Page 273 - The Love Hypothesis

different from the loneliness she’d felt since she was fifteen. Olive missed

her mother every day, but with time she’d been able to harness her pain and
turn it into motivation for her work. Into purpose. Jealousy, though . . . the
misery of it didn’t come with any gain. Only restless thoughts, and

something squeezing at her chest whenever her mind turned to Adam.
“I need to ask you something,” he said. The seriousness of his tone made

her look up.
“Sure.”

“The people you overheard at the conference yesterday . . .”
She stiffened. “I’d rather not—”

“I won’t force you to do anything. But whoever they were, I want . . . I
think you should consider filing a complaint.”
Oh God. God. Was this some cruel joke? “You really like complaints,

don’t you?” She laughed once, a weak attempt at humor.
“I’m serious, Olive. And if you decide you want to do it, I’ll help you

however I can. I could come with you and talk with SBD’s organizers, or
we could go through Stanford’s Title IX office—”

“No. I . . . Adam, no. I’m not going to file a complaint.” She rubbed her
eyes with the tips of her fingers, feeling as though this was one giant,

painful prank. Except that Adam had no idea. He actually wanted to protect
her, when all Olive wanted was . . . to protect him. “I’ve already decided. It
would do more harm than good.”

“I know why you think that. I felt the same during grad school, with my
mentor. We all did. But there are ways to do it. Whoever this person is, they

—”
“Adam, I—” She ran one hand down her face. “I need you to drop this.

Please.”
He studied her, silent for several minutes, and then nodded. “Okay. Of

course.” He pushed away from the wall and straightened, clearly unhappy
to let the subject go but making an effort to do so. “Would you like to go to
dinner? There’s a Mexican restaurant nearby. Or sushi—real sushi. And a

movie theater. Maybe there are one or two movies playing in which horses
don’t die.”