bad needle is out to get you.”

  “You are a smart-ass.” And yet, he didn’t resist when she continued to pull him behind her.

  It was ten on an early-September morning, the sun already shining too bright and too hot through the cotton of Olive’s shirt, the sweetgum leaves still a deep green and showing no sign of turning. It felt different from the past few years, this summer that didn’t seem to want to end, that was stretched full and ripe past the beginning of the semester. Undergrads must have been either dozing off in their midmorning classes or still asleep in bed, because for once that harried air of chaos that always coated the Stanford campus was missing. And Olive—Olive had a lab for next year. Everything she’d worked toward since fifteen, it was finally going to happen.

  Life didn’t get much better than this.

  She smiled, smelling the flower beds and humming a tune under her breath as she and Adam walked quietly, side by side. As they made their way across the quad, her fingers slid down from his wrist and closed around his palm.

  Chapter Ten

  HYPOTHESIS: If I fall in love, things will invariably end poorly.

  The knockout mouse had been hanging from a wire for a length of time that should have been impossible, considering how it had been genetically modified. Olive frowned at it and pressed her lips together. It was missing crucial DNA. All the hanging-from-a-wire proteins had been erased. There was no way it could hold on for this long. It was the whole point of knocking out its stupid genes—

  Her phone lit up, and the corner of her eye darted to its screen. She was able to read the name of the sender (Adam) but not the content of the message. It was 8:42 on Wednesday, which immediately had her worried that he might want to cancel their fake date. Maybe he thought that because he’d let Olive pick out an ice cream sandwich for him yesterday after Fluchella (which she may or may not have ended up eating herself) they didn’t need to meet today. Maybe she shouldn’t have forced him to sit on a bench with her and recount the marathons they had run, and possibly she had come off as annoying when she’d stolen his phone, downloaded her favorite running app, and then friended herself on it. He had seemed to be enjoying himself, but maybe he hadn’t been.

  Olive glanced at her gloved hands, and then back at her mouse, who was still holding on to the wire.

  “Dude, stop trying so hard.” She kneeled until she was at eye level with the cage. The mouse kicked around with its little legs, its tail flopping back and forth. “You’re supposed to be bad at this. And I’m supposed to write a dissertation about how bad you are. And then you get a chunk of cheese, and I get a real job that pays real money and the joy of saying ‘I’m not that kind of doctor’ when someone is having a stroke on my airplane.”

  The mouse squeaked and let go of the wire, flopping on the floor of the testing cage with a thud.

  “That’ll do it.” She quickly got rid of her gloves and unlocked her phone with her thumb.

  Adam: My arm hurts.

  She initially thought that he was giving her a reason why they couldn’t meet up. Then she remembered waking up and rubbing her own achy arm.

  Olive: From the flu shot?

  Adam: It’s really painful.

  She giggled. She truly had not thought she was the type to, but here she was, covering her mouth with her hand and . . . yes, giggling like a fool in the middle of the lab. Her mouse was staring up at her, its tiny red eyes a mix of judgment and surprise. Olive hastily turned away and looked back at her phone.

  Olive: Oh, Adam. I’m so sorry.

  Olive: Should I come over and kiss it better?

  Adam: You never said it would hurt so bad.

  Olive: As someone once told me, it’s not my job to work on your emotion regulation skills.

  Adam’s answer was one single emoji (a yellow hand with a raised middle finger), and Olive’s cheeks pulled with how hard she was grinning. She was about to reply with a kiss emoji when a voice interrupted her.

  “Gross.”

  She looked up from her phone. Anh stood in the lab’s entrance, sticking out her tongue.

  “Hey. What are you doing here?”

  “Borrowing gloves. And being grossed out.”

  Olive frowned. “Why?”

  “We’re out of the small size.” Anh stepped inside, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, they never buy enough because I’m the only woman in the lab, but it’s not like I don’t go through gloves as fast as—”

  “No, why are you grossed out?”

  Anh made a face and plucked two purple gloves from Olive’s stash. “Because of how in love you are with Carlsen. Is it okay if I take a few pairs?”

  “What are you—” Olive blinked at her, still clutching her phone. Was Anh going crazy? “I’m not in love with him.”

