Emergency Contact

by Mary H.K. Choi

I loved this story. It was relatable, hard, goofy and sad.

Penny leaves for college, and she is so ready, like most 18-year-olds are. To leave the town she’d grown up in and the people she’d grown up with. A fresh start, one that she chose. A break from her mother and boyfriend she doesn’t really like.

Sam gets a fresh start of his own. A baby with an ex-girlfriend isn’t what he expected, nor passing out in public from a panic attack, or the girl that was there for him. And stays there for him, the one who became his only emergency contact.

Both think that the other only exist inside a screen, that a whole person out in the world can’t be in control of the words popping up.

When meeting in person can’t be avoided, it ends their distant friendship and forces them to finally see each other and what they were becoming to each other.

It’s a cute love story that gets heavy with real life shit. Bills, mother drama, work, and how a mental distraction affects every other part of life. How lonely college can get, and how life seems to take control and months pass before you notice.

I really related to Penny, not because I am overly prepared with supplies, or have mother drama, but because she is an introvert, and her train of thought doesn’t make sense to most people, her roommates are the interesting people, if she didn’t live with them, she wouldn’t exist in their universe.

One passage I really liked was:

“Real life might be dazzling for other people. Those girls on the Instagram Explore page, visiting Disneyland with the love of their lives. Or else making out in cars with their hair whipping wildly in the wind. None of Penny’s memories were tangibly” page 239.

That quote was so relatable because who hasn’t compared their lives with that explore page or wanted to be as carefree as others.

Sam was relatable too, a down on his luck kind of guy, the grumpy baker who lived above the coffee shop. Relatable in a way that his life is overwhelming sometimes.

These two complimented each other so nicely, both were outsiders, had a hard time growing up, had to do it too fast in a way that makes it hard to connect with people their own

age.

The ending of this story was well done. Penny opens. Allows people back into her life, and she takes control of it. She decides to take a trip to the beach even though its 3 hours away, just to be close to the water. The before Penny would say that the trip wouldn’t be worth it, that’s there’s no substantial value in taking that trip, but the new Penny just wants to take the trip for the fun of it. Decides what she wants, is worth it. She got out of her own way.

It’s a great read, I’m really glad picked it up!

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