by Karina Halle
“You can call sometimes, you know,” she says to me stiffly, her chin raised. I know she doesn’t mean it, she just wants to keep up appearances.
I hug my dad next whose embrace is surprisingly strong.
“Sweetie,” he says to me, whispering in my ear. “I need you to call me tomorrow. On my cell. There’s something I have to talk to you about.”
I pull away slightly and stare into my father’s eyes. He’s alert for once, not drunk, and his expression is stark. He just gives a little knowing nod and then slaps me on the back.
I spend the cab ride back to the apartment wondering what the hell he wants to talk to me about. I get along better with my father than my mother, especially after coming back, but he still treats me like someone he’s not supposed to be seen with.
“How was dinner?” Claire asks as I step inside the door. Our apartment —well, her apartment—is really tiny and my bedroom isn’t much bigger than a closet, but it’s a million times more preferable than living on my own right now. For one, I couldn’t afford it, and I obviously wouldn’t move back home with my parents. And for two, after spending so much time with Kate as a roommate, I think I’d be lonely without someone there to talk to every night.
I groan loudly and throw my clutch on the couch beside her and shuffle over to the kitchen to bring a bottle of wine out of the fridge. A bonus of working at the wine store, endless bottles all the time.
“That bad, huh?” she asks, munching on a bag of salt and vinegar chips. I take my glass of wine and sit next to her, putting my feet up on the coffee table.
“Well it was more my mother than Arch, obviously,” I tell her.
“But I can tell it’s not really working out,” she says.
I shrug and she goes on. “Hey, it’s okay if it doesn’t. The point is that you’re trying. I never thought that Arch would be the one for you, but he seems like an okay guy. He buys really expensive bottles of wine, so there’s that.”
“But he’s a lawyer who went to Harvard,” I remind her. “And I’m pretty sure the only reason he said yes to me was because he found out my mother was deputy mayor. I think he thinks she can get him a new job or something like that.”
“Maybe. But don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’m not selling myself at all, Claire,” I say with a laugh. “I mean look at me. This was our sixth date and I’m here. He had a cab drop me off. Alone. The dude doesn’t even want to get laid.”
She mulls that over, chewing thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s gay.”
“Way to set me up with a gay man, Claire Bear.” I elbow her in the stomach.
She nearly spits out her chip. “Hey, how am I supposed to know? He agreed, didn’t he? Anyway, my whole point was to get you distracted and it worked. Besides, you’re a turbo-babe, you’ll have men lining up around the block once you put yourself out there, and this is the first step.”
“Turbo-babe?” I repeat, rolling my eyes. “Please. And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re also a turbo-babe, yet here you are still single.”
She gives me a haughty look, that on her baby face looks totally adorable. “I’m not denying my babeness, but I am picky and that’s okay. Maybe I’ll have better luck if I move to Hawaii.”
I know she’s joking but even the mention of the word Hawaii still burns deep inside.
“I don’t know,” I muse, trying to get over the feeling, “if you’re picky, you’re not going to have a lot of luck where most men don’t wear shoes.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Seriously?”
I shrug. By the end of it, I wasn’t wearing shoes around the compound either. In fact, I miss that, the feel of the spongey grass beneath my feet, the sun-warmed dirt and grains of sand.
She clears her throat. “So, how was your mom?” her tone is softer now. “On a scale of awkwardness.”
“A seven,” I tell her, taking an even larger gulp of my wine. “It was only awkward when Arch realized how fucked up we were. Other than that, I was able to ignore her.”
“And her touches of motherly love?”
That’s code for insults and passive aggression.
“Oh that was at an eight,” I tell her. “She brought up Juliet and the whole dinner went sideways.”
“Man,” she says, crumpling up the rest of the chip bag, “I honestly don’t know how you deal with all that.”
“Well you know,” I tell her. “A lot of tears and early morning jogs through the city, dodging muggers.”
She adjusts herself on the couch to face me, folding her leg under her. She pauses her Better Call Saul marathon on Netflix. “You know I never told you this, but I’m proud of you.”
I raise my brow and side-eye her. “Why?”
“Because, stupid, I don’t know how I’d handle being in the situation you’re in.”
Well it helped when I had someone who understood. I know sexual attraction is what ignited Logan and I to begin with, that and a sense of not belonging. But it was Juliet herself and who we were to her that furthered it on. We both understood each other like no one else could.
I sigh and finish the rest of my glass, placing it on the coffee table with a clink. “Family is complicated. You love them because they’re blood, but that’s only because you’re told you have to. What I had on Kauai…they were my family. Don’t get me wrong, you’re my family too. But at Moonwater, that’s where I felt I really belonged. I had everything. And it was all by choice. By people who chose to accept me as family and because they wanted to, not because they had to.”
“Then why did you leave again? Was it because you couldn’t handle anymore Jack Johnson?”
I swallow hard and give her an acidic look. “You know why. My mother would have destroyed everything he worked so hard for.”
“But don’t you think that should have been Logan’s decision?”
I close my eyes and lean back into the couch. “Yes. No. I don’t know. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about the choice I made. That maybe it should have been his choice. But I couldn’t live with myself if he lost that hotel on my account.”
