One day when the mynah birds were extra loud and woke me up early, I texted him and asked what was outside his window in Lake Como, and he said buses and a bridge and a dirty canal. He asked what was outside my window, and I told him about the birds.
Henley asked me what kind of birds they were, and I told him they’d been brought here from India to eat the mosquitos that had been brought by a ship from Mexico. We learned that in Hawaiian studies. But the birds ended up being more of a pest than the actual bugs. They still are.
I asked Henley if the Italian girls were all dressed up in short skirts and scarves and flat-top sunglasses and statement earrings all the time, like I saw in Vogue and Elle, and he said he hadn’t noticed. He said he was ranking gelato flavors, and when I asked what was number one and he texted back a coffee cup emoji, I was pretty sure I’d found my soul mate.
Do u kno the Aquabats? I asked him. He didn’t, so I sent him a link to “Luck Dragon Lady.” If he were my soul mate, he would have to know the Aquabats.
After a few minutes, Henley texted back cool, which was a huge relief.
Then he sent the word enchiladas and picture of a small black cat with yellow eyes, her face in a plate of red sauce.
I wrote: is that ur cat?
And he sent back a smiley face.
Henley sent a lot of emojis. He liked gelato. He had a cat and liked old-school cooking.
But a lot of times, Henley seemed sad, like something in him was missing. Was it what he left behind when he came here? His mom? His friends? A girlfriend? He got to go to Italy and stuff like that, but he wrote slowly in his notebook, and he thought a lot about stuff. I wondered if that had to do with him getting kicked out of his old school. For possession, some people were saying. For computer hacking, other people said.
Two days before school started back up, Henley texted that he bought me something from Italy—and we were going to hang out at the mall or the beach or at Starbucks maybe. And then the whole thing happened. So I’ll never know what we could have been or even what he brought me.
At one point, in the hall, right when I came back, Henley seemed like he was going to say something to me, but I didn’t want to know what it was. I didn’t want to be even more wrecked. So I walked right past. I saved myself.
And now, Henley looks at me like Brielle just did. The same way everyone does—everyone here at school, and Koa’s mom, and probably Tate’s mom, even the checkers at Safeway. They see me the way I see myself. Toxic. The sister of the boy who erased his friends.
FALL
Prompt: You should have seen it …
At first, it was just Brielle and me at lunch. The lunchroom was hot—there are STILL no winds—and we were talking about Survivor. The new season premieres in nine days, and Miss Teen USA is one of the castaways! I hope she stays in the tribe till the end. It’s all about making alliances.
“What do you know about Colin Silva?” Brielle asked out of nowhere. At first, I thought that was random.
“Colin is … boring,” I told her. He sits in front of me in math and gets an A on every test, every time. He seems too smart to be there, like he could be in precalc, easy, even though he never raises his hand. When Mr. Peterson calls on him, he always has the right answer. And he does all his homework, too. Sometimes before class starts, I try to scribble out the last few answers. Colin doesn’t mind. He pushes his homework to the side so I can see. It isn’t cheating. It was a few problems, a few times, and Colin let me do it.
“Why?” I asked, correcting myself, telling myself nothing Brielle Branson ever does is random. She always has some kind of agenda. Even about Colin Silva.
“He’s a creeper,” Brielle said.
I had never thought of Colin as a creeper. Last year, he brought in malasadas for everyone on his birthday. No one does that in middle school anymore. I don’t know why not. Anyway, Colin was kind of embarrassed. Probably his mom forced him to do it or something. But it was amazing, having malasadas instead of working on ratios.
“Go ask him if he’s ready for the math test,” Brielle said.
“There isn’t a math test,” I told her. Our class had finished the unit last week. I got a B+!!! If I can keep going like this, I’ll get a B+ on my report card, and it will be the first B+ I’ve ever gotten in math and Dad will die of happiness, and maybe I’ll get placed in advanced math in high school like Li Lu.
Noelani and Li Lu sat down then, and Brielle said, “Taylor was just going to ask Colin if he’s ready for the math test.”
