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For Rees
WINTER
Prompt: On my mind is …
WINTER
Prompt: How do you see O‘ahu fifty years from now?
I thought Miss Wilson was talking about my eyebrow
when she asked me today
if I’m okay.
I rubbed my finger across it,
rough now where it was once smooth.
WINTER
Prompt: “… A movie, a phone conversation, a sunset—tears are words waiting to be written.” (Paulo Coelho)
Sunset.
Tears.
“Good work,” Miss Wilson said as she bent over my notebook. “You got the prompt down again today.”
Tears are words
Waiting to be written.
“Forget about the prompt if you can’t think of anything,” Miss Wilson added. “Just write words.”
I’ll write. I’ll get it together. I don’t want to get in trouble. That would make everything worse. If Miss Wilson calls Dad and tells him I’m not using class time wisely, the Detention Convention will be just the beginning.
Isabelle came back today. Everything’s normal again for her. It’s all behind her now.
That will never happen for me.
Use time wisely.
Write words.
Sunset.
WINTER
Prompt: What was your first impression of Our Lady of Redemption?
Notebook.
Whiteboard.
Just write words.
Prompt. Erasers. Posters. Wall.
Synonyms for “Said.” Web. Shelves.
To Kill a—
Words are tears
Waiting to be written.
Map. Flag. CD player.
Fire exit. Door.
Write words.
First impression at OLR. Doors—big and dark, holding all the unknown inside them.
* * *
“That’s your building there.” Eli pointed to the smaller square—dark doors, flat roof—beyond the pool, the plumeria, the yellow hibiscus.
I turned to wave goodbye to Dad once more, but he was already driving out the gate.
“That’s yours?” I asked about the other building—bigger, same dark doors.
Eli nodded. We were only separated by a couple of palms, a sidewalk.
“Yo, Eli!” they called out to him from across campus, skateboards under their arms, shirts half-tucked, shorts low.
Koa.
Just writing out those three letters together is terrible. Horrible. Small word. Great ache.
Tears are words.
Koa Okoto ran over, pushed his hair from his eyes. “We’re hanging out at Pipe later.”
Back then, I didn’t know what Pipe was—the Banzai Pipeline—the famous wave south of Sunset at Ehukai Beach.
“We can’t ride yet,” Koa said. “But we can watch.”
Mind-surfing, they called it, studying the swell, the break, the barrel.
“Why can’t you ride it?” I asked. It didn’t make sense that this boy—lean, long, strong, tan—who looked like he was born to surf, would rather watch than ride.
“Hey,” Koa said. He’d just noticed me.
“Why can’t you surf there?” I asked again.
“Respect,” Koa said. “You have to earn it. Pipe’s gnarly. If you don’t get her, she’ll swallow you whole, and she might not spit you out.”
In the years after that, as Koa and Tate and Macario raided our fridge and tried to thrill me with videos of wipeouts and waves, as Eli bribed me up to the North Shore with haupia pie, I’d learn everything anyone ever could about Pipeline, the most dangerous wave in the world, with a break so hard, it shook the sand. I’d find out about the coral, the curl, the currents, the timing, the takeoff, the lip that can turn even a master to a ghost. But there was really one thing to know. If the perfect wave ever came, it would come to Pipeline. And Koa would be ready for it.
The bell rang.
Koa asked me if I was over in the smaller square, and I told him, “Sixth.” Just one word.
Koa nodded, then turned to Eli. “So … you in? For Pipe?”
Eli smiled wide. “Yeah, for sure.” Ever since we got to O‘ahu, since that first day he went out to Canoe’s, he was never ever home.
Before starting off toward the bigger doors, Koa told me, “Yo, watch out for the Detention Convention.” But he was gone before I could ask what the Detention Convention was.
Eli shifted his backpack to his other shoulder. “Go get it today, Grom,” he said to me, then hurried to catch up with Koa.
Behind me, a white car, fancy, glided up against the curb. A girl got out. She was laughing. Sunlight shone on her hair—the shade of toasted macadamias. If I had hair like that, I thought, I’d never wish for anything else. I smoothed out the front of my shorts. The girl and me, we were technically dressed the same. But her shirt hugged her ribs just right. She was on her phone, waving toward the banyan tree, where a group she’s left way behind now was smiling, waving back to her.
* * *
Write words.
Desks. Computers. Trash can. Clock.
Use time wisely.
Orchid. Window.
Outside, the yellow hibiscus blooms and drops and blooms again, like it always has.
But a mile away, a white lantern hangs over the Okotos’ door.
WINTER
Prompt: Dessert.
My favorite dessert is …
That perfume. I know it. Square bottle, silver top.
She’s late. That’s the third time. She’s going to get detention now. Her macadamia hair swishes as she slides into the seat in front of me.
That perfume.
How could she say something so mean?
Write words.
Tali flower. Coffee cup. Crates. Folders. Globe.
