Page 51 of He Will Always Love Me

So it goes without saying that the overlap of two very small groups is something close to infinitesimal. Too small to draw many scientific valid conclusions from.

“You look like you’re ready to pass out over that chart.”

I jump up from where I’ve been hunched over for the past few hours and whirl around. Hyx leans against the door frame with a smirk on his face. I cross my arms.

“How long have you been standing there exactly?”

He shrugs. “Only about a minute or so. Did you know you mumble to yourself when you work?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m about to make a breakthrough.”

“I’ve heard that one before.”

“This time I really am!” I protest, even though I know it isn’t technically true. But I’m in the zone right now, connecting every account I can to someone or some event to place them.

Hyx gives me a once-over and frowns. “You really do look like you're about to pass out. And you’re way too tense, too. When was the last time you slept?”

I shuffle a bit on my feet and shrug. “I slept last night. I get in about three hours every night.”

“Three hou – Libby! You can’t survive like that.”

“Sure I can.”

He gives me a deadpan look.

I sigh. “Fine. I’ll take a break.”

His smirk returns. “Good. I’m taking you out to lunch then since I’m sure you’ve forgotten to eat again.”

“I ate!” Just then my traitorous stomach growls. Hyx chuckles, and I glare at my stomach.

By the time we sit down to eat, I’m grateful for his intervention. It’s easy for me to forget that sometimes the best thing a scientist can do is take a step back.

We begin chatting a bit, and as I’m explaining something to him, I accidentally knock my satchel off the table. My notebooks and the latest book I’m reading about mates scatter across the floor.

In a flash, I’m on the floor trying to gather it up as quickly as I can. A person at the table next to us bends down and picks up the book about mates. He frowns and gives me a curious look. “Are you reading this?”

I let out a nervous laugh and snatch the book from him. “Actually, I grabbed that one by mistake and need to turn it back in. Thanks.”

Quickly I stuff the book back into the satchel, my face burning. I don’t need judgment from strangers, I already get it enough from anyone else who knows about my research.

Then I notice that Hyx has one of my notebooks. He’s reading one of my notebooks. “You’re researching the theory of fated mates?”

Deciding that outright lying to him is a bad idea, I tell him about my research. About past lives and the connections people can make. I explain my theory that maybe the unusual feeling people describe when they meet their fated mate is actually an ingrained response to someone from an alternate life.

When I’m finished, I wait nervously for his response, chewing my lip.

I don’t believe he’ll laugh, if only because we’ve become so close that I don’t think he’ll do that to me. Not to my face. He might think it’s strange, though.

“I think you’re onto something,” he says.

I blink in surprise. “Really?”

“Really. Sometimes I feel like I get flashes that seem too real to just be something made up. Maybe we all have a past life.”

My science brain immediately goes into overdrive. “You have that, too? Tell me about them! I desperately need more subjects to collect data from.”

He laughs, and his lips quirk up in a smile. “They’re not really pleasant memories. Trying to escape a burning building. Being ambushed. Things that seem very vivid though they obviously never happened to me. My mom always told me I had an active imagination.”

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