“Colin Silva?” Noelani asked.
Curly hair tucked into his collar, Colin was playing his Game Boy, just like he did whenever Mr. Peterson wasn’t looking.
“You don’t have a test?” Li Lu blurted, her chopsticks hovering over her bento box. “You had the unit test last week, you got a B+.”
Li Lu thought she knew my whole life. It was so irritating.
Brielle rolled her eyes. “Oh my god,” she told Li Lu. “That’s what’s funny about it. There isn’t an actual test.”
It was starting to sink in, Brielle’s agenda.
Brielle stared up at the fluorescent lights. “Everything’s fish-kicking boring at this trash school. Doesn’t anyone want to have any fun?”
“Taylor and I have fun all the time,” Li Lu snapped.
I glanced at Brielle. She cradled her face in her hands, popped her eyes like she had a stabbing migraine.
“’Sup?” Soo sat down.
“We’re talking about Colin,” Brielle said.
“Silva?” Soo asked. “What about him?”
Brielle said, “Taylor’s gonna ask him if he’s ready for the math test.” She paused before adding—to Li Lu, “But actually, there isn’t one.”
I definitely wasn’t going to ask Colin if he was ready for a nonexistent math test. That would send him into a complete panic. He’d die of heart failure, for sure. And I’d be responsible for that, no thanks. I was just going to let the whole idea fizzle out/go away.
“Oh my god, hilarious!!!” Soo was ruining that plan.
But then: “Taylor would never do something like that,” Li Lu blurted.
It was so embarrassing, Li Lu talking for me like that. Telling everyone what I would or wouldn’t do.
“Is that right, Taylor?” Brielle shrugged. “You wouldn’t ask Colin about a test?”
When Brielle put it that way, it seemed pretty harmless. Also, Li Lu didn’t have to know every single thing about my life before I even lived it.
I got up and walked over to Colin. “Hey,” I said.
Soo and Brielle moved to the edge of their seats, grinning. I didn’t look at Noelani or Li Lu.
“Hey,” Colin said back. He seemed surprised but also really, genuinely happy.
“So…” I coiled a strand of my hair around my finger. “Are you ready for the math test?”
Maybe it was the way I said it. Or how behind me, Brielle and Soo were whooping like hyenas. But Colin said, “I know what you’re doing, Taylor.”
My face flushed. I just could not stop that from happening. Also, my feet were somehow fastened to the floor.
“There isn’t a test,” Colin went on. “They told you to ask me.”
I looked back at the group. Li Lu was looking at me with actual scorn. She got up and tossed her whole bento box in the garbage.
Brielle was face palm, laughing with Soo. Noelani pushed her macaroni to the side.
Without telling Colin anything else, I went back and sat down.
“That was a better show than I even thought it’d be!” Brielle squealed. “A total, serious, epic fail! But A for effort, Taylor Harper!”
I felt kind of sick for a second. At first. Till: “Totes. It was RIDONCULOUS!” Soo snorted up some of her green smoothie.
The snort, the word, it was all pretty funny. Noelani laughed. I laughed.
“Brain freeze!!!”
“Ridonculous!!!”
Colin would live. There wasn’t a test
. It wasn’t that big of a deal.
“Ridarfalous!!!”
“Ridonkadonk!!!”
RIDONKADONK!!!!!!
We all lost it. We were dying, dying, DYING of death!!!
Literally everyone was watching Brielle and Soo and Noelani and me laughing and laughing and laughing wildly. I had seen groups laughing like that, and I’d thought they were so lucky. I had wanted to be laughing with them, wondered what they were laughing about. And now, everyone was watching, and everyone was wanting that, and everyone was wondering.
Colin wasn’t looking. He was back on his Game Boy. He was never going to let me see his homework again.
But we had a thing, Brielle and Soo and Noelani and me. We had a word, a joke, a code. We had something only we knew, only we got.
WINTER
Prompt: Lunch.
Lunch.
Lunch is the worst.
