Page 174 - The Love Hypothesis

She bent down to retrieve her backpack, meaning to stand and leave

immediately, but halfway through, a thought swept over her, and she found
herself staring at him. He was sitting across from her with a concerned
expression, a slight frown creasing his brow.

She attempted a smile. “We are friends, right?”
His frown deepened. “Friends?”

“Yes. You and I.”
He studied for a long moment. Something new passed through his face,

stark and a little sad. Too fleeting to interpret. “Yes, Olive.”
She nodded, unsure as to whether she should be feeling relieved. This

was not how she’d thought today would go, and there was a strange
pressure behind her eyelids, which had her sliding her arms through the
straps of her backpack that much quicker. She waved him goodbye with a

tremulous smile, and she’d have already been out of this damn Starbucks, if
he hadn’t said with that voice of his: “Olive.”

She paused right in front of his chair and looked down at him. It was so
odd, to be the taller one for once.

“This might be inappropriate, but . . .” His jaw shifted, and he closed his
eyes for a second. As if to collect his thoughts. “Olive. You are really . . .

You are extraordinary, and I cannot imagine that if you told Jeremy how
you feel he wouldn’t . . .” He trailed off and then nodded. A punctuation of
sorts, as his words and the way he’d said them brought her that much closer

to tears.
He thought it was Jeremy. Adam thought Olive had been in love with

Jeremy when they’d begun their arrangement—he thought she was still in
love with him. Because she’d just told a half-assed lie that she was too

afraid to take back and—
It was going to happen. She was going to cry, and what she wanted most

in the world was to not do it in front of Adam.
“I’ll see you next week, okay?” She didn’t wait for his response and
walked briskly toward the exit, her shoulder bumping into someone she

should have apologized to. Once she was outside, she took a deep breath
and marched to the biology building, trying to empty her mind, forcing