2019

Between work, helping Anthony find somewhere for Nikau to play, and planning everything for Leimomi's graduation and graduation party, I was a much busier person than I had ever anticipated I would be.

Nothing with work was any different, which might have been part of the problem. As much as I liked the predictable comfort of familiarity, having to relive the parts of my life that caused it to drag was less than desirable. The only reason I even survived was that I knew I realistically had no choice but to endure it.

Anthony's surprise wake-up call one morning was anything but predictable.

"I got a call back," Anthony said as soon as I answered my phone. It was seven in the morning which meant I had zero active brain function, so it took me a solid minute to even process what he had said.

I sat up in bed. "Wait, what?"

"You heard me."

"I heard the individual words you said. I didn't hear what you said."

"That's... I feel like that's the same thing."

"It's not."

Anthony didn't respond for long enough that I almost tossed my phone across the room. "Hello?"

"I don't know how to rephrase this very simple sentence."

I groaned. "Elaborate, please."

Leimomi had suggested we try out Mai Tai's at Ala Moana because she had heard it was "fun" but Kanani vetoed that plan. ("How and when did you hear about Mai Tai's? You're literally seventeen. You can't even drink.") ("What, jealous 'cause you're old?") ("Oi, get back here, you little shit!") ("Kanani! Watch your mouth or I'm grabbing the soap!") She had said something about having an incident that she did not elaborate on, much like her best friend, that made her vow to never return. I wasn't surprised considering it was Mai Tai's and any bar inside the most central tourist hub of a mall meant bad news. Sister solidarity dictated that I agreed with her.

While Anthony reached out to other local bars that allowed for performers, Kaipo gave us the information for someone that worked at Hawaiian Brian's—not far from Ala Moana but still infinitely better, according to Kanani. I had never been—and I sent the email with one of Nikau's demos and Anthony's phone number for a follow-up. A follow-up I wasn't even sure we were going to get. Not because I doubted Nikau's abilities. I just always assumed the worst would happen if I was involved.

"That's incredible, holy shit," I gawked.

"Straight from the Vatican's plumbing system."

"You're disgusting."

"You said it first," Anthony argued.

Moving along. "Did you tell Nikau yet?"

"No, I wanted to let my partner-in-crime know first."

I rolled my eyes and dropped back down onto the bed. "There's no crime here. We told Nikau what we were doing."

"You call him by his name a lot," Anthony commented.

"Everybody calls him by his name."

He clicked his tongue while Uncle Akamu could be heard making some comment in the background. After a few seconds, it sounded like he was alone again. "No, everyone calls him Nik. You call him Nikau."

"Is the crime here that I call him by his full name?"

"I just think it's... interesting."

"Maybe you need to get out more if you find that interesting."

"Interesting," he repeated teasingly.

"I'm going to hang up now. Forward me the email so I can read it over."

"Sure thing. Hokulani."

The line went dead. After a few minutes, a follow-up text was sent.

[ ANTHONY ]

You can let him know if you want. I'll coordinate the details after with him.

Anthony wasn't aloof, contrary to what Alex liked to jokingly say about her brother. Quite the opposite, actually. He tended to care more than he let on. That made it very obvious when he was being a little shit. Inviting me to be the one to inform Nikau of the progress we had made in getting him to perform live was deliberate, and like a fool who was stuck on the line, I took the bait.

As I was making a mental note to head over to Nikau's apartment after when he said he usually returned home, I heard the distinct thumping of someone running across the hall and into the bathroom. We had one of those older houses with wood flooring that always seemed to be the biggest tattle-tale, leaving behind an unmistakable sound of our comings and goings when the rest of us were dead silent.

After the bathroom door slammed shut, the sound of someone retching into the toilet followed. Since it was so quiet early in the morning, I quickly recognized the subsequent groan belonging to Kanani.

Slowly opening the door, I peeked inside, careful not to make any sudden movements so as to not scare her. Not that it mattered because just as I had, she heard me coming from a mile away. By the time I had fully stepped inside and shut the door behind me, she was leaning back against the side of the tub with her hair pushed out of her face, or, at least, the hair that wasn't glued to her face with sweat.

"You look like shit."

"Thank you," she replied with ease. "I feel like shit so that checks out."

Without saying another word until she made the first move, an opportunity I was extending to her since she was the one flushing her vomit down the drain, I sat cross-legged on the floor, keeping a safe distance between us. Kanani's love language was physical affection, but even I knew there were moments when personal space wasn't just wanted, it was necessary.

"I know what you're thinking."

"I wasn't thinking anything, actually. But I was going to ask if you needed me to hold your hair back or if it's subsided."

"It's—" She held a hand to her mouth. "It's fine. I'm fine."

"Okay."

I wasn't going to jump to conclusions on my own. That didn't mean I wasn't aware of the obvious question hanging between us. In the twenty-five years I had known her, Kanani had never thrown up in the morning like this. Not even after one of the many nights she'd had before where she resembled a bottle of booze more than a woman.

Bad food poisoning was a possibility.

It wasn't what I was thinking, though.

My sister curled into an upright ball and pressed her face into her hands like she was trying to force herself to blackout. "God, this is a pain in the ass."

"Are we going there then—"

"No," she quickly said. Then, "Maybe. It's been going on long enough that I probably should consider it."

"Well, yeah." I paused. Made sure she was still breathing. "How long exactly?"

"General state of being out of it? About a month and a half. Barfing has just started last week."

"Last week?" God, I hadn't even noticed. Maybe I wasn't as aware of what was going on in this house as I thought I was. "Kanani, did you tell—"

"No, I didn't."

