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

not,” she insists. “They’re all for show. You shouldn’t need to prove anything if you really mean it. It should be a whole lot simpler than that. It should mean something.”
    “I think it does,” Oliver says quietly. “It’s a promise.”
    “I guess so,” she says, unable to keep the sigh out of her voice. “But not everyone keeps that promise.” She looks over toward the woman, still fast asleep. “Not everyone makes it fifty-two years, and if you do, it doesn’t matter that you once stood in front of all those people and said that you would. The important part is that you had someone to stick by you all that time. Even when everything sucked.”
    He laughs. “Marriage: for when everything sucks.”
    “Seriously,” Hadley insists. “How else do you know that it means something? Unless someone’s there to hold your hand during the bad times?”
    “So that’s it?” Oliver says. “No wedding, no marriage, just someone there to hold your hand when things are rough?”
    “That’s it,” she says with a nod.
    Oliver shakes his head in wonder. “Whose wedding
is
this? An ex-boyfriend of yours?”
    Hadley can’t help the laughter that escapes her.
    “What?”
    “My ex-boyfriend spends most of his time playing video games, and the rest delivering pizzas. It’s just funny to imagine him as a groom.”
    “I thought you might be a bit young to be a woman scorned.”
    “I’m seventeen,” she says indignantly, and he holds up his hands in surrender.
    The plane begins to push back from the gate, and Oliver leans closer to peer out the window. There are lights stretched out as far as they can see, like reflections of the stars, making great constellations of the runways, where dozens of planes sit waiting their turn. Hadley’s hands are braided together in her lap, and she takes a deep breath.
    “So,” Oliver says, sitting back again. “I guess we jumped right into the deep end, huh?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Just that a discussion about the definition of true love is usually something you talk about after three months, not three hours.”
    “According to her,” Hadley says, jutting her chin to Oliver’s right, “three hours is more like three years.”
    “Yes, well, that’s if you’re in love.”
    “Right. So, not us.”
    “No,” Oliver agrees with a grin. “Not us. An hour’s an hour. And we’re doing this all wrong.”
    “How do you figure?”
    “I know your feelings on matrimony, but we haven’t even covered the really important stuff yet, like your favorite color or your favorite food.”
    “Blue and Mexican.”
    He nods appraisingly. “That’s respectable. For me, green and curry.”
    “Curry?” She makes a face. “Really?”
    “Hey,” he says. “No judging. What else?”
    The lights in the cabin are dimmed for takeoff as the engine revs up below them, and Hadley closes her eyes, just for a moment. “What else what?”
    “Favorite animal?”
    “I don’t know,” she says, opening her eyes again. “Dogs?”
    Oliver shakes his head. “Too boring. Try again.”
    “Elephants, then.”
    “Really?”
    Hadley nods.
    “How come?”
    “As a kid, I couldn’t sleep without this ratty stuffed elephant,” she explains, not sure what made her think of it now. Maybe it’s that she’ll soon be seeing her dad again, or maybe it’s just the plane keying up beneath her, prompting a childish wish for her old security blanket.
    “I’m not sure that counts.”
    “Clearly you never met Elephant.”
    He laughs. “Did you come up with that name all by yourself?”
    “Damn right,” she says, smiling at the thought. He’d had glassy black eyes and soft floppy ears and braided strings for a tail, and he always managed to make everything better. From having to eat vegetables or wear itchy tights to stubbing her toe or being stuck in bed with a sore throat, Elephant was the antidote to it all. Over time, he’d lost one eye and most of his tail; he’d been cried on and