Isha, Unscripted

Chapter 1

When Mummie sent me off to college ten years ago with a prayer over my head and a sweet to my lips, she'd said, "Excel in school, beta. Don't bring shame to your family."

Shame came.

Everyone and their uncle had my dad's ear on how he could've possibly allowed this embarrassment to continue. That was right. The Asian equivalent to American kids going to raves and experimenting was being a lit major. Every auntie locked up her sons when I came around toting my voluptuous love of the arts and sultry grasp of grammar. Forbid that my mastery over the written word seduce good Indian boys.

Worse yet? I left college.

Hello, two-time college dropout, was that you?

Third time was a charm. But it wasn't exactly what my parents had hoped for.

"A degree in film and theater!" Papa had bellowed. "Was that what I'd been paying for this entire time?"

Um. Yep. Surprise . . .

"Oh, ma . . ." Mummie had muttered, rubbing her temples in complete dismay and invoking the gods to ask what she'd done in her past lives to deserve this punishment.

I swore their yells haunted the house to this day like wraiths reminding me that I wasn't meeting my potential.

In the past six months, to make matters worse for a struggling creative soul, rent had skyrocketed (thanks, Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, and other Californians mass migrating to Austin and tipping over the market), and without a full-time job, I ended up moving back home.

Whomp-whomp. Adulting fail.

So here I was: twenty-eight, somewhat jobless, practically friendless, and living back with my parents. What a prize, right?

And, yes, yes, I know twenty-eight sounded too damn old to be living with one's parents. But not-so-fun life fact: things don't always turn out to our best expectations, no matter how hard we try.

To add insult to injury, I was destined to spend yet another Friday night home alone.

Papa grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter and tilted an invisible hat to me. "I'm

Sajni Patel is an award-winning author of women’s fiction and young adult books drawing on her experiences growing up in Texas, an inexplicable knack for romance and comedy, and the recently resurfaced dark side of fantastical things. Her works have appeared on numerous Best of the Year and Must Read lists, including Cosmopolitan, O, The Oprah Magazine, Teen Vogue, Apple Books, AudioFile, Tribeza, Austin Woman , NBC, Insider Reviews, PopSugar, BuzzFeed Books, and many others.