"Did you take a tes—"

"No, I haven't."

"Will you let me finish a sen—"

"No—wait. No, sorry. Go ahead."

As much as I had a million questions swirling through my thoughts, trying to filter the scrambled words into something coherent, I knew I had to remain level-headed for my sister right now. Being confronted with this as early as she was, while she still hadn't told Keali'i about it either, was a lot to take in. I didn't want to pretend like I knew what it felt like to have it happen to me.

"Do you want me to pick you up a test?" I asked.

She stared down at the tile floor for so long that I debated scooching closer so I could shake her and make sure she was awake. I wouldn't have blamed her. I often thought a dream was better than reality, even if I knew it was fake. Even the bad ones seemed better at times.

"I should tell Keali'i," she muttered. Her voice was so small. She looked so small. It was one of the few times in our life that I felt like the older sister.

Testing the waters, I inched closer to her. When she didn't back away, I took that as a good sign and kept going until I could rest my arm around her shoulders. Instantly, she curled into my side. Neither still nor frantic.

"You don't have to tell him right now," I said. "You can wait until after you take it."

Kanani looked up at me. "Do you think he'll be mad?"

"I don't think Keali'i could get mad at you about anything."

...

It worked out that neither of us had work that day, so on my way to Nikau's house, I picked up a few pregnancy tests while Kanani locked herself in her room. I would have gone straight to the drugstore and back since I could tell Nikau the news another day, but she insisted I didn't change my plans more than I was already going to, and I wasn't in a place to argue with her about that. It probably would have just made her freak out even more than she already was. (A quiet freakout.) (Those could honestly be scarier.)

Since I wasn't buying the tests for myself, it made it somewhat easier to walk down the aisle and then stare at the wall of colorful boxes in front of me because I had no fucking clue what I was even looking for. Were some tests better than others? Obviously. Were there some keywords I was supposed to look for? Probably. Did I know any of them? Not a damn clue.

I ended up picking up two boxes from two different brands that sounded familiar to me. When a quick Google search didn't pop up any dire national news regarding a mass recall, I considered that a good sign. After perusing down the drink aisle to grab the last thing I needed, I was out of the store, dodging questioning glares from the old woman behind the register, and on my way to Nikau's apartment.

"Why do you have two jugs of Sunny D in your passenger seat?"

I smiled to myself as I removed my key from the ignition. "Seemed fitting."

"For what?"

"Nothing."

He didn't need to meet me downstairs but that obviously hadn't stopped him from doing it. At least I had the foresight to shove the other bag under the backseat before I noticed he was already waiting for me downstairs by the time I pulled up to my sweet parking spot directly in front of his apartment building's front door.

"Before you sit," he said just as I was about to drop onto his sofa after having already tossed my purse to the other end, "I just finished something last night. Want to hear?'

Just like that, every reason I had as to why I came over today dissipated out of the open window, not that I was naive enough to forget that I could have just made a phone call or sent a text if I really wanted to. (I didn't.)

I stopped short. "The one you were working on the other week?"

Nikau shook his head. "Different one."

He led me into his studio room, pulling out the extra stool without even sparing a glance in its direction. A mere second after he removed his hand, I sat down on it and scooted myself up to his side while he fidgeted with whatever was on his screen.

Without warning, I was overwhelmed by the deep bass that pulsed through the speakers, followed shortly by plucking guitar notes. A beat played in the background as Nikau's whiskey-flavored voice drifted in and out with the sweetest riffs. The familiarity of being hypnotized by his spell wrapped around me like a comforting warmth. My eyes slowly drifted closed of their own accord until the lyrics started and I realized what the song was about.

Or, I guess, what my interpretation of the song was. Some of the words hit a little too close to home when he sang of a girl, born out of the water, trying to find herself amongst the stars but getting carried further and further out to sea with each stroke.

"What do you think?"

My eyes snapped open, not realizing the song had already ended. Even as he stared at me, waiting for an answer, I could hear the song playing on a loop in the background as my mind tried to dissect each and every word and see if I really could connect it to myself or if my ego was just convinced this musician had to be writing a song about me. ("About me.") (The version of me he had seen so far, not the version of me only ever witnessed by the light of the moon.)

"Um." I looked away. Started picking at my cuticles. "Anthony and I got you an opening to play at Hawaiian Brian's."

Without meeting his gaze, I felt Nikau's eyes on me. The room was so small and we were so close and I was so me at the worst possible time that I didn't know how to react, even when all of what I was feeling was based on something going on in my head.

"Yeah?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Wicked. Thanks."

"No problem. Anthony is gonna reach out later and try to figure out a date. But I think it'll be good. The crowd there can be a little hit or miss when you're just hanging out but they love any live music so you'll be good. And, I mean, you're good. So... yeah."

"Good," he said. A hint of something in his voice caused me to look up at him, and I caught his persistent smile like that one ray of sunlight that refuses to disappear in the middle of storm clouds. "But what if I said I won't play unless you tell me if you thought the song was shit or not?"

"I think I might call you a shit for it."

He laughed and turned like he was going to leave it alone.

"It's beautiful," I murmured, unsure if it was possible to convey what I thought in such simple terms. "You have a way with words that I don't think a lot of people do."

"Thank you," he replied. Brought up a new window on his computer. "I feel like you're like that. Sort of."

I had to laugh. "Me? Having a way with words? That's funny."

"No." Nikau shook his head. "You have a way with silence that nobody else does. Way more impressive to me."