You Are My Only Variable

Chapter 3

The third time Ivy went, the apartment had changed.

The chips were no longer alone. Next to them sat a box of cookies, a bag of chocolate, and a few apples—arranged in a glass bowl that still had the price tag stuck to the side. Beside the bowl was a bouquet of flowers. Daisies. They were crammed into something that looked like a pen holder, their stems cut too short, the blossoms huddled together like a group of people who didn't know where to stand.

Ivy stood in the doorway, staring at the flowers for a long moment. Asher was in his usual spot next to the monitor, hands in his hoodie pockets. Today's hoodie was grey, the exact same shade as his sofa.

"You bought flowers," Ivy said.

"You said food. Flowers are not food. But the data indicates they increase the perceived pleasantness of an indoor environment."

"What data?"

"I searched two papers. One on office plants and employee satisfaction, another on fresh flowers in hospital rooms and patient recovery rates. I synthesised both sets of conclusions."

Ivy walked over to the coffee table and picked up one of the apples. The sticker read: Organic Fuji Apple, $4.99/lb. She didn't have to check to know that was at least three times what she normally paid.

"How much did you pay for these apples?"

"I'm not sure. I took six, swiped my card, and didn't note the exact figure."

Ivy turned to look at him. "You don't know how much you spent?"

"Is that necessary?"

"For ordinary people, yes."

He paused. Then he walked over to the coffee table, picked up the receipt from under the glass bowl, glanced at it, and handed it to her. His movements were careful, deliberate, like he was completing an assignment she'd given him.

"Sixty-two dollars and forty-three cents," he said. "For six apples."

Ivy opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked down at the receipt, which bore the name of a high-end organic market near campus. She had never set foot inside that store. Its windows were always too clean, its lighting too warm, its price tags too small to read from the street.

"Asher."

"Yes?"

"Next time you buy fruit, take me with you."

"Why?"

"Because you need someone who looks at the price."

He tilted his head, that tiny angle of less than two degrees. "Is that a role you can fill?"

"Yes. Free of charge. An employee benefit."

His mouth twitched. Not a smile, but Ivy could tell the difference now. Whenever he wanted to smile but wasn't quite sure how, his lips moved first, like he was testing whether that expression was safe to use.

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

---

Ivy told him to sit down.

He hesitated, then walked around the coffee table and sat down on the far end of the sofa. There was still room for two people between them, but it was much closer than standing against the wall. His posture was rigid, back straight, hands on his knees, like he was sitting for an interview.

"Today's subject: doing nothing."

He looked at her, his brow furrowing slightly. It was the first time Ivy had seen that expression on his face.

"Doing nothing. That's not a valid instruction. It lacks an operational definition."

"That's the point. You don't need to operate. You just need to sit here, with me, and waste some time."

"What's the purpose of wasting time?"

"No purpose. That's what ordinary people do."

He was quiet for a while. Ivy could tell he was processing the information. The words "no purpose" were probably throwing error codes somewhere in his logical architecture.

"I've never wasted time before," he said finally.

"I know."

"My grandfather says time is the scarcest resource."

"Your grandfather's right. But precisely because it's scarce, sometimes doing nothing is the greatest respect you can show it."

He looked at her, those pale grey eyes almost transparent in the light from the windows. "The logical structure of that sentence will require some time to parse."

"Then take your time. We're wasting it anyway."

His mouth twitched again. This time the curve was slightly larger. Ivy felt like he was slowly learning how to use his own face.

They sat quietly for a while. Clouds moved beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting large shadows across the city. The only sound in the room was the faint electric hum of the monitor on standby. Ivy leaned against the armrest of the sofa and curled her legs up. She didn't speak. He didn't speak either.

It was the first time in a long while that Ivy had sat truly still. Not working, not rushing through an assignment, not waiting in a hospital corridor for her mom's test results. She realised she hadn't done this in a very long time—doing nothing, just sitting, being with someone who wasn't going to ask her why she didn't have a boyfriend yet or whether she had enough money for the month.

"How's your mother lately?" Asher asked suddenly.

The question caught her off guard. She didn't remember telling him much about her mom's illness. She'd only mentioned it once or twice, in passing, mixed in with answers about "ordinary life." But he'd remembered.

"Still stable. Thank you."

"Stable is good news. Correct?"

"Correct. It's good news."

He nodded. He didn't say "I'm sorry to hear that" or "stay strong." He just verified the nature of the information and filed it in a safe place. Ivy found this more comforting than any words of consolation. Consolation came with pressure. Verification didn't.

"How did you do it?" she asked.

"Do what?"

"Remembering things I've said. I only mentioned my mom once or twice."

"I don't 'remember' them," he said. "When I listen, the words store themselves automatically. I can't control it. It's like how you walk into a convenience store and don't deliberately 'memorise' that there are twenty-eight kinds of toothpaste. You just see it."

"So everything I've said is like toothpaste, sitting on the shelves in your brain?"

"Yes. You're currently in the third row. Left-hand side. Next to the plain potato chips."

Ivy paused, then burst out laughing. Not the almost-laugh from the convenience store—a real laugh, the kind she couldn't hold back. As she laughed, Asher watched her, and his mouth finally curved completely. Not a test, not a trial run. A real, if still clumsy, smile.

"You smiled," she said.

"Yes. I've confirmed it. That was a smile."

"How does it feel?"

"A bit strange. Slight soreness in the facial muscles. But the overall experience is not unpleasant."

"That's good."

"When you laugh, I also want to laugh. Is that a contagion mechanism?"

"Possibly."

"Then what if I don't want to be infected?"

"Then you should stay away from me."

He was quiet for a moment. Another cloud passed outside the window, dimming the light in the room for a second before it brightened again.

"I don't want to stay away right now," he said.

His tone was the same as when he read from the contract, flat and factual, like he was stating an objective fact. But Ivy's fingers tightened just slightly around the apple in her hand.

She put the apple back in the glass bowl. The price tag was still stuck to the side. She reached over and peeled it off.

"You need to take this off."

"Why?"

"Because leaving the tag on makes the person who gave the flowers look like a beginner."

"I am a beginner."

"I know. But you don't have to let them know."

He watched her peel the tag away. "That's the second thing you've taught me today. Remove the tags. I'll remember that."

"What was the first?"

"Wasting time." He paused. "My proficiency in this subject is still low. But I'm willing to continue learning."

Ivy leaned back against the sofa and looked up at the perfectly calibrated warm-toned light on the ceiling. It was still too precise, but compared to the first time she'd seen it, it didn't feel quite as cold anymore.

She thought about what Maya had asked her the night before. *What's that guy like?*

She'd said he was hard to describe. Now she thought she might know how.

He was the kind of person who would spend sixty-two dollars on six apples because he had no concept of checking the price. But also the kind of person who would remember every casual thing you'd ever said, who wouldn't interrupt you when you were sitting quietly, who would cut daisy stems too short and cram them into a pen holder and then ask if laughter was a contagion mechanism.

He said he was willing to continue learning.

Ivy found herself thinking the same thing.