It was exciting.
Almost exciting enough that I could forget I had to work with Hazel.
I hadn’t seen that coming. Maybe I should have, but Elliott putting us together on the same study had surprised me. Hadn’t he noticed that Hazel and I didn’t exactly get along? It was obvious she didn’t like me. Anyone could see it on her face. The woman hated my guts. How were we supposed to work together?
I’d have to figure it out. What could I say? Sorry Elliott, but can you assign me to work on something else? Every time I’m in the same room with Hazel, I can’t decide if I want to pick a fight with her or push her up against a wall and kiss the fuck out of her.
Nope. I couldn’t say that to my boss. I didn’t always know the right thing to say—and I screwed up when it came to verbal communication pretty often—but I knew this one. I couldn’t tell Elliott I was in hate-lust with my coworker and would prefer to avoid her at all costs.
I sat back in my chair, letting out a long breath. Sometimes I wondered if I’d done the right thing in pursuing psychology. I’d always been a math guy. Numbers were my thing. But working on that dating app had sparked a fascination—an obsession, really—with the reasons behind the numbers. Why did people do the things they did?
What made a person reject a potential match? What made them accept? And ultimately, what made a couple go from a tentative connection to a committed couple?
What made people fall in love?
I’d started finding patterns in the data, and it had only increased my curiosity. So I’d started taking psychology classes online. A few years later, I’d earned a second master’s degree.
My sister said I was over the top. Who accidentally earned a second master’s degree in their spare time?
Me. I did stuff like that. And it didn’t seem weird to me. Which was probably part of my problem.
If I hadn’t jumped down the social psychology rabbit hole, I’d have still been tucked safely away in an office where no one bothered me, running advanced algorithms and churning out an endless stream of charts and graphs. Not starting a new job at a college where I had to work closely with other people—which wasn’t exactly my best skill.
But then I thought about Molly and her husband. They’d fallen in love because of my questionnaire—because of the research I’d done—and now they were happily married and having a baby soon. When I thought about it like that, it was hard to have any regrets. Even if sometimes I looked around and wondered how I’d gotten here.
Something buzzed against the desk. Right, my phone. That was weird, I had a ton of new messages, but none of them were from numbers I recognized.
Scanning through the dozen or so texts, I furrowed my brow, thoroughly confused. The messages were all similar, asking about my schedule or when I had an available time slot. Time for what? Who were these people?
They had to be wrong numbers, but why were there so many? Another one came in while I was scanning through the others, so I replied, asking who it was. A few seconds later, I got a reply, saying his name was Aaron. That wasn’t exactly helpful information—I didn’t know an Aaron—but maybe I could get to the bottom of this.
Me: Sorry, not sure what this is about.
Aaron: Is this Corban Nash?
Me: Yes. Where’d you get my number?
Aaron: Your flier.
Me: What flier?
Aaron: The one posted outside the English department. Don’t you offer free tutoring?
My brow furrowed as I stared down at my phone. A flier? Free tutoring? What was he talking about?
Oh my god. Hazel. This was retaliation for putting her lunch in the freezer. I was sure of it.
I tossed my phone on my desk and went out to find the English department. It was across the courtyard from the psych building and sure enough, tacked up among the other notices fluttering in the breeze was a flier that read, Free tutoring, math, science, literature, foreign languages, contact Corban Nash. Most of the little tabs with my phone number had been ripped off already.
Grinding my teeth together, I ripped down the flier, crumpled it into a tight ball, and tossed it in a nearby trashcan.
Judging by the number of texts I’d already gotten, there had to be more of these around campus. I found another one outside the math department, and two more just inside the main campus cafeteria. I checked outside every building, speed walking past students and staff, my head down, my fists clenched.
After taking down what I hoped were the rest of the fake fliers, I went back to the psych building. Furious. Fuming. Grinding my teeth and ready to snap like a dry twig.
I stopped in the doorway of Hazel’s office and held up one of the fliers. “What is this?”
She calmly looked up from her laptop and blinked once, her eyes bright behind her dark-rimmed glasses. “I don’t know. I can’t read it from here.”
“I know you did this.” I shook the flier, making the paper crinkle. “My phone’s blowing up with texts.”
Her lip twitched like she was trying not to smile. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Growling with frustration, I crumpled the paper. “I’ve been all over campus tearing them down. This was really unnecessary.”
She turned her attention back to her laptop, her fingers clicking on the keys as she spoke. Her voice was infuriatingly monotone. “So was freezing my lunch.”
“It couldn’t have been in there long enough to actually freeze.”
Her eyes snapped back to me. “So you did do it.”
Damn it.
“You know what? You’re not a swan. You’re a crow.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
“Crows have been shown to hold grudges and to exhibit retaliatory behavior. They also remember human faces, but that’s beside the point because you’re a human and we all know humans can remember faces.”
“Unless a subject has prosopagnosia. Then they can’t recognize faces.”
I rolled my eyes. “Obviously in cases of prosopagnosia the subject is essentially face-blind. But I don’t know if that has any impact on revenge-seeking behavior.”
“That’s an interesting question.” She leaned back a little and tapped her lips with her finger. “My understanding of the disorder is that other brain functions remain intact. So it stands to reason that if a prosopagnosiac felt the need to exact revenge, their inability to recognize the face of their target wouldn’t negate the revenge-seeking impulse.”
“But that assumes their face-blindness doesn’t impact their perceived needs. A person with a brain disorder that inhibits their ability to recognize facial features is likely to be focused on other things.”
“Such as learning alternative cues for recognition and coping with the social impact of their condition.”
“Which could push their desire for revenge out of their needs hierarchy, rendering it unimportant to them.”
Wait, were we agreeing on something? We stared at each other for a few seconds. I couldn’t read her expression, but the way she pursed her lips drew my attention to her mouth. Which made me think about kissing her.
Which made me wonder if she’d ever thought about kissing me.
Which reminded me that she hated me.
And had posted fliers with my phone number all over campus.