When the engine shut off in front of the house, alerting me to Anthony and Dad's return from the airport, I'd just completed the finishing touches on the sauce simmering on the stovetop.

I was welcomed by my brother's surprised expression at seeing me, while my dad somehow looked less shocked. I am who I am because of him, so my dad being able to see right through me was a given.

"Smells good," he said as he shoved his bags against the wall and tore off his jacket.

"Spaghetti. My specialty."

"You mean one of the only things you know how to cook?" Anthony laughed. He made his way into the kitchen and stood next to me, leaning down to inhale the savory aroma. "Shit, I forgot how much I missed this."

"Well, maybe I don't want to give you any," I huffed. After he dipped a finger in the sauce, I hip-checked him out of my space.

Anthony used his brotherly intuition to pick up on why I was still here and excused himself before retreating into his bedroom. The door shutting behind him echoed back at us.

"I know you cooking food means you need to talk," my father correctly guessed.

He didn't look worried, but the bags under his eyes made him look tired. To be fair, he'd just gotten off of a six-hour plane ride, but I knew it was more than that. It was always more than that when it came to our family. Genetics only played against us so far.

I dismissed him with a brief wave of my hand. "We don't need to go there right away. I'll make you a plate and we can eat first."

My dad gave in and went to sit down in his favorite chair. After a couple of minutes, I slid a plate down in front of him with a glass of water.

"At least I broke even this time," he remarked of his trip to Vegas. "Probably would've made more if I had my lucky charm with me."

I laughed and picked up my fork. "Maybe you should invite me next time."

"You always complain about the smoke in the casinos," he huffed through a bite of food.

"I complain about everything in Vegas," I countered. "Inside is a bunch of smoke. Outside has, like, zero moisture so I feel like a crusty, dry sponge. There's no winning there."

"Not when you're not there."

I smiled at him. "I thought you broke even?"

He pointed at me with his fork. "Breaking even means not losing. It doesn't mean winning."

"Whatever you say," I laughed.

It was one of the more civil conversations we'd had alone together in a long time. If Anthony wasn't there, it felt like we needed to prove a point to the other. If my brother was there, he could at least play mediator.

I still wasn't sure what had us at odds so much these days. He missed having me around, but even when I was still living here, we bickered more than I cared to admit.

He used to tell me how much I looked like my mother, and how happy it made him to have that reminder. Now I wondered if moving out reminded him of her running away.

"How have you been?" he asked.

"Alright." I looked across from him, and then down at the scratches on the table. "And you? Hope it was a nice break."

He grunted again. His way of confirming without looking overenthusiastic. "Wish it was longer."

"I wanted to talk to you about something." I placed my fork on the plate and leaned back in my seat while my father kept eating. "But I don't want you to be mad at me for it."

He released a deep sigh. "You frustrate me sometimes, Wailana, but I could never truly be mad at you."

I looked down at my plate with a tangled mess of noodles, wondering if that's what my brain looked like right now because it's definitely what it felt like.

"We never talked about why I moved out."

His chewing slowed, and the sound of him swallowing his food was loud. He cleared his throat before speaking.

"Moving out on your own for the first time is a rite of passage. Most people experience it at some point." After thinking it over for a second, he looked at the hallway. "Except for your brother. Something tells me he'll be here for the rest of his life. Long after I'm gone."

"If there's anyone that will take care of our home the way it deserves, it's him."

"It's not that you're not capable of building a home here, Wailana. Your heart just calls out for the rest of the world. You'd experience every city if you could. This house would keep standing even if you were the only one in it."

"I couldn't stay here," I rerouted. My very DNA was stitched together with the need to run away, inherited from a mother who lived as wildly as she loved and feared, but I rooted myself in place. "I couldn't sit here and watch you drink yourself into the ground, or listen to you slam things into the table anymore. It would've only ended up with—"

"With you turning out like me?" he interrupted. In that one question, I knew he'd spoken his greatest fear.

I shook my head. "It would've only ended up with me resenting you. And that's the last thing I want to do, Papa."

He looked down at the table, stopped chewing his food, and dropped his fork onto his plate.

The man in front of me was defeated. These things I admitted to him weren't new or surprising. It was the very truth that shook his foundation to its core, leaving cracks and holes that could never be filled, not to the way they were.

