The Love Hypothesis

by Ali Hazelwood

  Adam: I have interview meetings until 4:30, but I’m free for the night. Would you like to get dinner? There are several good restaurants near campus (though a shameful lack of conveyor belts). If you’re not busy, I could show you around campus, maybe even Tom’s lab.

  Adam: No pressure, of course.

  It was almost two in the afternoon. Olive felt as though her bones weighed twice as much as the day before. She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and began typing her reply to Adam.

  She knew what she had to do.

  * * *

  —

  SHE KNOCKED ON his door at five sharp, and he answered just a few seconds later, still dressed in slacks and a button-down that must have been his interview attire and . . .

  Smiling at her. Not one of those half-baked things she’d gotten used to, but a real, true smile. With dimples, and crinkles around his eyes, and genuine happiness to see her. It shattered her heart in a million pieces before he even spoke.

  “Olive.”

  She still hadn’t figured it out, why the way he said her name was so unique. There was something packed behind it, something that didn’t quite make it to the surface. A sense of possibilities. Of depth. Olive wondered if it was real, if she was hallucinating it, if he was aware. Olive wondered a lot of things, and then told herself to stop. It couldn’t matter less, now.

  “Come in.”

  It was an even fancier hotel, and Olive rolled her eyes, wondering why people felt the need to waste thousands of dollars in lodgings for Adam Carlsen when he barely paid attention to his surroundings. They should just give him a cot and donate the money to worthy causes. Endangered whales. Psoriasis. Olive.

  “I brought this—I’m assuming it’s yours.” She took a couple of steps toward him and held out a phone charger, letting the cable end dangle, making sure that Adam wouldn’t need to touch her.

  “It is. Thank you.”

  “It was behind the bedside lamp, probably why you forgot it.” She pressed her lips together. “Or maybe it’s old age. Maybe dementia has already set in. All those amyloid plaques.”

  He glared at her, and she tried not to smile, but she already was, and he was rolling his eyes and calling her a smart-ass, and—

  Here they were. Doing this, again. Dammit.

  She let her eyes wander away, because—no. Not anymore. “How was the interview?”

  “Good. Just day one, though.”

  “Of how many?”

  “Too many.” He sighed. “I have grant meetings with Tom scheduled, too.”

  Tom. Right. Of course. Of course—this was why she was here. To explain to him that—

  “Thank you for coming out,” he said, voice quiet and earnest. As though by hopping on a train and agreeing to see him, Olive had given him a great deal of pleasure. “I figured you might be busy with your friends.”

  She shook her head. “No. Anh’s out with Jeremy.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking genuinely regretful for her, and it took Olive several moments to recall her lie, and his assumption that she was in love with Jeremy. Only a few weeks earlier, but it already seemed so long ago, when she hadn’t been able to imagine anything worse than Adam discovering her feelings for him. It sounded so foolish after everything that had happened in the past few days. She should really come clean, but what was the point now? Let Adam think what he liked. It would serve him better than the truth, after all.

  “And Malcolm is with . . . Holden.”

  “Ah, yes.” He nodded, looking exhausted.

  Olive briefly fantasized about Holden texting Adam the equivalent of what Olive and Anh had been subjected to for the past two hours, and smiled. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad?”

  “This thing between Malcolm and Holden?”

  “Ah.” Adam leaned his shoulder against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “I think it can be very good. For Holden, at least. He really likes Malcolm.”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “He hasn’t shut up about it.” He rolled his eyes. “Did you know that Holden is secretly twelve?”

  She laughed. “So is Malcolm. He dates a lot, and he’s usually good at managing expectations, but this thing with Holden—I had a sandwich for lunch and he randomly volunteered that Holden is allergic to peanuts. It wasn’t even PB and J!”

  “He’s not allergic, he fakes it because he doesn’t like nuts.” He massaged his temple. “This morning I woke up to a haiku about Malcolm’s elbows. Holden had texted it at three a.m.”

