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Chapters (77)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. A Series of Screw-ups: The Chisaki Joan Katsuyama Story, Part I
  6. 3
  7. The History of My Beef with Brynn Foer-Preston
  8. 4
  9. 5
  10. 6
  11. 7
  12. The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part I
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part I
  16. 10
  17. 11
  18. 12
  19. A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part II
  20. 13
  21. The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part II
  22. 14
  23. 15
  24. 16
  25. 17
  26. 18
  27. 19
  28. The Complicated History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Imaginary Relationship with Her Nonexistent Dad
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part III
  33. 23
  34. 24
  35. 25
  36. A Brief, Backward History of the McAllister Family, as Paraphrased from the San Jose Mercury News
  37. 26
  38. 27
  39. 28
  40. A Quick and Eerily Relevant History of Asians in America
  41. 29
  42. 30
  43. 31
  44. 32
  45. 33
  46. 34
  47. 35
  48. 36
  49. A Brief History of Chisaki Joan Katsuyama’s Romantic Learning Opportunities, Part IV
  50. 37
  51. 38
  52. 39
  53. 40
  54. 41
  55. 42
  56. 43
  57. 44
  58. A Series of Screw-ups: The Chisaki Joan Katsuyama Story, Part II (Or Maybe It’s a Prequel)
  59. 45
  60. 46
  61. 47
  62. 48
  63. 49
  64. 50
  65. 51
  66. 52
  67. 53
  68. The History of the Katsuyama Family, Part III
  69. 54
  70. A Note from the Author
  71. Index of Flowers and their Meanings
  72. Acknowledgments
  73. About the Author
  74. Praise for This Time Will Be Different
  75. Books by Misa Sugiura
  76. Back Ad
  77. About the Publisher

“For now,” he agrees.

In this moment, when all I see are his clear brown eyes and his lips just a breath away from mine, it feels as though we really are poised on the edge of something entirely new. I feel his lips graze my forehead, and he leaves the lightest trace of a kiss on my eyelids before moving down, brushing across my cheeks, to my mouth. And then I feel his lips on mine like a whisper, a soft, cross-the-bridge-with-me kind of kiss. The kind of kiss that’s both question and answer, invitation and acceptance, that leads to another kiss, and another, and another.

He pauses, and I open my eyes and see his eyes dark under a fringe of short, thick lashes. Why did I never notice them before?

“Hi,” he says, as if we’ve just met.

“Hi,” I say back, because in a sense, we have. This is a new me, and a new Owen, with soft lips and those eyelashes, and straight, feathery eyebrows. He smiles at me and kisses me again, and this time I feel his arms around me, his hands on my waist and my back, and I’m surprised at how readily my body responds, and how much I enjoy his response, the quickening of his breath as I stroke the back of his neck, and at the energy and hunger of this blue-green wave of desire that’s rising in me urging me toward him, toward something new and different and exciting.

And no matter what happens in the future, this kiss, this moment of connection right now, will exist forever.

I feel myself taking a tiny step toward the edge of the precipice off of which Hannah is forever flinging herself. I think I might understand how she can do it. I feel like by the time I am ready to step off the edge, instead of plunging to disaster, I might float away like a dandelion seed, away from the broken stems of my old mistakes and into something big and scary and wonderful and new.

51

SAND HILL ROAD IS HOME TO THE VENTURE capital firms that provided the initial funding for pretty much every major tech start-up, ever: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Skype, and Facebook all got seed money here. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions take place on this road every day as Sand Hill companies decide which start-ups they think will make it big. And McAllister Venture Capital is one of the OGs of Sand Hill Road. It owns pieces of a lot of very expensive, very successful pies.

So it’s kind of preposterous to think you can just march right into Trey McAllister’s office and ask him to hand over a million dollars to fund an initiative to change the name of a school that bears his grandfather’s name.

But that’s what we’re doing.