“My grandparents raised me after my mom died. When people would remind me that I was not an orphan because I lost both my parents, I would always bristle. Because in my mind, I only ever had one parent. My dad was a nonentity. He left us when I was only two, and while my mother raised me alone in this house, I had never felt the absence of a parent until she died.”

Appearing at the start of Cassia’s narrative, this passage provides important background information about Cassia’s character. She lost both of her parents when she was young but only associates loss and grief with her mother’s death. These details from her childhood explain why Cassia is so attached to her grandparents and aunts and help establish the significance of the anniversary of her mother’s death.

“‘But we’re both adults. Who cares? I feel like millennials are kind of obsessed with aging.’ He says this with a raised brow. He is challenging me. I can’t even be mad. Somehow everything this guy does is just kind of, fucking endearing.”

In one of Cassia and Ellis’s first interactions, Ellis proves himself to be playful yet authentic and bold. Ellis doesn’t accept Cassia’s excuses or reasoning for not being together at face value. His ability to challenge her without being condescending impresses her. The diction echoes this point; the juxtaposition of Cassia’s profanity with the word “endearing” suggests the complexity of her feelings in the moment—wanting to be annoyed yet finding herself charmed. This moment acts as their meet-cute, a trope in the romantic comedy genre, and a key instance of connection between the love interests.

“But I am feeling time passing, that restlessness of wanting to get started on this lifetime partnership thing. It’s a new feeling. My twenties and early thirties were busy and fulfilling—like the life Ellis shows on social media. I was too focused on having adventures and building my career to think about settling down.”

Cassia’s internal monologue expands on the theme of Personal Desire Versus Familial and Cultural Expectations. While Cassia values the “busy and fulfilling” aspects of her youth and of Ellis’s current life, she feels pressured by her family’s traditions and business “to get started on this lifetime partnership thing.” Cassia isn’t following her own impulses or desires but is instead clinging to order and destiny for a sense of control.

“My entire world narrows to the rhythm of our breaths, the taste of his skin, an overwhelming sensation of yes. There’s nothing else—no past, no future, nothing—a sense of pure freedom. When I come undone, he’s right there soon after and we find each other’s lips at the same time.”

This intimate scene between Cassia and Ellis conveys the intensity of their connection. While having sex with Ellis for the first time, Cassia finds herself transported to a new realm of experience. She is typically consumed by angst over the past and worry over the future, but in this moment of sexual connection, these anxieties dissipate. Ellis frees her from her concerns and lets her experience uninhibited pleasure.

“It’s the first time, ever, when dating anyone, that I’ve admitted to the fact that I probably want to have children one day. That, at some point, I have to commit to the idea and stop fucking around. And I’ve never admitted it because unless I was talking to Daniel Nam, it wouldn’t matter.”

Cassia’s admission about wanting children marks a turning point in her character arc. Cassia hears herself sharing the truth with Ellis, realizing that her ability to declare what she wants while on a date is a change. Cassia identifies this moment as important because she has never known how to listen to herself independent of notions of prescribed destiny.

“But I shouldn’t be baffled by the luck of it all. Because I’ve known my entire life that luck isn’t real. That everything is meant to be. That even having your mother die on your eighth birthday was already in the cards. But the shock of it—his connection to Ellis—that’s what I can’t get over.”

Cassia’s thoughts about fate and luck further the novel’s theme of belief in destiny as both a comfort and burden. Cassia brusquely dismisses the notion of luck because she has crafted her entire life and identity around her family’s beliefs about fated loves. The use of anaphora, or the repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive clauses, suggests Cassia’s efforts to persuade herself on this point: She has to believe that destiny is a very real and powerful force—otherwise she will come unmoored.

“And within half an hour, I am so relaxed I can’t remember how my birthday ever bothered me. Yes, my mother died. But Jesus Christ, woman, it happened thirty-two years ago! You’ve been in therapy for half your life, and you have the most loving family in the world. You have magical abilities that let you kinda time travel and help people find love. You have an incredible life.”

The tone of Cassia’s narration changes in this passage as she loosens her hold on the future and lets herself enjoy the present. She is in Joshua Tree and has taken mushrooms and drunk wine, all of which offers her a chemical and sensory retreat from reality. While her relaxed state of mind is manufactured, this moment shows Cassia’s ability to put her experiences and circumstances into perspective. Cassia is realizing that changing her environment can heal how she sees herself and her life.

“But then I sense the two men next to me. On my left, the warmth coming from Ellis, the pureness of it. It electrifies me. On my right, the heat coming from Daniel. The mystery of it, the allure. It makes me curious.”

