From the writer of Sweet Spot, comes the sequel of two familiar characters you already saw coming.
Harper Davis has many titles: marketing connoisseur, almost-lawyer, disappointment to parents, and most importantly: liar. Big. Fat. Liar. But what el...
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I've never faced a bigger enigma than memories.
I've never understood how they're so easily triggered by scents and images and sounds. I've never understood how some people can lose them and some people can't escape them. I've never understood how they're capable of causing the sincerest happiness and the deadliest pain and whether that means they're a good or bad thing.
I can't decide that right now either, as I look up at the the tall glass windows that adorn UC Hastings—my former law school.
The sight of it alone provokes an immediate restlessness in me. Flashes of gruelling studying, forced partying, hours of crying, and the pressure to make it out, come back to me faster than I can process.
Only one thing stands out among everything else—I was one of the few who didn't make it out.
Not the traditional way, anyways. Sure, I got out of there eventually but not the way I imagined I would. Certainly not the way my parents imagined. They thought they'd be sitting in the row of seats across the auditorium and watching me on stage. Instead they got a drunken phone call late at night where I'd blurted that I dropped out and had no intention of going back.
I tried to explain that I discovered a passion for creative management, that arranging study groups and school fundraisers and campus activities was so much more exciting than memorizing answers for tests. That I was good at it and everyone turned to me to be the socialite that kept our school running. That I was prepared to start from scratch if it meant I could do this for the rest of my life.
But I didn't get the chance. I was hung up on, my phone calls ignored for days, until I finally got one back with the threat of how difficult it was to arrange a meeting with the Dean and that it was my last second chance and the last favour I'd ever get from them.
I was ignored for another year when I turned that down too.
The next time I heard from my parents was when my grandfather died. We flew out to China to attend Wài Gōng's funeral on one awkward and tense flight. Mom wouldn't even look at me. Dad was too scared to do anything other than smile tightly and ignore me until we landed.
My family back home already found out once we got there. I could've only imagined how much they'd already gossiped about me and my "American choices." Mom decided the best thing she could do was go along with them, officially naming me the black sheep who was out of control so that I could no longer be considered her fault. The rest was history.
I got all that just from standing in front of UC Hastings now, watching students walk by as my mind spiralled from one memory to another. Like I said—it's an enigma.
"So, this is it, huh?" Sawyer slings his arm around my shoulders, toying with my earlobe. A heat of awareness engulfs me. "This is where Tink started."
And ended. In a great blaze of fire while my mother all but poked me and roasted me like marshmallows.
