Ep 2

The Notebook, and

Me Before You. She’d read all of them already, but what the heck, a

reread never hurt anybody.

Farrah paid the vendor, who beamed and gushed her thanks

before turning her attention to the next passerby.

“Mei nu!” The vendor flagged down a young woman in a cobalt

dress. “Come, come.”Farrah looped her shopping bag around her wrist and picked up

her drinks while the young woman fended off the vendor’s

aggressive sales pitch. She speed-walked back to campus, taking

care not to make eye contact with any more vendors lest she got

suckered into buying something else she didn’t need.

Farrah stopped at the crosswalk. Instead of crossing when the

pedestrian light flashed green, she waited until a group of teenagers

stepped off the curb before following them into the jungle that was

Shanghai traffic.

Rule #1 of surviving in China: cross when locals cross. There’s

safety in numbers.

By the time Farrah arrived at Shanghai Foreign Studies

University, her study abroad program’s host campus, she’d already

finished her drink. She tossed the empty container into a nearby

trash can and pushed open the door to FEA’s lobby.

FEA, aka Foreign Education Academy, occupied one of the

oldest buildings at SFSU. Not only did the four-story building lack an

elevator, but the interior design left much to be desired. The lobby

had potential—marble floors, tons of natural light streaming in

through large windows facing the courtyard—but the furniture was

straight out of the 80s (and not in the cool retro kind of way).

A cracked brown leather couch lined the wall beneath the

windows alongside mismatched chairs and tables. A spindly

magazine stand sagged beneath the weight of dozens of back

issues of Time Out Shanghai. Faded Chinese landscape paintings

hung on the wall, adding to the musty feel.

As usual, Farrah couldn’t help mentally redecorating the space.

As she took the stairs to the third floor, she swapped out the current

furniture for a cushioned wicker set with glass-topped tables, which

would visually expand the lobby. Out went the old watercolors and in

came the panels of Asian-inspired art—perhaps some up-close

representations of the lotus flower or plum blossoms with modern

Chinese calligraphy. There could be a wall of bookshelves for—

“Ow!” Farrah had been so absorbed in her design daydream she

slammed into the wall. Her hand shot to her forehead as pain

ricocheted through her brain. Fortunately, she couldn’t feel a bump.Olivia’s bubble tea also remained intact, thank god. She was

scary when she didn’t get her sugar fix.

The wall moved. “Are you ok?” it asked.

A walking, talking wall. She must’ve hit her head harder than she

thought.The wall moved. “Are you ok?” it asked.

A walking, talking wall. She must’ve hit her head harder than she

thought.

Farrah peeked out from beneath her hand and found herself

staring into a pair of crystal blue eyes. She recognized those eyes.

They’d stared back at her from the cover of Sports Illustrated last

year, along with the accompanying high cheekbones and cocky grin

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