2012

I didn't go to the class of 2012's graduation ceremony for a myriad of reasons.

Most of them revolved around the debilitating anxiety that arose within me like bile threatening to spill out onto the carpet whenever I thought about stepping foot on that campus again. I felt like a coward for not being able to face walking into my old high school again. (I was still trying to adjust to it being my former school since I still felt very much like a child who belonged at school.)  It was just a collection of buildings, all of which weren't required of me to enter for the ceremony, anyway. All I would have needed to face was the football field, and I hadn't spent enough time there to form bad memories of it. But it was still part of a larger picture, one I had erased myself from months ago.

It took a lot of convincing on Kaipo's part because I felt so guilt-ridden about missing him walk across that stage. He was the only person who could get me back there, besides Leimomi when she eventually graduated from high school, but he knew how badly I didn't want to return to Kaiser, and he made it his mission to get me to understand it was okay for me not to go. He didn't mind at all and actually supported me not going in the interest of not letting me possibly walk right into a panic attack. He promised to let me take him out to dinner another night. Just the two of us, my treat.

"Do you want me to pack juice or soda?" Kanani yelled from the kitchen.

I snapped out of my recurring daydream at the sharp sound of her voice, one I had been trying to wake myself up from since November. "Huh?"

"For the beach?" She waited for a response that didn't come because I had no idea what she was talking about. "I'm taking you and Lei to the beach."

"We have a beach right outside our house."

She sighed. "I would like for us to do something besides stay home again."

Now that she mentioned it again, she had asked us about this the week before, but I had completely forgotten. (That wasn't anything new.) I had zero energy to do anything today, least of all to go to the beach, but I had even less energy to argue with Kanani about flaking out on our plans either, and she looked too hopeful, so I didn't want to be the one that ruined it either. Most of our morning had been spent with her in the kitchen performing a deep clean while I watched movies in the living room once again. Following through on our plans was the least I could do.

"Either one's fine," I answered as I stood and joined her in the kitchen. The air was slick and sweet from the smell of spam fried with teriyaki sauce for the musubis she was making, presumably to bring with us. A package of nori sheets sat on the side of the counter while the tab on the rice cooker popped into the keep warm setting right as I walked in. "Do you need some help?"

"Um..." Scattered-brain Kanani was a rare sighting, but she was busy so I cut her some slack and waited patiently for her answer. "Yeah, can you..."

"Make the musubis?" I suggested.

"Make the musubis. Yeah. I'm gonna grab the laundry real quick. I had to throw Lei's bathing suit in there 'cause she hadn't washed it since the last time she used it." Kanani scrunched her nose. "So gross."

"You're so gross," I mocked Leimomi's voice.

Kanani laughed as she pulled a few cans of juice and soda from the bottom cupboard and placed them into the cooler. Since we didn't have an ice machine—a point of contention in our house since we often argued about who put the newly-filled ice trays at the top of the stack instead of on the bottom—we were going to have to stop by a gas station on our way there. I wasn't even sure what beach she wanted to take us to.

Her phone began ringing from where it had been placed on the table, but her hands were full so I walked over to it to sneak a quick glance at the caller ID so I could let her know who it was. Keali'i's name flashed on the screen.

"It's the boy toy."

She brushed it off. "Let him go to voicemail."

"Okay." As I stepped back toward the counter to start on the musubis, Kanani paused for a moment, letting her head hang slightly as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "You two alright?"

She snapped out of it as quickly as the moment had arrived. "Yeah, I think my period is just starting soon."

"And you want to go to the beach?"

"I'm not actively expelling blood, Hoku."

I held my hands up and retreated. "Just asking. I haven't seen Keali'i around in a while."

During the beginning of their relationship, which was still relatively new to begin with, they had been inseparable. Once Dad's health started deteriorating more and more, his appearances were a little more sparse, but not nonexistent by any means. In fact, he had gone out of his way to help out the family as much as he could, like bringing us dinner and organizing family movie nights when we would watch a film and he would provide snacks that went along with a theme he had matched to that film. But he also hadn't wanted to intrude on anyone's privacy. Dad was too full of pride to ask him to stay away on his bad days, but we all knew it anyway, so Keali'i didn't need to be told.

Once Dad passed away, I had expected his visits to pick up again, even if only to provide Kanani with more support at home, but they hadn't. I didn't want to spend too much time worrying about someone else's relationship I held no part in, so I hadn't questioned Kanani about it thus far, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't a least a bit curious, though.

"Is something going on?" I asked.

She turned her nose up at me. "You're so niele."

"Just asking," I repeated.

Kanani grabbed a folder Mom had brought home from work and accidentally left on the counter, and used it to smack my butt as she walked past. "You should just make the damn musubis, lolo head."

I stuck my tongue at her but saluted anyway. "Yes, ma'am."

...

The Kahananui women could accomplish anything we set our minds to if we stuck together, and that included having a pleasant day at the beach even when the sun was hiding behind a stubborn patch of clouds.

The beach we went to was a local favorite whose identity was heavily guarded so it could be kept safe from tourists who mistreated our islands and her beaches, which meant there were still plenty of people hanging out on the sand and trying to catch the mild waves rocking in the wind. As we walked along the sand trying to find a good spot to set up shop, brown hands oscillated into the water before disappearing entirely, shortly followed by someone sticking their head up, a mop of thick, wet hair bursting toward the clouds. Everywhere I looked, smiles beamed back at me, and even from a distance, one could see the way the reflection of the ocean sparkled in their eyes.