  “Was it good?”

  He lifted one eyebrow, and she laughed again.

  “They are . . .”

  “The worst.” Adam shook his head. “But I think Holden might need it. Someone to care about, who also cares about him.”

  “Malcolm, too. I’m just . . . concerned that he might want more than Holden is willing to offer?”

  “Believe me, Holden is very ready to file taxes jointly.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” She smiled. And then felt her smile fade, just as quickly. “One-sided relationships are really . . . not good.” I would know. And maybe you would, too.

  He studied his own palm, undoubtedly thinking about the woman Holden had mentioned. “No. No, they’re not.”

  It was a weird kind of ache, the jealousy. Confusing, unfamiliar, not something she was used to. Half cutting, half disorienting and aimless, so different from the loneliness she’d felt since she was fifteen. Olive missed her mother every day, but with time she’d been able to harness her pain and turn it into motivation for her work. Into purpose. Jealousy, though . . . the misery of it didn’t come with any gain. Only restless thoughts, and something squeezing at her chest whenever her mind turned to Adam.

  “I need to ask you something,” he said. The seriousness of his tone made her look up.

  “Sure.”

  “The people you overheard at the conference yesterday . . .”

  She stiffened. “I’d rather not—”

  “I won’t force you to do anything. But whoever they were, I want . . . I think you should consider filing a complaint.”

  Oh God. God. Was this some cruel joke? “You really like complaints, don’t you?” She laughed once, a weak attempt at humor.

  “I’m serious, Olive. And if you decide you want to do it, I’ll help you however I can. I could come with you and talk with SBD’s organizers, or we could go through Stanford’s Title IX office—”

  “No. I . . . Adam, no. I’m not going to file a complaint.” She rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers, feeling as though this was one giant, painful prank. Except that Adam had no idea. He actually wanted to protect her, when all Olive wanted was . . . to protect him. “I’ve already decided. It would do more harm than good.”

  “I know why you think that. I felt the same during grad school, with my mentor. We all did. But there are ways to do it. Whoever this person is, they—”

  “Adam, I—” She ran one hand down her face. “I need you to drop this. Please.”

  He studied her, silent for several minutes, and then nodded. “Okay. Of course.” He pushed away from the wall and straightened, clearly unhappy to let the subject go but making an effort to do so. “Would you like to go to dinner? There’s a Mexican restaurant nearby. Or sushi—real sushi. And a movie theater. Maybe there are one or two movies playing in which horses don’t die.”

  “I’m not . . . I’m not hungry, actually.”

  “Oh.” His expression was teasing. Gentle. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

  “Me neither.” She chuckled weakly, and then forced herself to continue. “Today is September twenty-ninth.”

  A beat. Adam studied her, patient and curious. “It is.”

  She bit into her lower lip. “Do you know what the chair has decided about your f
unds?”

  “Oh, right. The funds will be unfrozen.” He seemed happy, his eyes brilliant in an almost boyish way. It broke her heart a little. “I meant to tell you tonight at dinner.”

  “That’s great.” She managed a smile, small and pitiful in her mounting anxiety. “That’s really great, Adam. I’m happy for you.”

  “Must have been your sunscreen skills.”

  “Yeah.” Her laugh sounded fake. “I’ll have to put them on my CV. Fake girlfriend with extensive experience. Microsoft Office and excellent sunscreen skills. Available immediately, only serious callers.”

  “Not immediately.” He looked at her curiously. Tenderly. “Not for a while, I’d say.”

  The weight, the one that had been pressing into her stomach since she’d realized what needed to be done, sank heavier. Now—this was it. The coda. The moment it all ended. Olive could do this, and she would, and things would be all the better for it.

  “I think I should be.” She swallowed, and it was like acid down her throat. “Available.” She scanned his face, noticed his confusion, and clenched her fist in the hem of her sweater. “We gave ourselves a deadline, Adam. And we accomplished everything we wanted. Jeremy and Anh are solid—I doubt they even remember that Jeremy and I used to date. And your funds have been released, which is amazing. The truth is . . .”