  “Uh-huh, sure.” Anh finished stuffing her pockets with gloves and then looked up, finally noticing Olive’s distressed expression. Her eyes widened. “Hey, I was kidding! You’re not gross. I probably look the same when I’m texting Jeremy. And it’s actually very sweet, how gone you are for him—”

  “But I’m not. Gone.” Olive was starting to panic. “I don’t—It’s just—”

  Anh pressed her lips together, as if biting back a smile. “Okay. If you say so.”

  “No, I’m serious. We’re just—”

  “Dude, it’s okay.” Anh’s tone was reassuring and a lit
tle emotional. “It’s just, you’re so amazing. And special. And honestly, my favorite person in the whole world. But sometimes I get worried that no one but Malcolm and me will ever get to experience how incredible you are. Well, until now. Now I’m not worried anymore, because I’ve seen you and Adam together, at the picnic. And in the parking lot. And . . . every other time, really. You’re both crazy in love, and over the moon about it. It’s cute! Except that first night,” she added, pensive. “I maintain that was pretty awkward.”

  Olive stiffened. “Anh, it’s not like that. We’re just . . . dating. Casually. Hanging out. Getting to know each other. We’re not . . .”

  “Okay, sure. If you say so.” Anh shrugged, clearly not believing a word of what Olive was saying. “Hey, I gotta go back to my bacterial culture. I’ll come bug you when I’m on break, okay?”

  Olive nodded slowly, watching her friend’s back as she headed for the door. Olive’s heart skipped a beat when Anh paused and turned around, her expression suddenly serious.

  “Ol. I just want you to know that . . . I was very worried about you getting hurt from my dating Jeremy. But now I’m not anymore. Because I know what you really look like when you . . . Well.” Anh gave her a sheepish grin. “I won’t say it, if you don’t want me to.”

  She left with a wave of her hand, and Olive stood frozen, watching the doorframe long past the moment Anh had disappeared. Then she lowered her gaze to the floor, slumped on the stool behind her, and thought one single thing:

  Shit.

  * * *

  —

  IT WASN’T THE end of the world. These things happened. Even the best of people developed crushes—Anh had said love, oh God, she had said love—on the person they were fake-dating. It didn’t mean anything.

  Except that: Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Olive locked the door of her office behind her and plopped herself into a chair, hoping today wouldn’t be the one time in the semester that her office mates decided to show up before 10:00 a.m.

  It was all her fault. Her stupid doing. She had known, she had known, that she’d begun to find Adam attractive. She had known almost from the very beginning, and then she’d started talking with him, she’d started getting to know him even though it was never part of the plan, and—damn him to hell for being so different from what she’d expected. For making her want to be with him more and more. Damn him. It had been there, staring at Olive for the past few days, and she hadn’t noticed. Because she was an idiot.

  She stood abruptly and dug into her pocket for her phone, pulling up Malcolm’s contact.

  Olive: We have to meet.

  Bless Malcolm, because it took him fewer than five seconds to answer.

  Malcolm: Lunch? I’m about to dig into the neuromuscular junction of a juvenile rat.

  Olive: I need to talk to you NOW.

  Olive: Please.

  Malcolm: Starbucks. In 10.

  * * *

  —

  “I TOLD YOU so.”

  Olive didn’t bother lifting her forehead from the table. “You didn’t.”

  “Well, maybe I didn’t say, ‘Hey, don’t do this fake-dating shit because you’re going to fall for Carlsen,’ but I did say that the whole idea was idiotic and a car wreck waiting to happen—which I believe encompasses the current situation.”

  Malcolm was sitting across from her, by the window of the crowded coffee shop. Around them students chatted, laughed, ordered drinks—rudely unaware of the sudden maelstrom in Olive’s life. She pushed up from the cold surface of the table and pressed her palms into her eyes, not quite ready to open them yet. She might never be ready again. “How could this happen? I am not like this. This is not me. How could I—and Adam Carlsen, of everyone. Who is into Adam Carlsen?”

  Malcolm snorted. “Everyone, Ol. He’s a tall, broody, sullen hunk with a genius IQ. Everyone likes tall, broody, sullen hunks with genius IQs.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Clearly you do.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered. “He’s really not that sullen.”

  “Oh, he is. Just, you don’t notice, because you’re halfway gone for him.”

  “I am not—” She smacked her forehead. Repeatedly. “Shit.”

  He leaned forward and grabbed her hand, his skin dark and warm against hers. “Hey,” he told her, voice pitched to a comforting tone. “Settle down. We’ll figure it out.” He even tacked on a smile. Olive loved him so much in that moment, even with all the I told you sos. “First of all, how bad is it?”

