Titles by Jen Frederick

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Acknowledgments

Readers Guide

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

When i was ten, my dad, Pat Wilson, joked that I should’ve had my tear ducts removed with my tonsils. I understood where he was coming from. I used to cry all the time. I cried when my crayons broke. I cried when I lost the red bow that was tied around my favorite stuffed bear. I cried when I broke the back door to the garage. Dad seemed like he was going to cry over that one, too. Hara, you’re eight. How in the hell did you pull the door off its hinges?

I can’t remember how I broke the door, but the reason I was crying when I was ten is still vivid in my memory. Why that’s the memory of my childhood that has stuck with me I can’t explain, but humiliation is like superglue. My elementary school days are a mosaic of failing the spelling bee, tucking my skirt into the back of my tights, not realizing I had peanut butter smeared across my sweater for a whole day, seeing my crush confess his feelings to another girl on the same day I was going to declare my fourth-grade heart, and then this one. I’d like to say that these past hurts stung and I moved on, but I can recall the day with perfect clarity. It was sunny and the school term was nearing its end. We were all anticipating summer break and perhaps that was why we were testy with one another. During recess, a couple of stupid kids asked if my face was flat because I’d fallen off the monkey bars and landed facedown. One, I had never fallen off the monkey bars. I was strong as hell even at age ten and I could fly across those damn things. Second, my face is not flat. If anything my face is too round. My chin is curved and my cheeks are plump. I don’t have a prominent forehead or deep-set eyes, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s an Asian thing.

Even though I knew this, I felt ashamed of my face and so I cried because that’s what ten-year-olds do when their feelings are hurt. The tears bothered my dad.

Hara, are you seriously crying because some kid said you had a flat face? What’s the big deal? Hara, tears aren’t going to make other kids stop making fun of you. Ellen, tell her to stop crying.

He wasn’t wrong. Crying didn’t change anything, and a year later, my tear ducts closed up and haven’t worked since—not even at times when they should, such as when the hero or heroine dies in a book after you were promised a happy ending or when Allie remembered it was Noah reading the stories to her in The Notebook or when I’m sitting in the funeral parlor with my dad’s body in a casket next door.