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

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Acknowledgments

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 they’re equally desirable. This desirability can come in the form of wealth or fame, but it’s 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 haven’t 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 I’m saying is that if the Matching Hypothesis is anything to go by?

Yikes.

1

His name is Haruki, and he doesn’t know I exist. I know, I know. It’s a high-school cliché. But clichés are usually clichés because they’re true. And this particular cliché – 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 he’s 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 we’re in all the same AP science classes, and while he’s hardly at the top of the pack, he is whip-smart.

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

It should come as no surprise to you that I’m not the only girl at Edgewood High who’s madly in love with Haruki. And, as per the unrequited love trope, I’m utterly convinced I’m 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 he’d stare straight ahead as though the light was simply bending around me. Maybe it is. I can never know for sure.)

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

I adore science. Not so much biology, because it’s 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. It’s clean and neat, and simple and complex, and it makes perfect sense to me. It’s 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 I’ve been pretty much fluent in thermodynamics – and most other aspects of classical mechanics – since I was thirteen, she’s 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) don’t tell any of my classmates. So I’m 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. ‘That’s 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 aren’t we using such distributions?’

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

‘Why not?’ Haruki persists, like a dog with a bone. A really, really sexy dog. Not that I’m 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. It’s two in the afternoon, and only getting hotter. Ah, climate change. I don’t blame her for getting irritable, although Haruki has a point – a point my dads have argued time after time with the school board.

But patiently as ever, she says, ‘Because truly getting to grips with some of these concepts requires an incredibly advanced level of math. Research shows that your average seventeen-year-old is unlikely to achieve such a level.’

Haruki scoffs. ‘So what, we dumb down the syllabus to suit the lowest common denominator?’

I agree with what he’s saying, but he’s being kind of an ass about it. It’s not Torres’ personal fault.

Torres leans back against her desk and pinches the bridge of her nose. She’s wearing heeled pumps, a tight blouse and even tighter pencil skirt. I feel sweaty and uncomfortable just imagining wearing something like that. Right now I’m extremely grateful that our school’s lax uniform policy allows for shorts and flip-flops. My toenails are basically a hate crime, but the open air setup is a life-saver.

Patiently, Torres answers, ‘I’m sorry, Haruki, but that’s just the way it is. So if we could bring our attention back to –’

‘Well, it’s clearly not the way it is,’ Haruki snaps, laying down his pencil. ‘Because Caro Murphy seems to be above learning classical mechanics. Unlike the rest of us.’

At the sound of my name, I freeze in my chair.

Well, kind of my name. It’s Caro Kerber-Murphy. But whatever.

Everyone else in the class bar Haruki snaps around to stare at me, gauging my humiliation levels following the public call-out.

I mentally flail for an explanation as to how Haruki knows two-thirds of my name. The assumption I’d made regarding my light-bending skills has been blown out of the water.

A loaded silence follows. What am I meant to do in this situation? Pretend I didn’t hear him? Defend myself ? Defend Torres? Why is there no textbook on how to navigate mortifying confrontations such as these? Maybe there is. Maybe I could Amazon Prime it right here to this very classroom. Do they do next-second delivery yet? Surely they’re working on it?

Since the R&D bods over at Amazon clearly give no shits about my predicament, I do what all introverted science nerds would do in this scenario: pretend there’s no outside world and stare defiantly at the CERN experiment outlined on the page in front of me.

Through the roaring pulse in my ears, I vaguely hear Torres say, ‘See me after class, Mr Ito. We’ll discuss it then.’

My heartbeat takes a good half hour to return to normal cardiovascular function. In that time, I obsessively analyze the events of the past few minutes.

Firstly, it transpires that Haruki Ito is in fact aware of my existence, which is a significant development in itself.

Secondly, it appears that said awareness is founded on disdain for the special treatment I receive. Which, you know, fair enough. I’d be similarly pissed.

But the lovesick puppy in me is now worried. What if aforementioned disdain overrides any and all romantic feelings in the past, present and future, and in all dimensions up to and including those we have not yet discovered?

When final bell rings, I quickly chuck pencils and erasers back into my leather pencil-case and sling my backpack over one shoulder, into the neat dent carved from years of textbook-hauling. Seriously, being a devoted lifelong nerd has permanently messed up my posture and overall anatomy. I am essentially Quasimodo, if Quasimodo were an expert in kinematics. Maybe he was. We just don’t know.

Painfully aware of the fact that I have to pass Haruki’s desk to reach the door, I tuck my head to my chest and practically tiptoe past him. Just as I’m crossing the front of his desk, he clears his throat. That annoying, crush-induced arrhythmia strikes up again, and I stop walking to look up at him. For a sweet millisecond, hope bubbles in my belly. Our eyes meet, and it’s . . .

Exactly as devoid of interest as I’d expected. It’s soon embarrassingly apparent that he wasn’t clearing his throat to get my attention. He was just clearing his throat. Because mucus. And, like an idiot, I stopped walking and gazed hopefully up at him.

He shoots me a look as if to say, ‘What on earth are you staring at, you insignificant gnat?’ and carts himself off to talk to Torres.

I shuffle meekly away, downbeat and dejected. By the time I’ve made it to my best friend’s locker, I’m pretty sure Eeyore has replaced the bald eagle as my official patronus.

‘Hey, girl. What’s up?’ Keiko asks. Her sunflower-print skater dress and blue ombre hair are an assault on the eyes but, like, in a good way. She’s plugged into purple headphones, some new indie band playing in her ears, so she barely hears my mumbled reply.

Haruki knows who I am. He just doesn’t care.

2

Keiko walks me to chess club. School’s basically deserted, but she knows I still don’t like to talk about anything personal while wandering the hallways – seriously, do you know how high the chances are of being heard? – so she just takes my mind off the situation by talking about a gig she’s playing at the weekend.

Her mom’s finally given her the green light to perform in drinking establishments with her rock band, which has opened up a whole new world of venues for her. She’s only seventeen, but she has the voice of an old soul. And she writes all of the band’s songs. What I’m trying to say is that my best friend is way too cool to be hanging out with me.

‘So I’m thinking we’ll open the set with Mess You Up, because that never fails to get the crowd going,’ she says, all wide eyes and animated hand gestures. Her new bangs keep dropping into her face, and she brushes them back impatiently. ‘And then a couple more uptempo bangers – The Power of Pretty, Upside Downside – before mellowing out into Reason To Be. What do you think? Or should we skip the slow tracks altogether? I know some crowds prefer . . .’

And just like that she’s off on another tangent. It’s how our friendship has operated for over a decade. She talks, I listen. Mostly. And I’m okay with it. Mostly.

We walk past Emily and Ethan, the Griffin twins, as they check the school play audition times on the noticeboard. They both look up adoringly at Keiko as she passes – then exchange daggers when they realize what the other is doing.

Keiko has this magnetic energy. It’s not the fact she’s a rock star, or the fact she’s done some plus-size modeling, or her quirky fashion sense and killer hair. It’s all of those things, and something else entirely. A spark you can’t put your finger on.

Basically everyone in school is in love with my best friend, but she never affords them the luxury of falling in love back. She’s a big fan of hookups and fuck buddies, but not so much actual dating. Between her and Gabriela, our beautiful Puerto Rican cheerleader pal with a long-term boyfriend who loves her, is it any wonder ya girl’s got self-esteem issues? (I know. I can’t really pull off saying ‘ya girl’. It’s a problem.)

Keiko leaves me at the door with a hug, all warmth and stale cigarettes and sweet perfume. ‘Go kill some kings, or whatever.’ She says this every single time I play chess.

She’s one of those people who proudly does not engage with nerd culture. I’ve tried telling her that superhero comics and board games are totally mainstream now, and that rejecting them ultimately means she’s the one who’s out of touch with the zeitgeist, but that put her off even more. She’s so edgy I can barely keep up with what does or does not constitute a Cool Thing.

