Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            He sets down the knife and comes to stand between my legs. Even like this, he’s taller than me. I’m trying to resent him for that, but my heart has grown a million sizes in the span of the last seven days. It’s about to float away into the sky.

            “You don’t have to ask.” He kisses the tip of my nose, then my mouth, then my nose again. “Because I’m offering.”

            My heart swells some more. I’m running out of space. “What if I say no?”

            “Don’t do that. Okay?” I break into a smile, and his hand slides under my hoodie and up my waist.

            I love this. Just as much as I thought I hated him. And Jack’s right: this is going fast—too fast, maybe. But I wonder if certain relationships are living proof of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: their position and their velocity simply cannot both be measured at the same time, not even in theory. And right now I’m too busy savoring where we are to consider anything else.

            “What?” he asks.

            I shake my head. “Just thinking.”

            “Thinking of . . . ?”

            “You know, during my interview, I was picturing how it would be if I got the job. Working with you. And I had these painstakingly intricate fantasies.”

            His interest is piqued. “Did I pack you sandwiches in a Twilight lunch box?”

            I laugh. “Oh, no.”

            “Were you wearing that red dress from Miel, and I bent you—”

            “No.” I can still blush—amazing. “It was mostly me harassing you into quitting in disgrace.”

            “I see.” He looks intrigued. “What were you going to do?”

            “Oh, you know. Jell-O your office supplies. Spread the rumor that you poop in the urinals. Frame you for white-collar crimes. Those kinds of things.” His expression is delighted. “I mean . . . I could still do it.”

            “You could.”

            “Some would say I should.”

            “Some would.” He kisses the corner of my smile. “Maybe next year,” he says, and it sounds low and hopeful, a promise nestled inside it, and I realize that I’d love to accept George’s offer because I want to work with her, because I want to dedicate my brainpower to liquid crystals, because I want to not spend eleven-fifteenths of my time commuting between campuses, and because I want to have enough money to surprise Cece with little hats for her ugly, murderous quill-nugget. But this man, who was going to be the absolute worst part of my dream job, might still turn out to be the thing I want the most.

            To no one’s surprise, I end up staying. And because of what happens on the following day, it turns out to be a pretty good decision.





23


            FREEZING POINT


            I get Dr. L.’s email—Unfortunately, I am out of town this week, but let us meet next Monday—before a Physics 101 student ambushes me to tell me about this super-cool movie he just watched and ask me if one could theoretically invert time (damn you, Christopher Nolan), and after one of my chairs calls me to let me know that yes, there is an opening for me next year, but adjuncts will take a pay cut because of something something taxes, something something the dean, something something the exploitation of non-tenure-track faculty members is the backbone of the capitalist model of academia.

            A boy with something that sounds a lot like the whooping cough hacks on me on the bus, icy, slippery rain starts falling the second I get off at my stop, and somehow only one of the gloves Cece knit for me in her short-lived craft phase can be found in my pocket. There is a lot going on. A lot. But I don’t care. Because above Lance’s toilet-paper-long text asking me to find out if Dana is going to that U2 concert with Lucas, there’s another message: a picture of the Hadron Collider model I saw on Jack’s desk, and then just five words.

                             Would look great in Jell-O.



            I smile. Reply I’m thinking cherry and then make my way through UMass’s Physics Department.

                             JACK: I forgot that every first Monday of the month we do this thing at George’s. Want to come? Or I can pick you up, and we can make scientifically accurate grilled cheese and watch the Cullen family featurette at my place.