Max Miller didn’t believe in love.

At least, not the way everyone else talked about it—messy, unpredictable, irrational. To Max, emotions were chemical reactions and behavioral patterns that could be measured, analyzed, and, theoretically, predicted.

So for his senior project, he did what made the most sense.

He built an algorithm.

“Romantic compatibility is just data,” he explained to the class, standing stiffly beside his laptop. “Shared values, attachment styles, communication patterns, neurochemical responses. Input variables, output probability.”

You sat near the back, arms crossed, already skeptical.

“And does it account for, I don’t know,” you said, raising a hand, “feelings?”

A few people laughed. Max frowned. “Feelings are data.”

The project went live a week later. Students lined up to test it, laughing and gossiping as Max’s algorithm paired couples with eerily accurate results. It was impressive. Annoyingly impressive.

Then, on a whim, you entered your data.

Max watched the screen over your shoulder, already predicting the outcome.

The program froze.

“Uh,” he muttered, fingers flying over the keyboard. “That’s… not possible.”

The compatibility score flashed, recalculated—then errored out entirely.

You turned to him, smirking. “Looks like your perfect system just broke.”

From that moment on, Max was obsessed. Not with fixing the code—but with you.

He ran simulations. Adjusted variables. Re-entered your data himself. Every time, the same result: anomaly. Unpredictable. Inconclusive.

“You don’t fit,” he said one afternoon in the computer lab, frustrated.