I’m one of the last to arrive, and almost everyone is already set up in a pair by the time I abandon my backpack and scan the room for a partner. Lucy Cox and Everett Clark hold hands over their board, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, talking about new set pieces they’ve been learning. Madison Spencer and Guadalupe Martinez kiss over their warring queens, completely oblivious to the room around them.

God. When did chess club get so horny?

In fairness to the Matching Hypothesis, both couples are approximately the same level of objective hotness and social status. And I can’t fight the twinge of jealousy. In a completely pointless exercise in self-flagellation, I catch myself wondering what kind of couple Haruki and I would be. Over-the-top PDA? Fake-arguing while sparks fly? Nerding out over mutual interests?

Doesn’t matter. The Matching Hypothesis actively forbids us from ever dating.

I’m not sure why the Matching Hypothesis plays on my mind so much, to be honest. I stumbled upon that first article at a time in my life where I felt totally and utterly unlovable – when Gabriela and Ryan first started dating, and Keiko was at the height of her experimentation stage. Maybe that’s why I latched on to the theory like a barnacle to a speedboat. I liked having a reason – a concrete, scientific reason – to explain why I wasn’t in the same place they were, no matter how much I wanted to be. It gave me something to blame beyond myself.

Sighing deeply, I force myself back into the present. When I see the only person left unmatched with a chess partner, I nearly turn and walk straight back out.

Mateo grins as he watches me scan the room, waiting for the moment I realize my fate. When I try and fail to disguise my horror, he saunters over with a cocky grin.

‘Caro Kerber. Looks like it’s you and me.’ Seriously, what is it with people only knowing two-thirds of my name? He drags a chair back along the ground, its legs screeching against the linoleum. ‘Pull up a pew. I don’t bite.’

Mateo Gutierrez is one of the most opinionated homo sapiens on this earth. He’s president of the debate team, and he’s renowned for having no concrete stance on, well, anything. His actual genuine views are lucid, whether political, social or ethical, but what does not change is how passionately he’s prepared to argue on any given subject, from any given side of the debate. It’s quite impressive. You know, if you find contentious, belligerent jerks impressive. Which I do not. At all.

‘Alright,’ I grumble, resigned to spending at least the next fifteen minutes in his presence. He’s one of Gabriela’s childhood friends, so I attempt civility at all times. ‘Do your worst. And it’s Kerber-Murphy.’

We’ve clashed during chess club on many the occasion. He usually beats me, with his calculated precision and meticulously executed set moves, but there have been a few times he’s knocked over his own king in frustration. I’m a hideously defensive player, and fortify my pieces in such a way that they’re impossible to penetrate. It drives him up the wall. And to be honest, it drives me up the wall too. I wish I was confident enough to push for bold attacks and risky sacrifices, but I’m not. I play it safe, always.

This time, it only takes a few moves for Mateo to launch his verbal assault. ‘Coward. Do you know how boring you are to play against? I would say it’s like watching paint dry, but that’s offensive to paint.’ He launches an assault with a knight and a bishop, but I’ve arranged my frontline so there are no hanging pieces. He groans in frustration.

I find myself in a position I so often land in: everything is so neat and impenetrable that I don’t want to move anything when my turn comes around. I reluctantly shuffle a pawn forward. Mateo’s eyes light up, and he swoops into the gap I’ve been forced to create. His eyes smirk, even though that’s technically not a thing. It’s the only way to describe it. He’s obviously delighted with himself.

Said grin soon vanishes when he realizes I’ve forked his bishop and his knight, which is unfortunately nowhere near as dirty as it sounds. Just means he’s about to lose one of them.

‘Damn,’ he grumbles. ‘Lucked your way into that one, didn’t you?’

I maintain a neutral expression. ‘Totally. Pure luck.’

It’s a little cooler in this classroom, since it’s north-facing and all, but I’m still feeling clammy and uncomfortable. There’s almost definitely going to be a sweaty assprint on this seat when I stand up.

Apart from a whirring ceiling fan, the room is graveyard quiet, and ripe with the sound of concentration. Until Mateo pipes up again, since he basically has to be making some kind of noise at all times, and starts humming an annoying tune from a commercial I can’t quite place. If he’s trying to put me off, it’s working. I can barely focus on the board, I’m so hot and bothered.

But then I see it: the intention behind his last couple of moves. He’s visibly angry when I castle just in time to stop him from skewering my queen to my king.

What I want to say in response: ‘I’ll skewer your ass to your face, you pugnacious prick!’

What I actually say: ‘Please be quiet, Mateo. Some of us are trying to concentrate.’

Look, I don’t mean to sound like Hermione Granger every minute of the livelong day. It just happens.

We play for a while longer. I try to regroup and fortify my defenses, but his unrelenting attacks punish my piece count. It’s not going great, but at least I don’t have any brainspace left to think about Haruki and our awkward encounter.

After ten more minutes, I’m not surprised when he promotes a pawn and effortlessly checkmates me.

At this point Mateo could choose to be gracious in victory, but as it happens, that is not the path he takes. ‘Suck it, Kerber! What’s that now? Eleven games to three? Twelve? I lose track.’ He whistles unnecessarily. ‘You need to grow some lady balls. Launch an attack. Maybe take your queen out for a joyride every once in a while. Or, you know, keep making a dick of yourself. Your call.’

I swear to god, I’m going to shove a rook so far up his ass he’ll be able to taste wood varnish on the back of his throat.

By the time I leave school at five-thirty, the temperature is vaguely less hellish, so my walk home is bearable at least. Despite the absurd amount of thunderflies in the air.

I live a couple miles from school, which I diligently cover on foot every single day on account of Dad #1’s obsession with car accidents. If you ever need to know hard statistics on how many people are killed in crashes each year, he’s your guy. As far as fetishes go it’s pretty niche, but I’d rather his search history showed repeated hits on government data sites than on hardcore pornography. You take the wins where you can.

At least the route home is pleasant. My neighborhood is a nice one; my dads are both tenured academics, so we live in the more affluent area of town. However, when you’re a chronic overthinker, walking four miles a day with just your own thoughts for company is a special kind of hell. And before you suggest podcasts or audiobooks, yes, I have tried them. Doesn’t work. My cogitation is louder than any headphones can plausibly go. I experience the audial equivalent of reaching the end of a page, then realizing you’ve absorbed precisely nothing because you’re so busy fixating on an embarrassing thing you said back in kindergarten.

Tonight is no exception. As I pass preppy spandex-clad joggers, Labradoodles in appalling Swarovski collars, and an implausible number of 4x4s, all I can do is replay the painful encounter with Haruki over and over again.

The public call-out. The subsequent loaded silence. The heat – oh god, the heat. Like my cheeks were being flame-grilled and served as the steak portion of a surf ‘n’ turf.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the ass-clenching moment when I stopped at the sound of his throat-clearing, and it became immediately, excruciatingly apparent that he was not clamoring for my attention.

And the look. The look he gave me – like I was nothing to him. Which I guess I am.

I take my time ambling home, in no rush to discuss what I learned at school today with my dads over dinner, like I do every night. Blame the heat, or the emotions, or the ABSURD QUANTITY OF THUNDERFLIES, but for whatever reason, my heels are dragging.

Argh. Why do I even care so much about Haruki’s lack of interest? I’m used to the whole unrequited-love deal. It’s not new to me. I should be better at handling it by now.

Because it’s definitely a pattern. A pattern with no outliers, no anomalies, no exceptions. Just data point after data point after data point of rejection. No, not even rejection. Rejection would require the objects of my affection to notice me enough to reject me in the first place.

Actually, there is one almost-exception. Kevin Cartwright. He’s a couple years older than me, and we had a string of hookups over the summer. It started with a drunken one-night stand at a house party – classy way to lose your V-plates, right? – and became a regular occurrence whenever he’d had so much as a sip of beer. But every time I texted him sober, he ghosted me. He only ever wanted to hook up when it was on his terms, and when his blood-alcohol level was past the legal limit.