  Her eyes stung. She closed them tight, managing to push the tears back. Barely.

  The truth, Adam, is that your friend, your collaborator, a person you clearly love and are close to, is horrid and despicable. He told me things that might be truths, or maybe lies—I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore, and I would love to ask you, so badly. But I’m terrified that he might be right, and that you won’t believe me. And I’m even more terrified that you will believe me, and that what I tell you will force you to give up something that is very important to you: your friendship and your work with him. I’m terrified of everything, as you can see. So, instead of telling you that truth, I will tell you another truth. A truth that, I think, will be best for you. A truth that will take me out of the equation, but will make its result better. Because I’m starting to wonder if this is what being in love is. Being okay with ripping yourself to shreds, so the other person can stay whole.

  She inhaled deeply. “The truth is, we did great. And it’s time we call it quits.”

  She could tell from how his lips parted, from his disoriented eyes searching hers, that he wasn’t yet parsing what she’d said. “I don’t think we’ll need to explicitly tell anyone,” she continued. “People won’t see us together, and after a while they’ll think that . . . that it didn’t work out. That we broke up. And maybe you . . .” This was the hardest part. But he deserved to hear it. He’d told her the same, after all, when he’d believed her in love with Jeremy. “I wish you all the best, Adam. At Harvard, and . . . with your real girlfriend. Whoever you may choose. I cannot imagine anyone not reciprocating your feelings.”

  She could pinpoint the exact moment it dawned on him. She could tease apart the feelings struggling in his face—the surprise, the confusion, a hint of stubbornness, a split second of vulnerability that all melted in a blank, empty expression. Then she could see his throat work.

  “Right,” he said. “Right.” He was staring at his shoes, absolutely motionless. Slowly accepting her words.

  Olive took a step back and rocked on her heels. Outside, an iPhone rang, and a few seconds later someone burst into laughter. Normal noises, on a normal day. Normal, all of this.

  “It’s for the best,” she said, because the silence between them—that, she just couldn’t stand. “It’s what we agreed on.”

  “Whatever you want.” His voice was hoarse, and he seemed . . . absent. Retreated to some place inside himself. “Whatever you need.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. Not just about Anh. When we met, I felt so alone, and . . .” For a moment she couldn’t continue. “Thank you for all the pumpkin spice, and for that Western blot, and for hiding your taxidermied squirrels when I visited, and . . .”

  She couldn’t bring herself to go on anymore, not without choking on her words. The stinging in her eyes was burning now, threatening to spill over, so she nodded once, decisively, a period to this dangling sentence with no end in sight.

  And that would have been it. It would have surely been the end. They would have left it at that, if Olive hadn’t passed him on her way to the door. If he hadn’t reached out and stopped her with a hand on her wrist. If he hadn’t immediately pulled that hand back and stared at it with an appalled expression, as if shocked that he’d dared to touch her without asking for permission first.

  If he hadn’t said, “Olive. If you ever need anything, anything at all. Anything. Whenever. You can come to me.” His jaw worked, like there were other words, words he was keeping inside. “I want you to come to me.”

  She almost didn’t register wiping wetness off her cheek with the back of her hand, or moving closer to him. It was his scent that jolted her alert—soap and something dark, subtle but oh so familiar. Her brain had him mapped out, stored away across all senses. Eyes to his almost smile, hands to his skin, the smell of him in her nostrils. She didn’t even need to think about what to do, just push up on her toes, press her fingers against his biceps, and kiss him gently on the cheek. His skin was soft and warm and a little prickly; unexpected, but not unwelcome.

  An apt goodbye, she thought. Appropriate. Acceptable.

