Hannah shrugs. “I think most people use it to mean half white and half Asian, but honestly? Every single person in our little group is half something, technically. Gareth is half Filipino and half Samoan. Kai is half Japanese and half Korean.” She looks at me. “What are you mixed with?”
“My mom is half Japanese and half Hawaiian,” I say.
“And your dad?” she asks.
“White. Irish, I think. We don’t speak.” I kick my heels into the sand.
“Sorry,” she says.
“I’m not,” I say, but I change the subject anyway. “Kai calls me ‘hapa’ all the time. Should I be offended?”
Hannah snort-laughs. “Some people don’t like the word, but a lot of people embrace it. I guess it means something to their identity, whereas it doesn’t for me. But if you don’t like it, just tell Kai to shut up. He needs to hear it now and then. People with faces as pretty as his never hear it as much as they should.”
As if on cue, Kai erupts with laughter. The three of us look out toward the ocean’s edge, almost missing the moment Gareth concedes a wave to Kai, who pops his feet up on his board and stands just as the frothy water builds up around him.
For the briefest pause in time, the world seems to still. Kai’s arms are spread wide like they’re wings preparing for flight. His electric smile is as wild as ever, and his face has a kind of serenity I’ve never seen before. It’s like he doesn’t know what it means to be anxious or worried or nervous—he simply exists in the world. He accepts it, like a bird ready to fly no matter the weather.
And then time remembers itself. The wave moves—Kai moves—and for a moment he becomes sea and salt and shadow. It’s kind of beautiful. And freeing.
I wish I could feel like that.
Kai emerges free of the wave, and suddenly he’s whooping toward Gareth still out in the calm. I can’t hear what Gareth shouts back, but whatever it is makes Kai laugh all the way to shore.
For about thirty seconds, I forget about Lea. Like, I really forget. I forget why I’m here, and how she died, and that she doesn’t exist anymore. And I start to live—for thirty whole seconds—until I realize what a selfish asshole I am for forgetting about her so easily, and for hiding out here on the beach when I should be trying to finish our song.
Lea would’ve never forgotten about me so quickly. She always treated me like I was the most important person in her world—like she’d always have time for me. Like she’d always make time for me.
A memory
Mom’s at work when I get home, which is good because I slam the front door so loud it practically makes the house shake. Or at least, it feels like it’s shaking, probably because I’m shaking.
When I get to my room, I throw the door open and let my backpack plummet from my shoulder to the floor. The weight of the textbooks makes Lea jump. She looks at me from her bed, her eye shadow palette in one hand, an applicator in the other.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks. One eye is purple and shimmery and lined with black. The other is still bare. I don’t know why she insists on applying makeup that way, one eye at a time, instead of doing it in stages like a normal person. Eye shadow, eyeliner, then mascara. It isn’t rocket science.
“Nothing,” I reply too fast.
She tilts her head to the side and makes a face. “Liar.”
I sink into my bed, too angry to hold myself up. “I don’t want to talk about it.” My eyes follow the many outfits thrown around the room. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Marley’s having a party at her house. Ben is going to be there.” She widens her eyes like this is major news. And to her it is—she’s had a crush on Ben all semester. Something about his green eyes and pouty lips.
I can’t relate.
I groan. How is it possible that my fourteen-year-old sister has a more exciting social life than I do?
Lea places her eye shadow next to her but keeps the brush between her fingers. “Okay, I’m not going to finish getting ready until you tell me what’s wrong. And for the record, hanging out with Benjamin Blythe is, like, the most important thing that will happen to me this entire year. So please don’t make me late.”
I roll my eyes and tuck my hair behind my ear. “They kissed, okay? And not by accident, like they got too drunk or their faces smashed into each other in the hallway. They actually kissed. On purpose.”
She frowns and puts the brush down. “Caleb and Alice made out? Like, with tongue?”
“Of course with tongue. It’s Caleb. He’s been kissing girls with his lizard tongue since the fourth grade.”
Lea gets up from her bed and finds a space next to me. “Well, this is good, right? You said it’s been awkward since you turned him down. Maybe now it will go back to normal.”
I blink at her. “I can’t take you seriously when you look like half a clown.”
She snorts and jabs me in the ribs.
I let out an agitated sigh. “I don’t care that they’re together, or whatever. I care that everything is changing. Everyone is moving on, and growing up, and I just feel so left behind.”
Most other people my age have crushes—they’re attracted to each other and have the urge to flirt. I don’t feel anything like that—when I think about romance, I feel indifferent. When I see someone I think is physically attractive, I don’t picture them naked or wonder what it’s like to kiss them—I just see people who are aesthetically pleasing and could potentially make a good friend.
And it never used to feel like I was missing out on anything. I always felt like I was the way I’m supposed to be. But then high school started and suddenly everyone became so confident and knowledgeable about dating and sex and sexuality—and honestly? I’ve never felt more different in my entire life. I feel like the world is shouting at me to make decisions I’m not ready for.