One night – when he was super wasted – he told me he was still hung up on his ex, and that it wouldn’t be fair to me to turn whatever we had going into something more. And even though I was starting to kind of like the guy, I tried my best to bury whatever feelings I had for him. I knew deep down it wasn’t going anywhere.

Then he went away to college a few weeks back, at the same time as my older brother, and I haven’t heard a peep since. Guess I was just a way to kill time, when the lights were low and the beer goggles were firmly in place.

I sigh, inhaling warm summer air. The streets are quiet, even by my sleepy town’s standards. Nearby, an elderly man is cutting the grass with his shirt off. A grey-haired woman watches lovingly from the window. And, to be fair to the Matching Hypothesis, they are precisely the same level of hotness. Figures.

Pulling my phone out of my back pocket, I press the home button. My lock screen lights up: nada. No messages, no missed calls. Keiko will be rehearsing for tonight’s gig, and Gabriela will be tutoring after-school Spanish. She speaks, like, seven languages, has a makeup Insta with a gazillion followers, and bakes the best banana bread in the literal world.

Then she’ll be hanging out with her boyfriend, Ryan. They’ve been together since freshman year and are basically the same entity at this point. In fact, I’m not entirely sure she hasn’t absorbed his personality via osmosis. She had some actual points to make about the NFL draft the other day. Still, they’re pretty cute. He’s always picking up egg and cheese bagels for her breakfast, holding up her ring light so she can take the perfect selfies, making her study playlists on Spotify.

When I think of being with Haruki, that’s what I imagine. Not huge, grand gestures of rapturous romance. Not even necessarily the physical aspects of having a boyfriend. Just small, everyday kindnesses that let you know you’re loved.

For whatever dumb reason, I unlock my phone and open up the message chain between me and Kevin. It’s . . . confronting. The last three messages were all sent by me: a stack of shameless blue bubbles.

Hey, how are you? Are you going to Steph’s party this weekend? Hope to see you there. *beer emoji*

Kevin! Fancy a drink tomorrow night? My dads are out of town. And there’s red wine in the refrigerator. (I know. They’re criminals. Room temperature or bust.)

Hey! Just a quick message to say I hope your big move to Penn State goes well. Hit me up when you’re next home and we can catch up.

My skin crawls, reading them back. But they’re not that awful, are they? I obsessed so hard over striking the right balance between casual and flirty. Between upbeat and sarcastic. Between perfect and, well, perfect. And it still wasn’t enough to get his attention.

I can’t help but feel, like I do 201,674 times a day, that it’s all because of the way I look. The blank stares, the ghosted messages, the everlasting feeling of irrelevance. It has to be. Because I’m smart, I’m interesting, I’m funny (when I have the guts to actually crack jokes within earshot of other human beings). I’m a nice fucking person. And yet no guy has any interest. Why?

I’m about to shove my phone away when, as it always does, temptation strikes. What if this is the one time Kevin will reply? What if he’s drunk at a daytime frat party, and I send a message at the perfect moment, and he actually responds? It would soothe my self-hatred, if only for a moment. And hey, if he ignores me – what’s new? It can’t suck any more than it already does.

So I do it. I fire off a quick, breezy text, watch as the ‘delivered’ sign appears, and bury the phone back into my pocket. Maybe if I don’t look for a while, there will magically be a message waiting for me later tonight.

My pretty, faux-Edwardian house is detached and modestly sized. Vati – Dad #2 – is out front gardening, and as I’m walking up the driveway I almost don’t see him. He’s about two inches from the soil, hacking away manically at the border with a pair of secateurs. He’s a godawful gardener. Like, imagine you gave a donkey a pair of scissors and told it to go to town on your flowerbeds. That’s how our garden looks.

But Vati loves it, so Dad just lets him crack on and do his thing. That is love, right there. And not that I’ve ever, you know . . . rated the hotness of my fathers, or anything, but they are pretty similar levels of good-looking and socially desirable. The Matching Hypothesis never fails.

‘Bärchen !’ he calls, dropping his tools and kneeling back on his haunches. Vati – Dr Felix Kerber – is Austrian. He’s always called me Bärchen, ever since I was teeny. Little bear. It still warms my heart.

‘Hey, Vati,’ I say, stopping just short of the front door. ‘How goes the gardening? Zu heiß, nein ?’ That’s about as far as my German goes. Gabriela is the language goddess of our friendship tripod, and is completely fluent. Vati always loves when she visits.

‘Ja, this heat is ridiculous,’ Vati replies. ‘And I’m making a real mess of this. I never did know what to do with bushes.’

And then he guffaws. Actually guffaws. At his own disgusting joke.

I mime gagging, and shout back, ‘Is Dad inside? I would like some sensible conversation, for once in my life.’

Vati is too busy guffawing to respond.

Our dog Sirius – a one-eyed cockapoo – greets me at the door with a half-hearted tail wag. He is very old and very lazy, and his depth perception is very bad on account of the one-eye situation. Also, his face smells like a rotting corpse. Apart from that, I love him very much. Unfortunately, Sirius loves nothing but barbecue ribs.

I find Dad washing potatoes in the kitchen sink. Dumping my backpack on the counter, I immediately raid the fridge, as I do every night. And, as he does every night, Dad says in his dulcet Bostonian tones, ‘You will ruin your dinner.’

He’s the sensible one, Dad. While goofy Vati plays the clown, cracking inappropriate jokes and generally throwing caution to the wind, Dad is more subdued. As a world-leading expert in experimental hepatology, Dr Michael Murphy is not interested in your scatological humour. He is painfully smart, painfully literal, and affectionate in his own special way.

‘Dad, there’s every chance that the Higgs Boson being made over at the Large Hadron Collider are becoming unstable at this very second,’ I say dramatically, while peeling a string cheese into my palm. ‘By the time I’ve finished this sentence, one could have triggered a catastrophic vacuum decay, causing space and time, as we know it, to collapse.’ Triumphantly, I cram several pieces of stringy deliciousness into my mouth. ‘In which case, dinner will be ruined regardless.’

‘Very good,’ Dad grumbles. ‘But since you have finished your sentence – and your snack – without a black hole in sight, you can close that fridge door, grab a vegetable peeler, and tell me about your day.’

3

Thanks to a potent dinner-table combination of intelligent conversation and creamy mashed potatoes, I manage to avoid checking my phone for a good couple of hours.

As I traipse upstairs, belly full of schnitzel, I’m almost dizzy with the anticipation of pulling my phone out and seeing Kevin’s name light up my screen. Or Haruki’s. Or anyone’s, for that matter.

It’s been two hours. I’ll probably have several messages in my group chat with Keiko and Gabriela, comprising pre-show selfies like we always get from Keiko, and witty comments from Gabriela about the spoilt rich kids she tutors. Possibly even a missed FaceTime call, if Gabriela’s particularly mad. Perhaps Leo, my brother, has tagged me in a nerdy meme only he and I would find funny. Maybe Haruki has reached out via Instagram to apologize for dropping me in the shit this afternoon. And surely Kevin will have replied by now, right? It’s been two hours. Two hours!

For no real reason, I make a slight ceremony of the phone-checking. I get into comfy sweats and an oversized T-shirt, throw my hair up into a messy pony, switch on a couple lamps and my fairy lights, and curl up cross-legged on my bed. Dad must’ve put fresh bedding on this afternoon, because the plain white duvet cover with tiny pink flowers smells of lavender and camomile. That’s when you can tell Dad is getting bored on sabbatical. He does all the laundry imaginable, instead of finishing the book proposal he’s supposed to be working on.

When I’m finally ready, I press the home button on my phone.

Nothing.

Just the time – 9:01pm – and my background photo. Keiko and Gabriela’s shiny faces smile back at me. We took that picture after Keiko’s first ever gig, when we were all sweaty and high on adrenaline and good music. I’m sandwiched between the two of them, and you can barely see my face through Keiko’s blue hair.

