Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            I have no idea what that means. I want to ask, but his tone sounds final, and anyway . . . “Shouldn’t you want Austin to tell Monica? So George will get the job? And you guys can bro out in the MIT restroom? Do aromatherapy together and discuss who has the biggest Hadron Collider?”

            “George will get the job anyway. And we won’t be doing that.” A wild dimple appears.

            “Everyone knows yours is larger, anyway.” His eyebrow cocks and I turn to the coatrack. Shit, did I say that out loud? “I can’t believe your mom refused to pick Greg up for a mani. What a jerk.”

            “She’s not.”

            “She totally is a jerk. Come on, who—”

            “I meant, she’s not my mother. And she wouldn’t appreciate you saying otherwise.”

            “Okay, edgelord. That’s a bit dramatic. We all have issues with our parents, but—”

            “Caroline is not my mother. Not biologically, nor in any other way.”

            I turn back to him. “What?”

            “My mother is dead. Greg is my half brother.”

            I stare at him for a long stretch. Then I close my eyes. “Fuck.”

            “Fuck?”

            “Fuck.” I scratch my head. “I just hate it when I act like an asshole without even wanting to.”

            He laughs. “Don’t worry. Like you said, she’s a jerk. Dad’s no better.”

            “Still, I’m sorry about your mom. I didn’t know.”

            “I’m not surprised.” He shrugs in his impossibly tight Suffolk hoodie. “No one talks about her.”

            “That explains it, though.”

            “Explains what?”

            “Why Greg’s such a sweetheart and you . . .”

            Dimple: on. “And me?”

            I look away, flushing. “Nothing. Anyway.” I rummage in my coat pockets for my phone. “Greg’s settled down, so I’m going to call an Uber—”

            “So,” Jack asks conversationally, “what came first?”

            I look up. “Uh?”

            “The fake-girlfriend enterprise?” He sounds genuinely curious. “Or the myriad of different Elsies you impersonate? Was it on-the-job training, or had you been . . . modifying yourself before?”

            “I don’t—” Oh, there’s no point in arguing with him. Not when he’s not even wrong. “Listen, now that we’ve ascertained that I’m not some gold digger threatening the Smith gene pool, could you stop?”

            “Stop . . . ?”

            “This weird”—I gesticulate between us—“anthropological character study of me. Fine, you got me. I want people to like me, and I give them the me they want. I enjoy getting along with others. Gasp. Report me to the authenticity police for aiding and abetting.”

            “It’s easier like that, isn’t it?”

            “What is?”

            “Never showing anyone who you really are.” He watches me calmly. Patiently. In the soft light of the apartment, his eyes are dark all around. Sometimes I hear a car running, but the traffic here is not nearly as loud as at my own apartment. “That way if something goes wrong, if someone rejects you, then it’s not about you, is it? When you’re yourself, that’s when you’re exposed. Vulnerable. But if you hold back . . . Losing a game’s always painful, but knowing that you haven’t played your best hand makes it bearable.”

            I hide my fist behind my back, clenching it tight at the unsolicited psychoanalysis. My nails bite into my palm. “Bold of you to assume that the real me is my best hand.”

            That stupid, crooked half smile is back. “Foolish of you to think it isn’t.”