I lift my shoulders. “I’ve tried to like boys. I’ve even wondered if I like girls—or both. But I don’t like anybody. I can see when people are attractive, but I don’t want to date them. I don’t want to hold hands, or flirt, or . . . kiss. And I don’t feel like I have fewer pieces than anyone else, or that I’m somehow less whole because I don’t want to date. But I feel like I’m supposed to feel that way.” I frown. “Does that make sense?”
Lea scrunches her nose at me and laughs. Of course it doesn’t make sense to her—she’s like Alice. They’ve been interested in boys since kindergarten.
Still, she shoves my knee with her hand and smiles. “It doesn’t have to make sense to me. It just has to make sense to you.”
“But it doesn’t.” I press my teeth against my bottom lip and shake my head. “That’s the problem.”
Lea trails her finger along the threads of my blanket, thinking. “Well, maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe you don’t have to know everything about yourself right this second. Maybe you’re still figuring it out.”
“What if I never figure it out? What if I get to college and it takes me six years to pick a major, and three years after that I change my mind and have to start all over again? What if I think I don’t want kids, and then when I’m fifty I think I made a mistake but it’s too late? Or what if I pick the wrong guy—or girl—and they end up leaving me with two kids and I have to get two jobs to be able to pay the bills?”
Lea relaxes her shoulders like she finally understands. “You’re worried you’re going to end up like him.”
I make a face and take a deep breath through my nose. I didn’t turn out like Dad on purpose. Sometimes I don’t even understand how it’s possible when he was never around. But I know what it feels like to not feel settled. I know what it feels like to feel confused about everything.
I’m my father’s daughter whether I like it or not.
Whether Mom likes it or not.
And I hate that I can’t make up my mind. I hate that understanding myself isn’t as simple as doing a Google search on what I’m feeling. I hate that one moment I think I know who I am, and then the next moment I’
m second-guessing myself and feeling like a fraud.
“What if I’m already like him? What if I spend my entire life feeling lost?”
What if me being so much like him is the reason Mom likes you better? What if it’s the reason everyone likes you better?
I bite the inside of my cheek and keep the rest of my questions to myself.
Lea rests her head on my shoulder. “Well, then you can move in with me and we’ll figure it out. Together. Preferably before you ever consider abandoning your children.”
I lean back against my sister. She makes it so easy to like her. I wish it came that easily to me.
I start crying again without meaning to. Life comes so much easier to people like Lea and Alice. They know what they want, and they aren’t afraid to go after it. They’re so sure of themselves—so certain they aren’t making mistakes.
Knowing myself should be the easiest thing I do in life, but somehow it feels like the hardest.
Lea doesn’t rush me, or tell me I’m being silly. She sits with me, because she knows that’s what I need.
When my breathing slows I pull away. “You should probably finish getting ready. I don’t want you to be late for your party with Ben.”
Lea jumps up from the bed, and I think she’s going for her eye shadow palette, but instead she finds our lyric notebook and tosses it on the bed next to me.
“I’m not going anywhere. We have a song to write,” she says.
“I’m fine. Honestly.” I shrug. “You don’t need to change your plans because of me.”
“I’m not leaving you alone when you’re upset. Mom’s not home—you need me.”
“Lea—” I start.
“Rock,” she interrupts.
I smile. “Clown.”
She giggles. “Sisters.”
Lea was the most selfless person I ever knew. She would drop everything she was doing to make sure I was okay. She was thoughtful, and good, and so easy to love I can’t understand why I was ever horrible to her.
And now she needs me—she needs me to finish our song—and I’m too weak and scared to find my way back to the music.
I’m letting her down again.
Maybe I deserve what’s happening to me now. Maybe the universe is trying to teach me a lesson. Because even though Mom is selfish for leaving me alone, I’ve been selfish most of my life too.
I was selfish for not giving Lea her last wish. I was selfish for always wanting to keep Mom to myself. I was selfish for always quashing Lea’s happiness, when all she ever did was try to make sure I was happy.
And I’m selfish for sitting here on the beach socializing with people like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like it’s normal to talk to people. Like my life is normal.
I lost my sister. Nothing will ever be normal again.
The knots build in my stomach until they’re pushing so hard against my heart that I feel like I’m going to pass out.
I stand up and dust the sand from my shorts. Lea’s shorts. “I just remembered I have to help my aunt with something,” I lie.
Jerrod looks up from his brightly lit screen. “Okay. See you.”
Hannah squints up at me like she’s only now noticing there’s something wrong with me. “It was nice to meet you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I start walking home, back up the path Kai drove us down, and find myself at a dead end filled with chickens and a couple of bizarrely calm stray cats.
I think I might be lost.
I turn back around, trying to keep the hills on my right because it’s the only visual marking I can remember from the drive here, when I hear a car honk from behind me. I look up to see Kai in his mom’s car. He pulls over and rolls down the window, his hair slicked back with salt water that still hasn’t had time to dry.