“I don’t know the man,” she says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “But I would be willing to bet that he would have gladly given that place up for you.”
“I could never have asked him to do that.”
“And you wouldn’t have had to ask. He would have done it because that’s what you’re worth to him.”
I shake my head, pretending my fingernails are utterly interesting. “He would have resented me.”
“Ron,” she says, her tone sharp enough to make me look at her. “That isn’t how love works. You don’t resent each other. You gladly give up whatever you have to in order to keep the other. It’s a compromise and if you love someone, the compromise is always worth it. You don’t think about it, you just do it.”
I don’t want to argue with her. I don’t have the strength. The fact is, I would have lived with a lot of guilt if I had stayed with Logan and he lost the hotel. There’s no way I could have believed I was worth it, and I was already juggling my guilt over Juliet. If I stayed, it would have torn us apart. Even if Logan would have been okay with it, I wouldn’t have.
“It is what it is,” I tell her. “Somethings just aren’t meant to be.”
And at that, I get another glass of wine and watch a bit of Netflix with her before I drag myself off to bed. I’m not exactly tired, but I need to be alone to gather my thoughts and put them away in their compartments. It’s the only way I get through this.
My room looks like a transplant of Moonwater. I packed in such a hurry when I left that I didn’t have time to grab the souvenirs that I would have, and even though I had time in the airport, shopping for memories seemed like the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted to forget.
But now, now I’m trying to live in the memory. I have a trucker hat that says “Hanalei is my Bae” up on my wall and Java Kai stick
ers on my computer. I’ve printed out photos and created a collage inside a large tiki frame. I have little things too that I had randomly squirreled away during my time there. On my bookshelf I have a mini shrine, coasters that say Ohana Lounge, that Pupus t-shirt Charlie finally got us to order in, Moonwater Inn stationary I would often smuggle from Kate, along with the hotel’s plumeria-scented toiletries, and a few bags of Kauai coffee that they served in the hotel rooms. I haven’t had the heart to make it yet, figuring once the coffee is gone, it’s gone. Hanging on my dresser is a fabric lei that was left over from the luau, a few drink umbrellas I stole from Daniel, the party hat from New Year’s Eve.
I take the party hat off my dresser and hold it in my hands, turning it over.
This was the moment he kissed me in front of everyone. The moment that he told the world he wasn’t ashamed, that he was no longer going to hide who he was and what I was to him. This was the moment when I knew without a doubt that this was going to be the man I’d spend the rest of my life with. The moment that our first meeting all those years ago was building towards.
When I had first laid my eyes on Logan, staring across Lake Michigan, I knew he wanted to be somewhere else. Now I knew where he had been—already on Kauai. In mind, in heart, in spirit. And somehow I looked at him and I knew that’s where I needed to be too. Wherever he was, anywhere at all, as long as it was with him. I knew he was a man who could take me far away, to the future, to better versions of ourselves.
How different life would have been if Juliet hadn’t walked in at that moment. But then again, maybe we needed those years apart in order to learn what we really wanted. Logan and I were both blinded by her in our own ways, and in the end it was Juliet that kept us united.
So for that, I owe my sister the world.
A tear falls from my eyes, splashing on the hat. I take in a deep breath, trying to keep calm and steady. It’s nights like this that are the worst. When I come home and I’m alone and there is a world out there that I’m no longer a part of. My heart aches to belong again. It aches to belong to the island, to the spirit of aloha. It aches to belong to my friends, my ohana, and it aches to belong to him.
I close my eyes as the feeling rushes through me, trying to stay strong. I don’t want to cry over this anymore, I don’t want to want anymore. I just want to move on, I just want to be happy in the way I was happy before.
Tomorrow, I tell myself. Tomorrow see about a raise at your job. Tomorrow look for other positions. Go out and meet someone. Start anew.
It’s easier said than done, but I know it’s the only way I can move forward here. Going back to Kauai and Moonwater and Logan isn’t an option. I have to stop pretending it is.
I put the hat away and get changed into my tank top and shorts, turning up the small air conditioning unit in my room. It’s overly cold and I wake up with a stuffy nose, but it’s the only way to survive the summer here. It isn’t like Hawaii where a wooden overhead fan would suffice.
I’m just about to crawl into bed when I hear a faint knock at the front door. I eye the clock. It’s ten at night. I briefly wonder if it’s Arch having a change of heart, or perhaps one of the guys that Claire shuts down on a regular basis. Either way, we don’t normally get visitors at this hour, or really any hour. Claire and I aren’t exactly welcoming to people who randomly drop by. We don’t work that way and anyhow, that’s what the god damn buzzer is for and why we usually ignore it. Unfortunately, in our building, the main door is open half the time.
I’m about to go open my bedroom door and spy when suddenly there’s a knock at it and I jump back nervously.
“Ron,” Claire says quickly from the other side. “Ron open up, please.”
Oh god. What the fuck is happening?
I open the door an inch to see her peering at me wide-eyed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Someone is here to see you,” she says in a hush.
“Who? Arch?”
