The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

“Right,” he said. “Right.” He was staring at his shoes,
absolutely motionless. Slowly accepting her words.
Olive took a step back and rocked on her heels. Outside, an
iPhone rang, and a few seconds later someone burst into
laughter. Normal noises, on a normal day. Normal, all of this.
“It’s for the best,” she said, because the silence between
them—that, she just couldn’t stand. “It’s what we agreed on.”
“Whatever you want.” His voice was hoarse, and he
seemed . . . absent. Retreated to some place inside himself.
“Whatever you need.”
“I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for
me. Not just about Anh. When we met, I felt so alone,
and . . .” For a moment she couldn’t continue. “Thank you for
all the pumpkin spice, and for that Western blot, and for hiding
your taxidermied squirrels when I visited, and . . .”
She couldn’t bring herself to go on anymore, not without
choking on her words. The stinging in her eyes was burning
now, threatening to spill over, so she nodded once, decisively,
a period to this dangling sentence with no end in sight.
And that would have been it. It would have surely been the
end. They would have left it at that, if Olive hadn’t passed him
on her way to the door. If he hadn’t reached out and stopped
her with a hand on her wrist. If he hadn’t immediately pulled
that hand back and stared at it with an appalled expression, as
if shocked that he’d dared to touch her without asking for
permission first.
If he hadn’t said, “Olive. If you ever need anything,
anything at all. Anything. Whenever. You can come to me.”
His jaw worked, like there were other words, words he was
keeping inside. “I want you to come to me.”
She almost didn’t register wiping wetness off her cheek
with the back of her hand, or moving closer to him. It was his