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
That is exactly the problem, I realize. “But that’s it!” I say. “The so far part. Happily ever after, true love . . . True love is supposed to be forever, right? That means by definition, if you’re always going, ‘It’s all good so far,’ it can’t be real. You don’t have a choice.” Wait, that sounds terrible. “I mean, theoretically. Not in your actual life.”
But Owen is unfazed. “It is about choosing a future, though. You just can’t guarantee it, is what I’m saying. It’s a risk.”
“Too risky for me.” I shake my head.
“But you can work to make it pay off. That’s when you choose. That’s what my parents did.”
I still don’t buy it. “What if you ‘choose’ to leave because the other person is an asshole? Or what if you choose a job in New York and the other person chooses a job in LA? Is that like ‘true love for now’? Or does it mean it was never really love?” Also, why am I being so difficult?
“Why do you ask such hard questions?” says Owen, grinning at me.
I don’t have an answer for that one. I shake my head, and we watch the setting sun and the ocean in silence. There’s something about the ocean. Often there’s nothing going on that you can see, but people just want to watch it anyway. Maybe it’s the waves—even though nothing seems to change; when you look closely, everything is always moving and shifting around. It’s kind of hypnotic.
“Why do they call this place Pigeon Point, anyway?” I ask, after a while. “There’s no pigeons around here.”
“They named it after the first ship to wreck off this coast,” says Owen. “The Carrier Pigeon. In 1853. It had a pigeon painted on the bowsprit—I guess carrier pigeons were supposed to be good luck back then?—but obviously it didn’t work. It foundered out there on the rocks, but a bunch of folks from Pescadero saw it and rescued everyone. After that, there were more and more wrecks, and for years people kept asking for a lighthouse, but they didn’t get one until this other shipwreck where almost everyone drowned.”
“Seriously, Owen. How do you know all this random stuff?”
Owen points at the little information plaque in front of him and smirks. “Read to succeed,” he says. I shove him, and he shoves me back. The wind blows my hair around, and—brrr—I realize it’s starting to get cold out here. I rub my hands on my arms.
“I wish the sun would hurry up and set. I’m freezing.”