* * *
We were at my house.
Brielle flipped the page of the October issue of Vogue, and notes of gardenia, wood, and lilies lifted up between us. We looked at each other, her eyes wide, the thing about the damselfly completely forgotten.
“Oh my God,” we squealed.
The picture was square bottle, silver top. White Gardenia Petals.
We rubbed our wrists all over the sticky strip, held them to each other’s noses.
“This will complete my life,” I told Brielle. “It will literally make my entire life worth living.”
We googled it. It was from London. On back order. Sold out after Kate Middleton wore it to her wedding.
Brielle tapped in her dad’s credit card number, told me it would ship in January. She didn’t mind waiting. She said if there was one thing she knew, it was how to play the long game.
We went back to rubbing our wrists on the strip. “It smells like candy.”
“Summer.”
“A bouquet of everythi—”
* * *
/>
“Please use class time wisely,” Miss Wilson said.
At first, I thought she was talking to me. I was staring off into space. But she was actually telling Tae-sung.
Write words. Get it together.
Dessert.
In front of me, Brielle is writing wildly. About what? Crème brûlée at the Waikiki Yacht Club? Her pen doesn’t leave the paper, and she doesn’t look up. She doesn’t look back. All I can see over her shoulder is the same kind of writing I noticed back in September—none of the letters touching each other, all so separate, wide spaces in between. Nothing has changed for her. She just keeps writing. How does anyone have so much to say about dessert?
Buzz’s coconut, limes on the side
Li Lu’s text: shes using u
Dessert
Would I ever stop seeing Koa—low shorts, pushing his hair from his eyes, “Yo…?”
Dessert.
Duke’s Hula Pie
Dad told Eli, “Do whatever you want.”
How can anyone write anything about dessert?
Dessert is the worst thing on earth.
WINTER
Prompt: War in the Middle East.
I can’t focus.
Notebook.
Scissors. Backpacks. Books.
Mobile. Papers. Tape.
Table. Tacks. Hand sanitizer.
Tissue. Light switch.
Clock.
Even Tae-sung is writing about the war. He’s writing and writing, like his life has kept happening. His and Henley’s, Brielle’s, even Isabelle’s now.
“It wasn’t as bad as everyone says,” Brielle is telling Isabelle about detention. But Isabelle isn’t listening. She’s writing about the war, like we’re supposed to be doing. If I were Isabelle, I’d never talk to Brielle again, either, no matter what. They were friends. I saw them hanging out at the mall a couple of times over the summer, also at The Dark Knight Rises. Then something happened. Now they hate each other.
Brielle is doing that thing where she’s trying to laugh off how Isabelle’s ignoring her. “People make a big deal about it, but it was actually kind of fun.” She keeps going, even though Isabelle keeps writing. “You can pretty much just do whatever you want in there. Personally, I caught up on BuzzFeed.”
But Isabelle is strong. She’s stronger than Brielle. After she stays silent, Brielle looks down and shrugs and says, “Whatever.” She rolls her eyes and starts writing, too.
Words.
The war in the Middle East. It’s a civil war, Mr. Montalvo had said. The people are all fighting each other.
Shes using u.
Li Lu and me, we won’t get pie at Buzz’s now, coconut, limes on the side. We won’t sign up for horseback riding session at Camp Mokule‘ia. We won’t make matching vases in ceramics.
Write words.
The war.
Last night, our history homework was to talk with our family about the war. Before, Dad would’ve loved talking about this. He would have gone on and on about the “conflict,” the “crisis,” the “social context.” “There are two kinds of people,” he would have said, “the authority and the opposition,” or something like that.
Mom would have told me about the war in a way I could understand—allies, enemies, rebels, power.
But Eli, even if he were around, I couldn’t ask him. He doesn’t get things like war. He doesn’t get anything that doesn’t have to do with surfing. I realized that at the Bon Festival. The dancers danced and the lanterns bobbed—pinks and greens, yellows and reds—and the flute and lute and koto plinked on. My hands stuck to the rail. Mascara melted into my eyes. I tried to untangle the mystery of it all—the dancers, the beauty, the past, the pain. Then Eli said that about the swells …
* * *
Write words.
War.
The Nightly News was on, but Dad wasn’t really watching it. “The war,” he said, sipping his Gordon’s sloe gin and tonic and scrolling through The New York Times. “It’s the few trying to rule the many.”
Just like Brielle had told me. “It’s just a game.”
Dad was tired. He was tired all the time now.
“There’s another thing,” I said. “We have to write why it matters. To us here in America.”
Does anything matter anymore, though? With Koa gone, and Tate gone, and Eli gone, does anything matter now?
Dad said, “What matters to America doesn’t always matter to Hawaii.”
“Dad, please,” I pressed. I didn’t want to get detention for not doing the whole assignment. “Why does it matter, though?”
He answered, “What matters to Hawaii doesn’t always matter to America.”
