The Love Hypothesis

Adam goes away for a few days to work on research with Tom. While he’s gone, Olive spends time with her friends, works, and tries to forget about her emotions. Anh and Olive get together for beer and smores, and Anh lays out her plans for the future. Despite all the struggles, she wants to stay in academia and carve out a place for women while Jeremy goes into industry and makes better money. Olive feels both proud and a little jealous that Anh is figuring out her life, which gives her a pang in her stomach “in that spot that seemed to feel Adam’s absence most acutely” (191).

A couple of days later, Adam texts Olive a picture of a pumpkin drink at a coffee shop, which makes her happy until she remembers the lies that she told him. Later, she runs into Holden, who asks if she’s been talking to Adam. When she says they’ve been texting, he nods knowingly and explains how Adam’s gotten much less sullen since they started dating. He’s glad Adam finally asked her out because he’d been “going on and on about this ‘amazing girl’ for years” but never did anything about it (194). Olive can’t believe it’s her and convinces herself Adam must have feelings for someone else. Holden asks Olive about going to Boston and warns her to watch both hers and Adam’s backs around Tom before leaving.

Olive gets an email from an upcoming conference in Boston she’s attending. Her paper was accepted for a panel, where she will give a talk alongside other researchers in her field. Panicking, Olive runs to her advisor’s office, where she says she can’t talk in front of people because she’s terrible at it. Her advisor, Dr. Aslan, talks her down and offers to help, which doesn’t reassure Olive. She leaves and bumps into Malcolm and Anh, who congratulate her on the paper.

Olive asks if they’re going to stay at the conference hotel or rent an Airbnb. Anh and Malcolm inform her they’ve already got accommodations, which shouldn’t be an issue because Olive can just stay with Adam. After Anh leaves, Malcolm offers to help Olive find a place to stay. Olive agrees and goes back to work, angry at the long line of problems she’s caused with her “moronic, harebrained decision to lie to Anh in the first place” (203).