For a brief moment, I forgot about everything that had formed me into the woman I was today, and I wondered if it was possible for someone to be able to wake up to that kind of picturesque landscape and feel sad. It was beyond beautiful, beyond anything I could have possibly formed into something as mundane as words. Life could be so painfully good in one moment and tragically destructive in the next, and trying to keep my feet steady on both sides of the spectrum was challenging. While there were a lot of people in my life who held me to a standard I was not equipped to reach, I hated how I judged myself for not being able to bounce back from the most traumatic experience of my life.

I needed to give myself a break. I repeated that to myself as we dropped our belongings onto the spot we had selected on the beach. If I said it enough times, it was bound to stick the landing at some point.

"Hello? Lei?"

Kanani's demanding tone hauled me out of my thoughts, and I realigned myself on their axis right as Leimomi snapped her head away from what she had been looking at. One glance and I realized it wasn't a what but a who, and there was no mistaking it. A group of girls, probably only a year or two older than Leimomi, slipped their items onto a few beach towels that had already been placed directly near the edge of the grass before skipping down to the beach, a trail of faint laughter lingering behind them.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said hand me the sunscreen before I burn."

Leimomi and I both looked up at the pale gray skies.

"Burn," my younger sister repeated.

"Whatever." Kanani shook her head before snatching the bottle from Leimomi's outstretched hand. "When we're old and I'm the only one without wrinkles, who'll be the one laughing."

"Sure, you will." Kanani was the only one participating in the conversation. Leimomi's mind was clearly somewhere else. It was cute. She hadn't displayed obvious signs of interest toward anyone before, which was understandable since she was only eleven. Nobody that young wanted to be teased by an older sibling about having a crush on someone.

"Shut up," was Kanani's brilliant reply. Leimomi faked getting slapped and making a big deal about it.

While we weren't going to build up any color with this overcast weather, we would be foolish to not take advantage of the cool breeze that seemed endless as if someone had left a giant fan running, so we shed our clothes down to our swimsuits and pulled out all of our food. Leimomi had stuck the boogie boards into the sand for whenever we decided to venture out into the water, but we had such a long day ahead of us, most of which we were going to spend in isolated leisure, so there wasn't any rush.

We ate through our entire stash of spam musubis, leftover kalua pig and cabbage, and fresh poke while music being played by another group on the beach provided us with some entertainment. Although we weren't chatting a whole lot, aside from silly comments as people walked by, it was, for lack of a better word, nice. Nice was good, sometimes. Most times. We didn't necessarily have a lot of nice days lately, something that proved difficult when we were just trying to keep our heads above water. Some of us were better at it than others, but that meant those people helped out the others when they could. Like, for example, taking us to the beach so we could breathe a little fresh air for the first time in a long time. And when they couldn't we still found a way to make it work. Life was all about pushing through the difficult parts to find the sun shining on the other side. It wasn't always easy—some would argue it was never easy—but it made those moments feel that much more fulfilling.

The natural light, as muted as it was, filtered faintly through the clouds and seemed to enhance the angry red lines on the inside of my legs, and I angled myself away from my sisters so they couldn't see anything. Slow progress was still progress, so as much as I wanted to stop, it wasn't the place where I wanted to have that conversation. To be safe, I made an offhanded comment about how my stomach wasn't feeling well, so I wasn't going to dip my toes in the water today. It earned me a concerned look from Kanani who suggested Leimomi jump in ahead of her while she hung back for a minute.

I should have known getting something past my sister wasn't going to be that easy. Even if she didn't know the reason, she could tell something wasn't entirely right. I wonder how she figured that out anymore when I had more bad days than good.

"Don't—" I started.

"I didn't say anything."

"I don't want to talk about me right now." My every waking moments were consumed with everything about me—my thoughts, my emotions, my pain, and my trauma. But I didn't want to drag everyone else down with me all the time, especially when they had themselves to hold up as well. It was exhausting and we all deserved better. "Seriously, what's going on with Keali'i?"

It was my turn to play the third degree, and Kanani took the bait. Either because whatever was going on between them had been bothering her, or she was indulging me in going along with the distraction. It could have gone either way with her.

"Nothing," she answered, but her voice danced a little too high for that to be the truth, and we both heard it. She winced at herself. "Or not. I mean, it's not like we're fighting, or anything. I'm just... distracted and tired and not being the best girlfriend."

It hurt to hear what she thought of herself because, to me, Kanani would always be the best at anything she did.

"He understands. You lost someone very important to you and it's going to take time to heal. You don't have to beat yourself up for being human."

"I know but I just—" She closed her eyes before taking a deep breath. I remained still, unsure if she wanted me to comfort her or if I should keep my distance. When she reopened her eyes, the light within them switched in an instant. It was only barely a moment, but I caught a glimmer of it, the truth behind the facade. She was excellent at hiding it every other day, forcing herself to be strong for the rest of the family, but she wasn't invincible. "Sometimes it's too much and I hate the idea of him thinking he needs to protect me. That wasn't what he signed up for."

"Signed up for?" I swung my legs around to face her. "You two didn't sign a contract. He can leave whenever he wants and he hasn't. That means something, alright? Don't count him out." Reaching across the short distance between us, I placed my hand over hers, instantly feeling her fingers curl around mine. "If you spend too long being the hero, you'll harden past the point of breaking. And breaking feels good, sometimes. Allows you to be human. You don't always have to be strong. You can just be you."

Kanani smiled at me and nodded.