#owagh

“The Olive Theory,” Terri repeats lightly, taking a bite of the pizza in her hand. “You ever heard about it?”

“No, tell me about it, what’s that?” She asks, swinging her legs under the table slightly, chin resting on her hand with a dopey smile—Terri giggles at her reaction, and she does, too, holding up the fork with a piece of pizza before nibbling at it.

“Okay,” Terri began with a nervous breath, “well—you know how I like researching really dumb stuff, right?”

“They’re not dumb if I love it,” Jan cuts off with a smile before she quickly backtracks. “Oh, sorry—yeah, and?”

“And, well, I kept recalling the balance theory, and the theory of opposites—how um, opposite poles of magnets attract each other, how you’d treat a cold with warm tea, stuff like that,” Terri continues. “And uh—I wondered if they worked on people too. As in, um, feelings, and stuff.”

“Oh,” Jan says brightly, “cool! What’d you find out? Or or—oh, do you need me for another one of your experiments?” She straightens herself up abruptly, almost knocking the glass of lemon soda on her side. “Oh, whoops—but anyway, and then what?”

“Actually…” Terri throws her head back slightly, light guilt drawn on her smile, “I’ve… already used you for this experiment. Without you knowing. I’m… sorry.”

“Oh?” Jan frowns. “I mean—it’s okay, it’s cool, I like surprises!” She quickly adds, “but I don’t remember anything happening to me…”

“Well, I’ll tell you about it,” Terri averts her gaze from hers, picking black olive rings from her pizza as a distraction, and Jan tries to mirror her moves, cutting pieces of pizza with her fork and knife again. She tends to forget how much Terri hates the staring, sometimes, which is a shame, because one, she likes to zone out a lot, and two, she likes to stare at pretty things while she does—like for example, the celestial suncatchers hanging in front of their bedroom window, or, well—Terri.

“So…” Terri began again as she repeats her own movements, picking up olives one by one and setting it on her plate, “um, the olive theory, and I chose to tell you now because hah, we’re eating pizza,” she laughs to herself slightly before clearing her throat, “um. So—I’ve already told you how the opposite theory states that opposites attract. Well, um, I wanted to see if it works on human feelings, too, and I found out—it does.”

Jan smiles brightly. “Really? How’d you find that out?”

“Well, from a few things you do, here and there,” Terri shrugs, and a red blush is already forming on her face before she could continue any further.

“Oh—that’s what you used me for?” She sits up, leaning further, bare feet tapping against the wooden floor in excitement. “What did I do? Tell me, tell me!”

Terri giggles. “Okay, okay. So um—I took notes of the things you do, and the things I do, and I compared ‘em both,” she says. “I noted that you’re loud, and you say what’s on your mind, and you love staring at things that are bright and shiny and the weirdest one to me is that you love surprises, and I don’t do any of that! I—I’m quiet, and I keep everything to myself if I can help it, and I only liked staring at the dim lava lamp you got for me on my birthday, and most of all I hate surprises—you know, all of that!”

Jan frowns. “But…?”

“But,” Terri breathes, “we’re both still perfect for each other anyway.”

Her frown slowly turns into a smile. “Oh?”

“So,” Terri says with a clap, “I can conclude from this observation that the law of opposite attraction does apply on human feelings as well.”

“That’s…” Jan smiles softly, “Terri, babe, that’s so sweet.”

“It’s just science!” she shrugs with a shy smile, “and I think we can both agree that science is pretty sweet.”

“I sure can, that’s why they call me Doctor Jan!”

Terri giggles again—that sweet, dorky giggle of hers that Jan loves so much.

“But… why’d you call it the Olive Theory?”

“Because,” Terri shrugs, “you love olives, and I hate ‘em. And that,” she slides her plate across the table towards her, “is one of the things that makes us a perfect balance.”

Jan bites back a lovesick smile, reaching out to nibble at the pile of olives on Terri’s plate.