“I’m sorry,” he said, looking genuinely regretful for her, and it took Olive several moments to recall her lie, and his assumption that she was in love with Jeremy. Only a few weeks earlier, but it already seemed so long ago, when she hadn’t been able to imagine anything worse than Adam discovering her feelings for him. It sounded so foolish after everything that had happened in the past few days. She should really come clean, but what was the point now? Let Adam think what he liked. It would serve him better than the truth, after all.
“And Malcolm is with . . . Holden.”
“Ah, yes.” He nodded, looking exhausted.
Olive briefly fantasized about Holden texting Adam the equivalent of what Olive and Anh had been subjected to for the past two hours, and smiled. “How bad is it?”
“Bad?”
“This thing between Malcolm and Holden?”
“Ah.” Adam leaned his shoulder against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. “I think it can be very good. For Holden, at least. He really likes Malcolm.”
“Did he tell you?”
“He hasn’t shut up about it.” He rolled his eyes. “Did you know that Holden is secretly twelve?”
She laughed. “So is Malcolm. He dates a lot, and he’s usually good at managing expectations, but this thing with Holden—I had a sandwich for lunch and he randomly volunteered that Holden is allergic to peanuts. It wasn’t even PB and J!”
“He’s not allergic, he fakes it because he doesn’t like nuts.” He massaged his temple. “This morning I woke up to a haiku about Malcolm’s elbows. Holden had texted it at three a.m.”
“Was it good?”
He lifted one eyebrow, and she laughed again.
“They are . . .”
“The worst.” Adam shook his head. “But I think Holden might need it. Someone to care about, who also cares about him.”
“Malcolm, too. I’m just . . . concerned that he might want more than Holden is willing to offer?”
“Believe me, Holden is very ready to file taxes jointly.”
“Good. I’m glad.” She smiled. And then felt her smile fade, just as quickly. “One-sided relationships are really . . . not good.” I would know. And maybe you would, too.
He studied his own palm, undoubtedly thinking about the woman Holden had mentioned. “No. No, they’re not.”
It was a weird kind of ache, the jealousy. Confusing, unfamiliar, not something she was used to. Half cutting, half disorienting and aimless, so different from the loneliness she’d felt since she was fifteen. Olive missed her mother every day, but with time she’d been able to harness her pain and turn it into motivation for her work. Into purpose. Jealousy, though . . . the misery of it didn’t come with any gain. Only restless thoughts, and something squeezing at her chest whenever her mind turned to Adam.
“I need to ask you something,” he said. The seriousness of his tone made her look up.
“Sure.”
“The people you overheard at the conference yesterday . . .”
She stiffened. “I’d rather not—”
“I won’t force you to do anything. But whoever they were, I want . . . I think you should consider filing a complaint.”
Oh God. God. Was this some cruel joke? “You really like complaints, don’t you?” She laughed once, a weak attempt at humor.
“I’m serious, Olive. And if you decide you want to do it, I’ll help you however I can. I could come with you and talk with SBD’s organizers, or we could go through Stanford’s Title IX office—”
“No. I . . . Adam, no. I’m not going to file a complaint.” She rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers, feeling as though this was one giant, painful prank. Except that Adam had no idea. He actually wanted to protect her, when all Olive wanted was . . . to protect him. “I’ve already decided. It would do more harm than good.”
“I know why you think that. I felt the same during grad school, with my mentor. We all did. But there are ways to do it. Whoever this person is, they—”
“Adam, I—” She ran one hand down her face. “I need you to drop this. Please.”
He studied her, silent for several minutes, and then nodded. “Okay. Of course.” He pushed away from the wall and straightened, clearly unhappy to let the subject go but making an effort to do so. “Would you like to go to dinner? There’s a Mexican restaurant nearby. Or sushi—real sushi. And a movie theater. Maybe there are one or two movies playing in which horses don’t die.”
“I’m not . . . I’m not hungry, actually.”
“Oh.” His expression was teasing. Gentle. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
“Me neither.” She chuckled weakly, and then forced herself to continue. “Today is September twenty-ninth.”
A beat. Adam studied her, patient and curious. “It is.”
She bit into her lower lip. “Do you know what the chair has decided about your funds?”
“Oh, right. The funds will be unfrozen.” He seemed happy, his eyes brilliant in an almost boyish way. It broke her heart a little. “I meant to tell you tonight at dinner.”
“That’s great.” She managed a smile, small and pitiful in her mounting anxiety. “That’s really great, Adam. I’m happy for you.”
“Must have been your sunscreen skills.”
“Yeah.” Her laugh sounded fake. “I’ll have to put them on my CV. Fake girlfriend with extensive experience. Microsoft Office and excellent sunscreen skills. Available immediately, only serious callers.”
“Not immediately.” He looked at her curiously. Tenderly. “Not for a while, I’d say.”
The weight, the one that had been pressing into her stomach since she’d realized what needed to be done, sank heavier. Now—this was it. The coda. The moment it all ended. Olive could do this, and she would, and things would be all the better for it.
“I think I should be.” She swallowed, and it was like acid down her throat. “Available.” She scanned his face, noticed his confusion, and clenched her fist in the hem of her sweater. “We gave ourselves a deadline, Adam. And we accomplished everything we wanted. Jeremy and Anh are solid—I doubt they even remember that Jeremy and I used to date. And your funds have been released, which is amazing. The truth is . . .”
Her eyes stung. She closed them tight, managing to push the tears back. Barely.
The truth, Adam, is that your friend, your collaborator, a person you clearly love and are close to, is horrid and despicable. He told me things that might be truths, or maybe lies—I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore, and I would love to ask you, so badly. But I’m terrified that he might be right, and that you won’t believe me. And I’m even more terrified that you will believe me, and that what I tell you will force you to give up something that is very important to you: your friendship and your work with him. I’m terrified of everything, as you can see. So, instead of telling you that truth, I will tell you another truth. A truth that, I think, will be best for you. A truth that will take me out of the equation, but will make its result better. Because I’m starting to wonder if this is what being in love is. Being okay with ripping yourself to shreds, so the other person can stay whole.
She inhaled deeply. “The truth is, we did great. And it’s time we call it quits.”
She could tell from how his lips parted, from his disoriented eyes searching hers, that he wasn’t yet parsing what she’d said. “I don’t think we’ll need to explicitly tell anyone,” she continued. “People won’t see us together, and after a while they’ll think that . . . that it didn’t work out. That we broke up. And maybe you . . .” This was the hardest part. But he deserved to hear it. He’d told her the same, after all, when he’d believed her in love with Jeremy. “I wish you all the best, Adam. At Harvard, and . . . with your real girlfriend. Whoever you may choose. I cannot imagine anyone not reciprocating your feelings.”
She could pinpoint the exact moment it dawned on him. She could tease apart the feelings struggling in his face—the surprise, the confusion, a hint of stubbornness, a split second of vulnerability that all melted in a blank, empty expression. Then she could see his throat work.
“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 scent that jolted her alert—soap and something dark, subtle but oh so familiar. Her brain had him mapped out, stored away across all senses. Eyes to his almost smile, hands to his skin, the smell of him in her nostrils. She didn’t even need to think about what to do, just push up on her toes, press her fingers against his biceps, and kiss him gently on the cheek. His skin was soft and warm and a little prickly; unexpected, but not unwelcome.
An apt goodbye, she thought. Appropriate. Acceptable.