Then … “Oil,” he added finally.
One word—oil—cannot possibly be the whole reason something matters. Dad was too tired to help me, so I looked up the war myself. And even though I don’t really get it, Mr. Montalvo gave me full credit today anyway. I stayed out of detention at least one more day.
Fifteen minutes has turned into a long time to write in here.
One more minute. One more minute of using class time wisely.
Outside, there’s a white bird—a tern, I think Mom told me once—in the plumeria tree.
WINTER
Prompt: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” (Steve Jobs) Look back on the entry from September 4. What has changed since then?
Metals and wedges and MAKE IT MAJOR. I had no idea. About Brielle, mostly. The only thing I had any clue about was the trade winds. When they finally came, they changed everything.
* * *
The guitar guy had unplugged the amp midtrack, fighting the squall to coil the cable. In an instant, the Volcom House—three noisy stories of surfers and winter girls—behind us went silent. We stopped dancing. Then we booed—all of us—the pros, the semipros, the regular people. We booed wildly, and Pipeline’s waves beat and beat against the shore. Palms swayed, their fronds lashing. Flames from the fire cracked and spit, sending sparks in every direction.
I was laughing. The trade winds were all tangled up in my hair.
“You see Koa?” Eli came over and asked me, and I laughed louder and more. Eli was lit up green from the glow stick hanging around his neck. Ocean dripped from his forehead and chin. He wasn’t laughing, and that was even funnier.
“Parking lot,” Brielle pointed, even though Eli wasn’t asking her. By then, me and her were over, but she was still all in my business.
The waves beat, the palms swayed, the fire spit. It was maybe one, only four hours before the sky would light up. I was: white gauze top, peasant, with tassels, and the winds whispered across my bare shoulders.
“You want a lift, Grommet?” Eli asked.
Why was he leaving so early? Because of Stacy. At first, I thought I didn’t want to leave yet. Maybe the winds would die down and the band would start up again and we’d all keep dancing. Stacy could force Eli to leave, but she couldn’t force me.
Plus, right then I didn’t want to leave with Eli. He was in a bad mood, texting obsessively. I could get a ride with someone else.
I looked around, then over at Brielle. She was looking right at me. She’d heard Eli ask if I wanted a lift and was waiting to see if I was going with him, with Eli Harper, OLR senior, surfer, heading to Santa Cruz.
I knew what Brielle was thinking, wishing. It was everything I ever wanted.
“Sure,” I said, catching Brielle’s eyebrows shoot up.
Me, I was leaving with Eli. And Koa and Tate.
And Brielle Branson, she wished she had my life.
But that, that was before.
FALL
Prompt: Welcome to LA 8! Today, write about your summer break.
Taylor Harper, LA 8
I wrote that on the cover with the Sharpie Miss Wilson passed around.
Miss Wilson is new here. “Every day, the prompt will be up on the whiteboard,” she told us. We don’t always have
to write about it, though. We can write anything. We can just write words.”
It’s the most beautiful notebook I’ve ever seen!
Three hundred blank pages, if you write back to back. Mine is green. Brielle’s is blue. Henley’s and Isabelle’s are red. Tae-sung’s and Fetua’s are purple.
Fetua asked if we can take our notebooks home, and Miss Wilson said no—they’re just for school. Then Fetua asked if Miss Wilson will read them, and Miss Wilson said no again—they’re just for us. We’ll write every day for the first fifteen minutes of class. Tae-sung looked like he literally wanted to die over that.
Three hundred pages. I’m pretty sure by the end of this notebook, something amazing will have happened. Something big. Something that makes this year everything for me, like it is for Eli.
Eli’s applying to UC Santa Cruz. He’s leaving me behind, here alone, and it will be just me and Mom and Dad. Mom will worry all the time about where I am, and Dad will be on me about my grades, and it will all be completely boring. But at least I’ll still have Li Lu.
Or maybe, like Dad says, Eli won’t get into UC Santa Cruz. Maybe he’ll stay here a little longer.
Before I passed the Sharpie to Brielle, I added my favorite quote: “Fashion is not about looking back. It’s always about looking forward.” That’s from Anna Wintour (Vogue editor) (and Queen of Everything) (and hopefully my future boss).
Today is the beginning. It’s the start of making my own life happen, one step closer to getting out of here, off this island.
Out of nowhere, Brielle Branson just gave me a brand-new M·A·C Lipglass! For no reason. All My Purple Life, it’s called.
“Limited Edition,” she whispered. If Miss Wilson hears us, we’ll get detention.
My goal in life is to stay out of detention. My other goal is to write for Vogue. I already have my whole platform—MAKE IT MAJOR. I describe the look someone has, then MAKE IT MAJOR. It’s like this: Today, Miss Wilson is: flowy orange dress … South African, maybe, colors, prints, patterns like I’ve seen from Solange Knowles?
Taylor Before and After Page 1