You Are My Only Variable

Chapter 6

Asher had been wearing the same hoodie for three days.

Not different hoodies of the same style. The same one. Dark grey, with a small patch on the left cuff that was slightly lighter than the rest—steam-burn from the hot chocolate incident. Ivy noticed on day one. Noticed again on day two. On day three she stood in the doorway, watched him open the door in the same hoodie yet again, and confirmed it was not a coincidence.

"You've been wearing the same clothes for three days," she said.

"Yes."

"Why?"

He looked down at his hoodie like he was checking whether this was indeed the one she meant. "I'm conducting an experiment."

"What kind of experiment?"

"A habituation experiment. Repeated exposure to the same stimulus, observing the curve of subjective comfort levels. Day three. Comfort levels are still rising."

Ivy walked inside. The daisies on the coffee table had been rotated—they used to face the window, now they faced the sofa. Next to them sat a glass of water, filled to exactly two-thirds. He'd measured it. He'd definitely measured it.

"Comfort level. Is it the fabric?" she asked.

"No. It's because last week you said this colour looked nice."

She'd said it in the laundry room. He'd been holding the basket of clothes sorted by colour, and she'd pointed at this hoodie, fresh from the dryer, and said, "This grey is nice. It suits you better than the dark blue one." She'd forgotten it the moment she said it. She hadn't realised she was developing a preference for the colour of his clothes, much less that he would turn a passing remark into an experiment requiring three consecutive days of wear.

"What if I said I liked you in green?"

"Then I would need to purchase a green hoodie. I might require your assistance. I'm not sure which shade of green matches your definition. The wavelength range of green in the visible spectrum is—"

"Asher."

"Yes?"

"You don't need to buy a green hoodie. Grey is fine."

His lips pressed together. Program running. She could now distinguish between the different types of his silences—the processing-information silence, the I-don't-know-how-to-respond silence, and the one where he didn't realise he was smiling but the corners of his mouth were already curving up. This was the third kind.

She sat on the sofa. He sat on the floor across from the coffee table, in the spot he no longer needed to decide on. It was his spot now. Just like the grey hoodie was his. Just like the daisies rotated toward the sofa were his.

"What's today's lesson?" he asked.

---

Ivy pulled a box out of her bag and set it on the coffee table.

"What is this?"

"A board game. It's called Settlers of Catan."

"What's the objective?"

"There's no single objective. You can trade, build, compete. But the most important thing—" she opened the box and dumped the hexagonal tiles onto the coffee table, "—you can't play it alone."

He stared at the scattered tiles with the expression of a programmer dropped into an unfamiliar codebase.

"What are the rules?"

"I'll teach you. But you have to decide your strategy on your own. No data analysis. You have to go with your gut."

"Intuition is not a valid decision-making tool."

"Today it is."

He paused for a beat. Then he reached out, picked up one of the hexagonal tiles, and flipped it over to look at the back, like he was checking whether its construction was logically sound.

"If I go with my gut, I'll lose."

"What does losing matter?"

"Is losing not a negative outcome?"

"Losing in a game isn't real losing. It's just—" she tried to think how to explain this to someone who categorised everything by outcomes. "It's just a way of playing. An experience."

He set the tile down. Those pale grey eyes looked at her. The afternoon light outside was tilting toward evening, and in the transitional colour temperature his eyes looked slightly deeper than usual.

"Do you play games with that medical student?"

The question came without context. It sat there like a tile placed dead centre on the coffee table, not connected to any edge.

"Liam? No. Why?"

"Because he occupies a node in your social network. And I am learning to play a game that cannot be played alone. I am assessing my competition."

"It's not a competition. Nobody is—"

"Objectively it is a competitive scenario. Resources are limited. Time is limited. You only have one Saturday afternoon."

Ivy set the rulebook aside. She'd been about to teach him how to build settlements. But she was starting to realise this afternoon's lesson was no longer about board games.

"Asher. Are you worried about Liam?"

He was quiet for a moment. His finger tapped once on a game tile—not impatience, more like he was counting out time for himself.

"Last week you spoke to him outside the library. You smiled once. Duration: 1.8 seconds. That is 0.6 seconds longer than your standard greeting smile for classmates. I don't know if the difference is statistically significant. But I logged it."

Ivy opened her mouth. 1.8 seconds. He'd logged it. He'd been standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows on the thirty-first floor, or sitting in front of his monitor, or stirring cocoa powder in the kitchen, and all the while his brain had been storing a single data point: she smiled outside the library, 0.6 seconds longer than usual, and it wasn't at him.

"That smile was because he said the documentary screening got rescheduled. That's all."

"A rescheduling is not a humorous event. Why did you smile?"

"Because he remembered for an entire semester and even told me about the schedule change in advance. It was thoughtful."

Asher's finger stilled on the tile.

"'Thoughtful.' That is a positive assessment."

"Yes. It's a positive assessment."

"Then my assessment of him needs to be updated."

Ivy gathered the scattered tiles together. She needed something to do with her hands so they wouldn't just sit there not knowing what to do.

"You don't need to assess Liam. He's not a variable."

"Every person is a variable."

"Am I?"

He looked up. Something was running in those grey eyes, darkened by the fading light—not a background program, not data analysis. Something rawer. More uncertain. He didn't answer. He picked up a hexagonal tile, studied the pattern on it, and then said something that had nothing to do with board games.

"You're the constant. Without you, the whole equation falls apart."

The living room was quiet. The blue standby light on the monitor hadn't come on yet—it wasn't dark enough to need it. The water glass on the coffee table was still two-thirds full. The daisies faced the sofa, their petals slightly curled at the edges but still alive. He'd learned to keep flowers alive. He was still learning how to tell someone she wasn't a variable without using data analysis.

Ivy picked up two tiles. One was wheat. One was wool.

"I'll teach you. You pick first. Wheat or wool?"

He looked at the tiles in her hands. No analysis. No questions about the strategic implications of each option. He just pointed to the one in her left hand, because it was closer to her.

"This one."

"Why?"

"No reason."

It was the first time Asher Whitaker had ever made a choice based on intuition. Not because something matched his hoodie. Not because someone had said wheat was better than wool. Just because she was holding it in her left hand, and he wanted the one that was closer to her. He didn't realise what that meant. She did.