No texts. No calls. No notifications. Nada.

I shouldn’t care. I know I have people around me who love me. Keiko and Gabriela, and my dads, even my big brother, although he’s usually far too busy studying to pay me any attention. I know they care. It’s just . . .

Technology today makes it so easy to constantly communicate with your loved ones. So when they don’t communicate, when they all ignore you at once, it’s the worst feeling. They could get in touch with you. They just don’t.

I forever feel like everyone else gets more messages, more calls, more notifications than me. Everyone around me is forever looking down at their screen, laughing at something funny in their family group chat, swooning over a selfie from their crush, sighing as they faux-complain about how many notifications they have to read. And I just sit there, pretending to be doing the same, when really the only people who would ever message me are in the very same room.

It’s pathetic, and I hate myself for caring. But I do. I just want a guy to text me and let me know he’s thinking about me, to ask me how my day was, to send funny pictures to cheer me up when I’m down. It seems like everyone has that but me.

So, I do what I do almost every night when I’m down about my love life, or lack thereof. I whizz through my homework, take a long, hot shower, wait ’til my dads are both asleep – they usually hit the hay early – then sneak down to the refrigerator to retrieve half a glass of red wine. A full glass and they’d notice, but half usually slips under the radar, providing I remember to wash the glass and put it away again after I’ve finished.

Then I tiptoe back upstairs, lock my bedroom door, and engage in my dirty little secret: trashy rom-coms from the early noughties. Movies from before social media, before selfies, before the constant need for validation, before memes and Facebook politics. Just shamelessly cheesy romance and all the happy endings a girl could want.

My dads would murder me if they found me watching this crap. It’ll rot your brain cells, they’d say. Try this NASA documentary instead. Or if you have to watch a movie, at least start with Guillermo del Toro.

But hey. You can’t help what you love. And what I love is curling up in my empty bed with half a glass of red wine and watching cheesy rom-coms with the volume turned down low.

Ugly nerd on the outside, lonely middle-aged spinster on the inside. Form an orderly queue, fellas.

Tonight’s pick is Just Friends, because I have a massive soft spot for Ryan Reynolds, like almost everyone with retinas. It’s basically an in-depth study of the Matching Hypothesis. Ryan Reynolds’ character doesn’t get the classically hot girl until he changes everything about his physical appearance to match her level of attractiveness. Standard.

I’ve seen the film a couple times before, so I scroll aimlessly through my phone as I watch. Because I’m clearly a fan of torturing myself, I open up the conversation with Kevin – if you can even call a one-sided deluge of messages a conversation – and stare at my unanswered text.

Hey! You settling in okay? Hope you’ve managed to find a gaming buddy to replace Bryan.

And so begins the cringing.

Why did I have to go and make it so personal? I mean, he only told me about how much he was going to miss his gaming buddy because he was drunk. I’m pretty sure he did not want to be reminded of that. And here I go, dropping it into conversation like some kind of needy stalker. Does he think I’m a psycho for even remembering that? I bet he barely remembers what colour my eyes are, let alone the names of my best friends.

Hastily, just so I don’t have to look at it any more, I delete the message, wishing this very act would remove it from his phone too.

I sigh, shove my phone under my duvet and lean back against the stack of pillows I’ve propped against my headboard. The TV and my fairy lights flicker in the darkness. The window is cranked all the way open, and the street outside is moonlit and peaceful, save for a few crickets chirping in the trees. The smell of warm sidewalks and cut grass drifts into my bedroom on the breeze. I take a sip of heady red wine, enjoying the rich, fruity flavour and faint buzz of alcohol. I feel young and old all at once.

Speaking of old, this time next year I’ll be at college, if all goes according to plan. My first choice is MIT. Both my dads are alumni – that’s where they first met – and Leo is there now, studying Chemical Engineering. It’s a Kerber-Murphy family thing. And in twelve short months, I could be there too, studying Astrophysics at one of the best institutes in the world. I spent the whole of the tour visit I took this summer with goosebumps running up and down my arms.

That reminds me. Mrs Torres told me earlier in the week that she’d read over my personal essay and provide notes. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without that woman. She’s writing my letter of recommendation, too, and I have every faith she’s going to knock it out the park.

I pull my phone out from its nook in the bedsheets and refresh my email to see if she’s gotten back to me yet. Nope, nothing. Not even a single email. Seriously, am I some kind of leper? I text my group chat with Keiko and Gabriela just to make sure. It doesn’t even deliver to Keiko, and even though Gabriela reads, she doesn’t reply. She always does this – she’s usually too busy hanging out with Ryan to answer.

Muscle memory leads me to perform my cursory evening perusal of Haruki’s social-media accounts. He’s the kind of guy who’s way too cool for Instagram. He’s popular without even trying. So as usual, he’s uploaded precisely nothing today. His last post was a shot of Lake Michigan from the penthouse of his family’s flagship hotel, where he spent most of his summer working as a kayak instructor. A few posts earlier is a picture of him helping a tiny kindergartner to buckle his life jacket.

Something twinges in my chest. I wish I was the kind of person Haruki Ito could fall for. I wish he would look at me the same way I look at him.

I shift in my duvet burrito, suddenly restless and antsy. I want to do something about this. About this perennial feeling of being unwanted. Undesirable.

Maybe science has the answer. Science can answer almost all of the important questions in the universe. So why not this? We’ve been studying love and attraction for centuries. We know that lust is governed by both estrogen and testosterone, and that attraction is driven by adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin. Long-term attachment is governed by a different set of hormones and brain chemicals: oxytocin and vasopressin, which encourage bonding. Each of these chemicals works in a specific part of the brain to influence lust, attraction and attachment.

Surely, throughout hundreds of years of studying these things, someone has found a way to manipulate them? I mean, come on. Imagine possessing a wealth of knowledge in this field. That dark part of your mind would totally be tempted to manipulate that information to your advantage, no? To find a drug or hack to get other people to fall in love with you. Hedonistic renaissance dudes weren’t exactly known for their moral compasses.

I pull up a new browser window on my phone and start researching whether anyone has ever attempted to manufacture these hormones and brain chemicals. However, all I find on Google are dating sites filled with hokey pseudo-science, and so-called ‘love doctors’ promising to transform the lives of even the most hideous homo sapiens. A cursory glance at some more academic sources pulls up social anthropology journals and neuropsychology papers which explore the theories behind love and attraction, but there’s nothing to suggest they’ve attempted to put these findings into practice.

I’m about to give up and focus on Anna Faris singing ‘Forgivenesssss’ on my TV screen when an abstract catches my eye.

Scientists have discovered the key to attraction lies in a new type of pheromone which has recently been identified in the Brazilian Honey Beetle. The researchers behind the study, all three of whom are doctoral candidates at the University of São Paulo, believe that extracting this chemical and distilling it into pill form . . .

The rest of the abstract is hidden behind a paywall. I run a search on the paper’s author – Professor Pablo Sousa – and the university website comes up with several hits, all relating to his research on the Brazilian Honey Beetle. He’s won several prizes for his work, and is now celebrating ANVISA approval of a drug prototype based on his findings. From what I can gather, ANVISA is the Brazilian equivalent of the FDA.

I’m desperate to read the entirety of the paper, and notice a small login portal beside the paywall, which grants access to those with an existing university ID. A dropdown menu shows they accept IDs from most major institutions, and I notice Vati’s college on the list.

Inspiration strikes. Vati’s desktop computer sits downstairs in sleep mode, with no password protection whatsoever. If his email account is open, I could simply request a password reminder, open and delete the email before he sees it, and use the deets to access this paper. I’m a genius.

