Type II Error

Adam Carlsen is a careful scientist. So when Tom Benton tells him that Olive will never be seen as her own scientist while she's dating him, Adam does the careful thing. On the day his funding comes through, September twenty-ninth, exactly as they agreed, he ends it.

He doesn't know what Tom did to her after her talk. He doesn't know she tried to tell him. And he has no idea that the worst mistake a scientist can make isn't seeing something that isn't there. It's missing the thing that is.

A story about a broken arrangement, a slow and stubborn second experiment, and two best friends who refuse to let either of them give up.

Canon note: This follows the book up to the night in Boston, then mixes in the film. As in the movie, Tom gets to Adam first, and Adam is the one who ends things. As in the book, Olive's recording, Holden and the Harvard dinner are how Tom is exposed, except this time she does it without Adam. Everything after that is my own.

Content notes: sexual harassment and assault (not graphic, referenced throughout), its aftermath, stress-related insomnia and weight loss, therapy, a legal threat, one mature scene. Rated Mature.

The characters belong to Ali Hazelwood. I just borrowed them for a while.