The love hypothesis - Chapter 22

HYPOTHESIS: When given a choice between A (telling a lie) and. B (telling the truth), | will inevitably end up selecting... No. Not this time. Olive had no doubt that Holden’s tales were highly embellished and the result of years of comedy workshopping, but she still couldn’t help laughing harder than ever before. “And I’m awakened by this waterfall pouring down on me—” Adam rolled his eyes. “It was a drop.” “And I’m asking myself why it’s raining inside the cabin, when I realize that it’s coming from the top bunk and that Adam, who was, like, thirteen at the time—” “Six. I was six, and you were seven.” “Had pissed the bed, and the piss was se eping through the mattress and onto me.” Olive’s hands flew up to cover her mouth, not quite succeeding at hiding her amusement—just like she’d failed when Holden had recounted that a dalmatian puppy had once bitten Adam’s ass through his jeans, or that he’d been voted “Most likely to make people cry” in his senior yearbook. At least Adam didn’t act embarrassed, and not nearly as upset as he’d seemed after Holden had talked about him pining after her. Which explained . . . so many things. Everything, maybe. “Man. Six years old.” Malcolm shook his head and wiped his eyes. “T was sick.” “Still. Seems kind of old to have an accident?” Adam simply stared at Malcolm until he lowered his gaze. “Uh, maybe not that old after all,” he muttered. There was a large bowl of fortune cookies by the register. Olive noticed it on her way out of the restaurant, let out a delighted squeal, and dipped her hand in to fish out four plastic packages. She handed one each to Malcolm and Holden, and held out another for Adam with a mischievous smile. “You hate these, don’t you?” “T don’t.” He acc epted the cookie. “I just think they taste like Styrofoam.” “Probably have similar nutritional values, too,” Malcolm muttered as they slipped out into the chilly humidity of the early night. Surprisingly, he and Adam were finding lots of common ground. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the street was shiny in the light under a lamppost; a soft breeze made the leaves rustle and stray drops of water scatter to the ground. The air was fresh in Olive’s lungs, pleasantly so after the hours spent in the

restaurant. She unrolled her sleeves, accidentally brushing her hand against Adam’s abs. She smiled up at him, playfully apologetic; he flushed and averted his eyes. “*He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.’ Holden popped a bit of fortune cookie in his mouth, blinking at the message inside. “Is that shade?” He looked around, indignant. “Did this fortune cookie just throw shade at me?’ “Sounds like it,’ Malcolm answered. “Mine says ‘Why not treat yourself to a good time instead of waiting for somebody else to do it?’ I think my cookie just shaded you, too, babe.” “What’s wrong with this batch?” Holden pointed at Adam and Olive. “What do yours say?” Olive was already opening hers, nibbling on a corner as she pulled the paper out. It was very banal, and yet her heart skipped a beat. “Mine’s normal,” she informed Holden. “You’re lying.” “Nope.” “What does it say?” “

“Where do you live?” he asked when Holden was not within earshot anymore. She pointed silently. “You sure you want to carry my bag? I heard it’s easy to throw out your back, once you reach a certain age.” He glared at her, and Olive laughed, falling into st ep with him as they headed out of the parking lot. The street was silent, exc ept for the soles of her Converse catching on the wet concrete and Malcolm’s car passing them by a few seconds later. “Hey,” Holden asked from the passenger window. “What did Adam’s fortune cookie say?” “Mmm.” Olive made a show to look at the strip. “Not much. Just ‘Holden Rodrigues, Ph. D., is a loser.’ ”’ Malcolm sped up just as Holden flipped her off, making her burst into laughter. “What does it really say?” Adam asked when they were finally alone. Olive handed him the crumpled paper and remained silent as he angled it to read it in the lamplight. She wasn’t surprised when she saw a muscle jump in his jaw, or when he slid the fortune into the pocket of his jeans. She knew what it said, after all. You can fall in love: someone will catch you. “Can we talk about Tom?” she asked, sidest epping a puddle. ‘““We don’t have to, but if we cans. “We can. We should.” She saw his throat work. “Harvard’s going to fire him, of course. Other disciplinary measures are still being decided— there were meetings until very late last night.” He gave her a quick glance. “That’s why I didn’t call you earlier. Harvard’s Title IX coordinator should be in touch with you soon.” Good. “What about your grant?” His jaw clenched. “I’m not sure. [ll figure something out—or not. I don’t particularly care at the moment.” It surprised her. And then it didn’t, not when she considered that the professional implications of Tom’s betrayal couldn’t have cut as de eply as the personal ones. “I’m sorry, Adam. I know he was your friend—” “He wasn’t.” Adam abruptly stopped in the middle of the street. He turned to her, his eyes a clear, de ep brown. “I had no idea, Olive. I thought I knew him, but. . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I should never have trusted him with you. I’m sorry.” He said it—“with you”—like Olive was something special, uniquely precious to him. His most beloved treasure. It made her want to shiver, and laugh, and we ep at the same time. It made her happy and confused. “Twas ... I was afraid you might be mad at me. For ruining things. Your relationship with Tom, and maybe . .. maybe you won’t be able to move to Boston anymore.”