But this was the first time I'd voiced any reason for leaving, and the dread turning into a reality hit him like a freight train. A Japanese pottery technique of filling cracks with gold taught us that though we may not be new again, we can still mend those once broken, and I hoped this was a step in that direction. If he became the one that resented the other, I could live with that, as long as I made my piece known.

"So what?" he asked. "Is this your version of an intervention? You wanna drop me off at one of those places where they suck you dry and force you to talk about why you do the things you do? Why you are the way you are?"

"I'm not here to force you to do anything. I'm here as your daughter, your youngest child, trying to tell you that none of this will be enough. One day, you'll fall apart, and not even I or Anthony will be able to pick up the pieces."

A subtle tremor shook through his body, but he maintained a brave face and kept his guard up. In times like this, I wished he wouldn't, but I knew being vulnerable even to your closest allies wasn't the easiest feat.

"It's not that easy you know."

Even though I hadn't endured the same struggles he did, living with him my entire life granted me an up-close vantage point at seeing just how destructive one could be to themselves, even when they didn't realize it.

But I knew this wasn't just him. I knew of his parents, the grandparents I'd never gotten to know. These things were hardwired into him and it would take effort to rework the wires.

We could get there. I knew we could.

He punched a hard finger into his chest. "This? This is shame. Shame that I couldn't pick myself up. Not even for you, my love."

A lone tear slipped down my cheek and I swiped at it—a single drop of rain in a sea of rocky waves.

"There's no shame in hurting," I insisted. "No shame in needing help. Only when you turn your back on yourself even though you know you have the strength to fight it."

Even though I'd ambushed him after a long flight, I knew he'd received my message. I knew there was something left in there, some light at the end of a blistering storm. Success wouldn't be imminent, but it was possible.

He nodded slowly. It wasn't a confirmation that things would go the way I wanted them to, but a promise that he was willing to try. At the end of the day, that was all I could ask for.

...

He looked so perfectly at home in the water, like he wasn't a visitor but sitting in his own bed.

I knew as soon as I saw him it wouldn't happen the way I'd planned for it to. Frankly, life rarely ever went the way we planned, but we clung to that small sliver of hope that we could control all of the moving parts—that we could be the masterful puppeteer, and not the innocent doll dangling from the strings of someone else's whims.

I slipped off my clothes and glided through the glistening waves until I met up with him.

It was instantaneous, the way we moved together and toward each other. We'd spent over two years together so there was no need to be nervous, and yet at the same time, that was all I felt. Whether it was because I genuinely had no idea what I was doing, or because it felt like something that had been building over time without me even realizing it.

I wanted to crawl inside his head and figure out what he was thinking. There was no way I was the only one as conflicted as my outward appearance of nerves made me out to be. Yet, Zachariah appeared too calm. So unbothered by what was unraveling at rapid speed. I was desperate to be as steadfast in my understanding of our shared feelings, but I knew my mind would never allow that.

Between the gentle rocking of the waves, I bobbed up and down as I paddled my way out to him. He waded out not far from the shore, but far enough that I need to kick to keep myself upright.

"You could've waited for me," I joked as I swam closer. Close enough that the spattering of freckles that always made an appearance after an outing in the sun once again came out to play.

He smiled. So simply, so purely, that as soon as the warmth hit me brighter than the sun, I knew I was a goner.

"Can you blame me?" He gestured around him. I couldn't blame him. Today was too beautiful to waste waiting on the sand.

I circled him in the water, watching the ripples roll off of me and crash into him.

"I remember when my dad used to take us camping, he said us Hawaiians were special. Born from the islands themselves. That the ocean runs through our veins, our voice breathes life back into the wind, and that our bodies were carved straight out of the mountain."

Every move I made, he followed; a song echoing back to its instrumentalist. I knew no matter what melody played from my lips—silly, foolish, introspective—he'd be there to absorb the sound.

"No wonder why Hawai'i looks so good on you."

In a second, there was no longer any space. His skin was smooth against mine, holding me in place with his hands against my hips. On pure instinct, I rested mine on his shoulders.

"He always said that's what made us the most deserving of this land. No matter what may happen, it'll always be ours. Our home. Our beating heart." I reached up and smoothed a finger along his eyebrow, down the side of his face, and across the gentle curve of his bottom lip. "But I love the people that come here and respect us, nurture us. Make us believe we can come together and appreciate the world for what it is."