It’s worse, even, than it is in the halls. Or in the classrooms.
When I walk into the cafeteria, everyone stares. All the loud talking turns into whispers, and everyone points like I can’t see them, or maybe they don’t care if I can, and they shake their heads at each other—even Colin Silva, who I never even really knew.
Brielle and Soo still have green tea smoothies and sushi for lunch, and sometimes Li Lu sits with them now, too. I watch her throw away the steamed bun, the little orange slice, even the almond cookie her mom packs up for her. I watch her buy green tea smoothies and sushi instead. I wonder if Brielle has told her the secret. Or about the game.
I wish I had a sister to sit with, like Noelani does. Or a team, like Isabelle. Was she trying to warn me, that day in fall in language arts? Was she going to tell me Brielle was bad news?
I wouldn’t have listened. I wouldn’t have believed her.
So now, I leave Latin just before the very last person leaves class, and I hang out at my locker until the hall is almost completely clear. Then I go into the bathroom and wash my hands for a really long time, then I head over to the lunchroom. By then, the basketball players have slammed their sandwiches and Doritos, and they’re in the gym shooting around, and I sit at their table. By myself.
Lunch used to be fun. We would sit there, my group and me, talking and laughing. It was the best part of school.
How has it all changed back for Isabelle? She sits with the volleyball group again—Allie, Ellie, Oliana, Halia. They talk and laugh, like Isabelle’s whole life never unraveled. Like Brielle never unraveled it.
Hailey isn’t around anymore, though. For a while, people were saying she had mono and was taking online classes from home now. Then everyone forgot about her. I wonder if Isabelle has forgotten about her, too.
Everyone’s forgotten about the war. The coverage lasted five seconds. Now CNN and Nightly News are all about gun control and background checks and waiting periods and assault weapons and mental health.
Sister Anne asked me, “Are you interested in any school clubs or sports?” when she pulled me out of Latin on that first day back from break. “There’s theater, swimming, knitting, the paddle club, Grief Group…”
I did appreciate how she just added Grief Group right in there at the end. Like it was just another option along with all the other clubs, even though it was the whole reason she called me in.
“I’m okay,” I told her. I had never needed any clubs or sports. I had my family—Mom and Dad and Eli. I had Grammie Stella. Nine hundred one friends on Facebook, 143 Instagram followers.
I had Li Lu.
We used to laugh, and go to Bamboo, and talk out our plan to sign up for the same horseback riding session at Camp Mokule`ia. After that, we’d plan out high school, then the whole rest of our lives.
* * *
“It’s closed off now,” Li Lu said at Waikiki last summer. “There’s a guard and a gate and a million dollar fine. And who wants to walk up four thousand steps anyway?”
That was her take on the Haiku Stairs. It’s been closed since before I was here, since before she was here, since before we were born, even.
Not a lot of tourists asked us about the Stairs, but when they did, Li Lu shut it down like a boss. That day last summer, we were into making hibiscus flowers from silky material to sell to tourists. They could clip the state flower in their hair or onto their shirt. We burned the edges and hot glued the yellow petals on top of each other, with a deep red center. Then we went to sell them on the beach for $5 each. If we sold them all, we worked out, we’d get $125, and after getting lockets, the friendship kind, from Icing, we’d still have tons left over for manis and mochas and malasadas.
But the tourists didn’t want the flower pins. They wanted information. Like how to get to the Haiku Stairs.
“Try Mānoa Falls instead, or Makapu’u Point, or Diamond Head.” Li Lu was relentless.
If she’d just told the tourists what they wanted to know, we would have made at least some money. But they left, frustrated, without buying anything. We left, too. We stuffed the fabric flowers into a big pickle jar and went over to Icing anyway to get the “Friends Forever” lockets.
WINTER
Prompt: Have you kept your New Year’s resolution?
I didn’t make a New Year’s resolution.
It was sixteen days after the party at Ehukai. I was hiding in my room, trying to watch The September Issue or read People or listen to the Aquabats. I was trying to stay out of everybody’s way. I was trying to survive.
