Dreamland: A Novel by Nicholas Sparks Read Free Book Online

like to grow up in Chicago, especially considering you have to carry Mace when you go out?”
    She burst out laughing. “Lincoln Park is very safe. It’s kind ofa fancy area. Big houses, big yards, big leafy trees. Ridiculous decorations for Halloween and Christmas. I camped out in the backyard for a slumber party once, though my dad did stay on the porch all night. It wasn’t until I was older that my mom and dad bought the Mace, and it had more to do with me going off to college and to frat parties or whatever.”
    “Did you go to a lot of frat parties?”
    “A few,” she continued, “but I was pretty busy most of the time. I did go to a formal, which was fun, even though I didn’t really like the guy all that much. But, okay, about me: In a lot of ways, it was a typical childhood, I guess. School and some after-school activities, like most people…” When she trailed off, I thought I detected a hint of reticence.
    “And your family?”
    “My dad’s a surgeon. He emigrated from the Philippines in the 1970s to study at Northwestern. He ended up going to medical school at the University of Chicago, where he met my mom. She’s a radiologist, German-Irish stock from Minnesota. Her family had a cabin on a lake up there, where we spent a part of every summer. And I have a sister, Heidi, who’s three years younger and looks nothing like me, and even though we couldn’t be more different, I think she’s amazing.”
    I smiled. “Your family sounds anything but typical.”
    “I don’t know,” she replied, then shrugged. “A lot of my friends’ parents were doctors or lawyers, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, and their families came from all over the world, too. I don’t think my family stood out at all.”
    Where I’m from, they definitely would. “And you’re the same kind of overachieving academic as your parents, I take it?”
    “Why would you say that?”
    “Because you just turned twenty-one and you’ve already graduated from college?”
    She laughed again. “That had less to do with grades and SAT scores than my desire to get away from my parents. Trust me—my sister is a lot smarter than I am.”
    “Why did you want to get away from your parents?” I asked. “It sounds like you had a pretty comfortable life.”
    “I did, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I’m not,” she hedged. “But it’s complicated. My parents can be…overprotective.”
    When she paused, I glanced over at her. In the silence, she seemed to be debating how much to tell me, before finally going on.
    “When I was seven, I was diagnosed with a pretty severe case of scoliosis. The doctors weren’t sure how my condition would progress as I grew, so in addition to having to wear a back brace for sixteen hours a day, I ended up having a bunch of surgeries and procedures to fix it. Obviously, since my parents are doctors, they made sure I saw the best specialists, but as you can imagine, they worried and hovered and wouldn’t allow me to do the things other kids did. And even though I eventually got better, it’s like they still see me as the damaged little girl I once was.”
    “That sounds rough.”
    “Don’t get me wrong. I know I’m not being completely fair to them. I know they care about me; it’s just that…I’m not like my parents. Or my sister, for that matter. Sometimes it feels like I was born into the wrong family.”
    “I think a lot of people feel that way.”
    “That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
    I smiled. “Does that mean you’re not going to become a doctor?”
    “Among other things,” she admitted. “Like…I love dancing, for instance. I started in ballet because the doctors recommendedit, but I got hooked. I also learned tap, jazz, and hip-hop, but the more I got into it, the less my parents approved, even though it was good for me. Like I wasn’t quite measuring up to their expectations, you know? Anyway, to answer your question, by the time I started high school,