  And so was his hand coming up to her lower back, pulling her into his body and stopping her from sliding back on her heels, or the way his head turned, until her lips were not brushing the skin of his cheek anymore. Her breath hitched, a chuff against the corner of his mouth, and for a few precious seconds she just savored it, the deep pleasure that ran through them both as they closed their eyes and let themselves just be, here, with each other.

  Quiet. Still. One last moment.

  Then Olive opened her mouth and turned her head, breathing against his lips, “Please.”

  Adam groaned deep in his chest. But she was the one who closed the space between them, who deepened the kiss, who combed her hands into his hair, short nails scraping against his scalp. She was the one who pulled him even closer, and he was the one who pushed her back against the wall and moaned into her mouth.

  It was frightening. Frightening, how good this felt. How easy it would be to never stop. To let time stretch and unbend, forget about everything else, and simply stay in this moment forever.

  But Adam pulled back first, holding her eyes as he tried to collect himself.

  “It was good, wasn’t it?” Olive asked, with a small, wistful smile.

  She wasn’t herself sure what she was referring to. Maybe his arms around her. Maybe this last kiss. Maybe everything else. The sunscreen, his ridiculous answers on his favorite color, the quiet conversations late at night . . . all of it had been so very good.

  “It was.” Adam’s voice sounded too deep to be his own. When he pressed his lips against her forehead one last time, she felt her love for him swell fuller than a river in flood.

  “I think I should leave,” she told him gently, without looking at him. He let her go wordlessly, so she did.

  When she heard the click of the door closing behind her, it was like falling from a great height.

  Chapter Nineteen

  HYPOTHESIS: When in doubt, asking a friend will save my ass.

  Olive spent the following day in the hotel, sleeping, crying, and doing the very thing that had gotten her into this mess to begin with: lying. She told Malcolm and Anh that she’d be busy with friends from college for the entire day, pulled the blackout curtains together, and then buried herself in her bed. Which, technically, was Adam’s bed.

  She didn’t let herself think about the situation too much. Something inside her—her h
eart, very possibly—was broken in several large pieces, not shattered as much as neatly snapped in half, and then in half again. All she could do was sit down amid the debris of her feelings and wallow. Sleeping through most of the day helped dull the pain a great deal. Numb, she was rapidly starting to realize, was good.

  She lied the day after, too. Feigned a last-minute request from Dr. Aslan when asked to join her friends at the conference or on excursions around Boston, and then took a deep, fortifying breath. She drew the curtains open, forced her blood to start flowing again (with fifty crunches, fifty jumping jacks, and fifty push-ups, though she cheated on the last by going on her knees), then showered and brushed her teeth for the first time in thirty-six hours.

  It wasn’t easy. Seeing Adam’s Biology Ninja T-shirt in the mirror made her tear up, but she reminded herself that she’d made her choice. She’d decided to put Adam’s well-being first, and she didn’t regret it. But she’d be damned if she let Tom Fucking Benton take credit for a project she had worked on for years. A project that meant the world to her. Maybe her life was nothing but a little sob story, but it was her little sob story.

  Her heart may be broken, but her brain was doing just fine.

  Adam had said that the reason most professors hadn’t bothered to reply, perhaps even read her email, was that she was a student. So she followed his advice: she emailed Dr. Aslan and asked her to introduce Olive to all the researchers she’d previously contacted, plus the two people who’d been on her panel and had shown interest in her work. Dr. Aslan was close to retirement, and had more or less given up on producing science, but she was still a full professor at Stanford. It had to mean something.

  Then Olive googled extensively about research ethics, plagiarism, and theft of ideas. The issue was a little murky, given that Olive had—quite recklessly, she now realized—described all her protocols in detail in her report for Tom. But once she began examining the situation with a clearer head, she decided that it wasn’t as dire as she’d initially thought. The report she’d written, after all, was well-structured and thorough. With a few tweaks she could turn it into a scholarly publication. It would hopefully go quickly through peer review, and the findings would be credited under her name.