Page 137 - The Love Hypothesis

anyone screwed up, it was definitely him. I’m sorry he did that, by the

way.”
“Did what?”
“Force you to talk about your personal life.”

“Oh.” Olive looked away, toward the blue glow of the vending machine.
“It’s okay. It’s been a while.” She was surprised to hear herself continue. To

feel herself wanting to continue. “Since high school, really.”
“That’s . . . young.” There was something about his tone, maybe the

evenness, maybe the lack of overt sympathy, that she found reassuring.
“I was fifteen. One day my mom and I were there, just . . . I don’t even

know. Kayaking. Thinking about getting a cat. Arguing over the way I’d
pile stuff on top of the trash can when it was overflowing and I didn’t want
to take it out. And next thing I knew she had her diagnosis, and three weeks

later she’d already—” She couldn’t say it. Her lips, her vocal folds, her
heart, they just wouldn’t form the words. So she swallowed them. “The

child welfare system couldn’t figure out where to send me until I became of
age.”

“Your dad?”
She shook her head. “Never in the picture. He’s an asshole, according to

my mom.” She laughed softly. “The never-takes-out-the-trash gene clearly
came from his side of the family. And my grandparents had died when I
was a kid, because apparently that’s what people around me do.” She tried

to say it jokingly, she really tried. To not sound bitter. She thought she even
succeeded. “I was just . . . alone.”

“What did you do?”
“Foster home until sixteen, then I emancipated.” She shrugged, hoping

to brush off the memory. “If only they’d caught it earlier, even just by a few
months—maybe she’d be here. Maybe surgery and chemo would have

actually done something. And I . . . I was always good at science stuff, so I
thought that the least I could do was . . .”
Adam dug into his pockets for a few moments and held out a crumpled

paper napkin. Olive stared at it, confused, until she realized that her cheeks
had somehow grown wet.