Cassia’s experience at the sound bath intensifies the narrative tension. The image of Cassia lying between Ellis and Daniel represents the love triangle between them and Cassia’s competing feelings for both men. She feels “warmth” from Ellis and “heat” from Daniel, implying that she has a connection with both of them but that the nature of the connection differs. In an instance of irony, Ellis, who otherwise represents unpredictability and adventure, appears to offer greater security than Daniel, whose “heat” is alluring but liable to burn out. The passage thus foreshadows that Ellis in fact represents the better long-term choice for Cassia.

“Halmoni reaches for my hand and I hold it tight. I don’t want to let her down, I don’t want to fill her life with any more pain. And I won’t.”

This intimate moment between Cassia and Halmoni illustrates the theme of personal desire versus familial and cultural expectations. When Halmoni touches Cassia’s hand, she remembers the importance of making her grandmother happy. At the same time, pleasing Halmoni means causing herself more pain.

“Because it’s just a fact: When we get the past loves right, the connection is undeniable. I think about Daniel’s eyes catching mine over and over again at the bonfire in Joshua Tree. At how he bumped into me hiking. What it feels like when our hands touch.”

Cassia’s internal monologue in this passage underscores her fearful desperation to believe in fated loves. She continues to cling to the idea that Daniel is her destiny and seeks evidence for it in their most recent interactions. Cassia is determined to follow the path laid out for her because she is caught in a Conflict Between Inherited Stories and Self-Authored Identity, another key theme.

“I appreciate his steadiness, his clear-eyed view of what he wants. We’re similar, and maybe that’s the trick to making relationships work: an ease, a lack of friction in desires. I remember Ellis—going where the wind takes him.”

Cassia compares Daniel and Ellis, magnifying the conflict created by this love triangle and drawing attention to the novel’s use of the “opposites attract” romantic trope. Whereas Daniel is “clear-eyed” and “steady,” Ellis is a free spirit who feels comfortable letting chance direct his path. Cassia tells herself that she and Daniel are more alike because she has been told that they are meant to be together. She is still following the story her family has written for her rather than writing her own.

“The everydayness of this moment suddenly hits me in the chest. The possibility of it. A family eating dumplings, a mom sharing her favorite music with her son. The kids running around while Mom and Dad do the dishes in comfortable, companionable silence.”

Cassia and Ellis’s unplanned domestic evening with Marcella’s children helps Cassia understand what it is that she wants for her life. The scene she describes is the scene that she longs for—for once, her reality aligns with her dreams. This moment marks a change in Cassia’s path and challenges her to embrace her desires over her family’s.

“Daniel’s right. There is something so comforting about knowing that the person you’re with gets it. The grief that takes different forms every hour of the day. Sometimes it’s monstrous and suffocating. Sometimes it’s a fixture as mundane as a persistent backache.”

Cassia and Daniel naturally connect over their shared experiences of loss. Like Cassia, Daniel has lost his parents and has been reluctant to share this pain with people who haven’t experienced the same. In this moment, Cassia finds comfort in these overlapping personal histories, hopeful that this is a sign of their compatibility.

“And when my mother rejected her fated—her relationship with her parents fractured. With Halmoni. So, love isn’t an easy concept, a given, in my family. It’s way more complicated and for the first time, maybe ever, I wish that we were just normal.”

Cassia’s meditations on her mother’s relationship with her family offers new insight into Cassia’s family situation. While Cassia genuinely loves Halmoni, Emoni, and Sunny, their dynamic is complicated. Cassia knows that loving them and being loved by them has conditions—something she learned from her mother’s story. She believes that if she strays from their expectations, she will hurt them and lose them.

“I move through the next weeks as if in a dream. Everything is falling into place, everything feels so right. Our date calendar is on fire, constantly updated. There is such an ease in folding Daniel into my daily life. On the days we start together […] we brush our teeth at the same time, our electric toothbrushes whirring while the kettle is heating up water for coffee.”

Cassia’s description of her and Daniel’s dating life conveys her desire to believe in what they have. She wants everything to be “falling into place” and to “feel so right,” so she tells herself this is true, identifying their updated calendar and tooth-brushing routine as evidence of perfection and contentment. What the passage—and Cassia’s life—lacks is unpredictability, newness, and surprise, as evidenced by the fact that she can so easily “fold” him into her existence. By contrast, her relationship with Ellis challenges her as much as it offers her safety.

“It’s not like I really hurt Avery, but there was something in there that was spiteful and I know Ellis sensed it. The way he senses everything. The first embers of resentment start burning in me—at having been pressured to come to this wedding when it’s probably a very bad idea.”

Cassia enters a reflective state of mind after the chicken fight incident at Max’s wedding. The situation feels weightier to Cassia in retrospect because it reveals her discomfort. Cassia has lingering feelings for Ellis when she attends the wedding with Daniel, something she hasn’t had the space to process before publicizing her and Daniel’s relationship. The moment creates a tense narrative mood and foreshadows rising tensions within the love triangle in the coming chapters.

