The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

“What kind of question is that?” Adam interjected.
When she glanced at him, he was scowling at Tom, who
just shrugged.
“What’s cool about your project?” Adam repeated back.
“Yeah. Cool. You know what I mean.”
“I don’t think I do, and maybe neither does Olive.”
Tom huffed. “Fine, what would you ask?”
Adam turned to Olive. His knee brushed her leg, warm and
oddly reassuring through her jeans. “What issues does your
project target? Why do you think it’s significant? What gaps in
the literature does it fill? What techniques are you using?
What challenges do you foresee?”
Tom huffed. “Right, sure. Consider all those long, boring
questions asked, Olive.”
She glanced at Adam, finding that he was studying her with
a calm, encouraging expression. The way he’d formulated the
questions helped her reorganize her thoughts, and realizing
that she had answers for each one melted most of her panic. It
probably hadn’t been intentional on Adam’s part, but he’d
done her a solid.
Olive was reminded of that guy from the bathroom, from
years ago. I have no idea if you’re good enough, he’d told her.
What matters is whether your reason to be in academia is good
enough. He’d said that Olive’s reason was the best one, and
therefore, she could do this. She needed to do this.
“Okay,” she started again after a deep breath, gathering
what she’d rehearsed the previous night with Malcolm.
“Here’s the deal. Pancreatic cancer is very aggressive and
deadly. It has very poor prognosis, with only one out of four
people alive a year after diagnosis.” Her voice, she thought,
sounded less breathy and more self-assured. Good. “The