Beneath the Surface(7)

“A marketing late bloomer, huh?”

“I know that marketing seems like this catch-all for students who don’t really know what to do with their lives or, like me, realized, two years in, that practicing medicine would make them miserable, but for me, it was never like that.”

“So why the two-year detour?”

Kristin couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “A case of parental pressure and expectations. I’m an only child, so my parents piled all their big hopes onto me.”

“And they wanted you to be a doctor.”

“I know it’s a big cliché, what with me being Korean and my Korean immigrant parents, both doctors, wanting me to become a doctor. I guess it’s a cliché for a reason.”

“Good for you for standing up to them.”

Kristin chuckled. “When I dropped out of med school, my mother suggested I become a nurse instead.” She shook her head. “I always had other dreams for myself, but perhaps I was just slow in realizing it. First, I thought my aversion to all things medical stemmed from being the daughter of two doctors. That I would get over it if I just plunged in headfirst. When that didn’t happen after the first year, I figured I owed it to them to at least meet one of their expectations because I guess, somehow, I already knew I wouldn’t be meeting another big one.”

“Ah.” Sheryl’s eyes narrowed. She listened with such attention visible on her face. She sat with one leg slung over the other, looking at Kristin as if learning all about her was the most important thing in life. Maybe to her, in this moment, it was. The thought made Kristin go all warm inside. “That.”

“I’ll be thirty in three days and I’m not out to my parents. I’m not out pretty much anywhere, really.”

“You’ll get there when the time is right.”

Kristin quirked up her eyebrows.

“What?” Sheryl asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I would have expected a more militant reaction from you.” She followed up with a grin.

“Just like you are not a cliché, but a complex human being with reasons for why things happened the way they did in your life, neither am I.”

“You will make an excellent professor one day, Sheryl Johnson.”

Sheryl laughed a deep belly laugh. “That’s the plan. If I can ever finish my bloody thesis.”

In the short moment of silence that followed, Kristin felt all the things she’d never felt with Petra. All the things that, deep down, she knew she was capable of feeling but hadn’t had the occasion to.



“I think they want us to leave,” Sheryl said. They were the only patrons left, and had both switched to tea after the third cup of coffee.

“Pity.” Kristin looked around. “I like this place. I have a bit of a coffee shop fetish in general and this place ticks all my boxes.”

“Maybe I’ll see you here again some day then.” Sheryl leaned forward, elbows on knees.

Kristin mirrored her image. “There’s a really good chance of that.”

“How about tomorrow, whenever it is you knock off work?”

“Or…” Kristin didn’t want to go home to her empty flat. She didn’t want to sit on her sofa and wait for tomorrow to come around, regretting not having said what she was about to say. “We could go for dinner now? Are you hungry?”

Sheryl sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and nodded her head slowly. “That sounds very enticing.”

“But?”

“No buts. I know just the place.” Sheryl rose and led the way.

The relief that washed over Kristin was comparable to what she’d felt when she finally did make the decision to quit medical school. It wasn’t only relief coursing through her, however, but the burgeoning sense that her life was about to change for the better. Just like it had done before.





Chapter Four





“You don’t drink at all?” Kristin asked.

Sheryl considered herself lucky that the question had only come by the time they were halfway through the meal. Usually she was bombarded by quizzical looks and inordinate questions when wine was to be ordered—because God forbid someone in Australia had dinner without alcohol just once in their lives. For all its virtues and relaxed vibes, this country was obsessed with becoming intoxicated on any given night after five. Sheryl knew this was a slight exaggeration, but she couldn’t help but be fanatical about it. And nobody in their right mind could deny that Australians in general liked a drink—or five.

“I do. I just don’t like what it does to my brain. I like to be clear-headed. Life is short, why waste it on being out of it? I’d much rather be in it, you know?” Sheryl laughed at herself—she was good at that in situations like this. “I’m gibbering.” She was on a date with a beautiful woman. She wasn’t about to reveal the real reason for her abstinence. If this worked out, they would have plenty of time to discuss that.