The Love Hypothesis

Olive poked around the MP3, trying to figure out where to cut the file. The ending was just minute after minute of silence, from when she’d left her phone in the hotel room. “Maybe he stole it from the buffet?” she said absentmindedly. “I think I saw pink carnations downstairs.”

“Was it a pink carnation?”

“Maybe.”

Anh cackled. “And they say romance is dead.”

“Shut up. Then, toward the beginning of the date, something happened. Something catastrophic that could only ever happen to me, given that my entire damn family is obsessed with science and, therefore, attends all the conferences. All of them.”

“No. Tell me you didn’t—”

“Yes. When we got to the restaurant, we found my mother, father, uncle, and grandfather. Who insisted on us joining them. Which means that my first date with Holden was a freaking Thanksgiving dinner.”

Olive looked up from her laptop and shared an appalled look with Anh. “How bad was it?”

“Funny that you ask, because it is with the utmost disconcert that I must say: it was fucking spectacular. They loved him—because he’s a badass scientist and because he is smoother than an organic smoothie—and in the span of two hours he somehow managed to help me convince my parents that my plan of being an industry scientist is bomb. I’m not kidding—this morning my mother called and was all about how I have grown as a person and am finally in control of my future and how my dating choices reflect that. She said that Dad agrees. Can you believe it? Anyway. After dinner we got ice cream and then we went back to Holden’s hotel room and sixty-nined like the world was about to end—”

“A girl like you. Who figured out so early in her academic career that fucking well-known, successful scholars is how to get ahead. You fucked Adam, didn’t you? We both know you’re going to fuck me for the same reas—”

Olive slammed the spacebar, immediately stopping the replay of the recording. Her heart was pounding in her chest—first from confusion, then from the realization of what she’d inadvertently recorded, and finally from anger at hearing the words again. She brought a trembling hand to her lips, trying to purge Tom’s voice from her head. She had spent two days trying to recover, and now—

“The hell was that?” Malcolm asked.

“Ol?” Anh’s tentative voice reminded her that she was not alone in the room. She looked up and found that her friends had sat up. They were staring at her, wide-eyed with concern and shock.

Olive shook her head. She didn’t want to—no, she didn’t have the strength to explain. “Nothing. Just . . .”

“I recognize it,” Anh said, coming to sit next to her. “I recognize the voice. From that talk we went to.” She paused, searching Olive’s eyes. “That was Tom Benton, wasn’t it?”

“What the—” Malcolm stood. There was real alarm blooming in his voice. Anger, too. “Ol, why do you have a recording of Tom Benton saying shit like that? What happened?”

Olive looked up at him, then at Anh, then at him again. They were studying her with worried, incredulous expressions. Anh must have taken Olive’s hand at some point. She told herself that she needed to be strong, to be pragmatic, to be numb, but . . .

“I just . . .”

She tried. She really did try. But her face crumpled, and the last few days crashed and burned into her. Olive leaned forward, buried her head in Anh’s lap, and let herself burst into tears.

* * *

—

OLIVE HAD NO intention of hearing Tom spout his poison again, so she gave her friends her headphones, went to the bathroom, and let the faucet run until they’d finished listening. It took less than ten minutes, but she sobbed throughout. When Malcolm and Anh came in, they sat next to her on the floor. Anh was crying, too, fat, angry drops sliding down her cheeks.

At least there’s a bathtub we c

an flood, Olive thought while handing her the toilet paper roll she’d been hoarding.

“He’s the most disgusting, detestable, shameful, disgraceful human being,” Malcolm said. “I hope he has explosive diarrhea as we speak. I hope he gets genital warts. I hope he has to live saddled by the largest, most painful hemorrhoid in the universe. I hope he—”

Anh interrupted him. “Does Adam know?”

Olive shook her head.

“You need to tell him. And then the two of you need to report Benton’s ass and get him kicked out of academia.”

“No, I . . . I can’t.”

“Ol, listen to me. What Tom said is sexual harassment. There is no way Adam wouldn’t believe you—not to mention that you have a recording.”