Read Online The Statistical Probability Of Love At First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith - Free Book Online Page B

if they’re alone, as if they could be anywhere, on a park bench somewhere or in a restaurant, miles below, with their feet firmly on the ground. She’s close enough to see a small scar above his eye, the ghost of a beard along his jawline, the astonishing length of his eyelashes. Without even really meaning to, she finds herself leaning away, and Oliver looks startled by her sudden movement.
    “Sorry,” he says, sitting up and pulling his hand back from the armrest. “I forgot you get claustrophobic. You must be dying.”
    “No,” she says, shaking her head. “Actually, it hasn’t been so bad.”
    He juts his chin at the window, where the shade’s still pulled down. “I still think it would help if you could see outside. It feels small in here even to me with no windows.”
    “That’s my dad’s trick,” Hadley tells him. “The first time it happened, he told me to imagine the sky. But that only helps when the sky’s
above
you.”
    “Right,” Oliver says. “Makes sense.”
    They both fall silent, studying their hands as the quiet stretches between them.
    “I used to be afraid of the dark,” Oliver says after a moment. “And not just when I was little. It lasted till I was nearly eleven.”
    Hadley glances over, not sure what to say. His face looks more boyish now, less angular, his eyes rounder. She has a sudden urge to put her hand over his, but she stops herself.
    “My brothers teased me like mad, switching off the lights whenever I walked into a room and then howling about it. And my dad just
hated
it. He had absolutely no sympathy. I remember I’d go into my parents’ bedroom in the middle of the night and he’d tell me to stop being such a little girl. Or he’d tell me stories about monsters in the wardrobe, just to wind me up. His only advice was always just ‘Grow up.’ A real gem, right?”
    “Parents aren’t always right about everything,” Hadley says. “Sometimes it just takes a while to figure that out.”
    “But then there was this one night,” he continues, “when I woke up and he was plugging in a night-light next to my bed. I’m sure he thought I was asleep, or else he’d never be caught dead, but I didn’t say anything, just watched him plug it in and switch it on so there was this little circle of blue light.”
    Hadley smiles. “So he came around.”
    “In his own way, I guess,” Oliver says. “But I mean, he must’ve bought it earlier in the day, right? He could’ve given it to me when he got back from the shop, or plugged it in before I went to bed. But he had to do it when nobody was watching.” He turns to her, and she’s struck by how sad he looks. “I’m not sure why I told you that.”
    “Because I asked,” she says simply.
    He draws in a jagged breath, and Hadley can see that his cheeks are flushed. The seat in front of her bobbles as the man readjusts the doughnut-shaped pillow around his neck. The cabin is quiet but for the hum of the air-conditioning, the soft flap of pages being turned, the occasional snuffling and shuffling of passengers trying their best to endure these last hours before landing. Every now and then a patch of turbulence sets the plane rocking gently, like a boat in a storm, and Hadley thinks again of her mother, of the awful things she said to her back in New York. Her eyes fall to the backpack at her feet, and not for the first time, she wishes they weren’t somewhere over the Atlantic right now, so that she might try calling again.
    Beside her, Oliver rubs his eyes. “I have a brilliant idea,” he says. “How about we talk about something
other
than our parents?”
    Hadley bobs her head. “Definitely.”
    But neither of them speaks. A minute ticks by, then another, and as the silence between them swells, they both begin to laugh.
    “I’m afraid we might have to discuss the weather if you don’t come up with something more interesting,” he says, and Hadley raises her eyebrows.
    “Me?”
    He nods.