As I pass their bedroom, Dad’s earthquake snores rumble through the closed door. I stifle a laugh. He’s such a quiet, restrained man, and yet his sleep apnea turns him into some kind of meteorological emergency. Between enormous snores, I can hear Vati muttering, ‘Verdammt noch mal, Michael!’, which loosely translates as ‘For fuck’s sake.’ He says something else along the lines of removing his throat with a machete, but like I say, my German is not great.

Leapfrogging over Sirius as he lies snoozing at the bottom of the stairs, I make it to the computer in the dining room and load it up. While I’m waiting for it to whir into life, I look at the photos taped to the bottom of the monitor with literal duct tape, because Pinterest-worthy our house is not. There’s the four of us at the Rube Goldberg machine at the Museum of Science Boston; the four of us watching rat basketball at Discovery Place; the four of us playing mini golf at the Science Museum of Minnesota. In every single picture, Leo and I are concentrating intently, and Vati is pranking Dad – pulling pants down, drawing rat whiskers on him in Sharpie, using golf clubs to perform wedgies, etc.

As I open up Vati’s email account, I can’t help but grin. My dads are like my best friends, and my childhood has been so great. It’s a bittersweet feeling, knowing it’ll be over soon. There’s something hollow beneath the bittersweetness, too, but I can’t quite place it.

‘Bärchen ?’

Swiveling around, I see Vati standing in the doorway, fuzzy chest hair poking through the top of his bathrobe.

I leap back from the computer, as though I’ve been caught performing some kind of diamond heist. ‘Vati. I was just, erm . . .’

‘Hacking my emails.’ He says this in a jokey way, i.e. the way he says everything ever.

‘I thought you were asleep,’ I say, as though this is a valid legal defense.

‘Nein, nein. Dad eins, he sleeps like a woodchuck. Me? Well, what is the opposite of a woodchuck?’

I have no idea what a woodchuck is, nor how one might sleep, so I decide not to push the matter.

‘What are you really doing, Bärchen ?’ he asks gently, perching on the edge of the oak dining table. He looks very tired, but also jolly, which shouldn’t be possible.

I decide the truth isn’t exactly incriminating, so I say, ‘I need your institution login to access a research paper.’

‘Ah, wunderbar !’ he exclaims. ‘Which paper?’

Chewing my bottom lip, I admit, ‘It’s about the laws of attraction.’

Vati’s features soften. ‘You like someone, ja ? And you want to seduce them?’

‘Please never say “seduce” again.’

‘Bärchen, you don’t need any papers to make a boy like you. You are the best person in the world, so. You can take poison on that.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Ah, maybe that is a German idiom.’ Vati frowns and strokes his stubbled jaw. ‘I think you say, “You can bet your life on that”?’

I chuckle. ‘That makes more sense.’

He stands up and ruffles my hair, which is brave, considering it hasn’t been washed in days. ‘My password is Bärchen, followed by your birthday. Lower case, no umlaut. Because the university is racist, of course.’

‘Of course.’ I grin and hug him round the waist. ‘Thanks, Vati.’

‘No problem.’ He kisses my forehead. ‘As thanks, you can visit me in prison after I have removed your father’s throat with a machete.’

Maybe my German isn’t as bad as I thought.

A few minutes later, I’m back in bed with the full paper loaded on my laptop. My eyes skim down the five paragraphs over and over, trying to make sense of what I’m reading.

According to Sousa and other leading scientists in this field of study, the Brazilian Honey Beetle – particularly the female of the species – secretes absurdly high concentrations of an incredibly sophisticated sex pheromone, and researchers have now discovered a way to distill these chemicals into pill form, which are supposedly safe for human consumption.

When tested on rats, and later monkeys, the pills artificially increased an organism’s ability to attract a mate tenfold. More relevantly, the report goes on to detail the clinical trials conducted with actual human participants, and while the results were not as potent as they were in rats and monkeys, the pills were found to quadruple the participants’ ability to attract a sexual partner.

It sounds ludicrous. But for some reason, I sit up a little straighter. Because despite my intense cynicism, something about the idea captures my attention. And I’m no idiot when it comes to science. Okay, so pheromones are hardly my field of expertize, but the study and subsequent clinical trials at least sound plausible.

I spend the rest of the movie only half paying attention. Meticulously reading through each and every one of Sousa’s articles, I familiarize myself with the subject as best I can. It sounds pretty interesting. And the best part? There’s a link to buy the pills directly from the researchers. They’re running a special trial price of $99 for your first month’s supply – plus an eye-watering shipping charge to the US.

Despite my natural stance as an unfaltering cynic, I find myself genuinely considering it. Maybe I’m just feeling especially vulnerable after a day of rejection and loneliness, but the idea that there could be an easy fix out there is beyond tempting.

I imagine how good it would feel to walk into my next AP Physics class and have Haruki gaze at me with newfound attraction. I imagine walking the hallways and no longer feeling invisible. I imagine the confidence and self-worth I would feel, and the thought is so powerful that it almost knocks the wind out of me.

I imagine Haruki finally reciprocating my feelings. Bringing me bagels, making me playlists, sharing my hobbies and interests.

Shivering, I pull myself back to reality. It’s a lot of money, and there’s no guarantees the drugs will actually work. Besides, I’m supposed to be saving for college. MIT doesn’t offer merit-based scholarships, because everyone who applies is a veritable genius, and I don’t qualify for needs-based financial aid because my dads are tenured academics. They can help a little with tuition fees, but I still need to have a cushion under me to cover rent and food and all those other inconvenient human necessities. And since the comic-book store which used to employ me closed down, I’ve been out of work and struggling to find a new gig.

And yet . . . I can’t get that image of myself out of my head. Chin tilted up, shoulders pushed back, walking with pride and self-assurance. Like Keiko does. The way she carries herself is something I’ve always admired. It’s like she knows she’s beautiful and deserving; like she knows she’s worth something. I want that for myself. I want that so badly it churns in my chest, a sinkhole forming in my ribcage.

It’s how I feel around my dads, I realize with a pang. Loved and wanted and respected. They make me feel funny, smart, beautiful. Special. Like nobody in the world could interest or inspire them more than me.

That’s it. That’s the way I want to feel all the time, no matter where I am or who I’m with. Because it’s the greatest feeling in the entire world.

Suddenly I identify the strange hollowness I experienced when I looked at the pictures on Vati’s computer. This time next year, I’ll be living hundreds of miles away from my dads. What if I never get to feel that special again? What if I go through my college career – and the rest of my life – feeling the same way I do when Haruki Ito looks at me with nothing but apathy? The thought sends a lance of sadness through my heart.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach under my bed for my purse and pull out my debit card. A potentially imbecilic use of my birthday cheques, but the red-wine buzz has taken the edge off my inhibitions.

The Matching Hypothesis has been proven countless times. But what if this is the antidote?

4

The house is dank. The walls are dark. I’ve been here before.

The ceiling shifts and warps, and I know I am alone. I am small, and so terribly, terribly alone. My body tries to sweat, tries to cry, but there’s nothing left inside. I am a husk, and the end is near. The walls bleed darkness, and the darkness bleeds fear.

Somewhere, a door opens.

I jolt awake, my snoozed alarm blaring into the sun-dappled room. Heart thudding, I turn it off and throw the tangled duvet off my sweaty legs.

I fucking hate that dream.

Every single morning, without fail. In that half-sleep, half-wake state of lucid cloudiness, the exact same dream. I push my fingers into my eyes until they turn into kaleidoscopes, forcing out the mental image of that damn room.

I was adopted by my dads when I was tiny, and I think these dreams are memories of my past life – of which I recall almost nothing. I have no reason to. Whoever my birth mother was, she’s not around anymore. And my dads are. So why does my subconscious torture me? Why does it force me back into that room day after day after day?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had these dreams, or flashbacks, or whatever the hell they are, while I’m dozing. And I still don’t have the self-control to stop snoozing my alarm. Figures.

