[fanfiction] - Adam Carlson's POV of the Love Hypothesis

confrontations - part I

Sokrates once made the very bold statement, that it's more preferable to suffer from injustice than to commit it. 

Yet, here I am, committing injustice, if you will. 

"Us?" It's not my usual spiel to play dumb. Actually quite the opposite. But I am too ... whatever, distracted, alarmed, overwhelmed about the fact, that she all but pushed through to me, alert shining in her eyes and a helpless demand in her voice, when she requested to speak to me. 

"Us." She confirms, sounding absolutely horrified, like this little one syllable of a word is actually the epitomy of all-things-bad. I have to cross my arms to hide my hands trembling, balling into useless fists who want to fight an invisible enemy. 

"Us, dating." As if I needed that clarification. But before I can muster up any kind of response from my dry throat, she jumps right back into her pit of wordvomit. 

"...not that we're dating, but Anh clealy thought so, and she told Jeremy. And he told everyone, and now everyone knows. Or they think they know, even though there's absolutely nothing to know. As you and I know." She gulps one hell of a breath down her throat, probably to catch up. 

I realize that I was unfair and hasty to chastice Anh for being the chitchat leak. Infamous redhead Jeremy is still the enemy in this story. 

And then I try to break free from my stupor and look at her. And Olive Smith looks at my expectantly like she is awaiting my response. To what?

"And when you say everyone...?" I don't know where I was going with this, but a tiny voice in my head is still entertaining the fact that Hammerstein could have heard. Could have heard and ... this here could oddly work in my favor. Which reminds me of comitting Sokrates-level of injustive again. Because, well, dating in a scholar envirroment, a PH.D. candidate and a professor are always in a power imbalance, an imbalance I - as the professor - highly benefit from, while she - as the gradstudent - clearly does not. 

But Olive is back to square one: Wordvomitting.

"I mean everyone. Those people?" She points fingers to the lab. 

"They know. The other gards? They know. Cherie, the department secretary? She totally knows. Gossip in this department ist the worst. And they all think that I am dating a professor." 

Which, again, does no harm to me. But to her it's... well, it's a risk. 

"I see." I want to offer an immediate solution. Badly. It shouldn't actually take me by surprise on how bad exactly I want to be Olive Smith's knight in shining armor. But before I can even think about anything, she already proceeds. 

"I am sorry this happened. So sorry- This is all my fault. But I didn't think that... I understand why Anh would tell Jeremy - I mean, getting those two together was the whole point of this charade - but... Why would Jeremy tell anyone?" 

Because he is a useless piece of shit who loves to gossip more than a fishwife. He better never crosses paths with me. But one thing is absolutely obvious to me: Good girl Olive would never understand. She doesn't get that the Jeremys of this world would - oblivious to the hurt of others - always do as they please. 

"Why wouldn't he?" I ask back, mainly because I want her to really give some thought into that. This man - this indifferent chatterbox of man - has dated her. But cares not one bit about her and her reputation. If Anh Pham has two working brain cells she really should be running for the hills. 

"What do you mean?" Olive's voice shakes a little and the confused wrinkle on her forehead is back. 

"A grad student dating a faculty member seems like an interesting piece of information to share."