Page 278 - The Love Hypothesis

Chapter Nineteen

HYPOTHESIS: When in doubt, asking a friend will save my ass.

Olive spent the following day in the hotel, sleeping, crying, and doing the
very thing that had gotten her into this mess to begin with: lying. She told

Malcolm and Anh that she’d be busy with friends from college for the
entire day, pulled the blackout curtains together, and then buried herself in

her bed. Which, technically, was Adam’s bed.
She didn’t let herself think about the situation too much. Something
inside her—her heart, very possibly—was broken in several large pieces,

not shattered as much as neatly snapped in half, and then in half again. All
she could do was sit down amid the debris of her feelings and wallow.

Sleeping through most of the day helped dull the pain a great deal. Numb,
she was rapidly starting to realize, was good.
She lied the day after, too. Feigned a last-minute request from Dr. Aslan

when asked to join her friends at the conference or on excursions around
Boston, and then took a deep, fortifying breath. She drew the curtains open,

forced her blood to start flowing again (with fifty crunches, fifty jumping
jacks, and fifty push-ups, though she cheated on the last by going on her

knees), then showered and brushed her teeth for the first time in thirty-six
hours.

It wasn’t easy. Seeing Adam’s Biology Ninja T-shirt in the mirror made
her tear up, but she reminded herself that she’d made her choice. She’d
decided to put Adam’s well-being first, and she didn’t regret it. But she’d be

damned if she let Tom Fucking Benton take credit for a project she had