He shook his head. “I don’t care. I couldn’t care less about any of it.” He held her eyes for a long moment, his mouth working as though he was swallowing the rest of his words. But he never continued, so Olive nodded and turned around, starting to walk again. “T think P’ve found another lab. To finish my study. Closer, so I won’t have to move next year.” She pushed her hair behind her ear and smiled at him. There was something intrinsically enjoyable in having him next to her, so physical and undeniable. She felt it on some primal, visceral level, the giddy happiness that always came with his presence. Suddenly, Tom was the last thing she wanted to discuss with Adam. “Dinner was nice. And you were right, by the way.” “About the pumpkin sludge?” “No, that was amazing. About Holden. He really is insufferable.” “He grows on you, after a decade or so.” “Does he?” “Nah. Not really.” “Poor Holden.” She huffed out a small laugh. “You weren’t the only one who remembered, by the way.” He glanced at her. “Remembered what?” “Our meeting. The one in the bathroom, when I came to interview.” Olive thought that maybe his st ep faltered for a split second. Or maybe it didn’t. Still, there was a tinge of uncertainty in the de ep breath he took. “Did you really?” “Yup. It just took me a while to realize that it was you. Why didn’t you say anything?” She was so curious about what had been going on in Adam’s head in the past few days, weeks, years. She was starting to imagine quite a bit, but some things . . . some things he’d have to clear up for her. “Because you introduced yourself like we’d never met before.” She thought maybe he was flushing a little. Maybe not. Maybe it was impossible to tell, in the starless sky and the faint yellow lights. “And I’d been .. . I'd been thinking about you. For years. And I didn’t want LOgeee She could only imagine. They’d passed each other in the hallways, been at countless d epartment research symposiums and _ seminars together. She hadn’t thought anything of it, but now ... now she wondered what he had thought. He’d been going on and on about this amazing girl for years, but he was concerned about being in the same d epartment, Holden had said. And Olive had assumed so much. She had been s O wrong.

“You didn’t need to lie, you know,” she said, not accusing. He adjusted the strap of her suitcase on his shoulder. “I didn’t.” “You sort of did. By omission.” “True Are you . “He pressed “hisi*lips together. “Are you upset?” “No, not really. It’s really not that bad a lie.” HIt’s note? She nibbled on her thumbnail for a moment. “TP’ve said much worse, myself. And I didn’t bring up our meeting, either, even after I made the connection.” “Still, if you feel—” “I’m not upset,” she said, gentle but final. She looked up at him, willing him to understand. Trying to figure out how to tell him. How to show him. “Iam... other things.” She smiled. “Glad, for instance. That you remembered me, from that day.” “You...” A pause. “You are very memorable.” “Ha. I’m not, really. I was no one—part of a huge incoming cohort.” She snorted and looked down to her feet. Her st eps had to be much quicker than his to ke ep up with his longer legs. “T hated my first year. It was so stressful.” He glanced at her, surprised. “Do you remember your first seminar talk?” “I do. Why?” “Your elevator pitch—you called it a turbolift pitch. You put a picture from The Next Generation on your slides.” “Oh, yes. I did.” She let out a low laugh. “I didn’t know you were a Trekkie.” “T had a phase. And that year’s picnic, when we got rained on. You were playing freeze tag with someone’s kids for hours. They loved you—they had to physically peel the youngest off you to get him inside the car.” “Dr. Moss’s kids.” She looked at him curiously. A light breeze rose and ruffled his hair, but he didn’t seem to mind. “I didn’t think you liked kids. The opposite, actually.” He lifted one eyebrow. “I don’t like twentyfive-year-olds who act like toddlers. | don’t mind them if they’re actually three.”

