But my best friend’s perception of her parents, and the way she loves them, mirror mine. Her logic clicks. I don’t doubt that my parents want nothing more than to see me happy. But a lifetime of telling myself to do more, and give more, can’t be so easily undone.
I’m too accustomed to chasing this idea of perfection for them. I don’t know anything else.
“And, can I just say,” Rosie says, not giving me time to fall into my self-sabotaging mindset. She motions for the check to the waitress while speaking. “You spent years shoving yourself into this guaranteed sense of success with your planned out future and a degree you think is practical. But now you’re studying something you actually love.”
My instinct is to be negative and remind her—or, myself—how badly that’s going. I don’t.
“Applying for the grad program was completely irrational of me.”
“I know.” She grins. “I loved it. That’s what you should be going after. Happiness.”
Rosie’s smile shifts into a knowing smirk, and I shake my head, but smile back.
When the check comes around, I slap my card down before she finds hers.
“It’s on me. The tips were really good last week.”
She smirks wider. “Which tip? The money tips, or Grant’s-”
“Stop talking.”
My best friend is ridiculous at times, but most importantly, she gets me. She’s the pillar I didn’t know I needed until we found each other. And even after she lectures me and sends my mind and emotions whirling, she brings me back down to earth.
“Fine, you get dinner, but on our way home let’s stop and get boba. My treat.”
She understands my need for a post-meal sweet treat, too.
“Yes.” Joy floods back into my tone. “Can we go to the shop with the hazelnut mocha cake I like? I feel like I’m going to need it as a pick-me-up while I force myself into this second draft.”
“Did you think there was anywhere else we’d go?”
Later that night, with one arm balancing my dessert and the other linked with Rosie’s, it dawns on me that beyond being my parents’ daughter, I’m a girl who loves her friends, her city, and the life she’s been lucky enough to have.
twelve
LILIANA
Thursdays are Grant days.Not Tuesdays. Yet, in the last moments of my shift, it’s Grant who strolls into the café with his familiar gray backpack. The brown of his sweater vest matches perfectly with his similar-colored slacks, and the short-sleeved button down beneath it does nothing to hide his forearm tattoo.
It takes more will than I’d like to admit to tear my vision away from the ink. Only to be staring at smiling green eyes when he approaches.
“What are you doing here?”
“Ordering a medium matcha cloud latte and a medium iced hazelnut latte.”
My eyes narrow. With how badly my past few days have been, I’m already in a sour mood. I don’t want to take it out on him, but my confusion and stress is heightening everything.
“It’s Tuesday.”
“And you’re wearing purple.” I glance down briefly at the purple dress peeking out behind my work apron. When I look back up, Grant is smug. “Both truths I hold dear to my heart.”
There’s sarcasm in his tone. It might be naivety, but an instinct in me says the sarcasm only applies to half of his statement. Specifically, the part that isn’t about me and purple and his heart.
I swallow and say again, “It’s Tuesday.”
“Are you trying to get me to repeat myself?” His head tilts, wavy hair flopping around.
“You’ve never been here on a Tuesday.”
