Laura Steven - The Love Hypothesis

First published in Great Britain in 2020

by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited

2 Minster Court, 10th floor, London EC3R 7BB

Text copyright 2020 Laura Steven

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First e-book edition 2020

ISBN 978 1 4052 9694 6

Ebook ISBN 978 1 4052 9695 3

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

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For Louis because I love you more than

any hypothesis can explain

Contents

Allow me to explain the plethora of ways in which my love life is screwed. You know, scientifically.

According to the Matching Hypothesis, two people are more likely to form a successful relationship if theyre equally desirable. This desirability can come in the form of wealth or fame, but its usually determined by physical attractiveness. Which is to say: most folks fall in love and stay in love with other folks on the same level of hotness.

Back in the sixties, social scientists held a Computer Match Dance which, despite its cool name, was nowhere near as fun and futurey as it sounds. Basically, four judges rated a bunch of participants according to their hotness, and these participants were randomly paired up for the dance (except no man was paired with a taller woman, because god forbid their masculinity be challenged in any way!). During an intermission, participants were asked to assess their date, and the results showed that partners with similar levels of hotness expressed the most liking for each other. Shocker, I know.

The sixties may as well be Tudor England, but unfortunately this theory holds true in the internet dating age. One recent study measured the hotness of sixty men and sixty women, and their interactions were monitored. While people at least attempted to contact others who were significantly hotter than they were (probably because the variable of face-to-face rejection had been eliminated, as is the appeal of all online dating), it was ultimately found that the person was way more likely to reply if they were closer to the same level of hotness.

No, you havent stumbled upon a social psychology journal by accident, like I did one heady night while researching Walster and Walster over a glass of 2003 Merlot.

All Im saying is that if the Matching Hypothesis is anything to go by?

Yikes.

His name is Haruki, and he doesnt know I exist. I know, I know. Its a high-school clich. But clichs are usually clichs because theyre true. And this particular clich nerdy-comma-unpopular-girl-falls-for-hot-guy is only ever a recipe for disaster.

Haruki bleeds charisma. You know the type. A jock who walks the halls surrounded by disciples like hes the second coming of Christ, or whatever. His family is basically royalty in my small town, since they own a multi-million dollar hotel chain that dominates most of the midwest. And it helps that Haruki is practically a supermodel, despite having the same basic haircut as every other attractive teenage boy in America. Plus were in all the same AP science classes, and while hes hardly at the top of the pack, he is whip-smart.

So, to sum up: Haruki Ito? Way out of my league. Like, were not even playing the same sport.

It should come as no surprise to you that Im not the only girl at Edgewood High whos madly in love with Haruki. And, as per the unrequited love trope, Im utterly convinced Im the only one who *gets* the real him. Despite, you know, him not knowing I actually exist.

(I cannot emphasize this last part enough. I could perform an elaborate macarena in front of his desk right now, and hed stare straight ahead as though the light was simply bending around me. Maybe it is. I can never know for sure.)

Today were in double AP Physics, which sounds like a cruel and unusual punishment to the normal high-schooler, but seeing as Im not a normal high-schooler, this is my idea of utopia.

I adore science. Not so much biology, because its all kinda messy and unreliable and oftentimes smelly. Or chemistry, because I still have scar tissue on my left hand following a bunsen burner incident a few years back. But physics? Physics is my dirty talk. Its clean and neat, and simple and complex, and it makes perfect sense to me. Its one of the few things that does. So, if you ever want to lure me into the boudoir, talk Newton to me.

Mrs Torres is delivering a lesson on the behavior of gas at room temperature, but since Ive been pretty much fluent in thermodynamics and most other aspects of classical mechanics since I was thirteen, shes been giving me college-level modern physics papers to quietly work through during class, providing I a) complete all the regular homework too, and b) dont tell any of my classmates. So Im doing some reading around antimatter and barely paying attention to the lesson when Haruki pipes up.

At the sound of his voice, something skips in my chest. (Upon reading this sentence, my very literal dad will almost definitely have me tested for arrhythmia.)

But Mrs Torres, Haruki says, interrupting her mid-flow. She nods for him to go on. Near absolute zero, the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution fails to account for the observed behavior of the gas. So surely we should instead be using modern distributions, such as Fermi-Dirac or Bose-Einstein?

I lay down my pencil with interest. Torres wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. The classroom is sweltering in freak late-September heat. Thats correct, Haruki.

He frowns and asks, in a way that entirely suggests he already knows the answer and just wants to make a point, So why arent we using such distributions?

She sighs, swatting away a buzzing fly. Because quantum physics is not taught as part of this states high-school curriculum.

Why not? Haruki persists, like a dog with a bone. A really, really sexy dog. Not that Im weirdly into dogs, or anything. Anyway.

The other kids shift restlessly in their hard, plastic chairs, silently willing their classmate to drop it. Their impatience is almost palpable, but drop it he does not. Instead he adds, If we can handle it, why not teach it?

Torres presses her lips together and sighs again. Its two in the afternoon, and only getting hotter. Ah, climate change. I dont blame her for getting irritable, although Haruki has a point a point my dads have argued time after time with the school board.