She just stares at me, her eyes going wider and takes a step away from the door, looking away toward the front door. She doesn’t say anything.
I frown and step out into the apartment. “What’s wrong with you?” I hiss before I follow her gaze. The front door is open and there’s a shadow in the hallway beyond it. I can’t see who it is. Everything about this is ominous.
“Claire,” I say to her. “Who is that?”
She just shakes her head and says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.”
I push past her and head for the door, my heart thudding against my rib cage like an animal trying to escape.
I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a wave, moments before the fall.
And then it happens.
I look out into the hallway.
Standing there, like he’s always been there, is Logan Shephard.
22
I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
My heart is lodged in my throat, my lungs have turned to stone. The only part of me that’s working are my eyes, blinking rapidly, trying to take him all in.
Because this can’t be what I’m seeing.
This can’t be him.
“Veronica,” he says and the sound of his voice, that beautiful, rich, accented voice, causes the rest of me to slowly come unglued.
He looks like he does in my dreams, the Logan I imagine whispering to me at night as I fall asleep, the Logan I cried over, wishing I could see him one more time in case my memories weren’t enough.
And they weren’t enough. Seeing him in the flesh makes me realize that my memories could never compare. Hair that remains dark and strong, thick, with the lightest amber highlights peppered through, no doubt from the sun, with just a hint of grey. His eyes that aren’t just brown, but mahogany and teak and the koa wood that the Hawaiians use, shiny and dark and rich. His mouth isn’t just full and wide, it twists crookedly even when he’s not smiling.
And he’s not smiling now. He’s staring at me with the same sort of pained awe that must be on my own face.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. My words feel so small, muffled by shock.
He stares at me, eyes searching, his chest rising as he breathes heavily. The hallway seems so stark and cold, too big for the both of us. I have to lean against the doorframe to stay upright, centered.
“I’ve come back for you,” he says, and I’m struck. By the strength in his voice, in the boldness of his statement. Struck by what this means. None of it makes any sense. To see him here in Chicago again feels like he’s been sucked into the wrong timeline. He should be strolling on the beach with a surfboard under his arm, driving around Hanalei with the top of his Jeep down, wind in his hair, coconut palms reflected in sunglasses.
“Do you want to invite him inside or what?” Claire says from behind me, her eyes shining as she looks between the two of us. “I’m going to bed. Just…if you don’t invite him in and sort your piles of shit out, you’re going to have one angry roommate on your hands come the morning.”
Then she turns and heads over to her room, closing the door behind her.
“Can I come in?” he asks quietly.
I nod, not finding the words, and head back inside.
It’s even stranger to have him in my place. It was small before, it’s smaller now, his large frame taking up all the space. But that’s nothing new. He’s always been larger than life, not just in muscle and height, but in energy. I can feel him burning like the sun, drawn to him like the moon. He’s a force of nature.
I can’t sit down. I can’t do anything but stand in the middle of the room and fidget, my arms at my sides, fists opening and closing.
I can’t take my eyes off of him. I’m afraid if I do, he’ll disappear, back into my dream.
Because I have to be dreaming, right?
“Freckles…,” he says.
And it doesn’t matter what else comes out of his mouth. My nickname. I haven’t heard it in so long. It brings me back, hard and fast, to the life t
hat was, the life where I was really me, the life I thrived in. Just hearing that, having Logan in my apartment, makes me realize that I was doing a piss-poor job of pretending to be happy, trying to move on. Who I am with him is who I am. Who I am in Kauai is who I am. I’ll never be able to pretend otherwise.
The pressure builds behind my eyes, warmth in my nose. Before I can stop it, the tears are spilling over and I’m gasping for breath.
And unlike every time I’ve cried over the last six months, wishing he was here to take it all away, he is here.
He comes right to me and envelopes me in his arm, holding me tight, my head pressed against his chest. He smells like love. He feels like a soul. He holds me tighter, even though I can barely breathe through my sobs, because he knows it makes me feel safe, that he’ll never let me go.
“It’s okay,” he whispers, running his palm over my hair, kissing the top of my head. “It’s okay. We’re going to fix this.”
I cry for a long time like this, letting everything out and he takes it in. He doesn’t say anything other than that he’s here and we’ll fix this and he’s not going anywhere. His words only make me break down more, the beauty in them, their truth.
But eventually I have to ask, I have to know.
I pull back and stare at him through raw eyes. “How can you still want me? How can you not hate me?”
The corner of his mouth quirks up into a smile, even though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Because I never believed a word you’d said.”
“The note…”
“The note meant nothing. Giving the ring back meant nothing. I knew those weren’t actions. I know you Veronica, and I know your heart. I know what you’re about and none of that was true. You’re not that good of a liar and I can always see your truth. That’s why I came after you, to the airport. I wasn’t about to let you fly away.”
“But you did,” I say quietly.
“I did,” he says, nodding. He sighs. “I had to. Not just the security, though fuck them. Because I saw in your eyes what I needed to see. It wasn’t confirmation of the note. It was confirmation that you still loved me. That this was tearing you apart like it was tearing me. And that I had to trust you.”