Page 108 - The Love Hypothesis

Chapter Seven

HYPOTHESIS: There will be a significant positive correlation between the
amount of sunscreen poured in my hands and the intensity of my desire to
murder Anh.

Tom’s report was about a third done and sitting tight at thirty-four pages

single-spaced, Arial (11 point), no justification. It was 11:00 a.m., and Olive
had been working in the lab since about five—analyzing peptide samples,

writing down protocol notes, taking covert naps while the PCR machine ran
—when Greg barged in, looking absolutely furious.

It was unusual, but not too unusual. Greg was a bit of a hothead to begin
with, and grad school came with a lot of angry outbursts in semipublic
places, usually for reasons that, Olive was fully aware, would appear

ridiculous to someone who’d never stepped foot in academia. They’re
making me TA Intro to Bio for the fourth time in a row; the paper I need is

behind a paywall; I had a meeting with my supervisor and accidentally
called her “Mom.”
Greg and Olive shared an adviser, Dr. Aslan, and while they’d always

gotten along fine, they had never been particularly close. Olive had hoped,
by picking a female adviser, to avoid some of the nastiness that was so often

directed at women in STEM. Unfortunately she had still found herself in an
all-male lab, which was . . . a less-than-ideal environment. That was why

when Greg came in, slammed the door, and then threw a folder on his
bench, Olive was not sure what to do. She watched him sit down and begin