Lucy London puts the word genius to shame. Having obtained her PhD in microbiology by the age of twenty, she's amassed a wealth of knowledge, but one subject still eludes her—people. The pendulum of passions experienced by those around her confuses and intrigues her, so when she’s offered a grant to study emotion as a pathogen, she jumps on the opportunity.
Enter Jensen Walker, Lucy's neighbor and the one person she finds appealing. Jensen's life is the stuff of campus legend, messy, emotional, and complicated. Basically, the perfect starting point for Lucy's study. When her tenaciousness wears him down and he consents to help her, sparks fly. To her surprise, Lucy finds herself battling with her own emotions, as foreign as they are intense. With the clock ticking on her deadline, Lucy must decide what's more important: analyzing her passions...or giving in to them?
There are many theories that attempt to explain why humans cry in response to heightened emotions. One states that weeping serves as a signaling function, letting other humans know the emotional condition being experienced with the hopes of contriving an altruistic response in the viewer. Another theory is that crying serves a biochemical function, releasing toxins from the body and reducing stress. Some scientists have found that tears may contain a chemosignal, and when men sniff women’s tears, they display reduced levels of testosterone and sexual arousal.
None of these theories explain why I, a twenty-year-old female, experience extreme anxiety and a desperate desire to get as far away as possible when people cry in my general vicinity.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Today’s client is Freya Morgan, a sophomore at the university, who recently dissolved a relationship. She’s pre-law, and her file indicates a fairly high GPA. I have hopes she will be more logical than emotional. She hasn’t cried yet, but I’m 83% certain she will. Studies have shown that women cry thirty to sixty-four times per year. That’s approximately once every twelve days, on the low side.
“Yes.” I glance at my notes. “You engaged in coitus with your partner and then he stopped communicating with you.”
She sits up slightly from the position she threw herself into when she entered the room, lying across the small sofa, and offers me a frown that puts a wrinkle in her forehead. She’s shorter than me, small enough to lie down on the couch that’s only about five feet long.
