āWaitāso what Holden said was true?ā She couldnāt quite believe it.
āWhy law school?ā
He shrugged. āMy parents would have loved it. And if I couldnāt be a scientist, I didnāt care what Iād become.ā
āWhat stopped you, then?ā
He sighed. āHolden. And Tom.ā
āTom,ā she repeated. Her stomach twisted, leaden.
āI would have dropped out of my Ph.D. program if it hadnāt been for them.
Our adviser was well-known in the field for being a sadist. Like I am, I suppose.ā His mouth curled into a bitter smile. āI was aware of his reputation before starting my Ph.D. Thing is, he was also brilliant. The very best. And I thought . . . I thought that I could take it, whatever heād dish out at me, and that it would be worth it. I thought it would be a matter of sacrifice and discipline and hard work.ā There was a strain to Adamās voice, as though the topic was not one he was used to discussing.
Olive tried to be gentle when she asked, āAnd it wasnāt?ā
He shook his head. āThe opposite, in a way.ā
āThe opposite of discipline and hard work?ā
āWe worked hard, all right. But discipline . . . discipline would presume specifically laid-out expectations. Ideal codes of behavior are defined, and a failure to adhere to them is addressed in a productive way. Thatās what I
thought, at least. What I still think. You said that Iām brutal with my grads, and maybe youāre rightāā āAdam, Iāā
āBut what I try to do is set goals for them and help them achieve them. If I realize that theyāre not doing what we have mutually agreed needs to be done, I tell them whatās wrong and what they must change. I donāt baby them, I donāt hide criticism in praises, I donāt believe in that Oreo cookie feedback crap, and if they find me terrifying or antagonizing because of it, so be it.ā
He took a deep breath. āBut I also donāt ever make it about them. Itās always about the work. Sometimes itās well done, other times itās not, and if itās not
. . . work can be redone. It can improve. I donāt want them to tie their self-worth to what they produce.ā He paused, and he lookedāno, he felt faraway.
Like these were things he gave a great deal of thought to, like he wanted this for his students. āI hate how self-important this all sounds, but science is serious business, and . . . itās my duty as a scientist, I believe.ā
āI . . .ā All of a sudden, the air in the hotel room was cold. Iām the one who told him, she thought, feeling her stomach flip. Iām the one who told him repeatedly that heās terrifying and antagonizing, and that all his students hate him. āAnd your adviser didnāt?ā
āI never quite understood what he thought. What I do know now, years later, is that he was abusive. A lot of terrible things happened under his watchāscientists were not given credit for their ideas or authorship of papers they deserved. People were publicly belittled for making mistakes that would be normal for experienced researchersālet alone trainees. Expectations were stellar, but never fully defined. Impossible deadlines were set arbitrarily, out of the blue, and grads were punished for not meeting them. Ph.D. students were constantly assigned to the same tasks, then pitted against each other and asked to compete, for my adviserās amusement. Once he put Holden and me on the same research project and told us that whoever obtained publishable results first would receive funding for the following semester.ā
She tried to imagine how it would feel, if Dr. Aslan openly promoted a competitive environment between Olive and her cohorts. But noāAdam and Holden had been close friends their whole lives, so the situation wasnāt comparable. It would have been like being told that to receive a salary next semester, Olive would need to outscience Anh. āWhat did you do?ā
He ran a hand through his hair, and a strand fell on his forehead. āWe paired up. We figured that we had complementary skillsāa pharmacology expert can achieve more with the help of a computational biologist, and vice versa. And we were right. We ran a really good study. It was exhausting, but also elating, staying up all hours to figure out how to fix our protocols.
Knowing that we were the first to discover something.ā For a moment, he seemed to enjoy the memory. But then he pressed his lips together, rolling his jaw. āAnd at the end of the semester, when we presented our findings to our adviser, he told us that weād both be without funding, because by collaborating we hadnāt followed his guidelines. We spent the following spring teaching six sections of Introduction to Biology per weekāon top of lab work. Holden and I were living together. I swear that I once heard him mumble āmitochondria are the powerhouse of the cellā in his sleep.ā
āBut . . . you gave your adviser what he wanted.ā
Adam shook his head. āHe wanted a power play. And in the end he got it: he punished us for not dancing to his tune and published the findings we brought to him without acknowledging our role in obtaining them.ā
āI . . .ā Her fingers fisted in the loose fabric of her borrowed T-shirt.
āAdam, Iām so sorry I ever compared you to him. I didnāt mean toāā āItās okay.ā He smiled at her, tight but reassuring.