  “I don’t know. Is there a scale?”

  “Well, there is liking, and there is liking.”

  She shook her head, feeling utterly lost. “I just like him. I want to spend time with him.”

  “Okay, that doesn’t mean anything. You also want to spend time with me.”

  She grimaced, feeling herself blush scarlet. “Not quite like that.”

  Malcolm was quiet for a beat. “I see.” He knew how big of a deal this was for Olive. They’d talked about it multiple times—how rare it was for her to experience attraction, especially sexual attraction. If there was something wrong with her. If her past had stunted her in some way.

  “God.” She just wanted to retreat inside her hoodie like a turtle until it all went away. Go run a race. Start writing her dissertation proposal. Anything but deal with this. “It was there, and I didn’t figure it out. I just thought he was smart and attractive and that he had a nice smile and that we could be friends and—” She rubbed her palms into her eye sockets, wishing she could go back and erase her life choices. The entire past month. “Do you hate me?”

  “Me?” Malcolm sounded surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “No. Why would I hate you?”

  “Because he’s been horrible to you, made you throw out a ton of data. It’s just—with me he’s not—”

  “I know. Well,” he amended, waving his hand, “I don’t know know. But I can believe he’s different with you than when he was in my damn graduate advisory committee.”

  “You hate him.”

  “Yeah—I hate him. Or . . . I dislike him. But you don’t have to dislike him because I do. Though I do reserve the right to comment on your abysmal taste in men. Every other day or so. But, Ol, I saw you guys at the picnic. He definitely wasn’t interacting with you like he does with me. Plus, you know,” he added begrudgingly, “he’s not not hot. I can see why you’d hit that.”

  “This is not what you said when I first told you about the fake dating.”

  “No, but I’m trying to be supportive here. You weren’t in love with him at the time.”

  She groaned. “Can we please not use that word? Ever again? It seems a little premature.”

  “Sure.” Malcolm brushed nonexistent dust off his button-down. “Way to bring a rom-com to life, by the way. So, how are you going to break the news?”

  She massaged her temple. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you have a thing for him, and you two are friendly. I’m assuming you’re planning to inform him of your . . . feelings? Can I use the word ‘feelings’?”

  “No.”

  “Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re going to tell him, right?”

  “Of course not.” She snorted out a laugh. “You can’t tell the person you’re fake-dating that you”—her brain scanned itself for the correct word, didn’t find it, and then stumbled on—“like them. It’s just not done. Adam will think I orchestrated this. That I was after him all along.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You didn’t even know him at the time.”

  “Maybe I did, though. Do you remember the guy I told you about, who helped me decide about grad school? The one I met in the bathroom over my interview weekend?”

  Malcolm nodded.

  “He might have been Adam. I think
.”

  “You think? You mean you didn’t ask him?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Why ‘of course’?”

  “Because maybe it wasn’t him. And if he was, he clearly doesn’t remember, or he’d have mentioned it weeks ago.”

  He hadn’t been the one wearing expired contacts, after all.

  Malcolm rolled his eyes. “Listen, Olive,” he said earnestly, “I need you to consider something: What if Adam likes you, too? What if he wants something more?”

  She laughed. “There is no way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  “Because what?”

  “Because he’s him. He’s Adam Carlsen, and I . . .” She trailed off. No need to continue. And I’m me. I am nothing special.

  Malcolm was quiet for a long moment. “You have no idea, do you?” His tone was sad. “You’re great. You’re beautiful, and loving. You’re independent, and a genius scientist, and selfless, and loyal—hell, Ol, look at this ridiculous mess you created just so your friend could date the guy she likes without feeling guilty. There’s no way Carlsen hasn’t noticed.”

  “No.” She was resolute. “Don’t get me wrong, I do think he likes me, but he thinks of me as a friend. And if I tell him and he doesn’t want to . . .”

  “To what? Doesn’t want to fake-date you anymore? It’s not like you have much to lose.”

  Maybe not. Maybe all the talking, and those looks Adam gave her, and him shaking his head when she ordered extra whipped cream; the way he let himself be teased out of his moods; the texts; how he seemed to be so at ease with her, so noticeably different from the Adam Carlsen she used to be half-scared of—maybe all of that was not much. But she and Adam were friends now, and they could remain friends even past September twenty-ninth. Olive’s heart sank at the thought of giving up the possibility of it. “I do, though.”