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
I recall that gasp I heard when Blake smiled, and suddenly I know what’s bothering him. “What, because that’s unusual? Because I have dimples and he has dimples? Because his chin looks like mine?”
“Well, yeah. . . .” Owen begins giving the back of his head a scalp massage.
“Oh no.”
“He looked just like you, CJ. Like, so much it’s kind of freaking me out. Are you telling me you didn’t see the resemblance?”
I used to do the same thing to myself all the time. I would gaze at my reflection in the mirror with a childhood picture of Mom in my hand, parsing out which of my features were hers, which might be my father’s. I’d examine the face of anyone I saw who had those same non-Mom features: Was this girl my half sibling? Was that old lady my grandmother? Might these random people lead me to my father?
“Lots of people look alike, Owen. You’ve seen those ‘separated at birth’ celebrity things online, right? It doesn’t mean anything.”
“But it might.”
I’ve only told a few people that I don’t know who my dad is, and sooner or later, the questions always come: Are you sure? Have you checked this database? Did you know about that test? I’d started to think Owen was different. But he’s the same as everyone else. “It doesn’t, okay? Hannah gave me a genetic ancestry test for my sixteenth birthday and the only thing we learned is that my dad is ‘broadly Western Asian’—and don’t tell me I don’t look mixed, because I’m tired of hearing that. So this Ohara dude is most definitely not my dad.”
“Oh. Right. Okay. But what if he’s half Western Asian?”
“Owen. I don’t think you’re related to everyone who has, um . . . brown eyes and, and”—I search his face for something I can use—“and a square jaw.”
“A square jaw?” He grins a little and checks out his image in his phone, running his finger along his jawline. “You really think so? That’s supposed to be a good thing, right?”
“Oh. Uh . . .” Shit. He doesn’t think I think he’s cute, does he?
Owen looks at me, still grinning. “I was afraid you were going to say ‘big ears.’”
I take a closer look, and maybe it’s because I’m freaking out about my weird comment about his jaw, but I don’t say what I should, which is, “Oh, they’re not so big.” What I say instead is, “Holy shit, you do have big ears. They’re like, like—sails!” And then—look, not my proudest moment—the idea of his ears as sails suddenly strikes me as hilarious, and I break into a fit of nervous giggles. “Sorry! I’m sorry!”