Olive smiled. “Adam, the fact that you knew who I was . .. Did it have anything to do with your decision to pretend to date me?” About a dozen expressions crossed his face as he looked for an answer, and she couldn’t pick apart a single one. “I wanted to help you, Olive.” “IT know. I believe that.” She rubbed her fingers against her mouth. “But was that all?” He pressed his lips together. Exhaled. Closed his eyes, and for a split second looked like he was having his teeth and his soul pulled out. Then he said, resigned, “No.” “No,” she r epeated, pensive. “This is my place, by the way.” She pointed at the tall brick building on the corner. “Right.” Adam looked around, studying her street. “Should I carry your bag upstairs?” “I... Maybe later. There is something I need to tell you. Before.” “Of course.” He stopped in front of her, and she looked up at him, at the lines of his handsome, familiar face. There was only fresh breeze between them, and whatever distance Adam had seen fit to ke ep. Her stubborn, mercurial fake boyfriend. Wonderfully, perfectly unique. Delightfully one of a kind. Olive felt her heart overflow. She took a de ep breath. “The thing is, Adam... I was stupid. And wrong.” She played nervously with a lock of her hair, then let her hand drift down to her stomach, and—okay. Okay. She was going to tell him. She would do this. Now. “It’s like—it’s like statistical hypothesis testing. Type I error. It’s scary, isn’t it?” He frowned. She could tell he had no idea where she was going with this. “Type I error?” “A false positive. Thinking that something is happening when it’s not.” “T know what type IJ error is—” “Yes, "ofe course: Itssqust). som the past’ few weeks, what terrified me was the idea that I could misread a situation. That I could convince myself of something that wasn’t true. See something that wasn’t there just because I wanted to see it. A scientist’s worst nightmare, right?” “Right.” His brows furrowed. “That is why in your analyses you set a level of significance that is— “But the thing is, type II error is bad, too.” Her eyes bore into his, hesitant and urgent all at once. She was frightened—so frightened by what she was about to say. But also exhilarated for him to finally know. Determined to get it out. “Yes,” he agreed slowly, confused. “False negatives are bad, too.” “That’s the thing with science. We’re drilled to believe that false positives are bad, but false negatives are just. as terrifying.” She swallowed. ‘Not being able to see something, even if it’s in front of your eyes.

Purposefully making yourself blind, just because you’re afraid of seeing too much.” “Are you saying that statistics graduate education is inadequate?” She exhaled a laugh, suddenly flushed, even in the dark cool of the night. Her eyes were starting to sting. “Maybe. But also . . . I think that J have been inadequate. And I don’t want to be, not anymore.” “Olive.” He took one st ep closer, just a few inches. Not enough to crowd, but plenty for her to feel his warmth. “Are you okay?” “There have been . . . so many things that have happened, before I even met you, and I think they messed me up a little. ve mostly lived in fear of being alone, and... Ill tell you about them, if you want. First, I have to figure it out on my own, why shielding myself with a bunch of lies seemed like a better idea than admitting even one ounce of truth. But I think . She took a de ep, shuddering breath. There was a tear, one single tear that she could feel sliding down her cheek. Adam saw it and mouthed her name. “T think that somewhere along the way I forgot that I was something. I forgot myself.” She was the one who st epped closer. The one who put her hand on the hem of his shirt, who tugged gently and held on to it, who started touching him and crying and smiling at the same time. “There are two things I want to tell you, Adam.” “What can I—” “Please. Just let me tell you.” He wasn’t very good at it. At standing there and doing nothing while her eyes welled fuller and fuller. She could tell that he felt useless, his hands dangling in fists at his sides, and she... she loved him even more for it. For looking at her like she was the beginning and end of his every thought. “The first thing is that I lied to you. And my lie was not just by omission.” “Olive—” “It was a real lie. A bad one. A stupid one. I let you—no, I made you think that I had feelings for someone else, when in truth... . I didn’t. I never did.” His hand came up to cup the side of her face. “What do you—” “But that’s not very important.” “Olive.” He pulled her closer, pressing his lips against her forehead. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is that you’re crying about, I will fix it. I will make it right. I—” “Adam,” she interrupted him with a wet smile. “It’s not important, because the second thing, that’s what really matters.” They were so close, now. She could smell his scent and his warmth, and his hands were cradling her face, thumbs swiping back and forth to dry her cheeks.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured. “What is the second thing?” She was still crying, but she’d never been happier. So she said it, probably in the worst accent he’d ever heard. “Tk hou van jou, Adam.”

