“You know, sometimes it’s very obvious you’re not real,” she said angrily.
“Why?”
“Because you’re so unemotional. I’m being a cow right now, and you’re still being so bloody nice. Do you never get angry?”
“You want me to be angry?”
“No, I don’t know. I just don’t want you to tell me I’m right all the time,” she said, but now he just tilted his head slightly. “What?”
“I think you are used to correlating a high emotional state with love, where anger and tension are followed by forgiveness and affection. It would be healthier if you learned to appreciate compassionate love that focuses on a deeper connection, support, and unwavering affection.”
Chloe looked at him, dumbfounded, and felt a wave of nausea in her stomach.
“Is that what you’re programmed to do, to fix me?” Chloethought back on all the psychometric tests she’d completed, all the questions she’d answered. What exactly had they shown him? “Am I broken?” she asked, her voice quieter now.
“You are not broken, Chloe,” Rob said gently, “but I can help you process your past.”
Chloe was speechless. Is this where they were? Robots teaching people how to love?
“You don’t know anything about my past relationships,” she said, pushing him out of the bathroom now, feeling vulnerable, cornered. Then she stripped off her wet clothes, reached for a towel to wrap around herself, and turned off the bath.
“I only know what you’ve told me,” Rob said, his voice calm through the door. “If you wanted to tell me more—”
She yanked open the door, cutting him off. “What? You’re going to analyze all the text messages Peter and I ever sent each other, then rate him on a scale of one to psycho?” she asked, as an orange line zipped across the watch on her wrist.
“I don’t know that scale, but yes, I could do that, if that would help you move on,” Rob said.
Chloe walked back into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. This felt so wrong, and yet some niggle inside her chest knew he was right. Rob came to sit down beside her. He tried to put an arm around her but she shrugged him off. Chloe had never been to therapy; she didn’t like the idea of someone prodding about inside her brain, telling her what was wrong with her. And if she didn’t want a person doing it, she certainly didn’t want a machine doing it. He moved away, respecting her need for space.
“The more time we spend together, the better I’ll be able to anticipate your needs,” he explained.
“How? How do you do that?” she asked.
Rob held up his wrist. “Your device connects me with your emotions.”
“Tell me how it works.”
“There are nine emotional states: anger, disgust, envy, fear, happiness, lust, love, sadness, and shame.” He paused, then blinked. “For example, on your boat ride with John, you felt six of these.”
She turned to look at him now.“Which six?”
“Anger, happiness, sadness, shame, fear, and then lust.”
She blushed.Lust?He wasn’t judging her, but this felt like an invasion of her privacy. She didn’t want Rob reading her emotions when they weren’t even together. She stood up and started pacing back and forth. Rob’s watch turned to yellow as she noticed hers had too.
“Now you are stressed. Would you like me to give you a massage?” he offered.
“No, I don’t want you to give me a massage,” she said, reaching up to squeeze her shoulder, which throbbed with some new ache.
“I think you exacerbated your old shoulder injury when you fell in the water. Please let me help?” He looked at her with such kindness. Chloe felt suddenly drained, all out of fight. She sat back on the bed, nodded, then closed her eyes. She didn’t know what she wanted. Rob reached a hand to her shoulder and began expertly kneading it.
“Oh wow,” she murmured, as he pushed and pummeled and she felt the pain and tightness in her shoulder ebb away. He knew exactly what he was doing, as he knelt up on the bed to work out the knots in her back. She let herself relax into it, letting go of the anger and confusion she was feeling.
“This shoulder. The muscle around it is too tight, it makesyour stance slightly uneven, plus you walk with a pronated gait. It might cause mobility issues in the future. I can work on these things with you,” he told her.
“Okay,” she squeaked, now putty in his capable hands. Maybe she had overreacted? Was it so bad if she let Rob help her engage in a little self-analysis? He had already helped her with her work, her fitness, her confidence. Wasn’t emotional growth just as important? Just because he’d held up a mirror and she didn’t like what she’d seen, that wasn’t on him.
“I didn’t like who I became when I was with Peter,” she said quietly.
