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)
C.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2021
Subject: Re: Happy Early Valentine’s Day!
Oh my god, C, I am so sorry about your dad. I don’t even know what to say, this is just devastating. I’m so sorry for you and your mom and sisters. Ugh. I wish I could hug you.
Love,
T.
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2021
Subject: Re: Happy Early Valentine’s Day!
Thanks, yeah honestly, it’s been rough. I felt bad leaving home again, too, because I realized that even though I’m the youngest, my dad took care of his girls in a way that I want to continue even though he’s gone. He kept up with everyone’s life day-to-day. He always knew what questions to ask. I want to follow in those footsteps but feel a little lost.
We’re all just figuring it out as we go.
But I really love what I’m studying right now, and everyone else in the family is doing well, considering. My oldest sister just had her first kid in January, so I’m an uncle to a baby girl now, and my middle sister is getting married this summer, so life goes on even when hard things happen.
Happy Valentine’s Day officially now. Go get some Din Tai Fung and toast a dumpling to me.
C.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 15, 2021
Subject: Breaking the rules for soup dumplings
Here’s a picture for you from dinner last night. Soup dumpling and my hand holding chopsticks. I consulted the D&P and this was allowable. It was particularly delicious last night, too. I can’t stop thinking about you and your family. I know they don’t know me, but send your mom and sisters some love from me.
xo
T.
Chapter Nine
2022
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Look who’s back on top
Happy Valentine’s Day and I’ll take my victory lap now.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Re: Look who’s back on top
Ahhh. I even set an alarm for midnight, but I slept right through that flimsy bitch.
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Re: Look who’s back on top
How are you? Are you back at school or still in Irvine?
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Re: Look who’s back on top
I’m back at school! It’s so awesome to be back on campus. I don’t think I realized how isolated I’d started to feel. Everything is amazing. Except for the snow. That is less awesome. Everyone thinks of Southern California summers as this magical time, but the best kept secret is that we have the best February of any place in the world. Summers are boob sweat and crowds.
How’s your mom doing?
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Re: Look who’s back on top
I cannot attest to the boob sweat but agree re: crowds. And the social isolation of the pandemic must have been brutal. If we were smarter, we would have met at a park. Why didn’t we think of that?
Mom is doing pretty well. She’s always been healthy but never super into fitness per se, but got really into hiking last year, so she’s 55 and in the best shape of her life. There’s a lot of saucy “If your father could see me now’s” happening, and, quite frankly, I don’t want to know how that sentence ever ends, but I’m happy for her. She’s doing all right.
You’re in your junior year now, right? Still doing your same redacted sport? Still studying your same redacted subject?
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Re: Look who’s back on top
Ha ha yes yes I am still playing the sport and still studying the thing. In fact I can tell you that my sport is lacrosse because I’m pretty sure if you were at Madison you never saw a women’s lacrosse game, or if you did, you probably weren’t very impressed (yes, this is team slander and I welcome trash talking in response). I can give you a small hint and say that my school’s women’s team is very good. Because I took a year off, I still have 1.5 years of eligibility left, which is good because I hope to be captain next year.
From: c.sun16@email.com
To: t.sol18@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Re: Look who’s back on top
Lacrosse is pretty badass, T. You will get no trash talking from me, especially coming from Irvine where I’m not sure whether even 50% of our community could successfully differentiate lacrosse from field hockey. I cannot tell you my sport because it is a small but successful team at Madison, and you’d be able to figure me out with a simple Google and we all know how you feel about that.
From: t.sol18@email.com
To: c.sun16@email.com
Date: February 14, 2022
Subject: Re: Look who’s back on top
This is going to be forward, but I’ve gotta shoot my shot: Will you be home at all this summer? If so, do you want to meet up? (If you have a girlfriend, tell me because in the interest of full disclosure, I have had a little crush on you for years now and am basically asking you out on a date.) (I will also immediately panic once I send this email.)