Total pages in book: 17
Estimated words: 18713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Re: Look who’s back on top
Okay well I know what you mean about having a crush because I’ve sort of had the same What If thought a few times. But I’m so sorry, T. I would love to meet you, but I do have a girlfriend and agree that if we did connect in person, it would inevitably feel like a date. I do hope you have a very happy Valentine’s Day, though, and will still be getting dumplings tonight as tradition requires. Until next year?
Yours,
C.
Chapter Ten
2023
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2023
Subject: Happy Valentine’s Day!
I love winning.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2023
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
You were destined to win this year since I would absolutely not be the first to send the email after asking a taken man out on a date last year! Happy Valentine’s Day, C!
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2023
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
I’m not taken anymore, if that helps . . . And I’ll be in Irvine for the last two weeks of August.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2023
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
Not only do I have a boyfriend, but he is moving to the same city I am for graduate school, and we are packing up for the road trip over—you guessed it—the last two weeks of August.
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2023
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
Goddamnit.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2023
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
Lol i know. TEN Valentine’s Days, though. Ten!! It’s so cool that we’ve done this since we were 14 and 16 years old. Happy Valentine’s Day, C. Maybe next year we’ll meet. Even if it isn’t romantic, it will be so good to see you in person someday.
xo
T.
Chapter Eleven
FEBRUARY 14, 2024
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2024
Subject: Happy Valentine’s Day!
HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, FAVORITE
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2024
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
Hey! Happy Valentine’s Day. What are you up to?
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2024
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
My roommate and friend are dragging me to a party. I broke up with the bf a couple weeks ago, and there’s a non-Valentine’s thing at the house of a friend of a friend or something—honestly, I don’t even know. I’m just preemptively annoyed because I’m sure there won’t be soup dumplings there.
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2024
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
Oh, wow, I’m sorry about the bf. I hope you’re okay.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2024
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
Oh, no, I am totally okay. I ended things. He’d gotten clingy and weird, and you know how grad school is. There isn’t time for clingy and weird. How are you?
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2024
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
OK cool, so then is it too soon to ask you out next time we’re both back in Irvine?
And I’m good. Busy. Hoping to wrap up things and do the dissertation defense in the fall. I’ll be in Irvine for a week in June but can also come back when you’re in town.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2024
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
It’s not too soon . . .
You’d come back just to see me?
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2024
Subject: Re: Happy Valentine’s Day!
Without question.
Chapter Twelve
FEBRUARY 14, 2024
Terra
Irun my fingers decadently over the plushest sofa I’ve ever sat upon and sip the best wine I’ve ever tasted, unfortunately feeling more bored than I have in my entire life. My friends insisted that what I needed postbreakup was a non-Valentine’s-Day-themed Valentine’s Day party, but I can assure you that no newly single woman ever wants to do anything remotely celebratory on Valentine’s Day.
Yet, here I am. The wine is good; the cheese is, too. And plentiful: there’s a huge spread of it on the gleaming glass coffee table in front of me, and not a pink-wrapped Hershey’s kiss or chalky heart candy to be found. Chef’s kiss. But the cheese seems mostly to be for show. No one appears tempted. I’ve only seen one woman eat a single green olive, and it was about ten minutes ago. I watched as she delicately retrieved the pit from between her lips with her thumb and forefinger, fretting visibly for a handful of seconds about where to discard it before seeming to decide to fold it into her palm. I think it might still be in there.
Relatedly, this isn’t my kind of party. I’m more a jeans-and-board-games kind of gal. An outdoor-bonfire kind of vibe. This is a wine-and-cheese-and-New-Yorker-articles-discussion party. A what’s-your-favorite-podcast party. I don’t even know whose house we’re in; I think my roommate, Elise, said the guy who owns it is a friend of her friend Nathan’s, which is a circuitous way of saying that the owner could be any one of the fancily dressed people sipping malbec and discussing which hedge fund is their favorite.
But whoever lives here is clearly very rich because this place is enormous. It’s the kind of Philadelphia house that makes a penniless, first-year graduate student like me feel vaguely pre-defeated, because I’ve set the success bar firmly at Paying Off My Student Loans Before I Retire. I can’t imagine affording something like this in any version of my future. I can’t even afford the cab ride home, which is why I’m stuck here until Elise and our friend Jamie are ready to bail.