I pad downstairs in my Buckbeak slippers. Dad, who is much more well-rested than Vati and thus less likely to replace the sugar with arsenic, lays out the usual breakfast buffet. This sounds impressive, but really it’s just a bunch of half-eaten boxes of cereal arranged by sugar content. As usual, I reach for the higher end of the spectrum, while Dad chows down on some sort of bran-based atrocity, washed down with tap water. Vati isn’t into breakfast, so he pours himself a giant coffee and slumps into the third chair. For all his japes and hijinks, he is not a morning person.

‘What are you guys doing today?’ I ask, crunching into a brimming bowl of Lucky Charms. I chuck one to Sirius under the table, but he just stares at it like it’s a hand grenade.

Dad finishes his mouthful of bran before responding plainly, ‘I plan to visit the police station, on account of the fact we have been burgled.’

Vati and I both gape at him. ‘What?’

‘It is the most likely explanation.’

I look at Dad in bewilderment. ‘Explanation for what?’

‘The missing object.’ His face betrays no emotion or affectation. He is impossible to read, even when you’ve lived with him as long as I have. You’d have more luck trying to psychoanalyze a park bench.

Vati drains his coffee mug and immediately pours another. ‘What’s missing?’

‘Well, Felix, during my bi-weekly kitchen stock-take this morning, I discovered a discrepancy in the quantity of wine glasses in the bar cabinet. Wine glasses are sold in boxes of four or six, to reflect the nonsensical societal preference for even numbers, and yet our cabinet currently contains a mere five glasses. Having checked the trash to ensure none had been smashed or discarded, I deduced that one had been stolen in the night. Would you like to accompany me to the police station?’

Shit! The wine glass! I was so caught up in my covert pill-purchasing operation that I forgot to return the glass to the cabinet. It’s still on my bedside, burgundy dregs turning to syrup in the bottom. I shoot Vati a panicked look, and he immediately understands what’s happened.

Unfortunately, so does Dad.

‘I see.’ Dad lays down his spoon and folds his arms. This is much more serious than it sounds, because there’s still bran cereal floating in the milk. Dad is not one to compromise the structural integrity of his breakfast by leaving it to swim in half-and-half. ‘And how long have you suffered from alcoholism, Caro?’

I splutter, trying to compose myself. ‘I’m not an alcoholic! I just had half a glass of red wine last night, that’s all. Eighteen is the legal drinking age in Europe.’

‘You’re seventeen. And this is South Carolina.’

I try to fight the urge to roll my eyes. ‘I’m not an alcoholic.’

‘Why did you want a glass of wine?’

I shrug, pushing Lucky Charms around my bowl with my spoon. ‘I dunno. I’d had a crappy day, alright?’

Dad nods knowingly. ‘Classic sign of addiction.’

Bless his soul, Vati breaks the tension with a bark of laughter. ‘Lay off her, Michael. It was one kleine glass of wine. No big deal. You’re not going to do it again, are you Caro?’

‘No.’ I suspect this might be a lie, but still.

‘And you’re going to return the wine glass to the cabinet in immaculate condition, right?’

‘Yep. Ja.’

‘So, there’s no problem, is there?’ Vati smiles, even though it looks to be causing him great physical pain. ‘You don’t have to attend the police station today, Michael.’

Dad rises from the table, pours his ruined cereal into the sink, and starts toward the door. ‘Perhaps I shall research the best juvenile rehabilitation programmes instead.’

I look at Vati, and we both press our lips together to keep from laughing. I polish off my cereal before the hilarity can escape. ‘Okay, I gotta get to school.’

‘Good luck with your seduction today.’ He winks in a horrifying sort of manner.

As a furious blush spreads across my cheeks, I roll my eyes again. ‘You’re the worst.’

‘Danke,’ he says earnestly, bowing like some kind of royal thespian.

After the last class of the day, I meet Gabriela at Keiko’s locker and we catch up about our days, since we all take such different classes. Keiko does most of the talking, as per, about how her art teacher is a pervert and her drama teacher is the single best human being on this earth.

Slamming her locker shut and popping a stick of gum into her mouth, Keiko says, ‘What shall we do this weekend? My parents and dweeb sister are out of town and I don’t have any gigs, so it’s on y’all to entertain me.’

I accept a stick of gum and start chattering like a chimp. ‘Oooh, there’s this touring exhibit in town that I’m dying to go to. It’s basically a bunch of artifacts from Pompeii, and there’s a CGI simulation of the volcanic eruption at the end.’

‘Spoilers,’ says Keiko, affronted.

I gape at her. ‘You didn’t know Pompeii was wiped out by a volcano?’

‘I thought it was just a catchy Bastille song.’

Honestly. How are we friends.

Shaking off my astonishment, I say, ‘So are you in?’

Keiko looks like I might have suggested waterboarding each other in the creek. ‘Museums are for the very old and the very tragic, and we are neither of those things. Gabs? Any ideas?’

Gabriela shrugs. She looks a little distant and jaded, and her winged eyeliner is smudged, which is pretty unusual for her. ‘I think me and Ryan were just going to hang out at home. Watch some YouTube, eat some snacks. I dunno. I’m super tired lately.’

‘Okay, grandma.’ Keiko rolls her eyes. ‘You are one hundred years old, and I’m overruling you both. Let’s go see that new movie about the rock star who falls in love with her manager. It’s basically the exact fantasy I get myself off to, so I can’t promise not to start dry-humping the popcorn bucket.’

I snort-laugh in a very elegant manner. ‘You are horrific.’

Keiko tuts and wags her finger in my face. ‘That’s slut-shaming and you’re better than that. And also homophobic. Is lesbian sex so abhorrent to you?’ I blush, and Keiko cackles at my panicked expression. ‘Anyway, I gotta scoot,’ she says. ‘Detention again. Ah, the life of a misunderstood rebel.’

‘Try not to dry-hump any desks,’ I call after her as she sashays down the hallway in her skull-print dress. Gabriela, who hates sex-based banter, squirms beside me.

As she’s about to turn the corner, Keiko presses herself against a wall of lockers and makes an elaborate groan of ecstasy. ‘No promises. Toodles!’

Once she’s shaken off the unspeakable horror of the last few seconds, Gabriela mumbles, ‘I’ll go with you to the Vesuvius exhibit, if you want.’

We start walking to the school gates. I grin gratefully. ‘Thanks.’

Gabriela smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘Let’s just . . . not tell Keiko, okay? That we’re hanging out without her.’

This makes me feel a little weird – Keiko has been my ride-or-die since kindergarten – but I get Gabriela’s point. Keiko only does what Keiko wants to do, but still gets upset when people do things without her. ‘Agreed. Everything okay with you? You mentioned being tired a lot.’

Gabriela stares at her black Birkenstocks as we walk. Her nails are painted paprika red, and she wears a turquoise toe-ring. ‘Yeah, I guess. I don’t know what’s up with me. Maybe I’m just lazy.’

‘Dude, you’re anything but lazy. You speak a catrillion languages, tutor six hundred kids a week, and you have your makeup Insta on the side. What are you at now, twenty k followers?’

A small quirk at the corner of her lips. ‘Twenty-two.’

‘Exactly. You’re killing the game.’

Gabriela brightens up at this and hoists her backpack further up her shoulder. ‘Speaking of, when are you going to let me give you that makeover? I’ve had the palettes picked out for months. Your cheekbones are going to look insaaane.’

Gabriela’s been asking to give me a makeover for ages, ever since she first got into the beauty scene, and it makes me feel kind of weird. I’ve never been into that stuff, and it feels kind of like she’s trying to . . . fix me? Make me less offensive to look at? In any case, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me, I’d never say anything to Gabriela, because I know how much she loves it. She probably doesn’t think of it that way at all; she’s the least malicious person I’ve ever met. Still, it’s starting to get under my skin.

Is that just friendship, though? Taking an interest in each other’s hobbies? Gabriela offered to come to the science museum with me, and we’re always listening to Keiko’s latest demos, even though neither of us knows much about music. I’m probably just overreacting.

