“I don’t. But I do like to understand you and your experiments, which is why I like to ask questions and discuss with you,” he states, as if it were as simple as that.
“But you scrutinize my work. Publicly. All. The. Time.”
“Yeah,” he says, quietly. “Because it makes others more aware of your work.”
“Because your name is on it? That’s how you were ‘helping’ me?” I ask, offended by how patronizing he sounds.
“No.” Lewis gulps. “It’s not about my name at all. You know people reshare each other’s work all the time, because it helps get more reads and more citations down the line. That’s what I was doing this for. I think your work is brilliant. It’s worth sharing, so that’s what I did.”
I scrunch my eyebrows together as I flip back through the last years, my memories reshaping with this new perspective. “It felt like you were singling me out. You seemed so nice to everyone else on social media, reposting and participating in all these mentoring events, but with me you went in deep, like you really wanted to show everyone how inadequate I was.”
“I went in deep, Frances, because I wanted to learn from you,” he clarifies. “All of these questions, the scrutiny, they were a way to figure out what you really meant, to understand the step-by-step of it. Plus, if I’d only reshared you wouldn’t have replied. This way, you did. This way, at least I got to talk to you.”
“What about that review on my last paper? Back in the restaurant, you said—”
“That wasn’t me,” he finishes my sentence.
“But…” I trail off in disbelief. “You like to criticize me for the implications I draw from my results. And there were so many points about putting in references to your papers that it could only come from you. I was trying to figure out what I’d done to you, why this one felt more like a personal attack than your usual reviews.”
“I have reviewed your papers, even your most recent one,” Lewis tells me, meeting my gaze with earnest eyes. “But calling you those things? ‘Uninspired’?”
“Flashy, too,” I supply him with another haunting word from that review.
“That’s anything but constructive.” Appalled, he furrows his brow and pulls out his phone. “Here,” he says after he taps around on it, and shows me an email addressing the journaleditor from my last paper. While his review goes on for pages and meticulously details all his notes, it’s objective but not rude.
I gape at him. “You were theotherone? The one that was perfectly reasonable?”
He nods. “Your paper was really good, and so were all of your other ones. I’m sorry my behavior landed so wrong with you. I messed up when I didn’t credit you, but everything else was really only coming from a place of intellectual discussion and constructive criticism.” He shrugs, a blush tinting his cheeks. “I was really only ever trying to push you to be better.”
I break my gaze away, needing a quiet moment to mull over his words.
As a scientist, I’ve internalized making analytical, objective decisions. I’ve been trained to look at the same thing over and over again, to consider it from all angles, and to pivot when the data demands it. Lewis has just supplied me with a whole lot of new data. He made a mistake, but he regrets what he did. He hasn’t been out to get me this whole time. In fact, looking back, I can see how I’ve let resentment seep into my perception of him. While he was trying to push the science further, I twisted his genuine feedback into personal attacks. And that last review wasn’t even him, but some other anonymous scientist who chose to be outright rude.
Ever since meeting him on the plane, I’ve been struggling to fit the two versions of him together; the condescending Dr. North that only cares about himself, and the considerate Lewis who agreed to fake date me even if it was a risk for him. But maybe Dr. North is an image forged by years of bad communication and bitterness, and the real Lewis is the one sitting in front of me, the one who has learned from his mistakes and wants to do better.
I decide to pivot.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive you for leaving me out of the paper,” I finally tell him, still looking down at my hands. “But hearing your side of the story helps, and your apology does, too. I think I resented you so much that I was only too happy to jump to conclusions, but maybe I’ve judged you too quickly. You seem too kind and thoughtful for the egocentric asshole I painted you out to be.”
I look up at him to see that the tension has melted from his face. “I’m sorry for judging you.”
“It’s okay. I’m just glad we finally got to talk,” he responds softly, giving me a small smile.
“Me, too,” I say, though I suspect it’ll take some time for his apology to fully sink in.
Lewis glances out of the window, where the rain is still pounding hard. “Now, do you think you can tolerate my presence for another hour or so?”
I let out a laugh, grateful he’s found a way of lightening the mood. “Only if you share your snacks with me.”
“You pick.” Lewis lets me root through the minibar and rifle through the basket of surprisingly nice snacks that come with the room, as he sets up camp on the side of the bed I’ve left empty. He seems more at ease now, one arm propped against the wall behind his head, so that his caramel skin pulls smoothly over the landscape of his biceps and—
Enough, I scold myself.
My prefrontal cortex really has to get it together.
I grab two cans of premixed gin and tonic, a bag of salted cashews, and some fancy dark chocolate thins. Lewis switches on the TV as I spread my haul out on the duvet, making sure they form a nice, obvious line between our halves of the bed. Thechatter of the show host washes over the room and folds into the noise of the raindrops drumming against the window. We catch the end ofFamily Feud, followed by a rerun of a trivia quiz show where college teams compete for a spectacular spring break trip. Next to me, Lewis mutters his answer to the first question and I shout an alternative into the room, although I have no clue what the Production Possibility Frontier even is. Lewis twists his mouth triumphantly when the show host reveals the correct answer.
And the competition is on.
