The Love Hypothesis (Love Hypothesis #1)(36)

She hadn’t used Adam’s number since he’d given it to her a few days ago—“If anything comes up or you need to cancel, just give me a call. It’s quicker than an email.” When she tapped the blue icon under his name a white screen popped up, a blank slate with no history of previous messages. It gave Olive an odd rush of anxiety, so much so that she typed the text with one hand while biting the thumbnail on the other.

Olive: Did you just fail Greg?

Adam was never on his phone. Never. Whenever Olive had been in his company, she’d not seen him check it even once—even though with a lab as big as his he probably got about thirty new emails every minute. Truth was, she didn’t even know that he owned a cell phone. Maybe he was a weird modern-day hippie and hated technology. Maybe he’d given her his office landline number, and that’s why he’d told her to call him. Maybe he didn’t know how to text, which meant that Olive was never going to get an answer from—

Her palm vibrated.

Adam: Olive?

It occurred to her that when Adam had given her his number, she’d neglected to give hers in return. Which meant that he had no way of knowing who was texting him now, and the fact that he’d guessed correctly revealed an almost preternatural intuition.

Damn him.

Olive: Yup. Me.

Olive: Did you fail Greg Cohen? I ran into him after his meeting. He was very upset.

At me. Because of you. Because of this stupid thing we’re doing.

There was a pause of a minute or so, in which, Olive reflected, Adam might very well be cackling evilly at the idea of all the pain he’d caused Greg. Then he answered:

Adam: I can’t discuss other grads’ dissertation meetings with you.

Olive sighed, exchanging a loaded look with the stuffed fox Malcolm had gotten her for passing her qualifying examinations.

Olive: I’m not asking you to tell me anything. Greg already told me. Not to mention that I’m the one taking the heat for it, since I’m your girlfriend.

Olive: ”Girlfriend.”

Three dots appeared at the bottom of her screen. Then they disappeared, and then they appeared again, and then, finally, Olive’s phone vibrated.

Adam: Committees don’t fail students. They fail their proposals.

She snorted, half wishing he could hear her.

Olive: Yeah, well. Tell it to Greg.

Adam: I have. I explained the weaknesses in his study. He’ll revise his proposal accordingly, and then I’ll sign off on his dissertation.

Olive: So you admit that you are the one behind the decision to fail him.

Olive: Or, whatever. To fail his proposal.

Adam: Yes. In its current state, the proposal is not going to produce findings of scientific value.

Olive bit the inside of her cheek, staring at her phone and wondering if continuing this conversation was a terrible idea. If what she wanted to say was too much. Then she remembered the way Greg had treated her earlier, muttered, “Fuck it,” and typed:

Olive: Don’t you think that maybe you could have delivered that feedback in a nicer way?

Adam: Why?

Olive: Because if you had maybe he wouldn’t be upset now?

Adam: I still don’t see why.

Olive: Seriously?

Adam: It’s not my job to manage your friend’s emotions. He’s in a Ph.D. program, not grade school. He’ll be inundated by feedback he doesn’t like for the rest of his life if he pursues academia. How he chooses to deal with it is his own business.

Olive: Still, maybe you could try not to look like you enjoy delaying his graduation.

Adam: This is irrational. The reason his proposal needs to be modified is that in its current state it’s setting him up for failure. Me and the rest of the committee are giving him feedback that will allow him to produce useful knowledge. He is a scientist in training: he should value guidance, not be upset by it.

Olive gritted her teeth as she typed her responses.

Olive: You must know that you fail more people than anyone else. And your criticism is needlessly harsh. As in, immediately-drop-out-of-grad-school-and-never-look-back harsh. You must know how grads perceive you.

Adam: I don’t.

Olive: Antagonistic. And unapproachable.

And that was sugarcoating it. You’re a dick, Olive meant. Except that I know you can not be, and I can’t figure out why you’re so different with me. I’m absolutely nothing to you, so it doesn’t make any sense that you’d have a personality transplant every time you’re in my presence.

The three dots at the bottom of the screen bounced for ten seconds, twenty, thirty. A whole minute. Olive reread her last text and wondered if this was it—if she’d finally gone too far. Maybe he was going to remind her that being insulted over text at 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night was not part of their fake-dating agreement.

Then a blue bubble appeared, filling up her entire screen.

Adam: I’m doing my job, Olive. Which is not to deliver feedback in a pleasant way or to make the department grads feel good about themselves. My job is to form rigorous researchers who won’t publish useless or harmful crap that will set back our field. Academia is cluttered with terrible science and mediocre scientists. I couldn’t care less about how your friends perceive me, as long as their work is up to standard. If they want to drop out when told that it’s not, then so be it. Not everyone has what it takes to be a scientist, and those who don’t should be weeded out.