Hell, maybe I should let Gabriela work her magic on my face. It’s possibly a less drastic measure than taking miracle drugs in order to attract guys. In the cold light of day, I’m giving myself major side-eye for buying those shady motherfuckers.

A few days later, I have AP Physics first thing. I walk in early, because punctuality is the finest quality a human being can possess in the eyes of . . . well, both dads. I distinctly remember playing model trains as a kid, and they made me write out an actual departure schedule – and stick to it. The worst part is that I don’t recall ever feeling stifled by this. I enjoyed the rules and the sense of purpose. I guess I was always destined to be a science fanatic. Or a serial killer. But there’s time yet.

(FWIW, if I were to become a serial killer, my weapon of choice would be a frozen pork chop carved into a point. I would stab my victims to death, then cook and eat the pork chop to destroy the evidence. Anyway.)

The classroom is swelteringly hot, and I’m surprised to find Haruki is already there, sitting at the back of the class. He wears a plain white T-shirt with rolled sleeves, and faded black jeans despite the fierce sun. His pale ochre-brown skin is smattered with light freckles, and his black hair is messy on top, short around the sides. Serving up your basic Hot Guy Lewk.

On his desk is a crisp printout of the same college-level paper I’m attempting this session. Torres must’ve caved and let him study modern physics too. I kind of don’t blame her, because Haruki’s parents are library donors and school-board members, but part of me is disappointed. This was . . . my thing. It made me feel special, and I earned that feeling. And now I have to share, even if it is with the most beautiful guy in school/the world.

As I unpack my stuff on the table next to him, Haruki looks over at me. My stomach flip-flops. On second thought, maybe this new common ground will be the thing that finally makes him pay attention to me – in the right way, this time. Maybe we’ll bond over particularly tricky problems, and share theories over milkshakes at Martha’s Diner. Maybe he’ll come to MIT too, and we’ll be the power couple of the Theoretical Physics Society. We’ll name our kids Volta and Galilei, and we’ll have a cat named Schrödinger just for the laughs. It’s written in the stars, right?

Nope. All that happens as we lock eyes is a smug, self-satisfied smirk, then Haruki turns the first page and starts scribbling in the margins in mechanical pencil.

Any normal person would feel annoyed right now. He’s being an immature jerk. But part of me is kind of . . . proud? Haruki is smug to have reached the same level as me. It’s a backhanded compliment, in a way. A very, very tenuous way, but still. Let me have this.

The lesson gets underway, and at first I struggle to tune out the scritching of Haruki’s mechanical pencil next to me. I’m hyper-aware of the scent of warm skin and fresh laundry, the bouncing of his knee against the table, the periodic sniffing that suggests his allergies are playing up. It’s intoxicating being this close to him, working on the same thing, breathing the same air. (Yep. Definite serial-killer vibes. Please keep me away from the frozen-pork aisle.)

But then my competitive streak takes hold, and I find myself flying through the paper at a rate of knots. If Haruki thinks I’m someone worth emulating, then I have to live up to that. I have to exceed it, even. Almost breathless, I mentally sort through complex equations and mind-bending problems. I’m both invigorated and relaxed. This is how normal people probably feel after sex. Or hot yoga.

As I stop to take a sip of water, though, I notice that Haruki’s knee has stopped bouncing, and the pencil has stopped scritching. I glance over from the corner of my eye, and notice that he’s peering at my paper, trying to copy the answers.

Resisting the urge to grin victoriously, I realize he’s not as smart as he thought he was. But he’s too proud to admit he’s struggling with the paper, so he’s cheating his way through it instead.

I weigh my options. I could cover the page with my arm or pencil-case, and leave him to flounder on his own. Or tell Torres at the end of class, and have her bring his smug ass back down to high-school level. Or use this to my advantage in the whole getting-Haruki-Ito-to-fall-in-love-with-me-and-buy-me-a-kitten-called-Schrödinger mission.

No prizes for guessing which option I choose.

I lift my gaze and quirk the corner of my mouth up in a half-smile, then angle the paper towards him so he can see better. The second he realizes I’m on to him, he quickly looks away, a faint tinge of pink prickling at his cheeks. But then he seems to swallow his pride, and turns back to face me, smiling in the most disgustingly cute and grateful way. He’s apologetic and bashful as he rubs the back of his neck. Then he bites his lip, jots down the answer, gives me a slight nod, then turns the page once more.

This may sound like a very minor chain of events, like a millipede waving to pond algae, but as the bell rings and class is dismissed, my blood is roaring in my ears. Haruki wordlessly offers to take my paper up to Torres, and I numbly hand it to him. I feel hot and cold at the same time as the adrenaline pumps through my veins, and I flee the classroom before I can screw up this perfect sequence of affairs.

Next period we have gym, and it’s cross-country season despite the lingering summer heatwave. Thanks to my height and gangly limbs, I’m actually a pretty decent runner, but I usually hang back with Keiko and Gabriela so we can chat. I spend the first mile filling them in on this morning’s veritable sex fest with Haruki.

‘How awesome is that?’ I finish, breathless from excitement if not from cardiovascular exertion. I’m basically just power-walking alongside Keiko.

Gabriela grins and yanks up her tiny spandex shorts with a satisfying snap of elastic. ‘Very awesome.’

Keiko huffs and puffs, staring angrily at the patchy grass like she wants to murder it one blade at a time. ‘Yep. You’ve basically been to third base.’ She pulls her polo shirt up to her head and blots the sweat from her face, taking half her eyebrow powder with it. ‘For the love of actual fuck. Cross-country should be illegal. How is this not a war crime?’

I try to make it look like I’m just as exhausted as she is, rearranging my features into a grimace. In reality, my muscles feel loose and strong, like they could sprint forever. Part of me wants to, just to see how it’d feel, but I don’t want to leave my friends behind. ‘So what should I do now? Should I ask him out? God, what am I saying? Of course I can’t. I can barely speak actual words in front of him.’

Keiko hacks up a lung, then says, ‘Maybe we could get you one of those robot voices like Stephen Hawking has.’

‘Had,’ I correct. ‘He’s dead. And that’s highly offensive.’

‘To who? Robots? Dead people?’

I pause. ‘Unsure. I just know it’s not a great voxpop.’

The guys appear over the hill in front of us – they set off before we do, so start looping back on us before we even reach the halfway point. Leading the pack is none other than Haruki, barely breaking a sweat as his legs pump against the turf.

‘Oh god, oh shit, what do I do?’ I mutter. Haruki is rapidly approaching, his red shorts a blur as he gains ground fast. Close behind him is Ryan Woods, Gabriela’s boyfriend. ‘Oh god. Shit. I can’t breathe.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Keiko grumbles, dabbing at her freshly buzzed undercut.

‘This might sound radical,’ Gabriela says, voice uneven from the effort of jogging. ‘But maybe you could consider not losing your giant genius mind at the mere sight of him?’

And then he’s almost on top of us, and Ryan looks over and nods in a very cute way at Gabriela, and I don’t know what comes over me but I make actual literal eye contact with Haruki, and, like some sort of sex pest, I say, ‘Hey.’

Haruki flinches – seriously, an honest-to-god recoil – and speeds up to get past us, without so much as a backward glance. Ryan winks at Gabriela, who giggles unabashedly, and takes off after Haruki.

The snub-induced humiliation must be written all over my face, because Keiko takes a deep, raspy breath and manages to puff out, ‘You know what? Screw him. You said it yourself, you’re way smarter than him. Hell, than most people.’

A gulping intake of breath. She rips her polo shirt over her head and tosses it to the ground. She’s wearing two sports bras – one pink camo, one deep khaki – and vintage gym shorts that hug her curvy waist. ‘And you’re funny and weird and an all-round awesome human. You deserve better, okay?’