“‘But you know, it was so…humane. The way they dealt with it. They forgave each other after really letting the other suffer for a bit. I don’t know, it feels so radical in a way. They understand that all of this’—he waves his hands kind of vaguely—‘is imperfect. That the bad is part of it.’”

Ellis’s reflections on Max and his new husband’s relationship history provide insight into how he sees love and relationships. To Ellis, love isn’t idealized or free of struggle. Rather, love is what a couple continues to share in spite and because of all the difficulties they have met together. His point of view challenges Cassia’s notions about love, expanding her outlook.

“‘I…I want a big, grand love story.’ Saying it out loud takes effort, takes something from me. It’s a yearning that, as a woman, you learn to keep locked tight. Because to reveal it would make you feel like you’re wearing your organs outside your skin. Daniel’s smile is gentle in the harsh daylight.”

Cassia’s fear of admitting her desire for a great love story reveals her insecurity about expressing her own desires, a point underscored by the visceral analogy to turning one’s body inside out. The image of the “harsh daylight” further suggests Cassia’s sense of exposure, even as it contrasts with Daniel’s kind reaction. The moment contributes to the theme of personal desire versus familial expectations, showing how following her heart is a point of shame for Cassia.

“Who is the person to best navigate the chaos of life with? Do I want a relationship that feels like a slow, steady burn—one full of shared passions and big plans? Or do I want one that feels electric and unexpected—digging my bare hands into the dirt and accepting life’s surprises?”

The questions Cassia asks herself about Daniel and Ellis during the Frogtown River Park opening create a searching narrative tone while conveying how Cassia has changed. By this juncture of the novel, Cassia is more willing to question the notions of fate and destiny that she grew up with. She is seeking answers on her own terms as she tries to reconcile the conflict between inherited stories and self-authored identity. The metaphors and imagery that she associates with each choice are revealing; in particular, her description of a life with Daniel unites diction that evokes excitement (“electric”) with a comparison that suggests organic growth and groundedness (“digging my bare hands into the dirt”), implying that he satisfies Cassia’s need for both stability and surprise.

“‘Who cares? We’ve seen each other more than that. We keep seeing each other,’ he grinds the words out. ‘There’s something bigger here, something that could be so great. And you won’t let it happen because of my age? Or is there some other secret thing you won’t tell me?’”

In this dialogue with Cassia, Ellis uses a fierce, impassioned tone for the first time. Most often, Ellis defers to Cassia because he cares for her. Here, Ellis makes his feelings known and stresses his deep interest in Cassia despite her excuses. His final words also speak to the truth Cassia is hiding from him about face-reading and fated loves—information that will surface by the novel’s end.

“‘Because of Ellis!’ she cries out, emotional in a way that is so unlike Sunny. ‘I saw that fight and then I saw you talking to Ellis after. And I realized we’ve made a huge mistake keeping this from you. Not to mention your reaction to Daniel saying he wasn’t sure about being a dad. I saw how it shocked you. And I just…I don’t want you being with someone just because he’s your fated!’”

Sunny’s impassioned speech after the fight between Ellis and Daniel spurs Cassia toward change. Sunny reveals the truth about Evette and Matthew and thus comes clean about the lies the family has told Cassia. At the same time, she encourages her niece to live the life she wants and empowers her to do so by validating her feelings and experience.

“The thing is, Cassia…Fated loves? That’s your family’s religion. It isn’t mine. I just loved your mom. And that love was so intense—I believe that we loved each other in other lives. But in this life, I wasn’t brave enough to stick around.”

Cassia and Matthew’s conversation grants Cassia a new perspective on love, fate, and destiny. Although Matthew and Evette were fated, Matthew helps Cassia understand that fated love is not flawless and that destiny can still contain an element of chance. He and her mother were still human despite their intense connection. His honesty and authenticity challenge Cassia to find her own personal understanding of love and fate.

“I love how well you take care of the people in your life and your beautiful home and your cranky bird. I love pretty much every physical part of you to the point of craziness. Even that mole that you’re self-conscious about. I haven’t been able to think of touching anyone else ever since I touched you. And…I love the way you…believe in love so much that it’s your job.”

Ellis’s profession of love to Cassia underscores his deep investment in and commitment to her. Rather than just saying he loves her because they are destined, Ellis lists all of the specific intricacies of Cassia’s life and character he admires; the use of polysyndeton, or grammatically superfluous conjunctions, creates a sense of overflowing emotion, as though Ellis cannot contain all the ways in which he loves Cassia. His words are heartfelt and create a warm, intimate tone, suggesting that he and Cassia are meant to be together simply because they see each other clearly.