Page 109 - The Love Hypothesis

to sulk. Chase, another lab mate, followed him inside a moment later with

an uneasy expression and started gingerly patting his back.
Olive looked longingly at her RNA samples. Then she stepped closer to
Greg’s bench and asked, “What’s wrong?”

She had expected the answer to be The production of my reagent has
been discontinued, or My p-value is .06, or Grad school was a mistake, but

now it’s too late to back out of it because my self-worth is unbreakably tied
to my academic performance, and what would even be left of me if I decided

to drop out?
Instead what she got was: “Your stupid boyfriend is what’s wrong.”

By now the fake dating had been going on for over two weeks: Olive
didn’t startle anymore when someone referred to Adam as her boyfriend.
Still, Greg’s words were so unexpected and full of venom that she couldn’t

help but answer, “Who?”
“Carlsen.” He spat the name out like a curse.

“Oh.”
“He’s on Greg’s dissertation committee,” Chase explained in a

significantly milder tone, not quite meeting Olive’s eyes.
“Oh. Right.” This could be bad. Very bad. “What happened?”

“He failed my proposal.”
“Shit.” Olive bit into her lower lip. “I’m sorry, Greg.”
“This is going to set me back a lot. It’ll take me months to revise it, all

because Carlsen had to go and nitpick. I didn’t even want him on my
committee; Dr. Aslan forced me to add him because she’s so obsessed with

his stupid computational stuff.”
Olive chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying to come up with

something meaningful to say and failing miserably. “I’m really sorry.”
“Olive, do you guys talk about this stuff?” Chase asked out of the blue,

eyeing her suspiciously. “Did he tell you he wasn’t going to pass Greg?”
“What? No. No, I . . .” I talk to him for exactly fifteen minutes a week.
And, okay, I’ve kissed him. Twice. And I sat on his lap. Once. But it’s just

that, and Adam—he speaks very little. I actually wish he spoke more, since I