He folds his arms over the top of the steering wheel and leans forward. “Do you know where you’re going?”
I look around. There’s blue sky and ocean to my left and a hill to my right that looks like someone sprinkled it with soft, green leaves. Nothing about this place looks familiar because nothing about it is familiar. This isn’t my home. This is someone else’s home—I’ve just been thrown into it because nobody knew what else to do with me.
Kai motions to the seat next to him. “Come on, don’t be stubborn. I’ll drive you home.”
I slide into the passenger’s seat, and the car climbs the rest of the hill and makes a quick right into a neighborhood.
“How come you’re running away?” he asks, breaking the silence.
“I wasn’t running away,” I correct. “I just . . . shouldn’t be at the beach right now. I have something to do.” I open my mouth to explain that I have a song to write, and that if I don’t figure out a way to make music hurt less, I’m going to be breaking my promise to my sister. I’m about to tell him that finding my way back to music feels like running into a forest that’s dancing with wildfire. I’m about to tell him I keep finding ways to quit on our song, because I’m selfish and afraid and dying on the inside.
I close my mouth and swallow the words. Some things don’t need to be said out loud.
“You feel weird being around people without your sistah?” Kai asks like it’s the most casual thing in the world.
“Well, don’t beat around the bush,” I say dryly.
“I don’t really know how to talk about dead people.” He pauses. “Sorry, was that insensitive?”
“Very.” I laugh, and it surprises me. “But I don’t really care. I prefer it to what my aunt does, which is tiptoe around the subject like it’s going to set me off.”
I can hear the humor in his voice. “Will it? Set you off?”
“Almost definitely,” I reply. And then I look at him for half a second. “So why does everyone hate your dad?”
Kai laughs. “ ’Cause he’s unlikable. I can’t even make excuses fo’ him. We’re like oil and water. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if he’d been around my whole life, but he was stationed in Japan fo’ most of my childhood. Now that he’s back, I think he’s trying to cram eighteen years of parenting into one. It’s not really working.”
“That sucks.”
He shrugs. “It sucks about your sistah and mom, too.”
I raise a brow.
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “Sometimes things just come out of my mouth, you know?”
I settle into the seat. “Yeah. I do, actually.” Maybe neither of us has the appropriate filters to deal with so much heaviness. I mean, it’s not like they have a class in high school that teaches you how to cope with death. There isn’t a handbook for it—it’s like someone gives you the most difficult test in the world and expects you to pass on the first try.
Death is supposed to be natural, but it literally makes no sense. I don’t understand how someone can exist one minute and be gone in the next. And why? Why is that it? What’s the point of being good or brave or kind or hopeful when it just goes in a flash? Where’s the meaning in that?
Kai taps his thumb against the wheel when we pull up at a red light. He’s singing so quietly along to the radio that I can barely hear him, but it isn’t terrible. In fact, it’s kind of good. He sings completely in key.
“I didn’t know you could sing,” I say. I’d rather we kept talking. It keeps my mind on something other than my pain.
Kai smirks. “Because you’re still assuming I’m some spoiled jock with rich parents?”
“Yes, actually.”
“I can sing because I like music. I’ve been in band since middle school.”
My eyes widen.
“See? You shouldn’t judge people so quickly,” he points out.
“What do you play?”
“Percussion.”
I laugh.
“Why is that funny?”
“You’re a drummer. If you had told me you played the oboe or bassoon, I would’ve been surprised. But the snare drum? The xylophone? Come on. Percussionists are the jocks of the ban
d room.”
“Why do you hate jocks so much? And people you think have money?”
“I don’t hate them. I think they’re clichés, and I hate clichés.”
He’s quiet for a second. “It makes so much sense now.”
“What does?”
“Why you’re so mean to me all the time.” His face breaks into a grin. “You hate that you might like the boy next door.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I say through his laughter. “I’m not mean to you, first of all, and if I am it has nothing to do with you being a cliché. It’s because I don’t see the point in making friends when I’m going home soon.”
“Yeah, well, I’m leaving too and I still like be your friend,” Kai says.
“Where are you going?”
“My dad wants me to join the navy,” he replies simply. “So I guess I’m leaving fo’ boot camp at the end of the summer.”
“That doesn’t sound like it’s your idea,” I say.
He twists his jaw. “I don’t really have a choice. My dad doesn’t think parents should pay fo’ their kids’ college. He says they should learn how fo’ work themselves.” He shrugs. “Hawaii is expensive, you know? The military might be my only option.”
“No it’s not. There are always other options. Plenty of them,” I say almost defensively. Kai has the whole world within his reach. He has options—more options than most. More options than Lea. “You don’t have to pick the same career as your dad just because he told you to. You should do what makes you happy.”
“You don’t know my dad. He’s never been proud of me before. I think we both need me to join the navy. Otherwise I’m not sure we’ll ever have anything in common. Besides, it’s not so bad. I can try get stationed here, do my four years, and then go to college.” He raises his hand like this isn’t a big deal. “Four years not the end of the world.”
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