‘Exactly!’ Gabriela agrees, tucking a loose lock of hair behind her ear. ‘Plus you’re sweet, and loyal, and generous, and a way, way faster runner than us. Not that it’s hard. So yup. Screw him.’

A pang of dejection stabs at my gut. I know they’re trying to make me feel better. And yet it stings that neither of them included the word ‘beautiful’ or ‘pretty’ or even ‘cute’ in their compliments. Is it so beyond the realms of reality that they couldn’t even bring themselves to lie about it?

Maybe those pills weren’t such a bad idea.

5

When I get home from school, I’m weirdly not in the mood to study. Usually homework gives me a lady boner, and I have to ration it out lest I accidentally OD on that sweet, sweet ecstasy. I wish I was exaggerating in some way, but it’s true. Homework is my jam, my butter, and my toast. But tonight I’m just not feeling it.

After I help Dad make lasagne and mountains of garlic bread for dinner, it’s still warm out, so I decide to help Vati with the ‘gardening’. I use the term very loosely. When I came home from school, I found half a dozen gnomes pegged to the washing line by their ears, because he’d given them all a bath. In the actual bath tub.

Once Vati has changed back into his denim overalls, we tend to the vegetable garden, which is essentially a selection of grossly deformed and entirely inedible zucchini. Vati had a limited run of success growing basil in the early summer, and got a little cocky thereafter. Tonight we’re digging up carrots to see whether any of them are actually safe for human consumption. Sirius lies beside us, panting and blinking against the low sun.

Elbow deep in dirt, Vati rummages around and yanks out a single carrot which looks alarmingly like a cock and balls. A bendy, bulbous cock and balls. With strange little hairs sprouting from the tip.

Vati nods approvingly. ‘I am very, very aroused right now.’

It is not an exaggeration to say something inside me dies at this statement. ‘Vati, bitte.’

‘No, Bärchen, it is important that we have an environment in which you are comfortable talking about sex. You don’t have that? Well, that is the number-one cause of herpes in America.’

I stare down at the dirt I’m kneeling in. An earthworm squirms and wriggles in a very pathos-y kind of way. ‘Ugh. It’s just weird. Talking about that stuff with you. You’re both dudes.’

‘That is very sexist and rude.’

‘You know what I mean, though. Remember when you tried to talk to me about my period?’

Vati guffaws. ‘In hindsight, the visual aid was not wise.’

‘You put barbecue sauce in a diaper. So you can see why I don’t want to discuss the birds and the bees with you.’

Vati frowns and wipes his forehead on his forearm, leaving behind a giant smear of mud. ‘What does wildlife have to do with anything?’

‘Never mind.’

Snapping off his gardening gloves, Vati roots around in the pocket on the front of his overalls. ‘Forgive me.’

‘For what . . . oh god. Nein. Vati!’

He’s pulled out a condom. An honest-to-god condom. And he’s already tearing through the wrapper. Sirius barks in confusion.

‘You pinch the tip, like this.’ He grabs the deformed carrot and shoves the condom on the sprouty end. ‘And you roll down, see?’

I groan and drop my head into my hands. ‘For god’s sake. This was premeditated. You actually thought, oh, I will convince my teenage daughter to tend to the carrots with me, and I’ll take a condom just in case any impromptu sex-ed opportunities arise.’

‘I think you mean “arouse”.’ Vati laughs hysterically at his own terrible joke. ‘Anyway, hopefully any Schwanz you encounter will be less bulbous than this carrot.’

I flop backwards into the dirt with a thud, crushing the yellowing cilantro under my back. ‘I want to die.’

‘At least it won’t be from herpes.’ He hands me another condom, and a deformed zucchini to practice on. ‘Be safe, Bärchen.’

Disgusted though I may be, I take the props just to shut him up. ‘You have ruined that nickname forever. And also carrots.’

‘My apologies.’ Vati stuffs the old condom back into his overalls and pulls out something else – a postage slip. ‘Oh, I forgot. There’s a package for you in the house.’

Despite my lack of core muscles, excitement causes me to sit bolt upright. ‘Where?’

‘I put it on your bed. You know, I –’

Grabbing the zucchini and the condom, I clamber to my feet, wipe my muddy hands on Vati’s overalls, then dash towards the porch doors. ‘I gotta go. Try not to molest any more vegetables.’

Breathless after the sprint upstairs, I skid into my bedroom and see the package resting nonchalantly on the bedspread. The brown paper wrapping is discreet and doesn’t hint at what’s inside – not even so much as a university logo. I prod at it with the deformed zucchini just to be sure it’s not on the brink of detonation.

I know I should wait until my dads go to bed before I open it, because I don’t want to risk either of them walking in and catching me with a box of murky internet pills in my hands. But something inside me burns to open it. My hands itch, and I can’t think of anything else but tearing through the packaging. Is this how chain smokers feel about their next cigarette? Like they’ll combust if they don’t get it in the next 0.2 milliseconds?

Sticking my head into the corridor, I listen for my dads. Vati’s voice drifts through the open hall window. It sounds like he’s performing some kind of Punch & Judy show with a family of malformed potatoes, and Dad is watching from the kitchen window, laughing politely at the extremely slapstick performance. I slip back into my bedroom and close the door quietly.

Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I use a pointy nail file to slice through the package seal, and slip my fingers inside. They close around a cool, smooth cardboard box which rattles when I pull it out. All of the information on the packet, including the leaflet explaining potential side effects, is in Portuguese. The pills themselves are small – 10mg at most – and vivid purple. My heart thuds in my chest.

So here it is. The potential solution to all my worldly problems. And I feel . . . I don’t know how I feel, exactly.

The overriding emotion is curiosity. Will they actually work? How will it feel if they do? Will I notice an immediate difference, or will they take time to get into my bloodstream? What will it be like to have hordes of admiring fans lusting after me in the cafeteria? Will I suddenly become some kind of egomaniac? Will I start seeing myself differently? Will I be able to look in the mirror without the sinking disappointment that I haven’t magically turned into a Hadid sister overnight? Maybe I’ll finally be able to accept myself as I am.

My belly flutters with excitement. My veins fizz with the potential.

Beneath the curiosity, though, there’s a curdling sensation. Like nerves, or dread. Something fear-shaped. What if something goes wrong? What if I have an allergic reaction to the pills? Sure, my regular life is dull and often humiliating, but I still want to keep living it. How much would I hate myself if I woke up in the hospital with a shaved head and a scar down my cranium from emergency brain surgery? What if I lost the power of speech, or the ability to walk, or, god forbid, something happened to my tastebuds? A life without ever tasting Dad’s brisket again would not be worth enduring.

Oh god, my dads. What if the pills did work – too well? Would my dads be attracted to me? Or would their deep-rooted familial love for me override the effects of the pheromones? Is that even a die I’m willing to roll?

Shuddering, I realize I can’t do it. Getting Haruki to fancy me is not worth the long list of risks. I’ve just decided not to take them when I hear footsteps climbing up the stairs. Panicking, I stuff the pills into my school backpack just in time. There’s a polite tap at my door – it must be Dad. Vati never knocks.

‘Come in,’ I call, trying and failing to make my shaky voice sound as normal as possible.

Dad walks in and immediately freezes. That’s when I realize I’m still cradling the deformed zucchini in my left hand, the condom perched on the bed in front of me. Dad looks at me, aghast.

‘Oh, no! This isn’t . . . I’m not . . . Vati, he was giving me a demo –’

‘I’ll come back later,’ Dad mutters, even though he believes both contractions and poor vocal clarity to be signs of a weak mind. He shuffles back out the door, closing it too fast behind him, and practically sprints back downstairs. From a man who is usually so controlled, this is nothing short of bone-chilling.

Sighing deeply, I pull out my phone to text my group chat with Keiko and Gabriela.

Why do vegetables have to be so phallic? It’s a serious design flaw.

Gabriela does the crying-laughing emoji, and Keiko replies instantly.

Vegetables have no redeeming qualities. How many times do I have to tell you?

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