Page 135 - The Love Hypothesis

“Like this?”

“You know.” She batted her eyes at him. “Antagonistic and
unapproachable.”
He glared, but she was starting to not take that too seriously. “I might

have been worse, actually.”
“I bet.” There was a brief, comfortable silence as she sat back and began

to tackle her bag of chips. It was all she’d ever wanted from a vending
machine snack. “So does it get better?”

“What?”
“This.” She gestured inchoately around herself. “Academia. Does it get

better, after grad school? Once you have tenure?”
“No. God, no.” He looked so horrified by the assumption, she had to
laugh.

“Why do you stick around, then?”
“Unclear.” There was a flash of something in his eyes that Olive

couldn’t quite interpret, but—nothing surprising about that. There was a lot
about Adam Carlsen she didn’t know. He was an ass, but with unexpected

depths. “There’s an element of sunk-cost fallacy, probably—hard to step
away, when you’ve invested so much time and energy. But the science

makes it worth it. When it works, anyway.”
She hummed, considering his words, and remembered The Guy in the
bathroom. He’d said that academia was a lot of bucks for little bang, and

that one needed a good reason to stick around. Olive wondered where he
was now. If he’d managed to graduate. If he knew that he’d helped someone

make one of the hardest decisions of their life. If he had any idea that there
was a girl, somewhere in the world, who thought about their random

encounter surprisingly often. Doubtful.
“I know grad school is supposed to be miserable for everyone, but it’s

depressing to see tenured faculty here on a Friday night, instead of, I don’t
know, watching Netflix in bed, or getting dinner with their girlfriend—”
“I thought you were my girlfriend.”

Olive smiled up at him. “Not quite.” But, since we’re on the topic: why
exactly don’t you have one? Because it’s getting harder and harder for me