It was not okay. Yes, Adam could be direct, painfully so. Stubborn and blunt and uncompromising. Not always kind, but never devious, or malicious.
Quite the opposite: he was honest to a fault, and required from others the same discipline he clearly imposed on himself. As much as his grads complained about his harsh feedback or the long hours of work they were asked to put in the lab, they all recognized that he was a hands-on mentor without being a micromanager. Most of them graduated with several publications and moved on to excellent academic jobs.
āYou didnāt know.ā
āStill, I . . .ā She bit her lip, feeling guilty. Feeling defeated. Feeling angry at Adamās adviser and at Tom for treating academia like their own personal playground. At herself, for not knowing what to do about it. āWhy did no one report him?ā
He closed his eyes briefly. āBecause he was short-listed for a Nobel Prize.
Twice. Because he had powerful friends in high places, and we thought no one would believe us. Because he could make or break careers. Because we felt that there was no real system in place to ask for help.ā There was a sour set to his jaw, and he was not looking at her anymore. It was so surreal, the idea of Adam Carlsen feeling powerless. And yet, his eyes told another story.
āWe were terrified, and probably somewhere deep down we were convinced that weād signed up for it and we deserved it.
That we were failures who would never amount to anything.ā
Her heart hurt for him. For herself. āIām so, so sorry.ā
He shook his head again, and his expression somewhat cleared. āWhen he told me that I was a failure, I thought he was right. I was ready to give up on the one thing I cared about because of it. And Tom and Holdenāthey had their own issues with our adviser, of course. Everyone did. But they helped me. For some reason my adviser always seemed to know when something wrong was happening with my studies, but Tom mediated a lot between us.
He took lots of crap so I wouldnāt have to. He was a favorite of my adviserās and interceded to make the lab less like a battle zone.ā
Adam talking about Tom as though he were a hero made her nauseous, but she remained silent. This wasnāt about her.
āAnd Holden . . . Holden stole my law school applications and made paper planes out of them. He was removed enough from what was happening to me that he could help me see things objectively. Just like I am removed from what happened to you today.ā His eyes were on her, now. There was a light in them that she didnāt understand. āYou are not mediocre, Olive. You were not invited to speak because people think that you are my girlfriendāthere is no such thing, since SBDās abstracts go through a blind review process. I would know, because Iāve been roped into reviewing them in the past. And the work you presented is important, rigorous, and brilliant.ā He took a deep breath. His shoulders rose and fell in time with the thudding of her heart. āI wish you could see yourself the way I see you.ā
Maybe it was the words, or maybe the tone. Maybe it was the way heād just told her something about himself, or how heād taken her hand earlier and
saved her from her misery. Her knight in black armor. Maybe it was none of it, maybe it was all of it, maybe it was always going to happen. Still āit didnāt matter. Suddenly, it just didnāt matter, the why of it, the how. The after.
All Olive cared about was that she wanted to, right now, and that seemed enough to make it all right.
It was all so slow: the step forward she took to come to stand between his knees, the rise of her hand to his face, the way her fingers cupped his jaw.
Slow enough that he could have stopped her, he could have pulled out of reach, he could have said somethingāand he did not. He simply looked up at her, his eyes a clear, liquid brown, and Oliveās heart at once jumped and quieted when he tilted his head and leaned into her palm.
It didnāt surprise her, how soft his skin was beneath the night stubble, how much warmer than hers. And when she bent, for once taller than him, the shape of his lips under hers was like an old song, familiar and easy. It wasnāt their first kiss, after all. Though, it was different. Calm and tentative and precious, Adamās hand light on her waist as he tilted his chin up to her, eager and pressing, like this was something heād thought ofālike heād been wanting it, too. It wasnāt their first kiss, but it was the first kiss that was theirs, and Olive savored it for long moments. The texture, the smell, the closeness.
The slight hitch in Adamās breath, the odd pauses, the way their lips had to work a little before finding the right angles and some form of coordination.
See? She wanted to say, triumphant. To whom, she wasnāt sure. See? It was always going to be like this. Olive grinned into his lips. And Adamā
Adam was already shaking his head when she pulled back, like a no had been waiting in his mouth all along, even as he returned her kiss. His fingers closed tight around her wrist, drawing her hand away from his face. āThis is not a good idea.ā
Her smile faded. He was right. He was completely right. He was also wrong. āWhy?ā
āOlive.ā He shook his head again. Then his hand left her waist and came up to his lips, as if to touch the kiss theyād just shared, make sure it had really happened. āThis is . . . no.ā