Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            “I . . .” I glance away, suddenly flustered. “I believe that you believe it. But . . . maybe you misinterpreted the diaries. It must have been a misunderstanding, because he would never . . . I owe him so much, and . . .”

            Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is precisely why I didn’t tell you. You idolize him and weren’t ready to hear any of this. If I’d brought it up, I would have hurt you, and you would have pulled back.”

            “That’s not for you to decide! And anyway, why do you think I spent my life lying to people, Jack?” I explode. “Why do you think I never told Laurendeau that I hate teaching, or Cece that her movies are worse than a Windows screen saver, or Mom that I’m a real fucking human being? Because I’m afraid that if I hurt them with the truth, then they’ll leave me. Why is it only a good excuse when it comes to you?”

            I walk away from the table, away from Jack. Take a deep breath, willing myself to calm down, staring at the streetlights shining over the rooftop snow.

            Jack lied to me. After everything, he was the one to lie to me. Not about a movie or wanting to get sushi—he lied to me about something huge.

            “Here’s what I think, Jack,” I say into the Boston skyline, angry, dejected. “You enjoy calling people out on their bullshit, but no one ever calls you out on yours.”

            “My bullshit?”

            I turn around, not sure what to say. And yet when I look at him, it’s right there on my tongue.

            “When you were a teenager, you did something impulsive out of anger, and that . . . that, I can understand. But after, you went on to have a brilliant career that gave legitimacy to your actions—and you still never bothered addressing them. Even after you grew up and should have known better.” I wipe my cheek with the palm of my hand, because I’m crying. Of course I am. “Your actions . . . your actions hurt lots more people than Laurendeau. And while you didn’t think much about the article, I thought about it every day for over a decade. It had terrible consequences for something that I really, really love, and you know what? I’ve done my best to avoid thinking about it, but I don’t know if I can keep on doing that. I don’t know if I can stop being angry at you. I don’t know if I . . .” My voice breaks and my eyes flood, and I cannot bear to be here, with Jack, a second longer.

            “Is that what you are? Angry?” His hand cups my cheek, forcing my eyes to his blurry face. “Or are you just scared? Because you’ve been more honest with me than ever before?”

            “Maybe.” I pull away and see it in the twitch of his fingers that he wants to chase me, but no. No. “Maybe I’m scared. And maybe you’re a liar. Where does that leave us?”

            He gives me a long, undecipherable look. “I don’t know. Where?”

            You know where we’re going, here, he said, over and over. And I said no, and then I said yes, and it is where I want to be. But he asked me for honesty and lied in return, and he did beat everything I stand for to a pulp, and I just—

            I need space. I need to think.

            “You should leave, Jack.”

            He lets out a breath and moves closer. Like he wants to wrap himself around me. It’s in the way his muscles coil, that impulse to take care of me. “Elsie, come on. You’re not—”

            “I am.” I’m starting to sob. I want him to touch me, but I cannot stand for him to be here. “You always talk about what I want, Jack. You helped me learn how to ask for it. Well.” I force myself to look him squarely in the eye and show him that I mean what I say, even though I’m not sure I do. There’s a burning heat in my chest, scalding, painful. “Right now, I don’t want to be with you. I need you to give me some space.”

            I see it in his eyes, the moment he realizes that I’m telling the truth. And the second he’s gone, I feel it in my bones like nothing before.





24


            ELECTROMAGNETISM


            Jack calls me two days later during my office hours, but I’m busy explaining to a UMass senior that if she truly must paste an entire paragraph from Wikipedia into her essay, she should at least take out the embedded hyperlinks. He tries again on Friday night, when I’m grading the thermo papers that came in late, and one last time on Saturday morning, while I’m in bed staring at the popcorn ceiling, thinking about him anyway.