A couple of people said hi back. Most averted their gazes. Olive told herself that she was just imagining things. Must be low blood sugar. Or high. One of the two.
“Hey, Olive.” A seventh-year who had never before acknowledged her existence moved his backpack and freed the seat next to his. “How are you?”
“Good.” She sat down gingerly, trying to keep the suspicion from her tone. “Um, you?”
“Great.”
There was something about his smile. Something salacious and fake. Olive was considering asking about it when the head TA managed to get the projector to work and called everyone’s attention to the meeting.
After that, things became even weirder. Dr. Aslan stopped by the lab just to ask Olive if there was anything she’d like to talk about; Chase, a grad in her lab, let her use the PCR machine first, even though he usually hoarded it like a third grader with his last piece of Halloween candy; the lab manager winked at Olive as he handed her a stack of blank paper for the printer. And then she met Malcolm in the all-gender restroom, completely by chance, and suddenly everything made sense.
“You sneaky monster,” he hissed. His black eyes were almost comically narrow. “I’ve been texting you all day.”
“Oh.” Olive patted the back pocket of her jeans, and then the front one, trying to remember the last time she had seen her phone. “I think I might have left my phone at home.”
“I cannot believe it.”
“Believe what?”
“I cannot believe you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“Good friends.”
“We are. You and Anh are my best friends. What—”
“Clearly not, if I had to hear it from Stella, who heard it from Jess, who heard it from Jeremy, who heard it from Anh—”
“Hear what?”
“—who heard it from I don’t even know who. And I thought we were friends.”
Something icy crawled its way up Olive’s back. Could it be . . . No. No, it couldn’t be. “Hear what?”
“I’m done. I’m letting the cockroaches eat you. And I’m changing my Netflix password.”
Oh no. “Malcolm. Hear what?”
“That you are dating Adam Carlsen.”
—
OLIVE HAD NEVER been in Carlsen’s lab, but she knew where to find it. It was the biggest, most functional research space in the whole department, coveted by all and a never-ending source of resentment toward Carlsen. She had to swipe her badge once and then once more to access it (she rolled her eyes both times). The second door opened directly onto the lab space, and maybe it was because he was as tall as Mount Everest and his shoulders were just as large, but Carlsen was the very first thing she noticed. He was peering at a Southern blot next to Alex, a grad who was one year ahead of Olive, but he turned toward the entrance the moment she came in.
Olive smiled weakly at him—mainly out of relief at having found him.
It was going to be all right. She was going to explain to him what Malcolm had told her, and without a doubt he was going to find the situation categorically unacceptable and fix it for the both of them, because Olive could not spend her next three years surrounded by people who thought that she was dating Adam freaking Carlsen.
The problem was, Carlsen wasn’t the only one to notice Olive. There were over a dozen benches in the lab, and at least ten people working at them. Most of them—all of them—were staring at Olive. Probably because most of them—all of them—had heard that Olive was dating their boss.
Fuck her life.
“Can I talk to you for a minute, Dr. Carlsen?” Rationally, Olive knew that the lab was not furnished in a way that made echoing possible. Still, she felt as though her words bounced off the walls and repeated about four times.
Carlsen nodded, nonplussed, and handed the Southern blot to Alex before heading in her direction. He appeared either unaware or uncaring that approximately two-thirds of his lab members were gaping at him. The remaining ones seemed to be on the verge of a hemorrhagic stroke.
He led Olive to a meeting room just outside the main lab space, and she followed him silently, trying not to dwell on the fact that a lab full of people who thought that she and Carlsen were dating had just seen them enter a private room. Alone.
This was the worst. The absolute worst.
“Everyone knows,” she blurted out as soon as the door closed behind her.
He studied her for a moment, looking puzzled. “Are you okay?”
“Everyone knows. About us.”
He cocked his head, crossing his arms over his chest. It had been barely a day since they’d last talked, but apparently long enough for Olive to have forgotten his . . . his presence. Or whatever it was that made her feel like she was small and delicate whenever he was around. “Us?”
“Us.”
He seemed confused, so Olive elaborated.
“Us, dating—not that we’re dating, but Anh clearly thought so, and she told . . .” She realized that the words were tumbling out and forced herself to slow down. “Jeremy. And he told everyone, and now everyone knows. Or they think they know, even though there’s absolutely nothing to know. As you and I know.”
He took it in for a moment and then nodded slowly. “And when you say everyone . . . ?”
“I mean everyone.” She pointed in the direction of his lab. “Those people? They know. The other grads? They know. Cherie, the department secretary? She totally knows. Gossip in this department is the worst. And they all think that I am dating a professor.”
“I see,” he said, seeming strangely unbothered by this clusterfuck. It should have calmed Olive down, but it only had the effect of driving her panic up a notch.
“I am sorry this happened. So sorry. This is all my fault.” She wiped a hand down her face. “But I didn’t think that . . . I understand why Anh would tell Jeremy—I mean, getting those two together was the whole point of this charade—but . . . Why would Jeremy tell anyone?”
Carlsen shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he?”
She looked up. “What do you mean?”
“A grad student dating a faculty member seems like an interesting piece of information to share.”
Olive shook her head. “It’s not that interesting. Why would people be interested?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Someone once told me that ‘Gossip in this department is the wor—’ ”
“Okay, okay. Point taken.” She took a deep breath and started pacing, trying to ignore the way Carlsen was studying her, how relaxed he looked, arms across his chest while leaning against the conference table. He was not supposed to be calm. He was supposed to be incensed. He was a known dick with a reputation for arrogance—the idea of people thinking that he was dating a nobody should be mortifying to him. The burden of freaking out should not be falling on Olive alone.
“This is— We need to do something, of course. We need to tell people that this is not true and that we made it all up. Except that they’ll think that I’m crazy, and maybe that you are, too, so we have to come up with some other story. Yes, okay, we need to tell people we’re not together anymore—”
“And what will Anh and what’s-his-face do?”
Olive stopped pacing. “Uh?”
“Won’t your friends feel bad about dating if they think we’re not together? Or that you lied to them?”
She hadn’t thought of that. “I— Maybe. Maybe, but—”
It was true that Anh had seemed happy. Maybe she had already invited Jeremy to accompany her to that movie festival—possibly right after telling him about Olive and Carlsen, damn her. But this was exactly what Olive had wanted.
“Are you going to tell her the truth?”
She let out a panicked sound. “I can’t. Not now.” God, why did Olive ever agree to date Jeremy? She wasn’t even into him. Yes, the Irish accent and the ginger hair were cute, but not worth any of this. “Maybe we can tell people that I broke up with you?”
“That’s very flattering,” Dr. Carlsen deadpanned. She couldn’t quite figure out if he was joking.
“Fine. We can say that you broke up with me.”
“Because that sounds credible,” he said drily, almost below his breath. She was not sure she’d heard him correctly and had no idea what he might mean, but she was starting to feel very upset. Fine, she had been the one to kiss him first—God, she’d kissed Adam Carlsen; this was her life; these were her choices—but his actions in the break room the day before surely hadn’t helped matters. He could at least display some concern. There was no way he was okay with everyone believing that he was attracted to some random girl with one point five publications—yes, that paper she had revised and resubmitted three weeks ago counted as half.
“What if we tell people that it was a mutual breakup?”