Epilogue RESULTS: Careful analyses of the data collected, accounting for potential confounds, statistical error, and experimenter’s bias, show that when | fall in love... things don’t actually turn out to be that bad. Ten months later “Stand there. You were standing right there.” “Was [’?” He was humoring her. A little. That deliciously put-upon expression had become _ Olive’s favorite over the past year. “A bit closer to the water fountain. Perfect.” She took a st ep back to admire her handiwork and then winked at him as she took out her phone to snap a quick picture. She briefly considered swapping it for her current screensaver—a selfie of the two of them in Joshua Tree a few weeks earlier, Adam squinting in the sun and Olive pressing her lips to his cheek—but then thought better of it. Their summer had been full of hiking trips, and delicious ice cream, and late-night kisses on Adam’s balcony, laughing and sharing untold stories and looking up at the stars, so much brighter than the ones Olive had once climbed on a ladder to stick to the ceiling of her bedroom. She was going to start working at a cancer lab at Berkeley in less than a week, which would mean a busier, more stressful schedule and a bit of a commute. And yet, she couldn’t wait. “Just stand there,” she ordered. “Look antagonistic and unapproachable. And say ‘pumpkin spice! He rolled his eyes. “What’s your plan if someone comes in?” Olive glanced around the biology building. The hallway was silent and deserted, and the dim after-hours lights made Adam’s hair look almost blue. It was late, and summer, and the weekend to boot: no one was going to come in. Even if they did, Olive Smith and Adam Carlsen were old news by now. “Like who?” “Anh might show up. To help you re-create the magic.” “Pretty sure she’s out with Jeremy.” “Jeremy? The guy you’re in love with?” Olive stuck her tongue out at him and glanced down at her phone. Happy. She was so happy, and she didn’t even know why. Exc ept that she did know. “Okay. In one minute.” “You can’t know the exact time.” Adam’s tone was patient and indulgent. “Not to the minute.” “Wrong. I ran a Western blot that night. I looked at my lab logs, and I reconstructed both the when and the where down to the error bars. I am a thorough scientist.” “Hm.” Adam folded his arms across his chest. “How did that blotting turn out?”

“Not the point.” She grinned. “What were you doing here, by the way?” “What do you mean?” “A year ago. Why were you walking around the d epartment at night?” “I can’t remember. Maybe I had a deadline. Or maybe I was going home.” He shrugged, and scanned the hallway until his eyes fell on the water fountain. “Maybe I was thirsty.” “Maybe.” She took a st ep closer. “Maybe you were secretly hoping for a kiss.” He gave her a long, amused look. “Maybe.” She took another st ep, and another, and another. And then her alarm be eped, once, right as she came to stand in front of him. Another intrusion of his personal space. But this time, when she pushed up on her toes, when she wrapped her arms around his neck, Adam’s hands pulled her de eper into himself. It had been one year. Exactly one year. And by now his body was so familiar to her, she knew the breadth of his shoulders, the scratch of his stubble, the scent of his skin, all by heart; she could feel the smile in his eyes. Olive sank into him, let him support her weight, and then moved until her mouth was almost level with his ear. She pressed her lips against its shell, and whispered softly into his skin. “May I kiss you, Dr. Carlsen?” AUTHOR’S NOTE I write stories set in academia because academia is all I know. It can be a very insular, all-consuming, isolating environment. In the past decade, I’ve had excellent (women) mentors who constantly Supported me, but I could name dozens of instances in which I felt as though I was a massive failure blundering her way through science. But that, as everyone who’s been there knows, is grad school: a stressful, high-pressure, competitive endeavor. Academia has its own special way of tearing apart work-life balance, wearing people down, and making them forget that they are worth more than the number of papers they publish or the grant money they are able to rake in. Taking the thing I love the most (writing love stories) and giving it a STEM academia backdrop has been surprisingly therapeutic. My experiences have not been the same as Olive’s (no academic fake dating for me, boo), but I still managed to pour many of my frustrations, joys, and disappointments into her adventures. Just like Olive, in the past few years I have felt lonely, determined, helpless, scared, happy, cornered, inadequate, misunderstood, enthusiastic. Writing The Love Hypothesis gave me the opportunity to turn these experiences around with a humorous, sometimes self-indulgent spin, and to realize that I could put my own misadventures into perspective—sometimes even laugh at them! For this reason—and I know I probably shouldn’t say it—this book means as much to me as my Ph. D. dissertation did.

Okay—that’s a he. It means waaay more. If you’re not familiar with it, a few words about a topic that comes up quite a bit in the book: Title IX is a US federal law that prohibits any kind of discrimination on the basis of gender in all institutions that receive federal funding (1. e., most universities). It legally compels schools to respond to and remedy situations of misconduct ranging from hostile work environments to harassment and assault. Covered schools have Title [LX coordinators, whose job is to handle complaints and violations and to educate an institution’s community about their rights. Title IX has been and currently is critical to guarantee equal access to education and to protect students and employees against gender-based discrimination. Lastly: the women in STEM organizations Anh mentions in the book are fictionalized, but most universities host chapters of similar organizations. For real-life resources on supporting women academics in STEM, visit awis. org. For resources that specifically support BIPOC women academics in STEM, visit sswoc. org.