Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            “Do you even realize what this means for me? For you it’s—it’s The Hunger Games, The Academe Edition, but this is my lousy future and everything I’ve worked toward for my entire adult life. I needed that job.”

            “I know.”

            “No, you don’t know.” I press my hands against his chest and push him away. He doesn’t budge, which makes me explosively mad. “You don’t know what it feels like to have a chronic condition and no health insurance! To have to be perfect, to have to be on all the time because everyone around you expects you to be! And it’s pretty fucking hard to be perfect when you’re working fifteen-hour days for no money at a job you hate! You’re not experiencing any of that, so you don’t fucking know how I—”

            “You’re terrified. You’re overwhelmed. The job market is at its worst, and you don’t know if there’ll be openings next year. Believe me, I can relate—”

            “Oh really? You can relate? With your long and arduous trek into STEM academia as a white, wealthy man?”

            He leans forward. His hand closes around my upper arm. “Do you think I’m happy about this?”

            “You got exactly what you wanted!”

            “I did.” His face hardens. “And a bunch of things I did not want, too.”

            “Oh yeah? Like what? Humiliating another theoretical physicist? Installing your girlfriend down the hall so you can get laid between classes—”

            “Enough.”

            I recoil. His voice is harsh, and it gives just enough pause to process the words that just tumbled out of me.

            Oh God. Oh my God. I know Georgina Sepulveda. I know her work. I know how incredibly shitty academia has always been to me, a woman in physics, and I just did the same to another woman in physics. A woman in physics whom I’ve admired for years.

            What the hell did I just do? Who the fuck is this person inside me? “I’m so sorry.” My hand flies to my mouth to muffle a sob. “I—I’m so, so sorry. It’s not even true. None of it. I’ve read her articles. She’s amazing and—”

            “It’s okay.” Jack’s expression is back to soft. Like I’m not the protocluster of all assholes.

            “No.” I shake my head. “No, she doesn’t deserve any of it, and—fuck. Fuck.” My throat burns with guilt and something that feels a lot like shame. My cheeks are icy and wet. Very wet. I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, but the tears keep coming.

            “Elsie, it’s okay. You have every right to be upset—”

            “No. It’s not okay. I’m being unreasonable and none of this is Georgina’s fault, and as terrible as you are, it’s not your fault, either. I’m the one who fucked up the interview, and—” Another sob. He heard this time. No way he didn’t. “You shouldn’t let me talk to you like this.”

            He is silent for a moment. Then I feel him take a step closer. He doesn’t touch me, but his coat brushes against mine, a muted, swishing sound.

            “I like it, actually.”

            I look up. There’s a faint smile on his lips. “You like being yelled at?”

            “I like to see you. When you’re not trying to be someone else.”

            I’m actually hiccuping, like a three-year-old with a bruised elbow at the monkey bars. I bite the inside of my cheek to make it stop, but it’s a lost battle. Like my entire stupid life. “I can’t imagine why.”

            “I like rare occurrences.”

            I need to leave. I can’t stand here, shivering, being snowed on in the middle of the sidewalk. With Jonathan Smith-Turner. Bawling like I’m on an onion farm. But crying my heart out and thoroughly humiliating myself in front of a professional rival takes up all my energy, which means I can’t leave.

            “It’s cold,” he says, like he’s reading my mind. “I live five minutes from here.” I sniffle, unsure how to answer. Bully for you? But then he adds, “Come over.” I must have shown some kind of reaction, because he continues, “Not for anything you’re thinking. Come over so I can warm you up. I want to explain what happened with the search.”