If Brielle knew that, would she have said what she did? If she knew that I was barely holding it together already?
Or maybe that’s why she did say it. “You’ll never get past this.” Maybe she knew it would ruin my life.
We didn’t even have Christmas. Could Brielle even imagine that? Could she fathom getting up in December with no presents, no stocking, no tree?
Dad spent the day on the phone, Eli had gone away, and Mom went to bed.
And if no Christmas, and no more Koa and Tate, and no more best friend, and Eli causing so many problems, and Mom in bed wasn’t enough, Brielle couldn’t stop herself from making it all so much worse.
If I made a resolution right now, it would be for Brielle’s life to be wrecked as bad as mine was because of her. For her to lose everything, like I have. For her to know how it feels.
* * *
“Santa Cruz, huh?” Brielle asked me after school, back in October.
I was standing at my locker, looking at the floor for the “Forever” locket that had just slipped off from around my neck.
People were all talking about who was applying where. Sophia was California. Macario was Oregon.
“UCSC,” Brielle said.
“Yeah,” I said. “He isn’t even applying anywhere else.” I picked up the locket and put it back on.
“What’s he going to major in?”
I wanted to know that, what he was going to major in. Why didn’t I?
I thought I knew everything about Eli. I should have known what his major would be.
“Let’s go to your house,” I said instead.
Finally, I was going to the Bransons’ huge house. In Kahala. With the closet everyone said was ginormous, complete with a velvet ottoman right in the middle and a whole wall just for shoes.
People said there was a movie theater with a popcorn machine. I could see it for myself, the Blue Room, and where Hayden Jones jumped from the roof into the pool.
“You know,” Brielle said then, “my house is boring. Let’s hang out at yours.”
It made me a little panicky, how my house was boring, small.
But before I could try to convince her to pick her house, she said she wanted to tell me something.
FALL
Prompt: Secrets.
Brielle said she wanted to tell me something. But she got all sidetracked by the damselfly first, then by the perfume.
My whole life, all I’ve ever wanted was a good shell and one perfect friend. Someone I could tell everything to. Who knew everything about
me, who I knew everything about, too. Maybe that friend was Brielle. On the walk home, even our steps were in sync.
I told Brielle about the shell, the best one I ever found, a big triton at Shark’s Cove. It was perfectly patterned with tan and cream, like someone had spent hours painting it. It was as big as my hand, its scallops perfect and sharp, the grooves smooth, with zero cracks and zero holes and not a single coral attached to it. It must’ve come from deep, deep down and would have been everything on the sill between the conch and the sunrise. But the spiky little creature was still living inside it, so Eli forced me to put it right back where I found it.
Brielle was fascinated. She liked talking about Eli.
I told her he had been writing something.
“What is it?” she asked.
I told her I had no idea. I hated saying that.
“Well if you don’t know something, you should always find out,” Brielle said. “You should see for yourself.”
“He’ll kill us,” I said, “if we go in his room. Let’s make popcorn and look at Vogue. What did you want to tell me?”
“Let’s try his computer. Is it here?” Brielle headed toward Eli’s room anyway, where towels were scattered all over, and bowls of cereal were left out, and hats and wax and rash guards and leashes were everywhere. I was completely humiliated for him.
“It’s probably just something about surfing, definitely about surfing,” I said, regretting telling her about Eli’s new obsession. I just wanted her to trust me. So she would tell me her secret.
Eli’s password was easy. I got it on the fourth try. Sunset.
But the document I pulled up, that was different. Random. Weird.
“Perched upon an alien strawberry guava leaf,” Brielle read, “one of O‘ahu’s most striking species is among the last one thousand on the island. This year, the endemic blackline Hawaiian damselfly—pinapinao in Hawaiian—fluttered to the top of the endangered list. At one to two inches long, the insect is found only in O‘ahu’s high rain forest, along its cleanest streams, its rainbow eyes reflecting the hypocrisy of hope and promise.”
Taylor Before and After Page 4