Page 111 - The Love Hypothesis

Olive felt anger bubbling up. “That is not true. I am able to separate my

professional relationships and my personal feelings for him—”
“Because you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.”
“That is unfair. What am I supposed to do?”

“Get him to stop failing people.”
“Get him—” Olive sputtered. “Greg, how is this a rational response for

you to have about Adam’s failing you—”
“Ah. Adam, is it?”

She gritted her teeth. “Yes. Adam. What should I call my boyfriend to
better please you? Professor Carlsen?”

“If you were a half-decent ally to any of the grads in the department, you
would just dump your fucking boyfriend.”
“How— Do you even realize how little sense you are . . .”

No reason to finish her sentence, since Greg was storming out of the lab
and slamming the door behind him, clearly uninterested in anything Olive

might have wanted to add. She ran a hand down her face, unsettled by what
had just happened.

“He’s not . . . he doesn’t really mean it. Not about you, at least,” Chase
said while scratching his head. A nice reminder that he’d been standing

there, in the room, for the entirety of this conversation. Front-row seat. It
was going to take maybe fifteen minutes before everyone in the program
knew about it. “Greg needs to graduate in the spring with his wife. So that

they can find postdocs together. They don’t want to live apart, you know.”
She nodded—she hadn’t known, but she could imagine. Some of her

anger dissipated. “Yeah, well.” Being horrible to me isn’t going to make his
thesis work go any faster, she didn’t add.

Chase sighed. “It’s not personal. But you have to understand that it’s
weird for us. Because Carlsen . . . Maybe he wasn’t on any of your

committees, but you must know the kind of guy he is, right?”
She was unsure how to respond.
“And now you guys are dating, and . . .” Chase shrugged with a nervous

smile. “It shouldn’t be a matter of taking sides, but sometimes it can feel
like it, you know?”