Chapters (77)
- Cover
- Dedication
- 1
- 2
- A Series of Screw-ups: The Chisaki Joan Katsuyama Story, Part I
- 3
- The History of My Beef with Brynn Foer-Preston
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part I
- 8
- 9
- A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part I
- 10
- 11
- 12
- A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part II
- 13
- The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part II
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- The Complicated History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Imaginary Relationship with Her Nonexistent Dad
- 20
- 21
- 22
- A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part III
- 23
- 24
- 25
- A Brief, Backward History of the McAllister Family, as Paraphrased from the San Jose Mercury News
- 26
- 27
- 28
- A Quick and Eerily Relevant History of Asians in America
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part IV
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- A Series of Screw-ups: The Chisaki Joan Katsuyama Story, Part II (Or Maybe It’s a Prequel)
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part III
- 54
- A Note from the Author
- Index of Flowers and their Meanings
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Praise for This Time Will Be Different
- Books by Misa Sugiura
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
But now that Em is talking, she’s on a roll. “I can’t believe I stood up for her on that white-savior thing. I knew she screwed up, by the way.” Em shoots me a sharp look. “But I was too crazy about her to see straight. And I was mad at you for trying to hurt her.” She sighs into her arms and says, “You know the worst part? I’m so angry at her for all the things she did. But I also wish we could forget any of this ever happened and be happy together again. Is that pathetic, or what?” She smiles wryly and wipes a few stray tears off her face.
I smile back. “I don’t know what it is. I’m sorry it sucks so much, though.”
“Yeah. Don’t ever fall in love. It’s the worst.”
“Well.” She doesn’t need to tell me.
“It’s the best, too, though. But it’s also the worst.”
I scooch over to her and put my arm around her shoulders, and we sit for a minute while she weeps. This feels so familiar. I miss sharing everything with her. And it’s my own fault, really.
“Hey, Em?” I say carefully.
“What?”
“I’m sorry for being such a shit about you and Brynn.”
Em sniffs. “I’m sorry, too.”
“I . . . I used to feel like it was you and me against the world, you know? Like, ‘CJ the Underachiever and Emily the, um, Middle Achiever.’” Emily grimaces. “Okay, High Achiever.”
“Whatever. Just go on,” says Em.
So I do. “So when you started hanging with Brynn and her friends, it felt different. Like you were changing and I wasn’t. And I freaked out. I didn’t know what we were anymore.” In fact, it occurs to me, I’m still not sure.
Emily frowns at her knees. “We were friends.”
Were.
Oh. Okay, then. I nod; I don’t trust myself to speak.
“I mean, we are friends,” she says. “Still. If you want to be.”
“Well, yeah, I mean, I guess. If you insist.” Cue smiles and big sappy hug.
Em gives me a blow-by-blow of her version of the promposal. “It may have been the most embarrassing moment of my life,” she says of the moment when Brynn knelt and promposed. “I thought I was gonna die.”
“You looked pretty wretched.”
“It was the literal worst.”
Here’s my chance. Instead of agreeing with Em, I say, “Don’t you think it would be cool to be part of history, though? Like other people’s history. For the sake of other people.”
Em shakes her head. “No. You can’t make me get back together with Brynn. And you definitely can’t make me go to prom with her. I told you I don’t want to be part of that show.”
“The ‘Brynn Is a Lesbian Superstar, So Fuck You, Dad, Just Accept It’ Show?”