Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            “Oh, that.” I shrug. “Not much.” I don’t plan to elaborate, but he’s giving me a raised-eyebrow look, and I want him to check the road. “I don’t tell them about that stuff.”

            “You don’t tell them about your life?”

            “It’s not what I meant.” Though I don’t. “Just . . . I’m a first-generation college student.”

            “There are plenty of first-generation academics whose parents are supportive and engaged.”

            I roll my eyes. Because it’s not like I don’t know that he’s right, or like my heart doesn’t feel heavy at the thought. “Just go ahead and do it.”

            “Do what?”

            “You’re dying to armchair-psychologize me.”

            He doesn’t even hide how entertaining he finds me. “Am I?”

            “You obviously have an opinion.”

            “Hmm.”

            “Just say it.”

            “Say what?”

            “That I don’t tell my family about my job because I’m unable to let people know that I’m more than the sum of the ways I can be useful to them. That if I show my true self, with my needs and my wants, I risk being rejected. That I’ve wielded my ability to hide who I am like an emotional antiseptic, and in the process I’ve turned myself into a puppet. Or a watermelon with googly eyes.”

            He maneuvers the car past the glow of the streetlights, and as the seconds pass in silence, I grow afraid that I’ve said too much, showed too much, been me too much. But then:

            “Well.” His smile is fond. Tender. “My job here is done.”

            I close my eyes, letting my forehead slide against the window—hot skin and cold glass. “I know how messed up I am.”

            “You do?”

            “Yeah. I just . . . I don’t know how to stop.”

            “Then maybe my job is not done. And you should stick around.” I turn to check whether his expression matches his tone—a mix of teasing, sweet, amused, hopeful, other things I can never understand.

            Then I notice where we are. “This is your apartment.”

            “Yup.” He parks. No, he reverse parks. Without sweating or crying or a litany of fuck shit fuck. I hate him.

            “Did you forget something?”

            “Nope.”

            “Then why—?”

            “I figured we’d take it easy tonight. Relax.”

            “What about your friends?”

            “They can entertain themselves.”

            “But they’re waiting for us.”

            “Nah. I texted them.”

            “When?”

            “While you were comparing your brothers’ relationship to a nonpolar covalent bond.”

            “I . . . Why?”

            “Because you’re obviously upset. And probably had a long week at work. And you had more-or-less nonconsensual lunches with two people whom I know to be giant pains in the ass. I think it’s better if we stay in.” He kills the engine. “Just us.”

            “But . . .” I look up at his building. Unlike mine, it doesn’t look like it’s twenty minutes from being condemned and thirty-five minutes from burning down due to exposed circuitry. “What are we even going to do?”

            I hear the smile in his words. “I have a couple of ideas.”



* * *



            • • •

            “So, Breaking Dawn’s the first one.”