Zachariah pulled me close like he was scared I'd drift away from him along those waves. What he didn't know, and maybe I couldn't fully comprehend myself, was that I'd always find my way back to him. As friends, lovers, or whatever in between we were right now.

"You didn't ask me to meet you at your favorite beach so we could talk about Hawai'i," he finally admitted.

"No, I didn't."

The striking blue water of the Pacific Ocean was a vessel in which to carry me, but the heart was the ultimate compass that guided me, and mine was torn in different directions. The man in front of me, who I fell harder and harder for by the second; the woman who once had him and was still in the dark; the father I feared would leave me like my mother did.

"We can't do this," I said.

"Do what?"

I deadpanned. "You know what I mean."

Zachariah shook his head, sending droplets of water into my face. "I need you to tell me exactly what it is you think we shouldn't be doing so I know what I'm arguing against."

Lifting a hand off his shoulder, I reached between us and splashed water in his face. It did nothing to deter the smile from basking its light on the rest of the world, and part of me was glad my efforts were unsuccessful. As much as my head knew what I was trying to say was something that needed to be said, my heart wanted us to stay wrapped up in these waves forever.

"You know we shouldn't be doing this."

"Why?" he questioned. "Why shouldn't we?"

"Because it's not right." The words came out weak because the willpower to follow through on them was thin. "Especially not behind her back."

"So let's tell her." The way he said it was so casual, like it was the most simple explanation and I was the fool for not immediately thinking of it. "Why are you thinking about her right now?"

I pushed away from him. Space was necessary if I wanted to think rationally.

"We broke up, Alex," Zachariah continued. "A long time ago—"

"Not that long ago."

"—and quite frankly, her opinion doesn't matter. What matters is what we want." His voice grew softer. "I know you want this too."

"This," I gestured between the two of us, "isn't anything. Just two friends who've made out twice now."

"I mean...." he trailed off.

I dug myself into that. "You know what I mean."

Zachariah pulled himself closer to me, maintaining enough distance that it allowed me to still breathe. "What I think you're doing is running away from your problems."

"Problems?" I scoffed. "What problems?"

"The problem where you know you like me as much as I like you, but you refuse to acknowledge something is there so you're using Emmie as an excuse to push yourself away."

It wasn't the truth. Or, at least, it wasn't the whole truth. I refused to believe that because it sounded so petty the more I thought it over. Yet it was the conclusion I knew most would come to if faced with the dilemma of trying to understand what someone like me was thinking.

"Even if she was okay with it," I started, "this wouldn't work. We're too alike. And when people have the same faults, they just end up resenting each other for it. I'm not losing you to something as reckless as failed romance, Zach."

"So you're willing to lose me over keeping it all in?" he asked, sending shockwaves down my heart. "You know that's what will happen, right? We'll try to go back to being friends and when that fails our entire relationship will implode." He paused. "I'd rather try."

"Well, you shouldn't have kissed me in the first place!" I accused, even though I've been an all too willing participant.

He leveled a look of disbelief at me. "You think that would've changed anything? The kiss wasn't the catalyst for things changing between us, Alexandra. Just a byproduct of what was already happening."

"You shouldn't have kissed me," I repeated, more to myself than to him. If I repeated it enough, maybe I'd start to believe it. "Now that's all I think about when I see you."

This time, it wasn't him drifting closer to me. Honestly, I wasn't sure why he hadn't left me in the dust already. The back-and-forth was headache-inducing. There was no reason someone else would voluntarily subject themselves to putting up with me.

Then again, this was Zachariah we were talking about. We'd seen each other through a lot over the years, and this wasn't something that could so easily pass between us like a small disagreement over pizza toppings.

I made the move this time because my resolve was weak and nothing else mattered at that moment. It was infuriating, even to myself, that I could overthink the simplest of moments and then turn around and gloss over any determination to prove otherwise.

Maybe we were two people incapable of self-control, because he drew me right back to him, returning the kiss with a hunger that said he'd never stop trying, no matter how hard I tried to push him away.

When I pulled back, I rested my forehead against his and closed my eyes. If I stayed there long enough in denial, maybe I could pretend like a world existed where the two of us being together was as easy as he made it seem.

"Stop overthinking it." His moves echoed the ones I'd made earlier, his fingers moving across my face like he was committing the features to memory beneath his touch. "I know it happened fast but it's okay. It'll be okay."

Zachariah attempted to soothe me with sweet words about how I was getting too far into my head, that if I opened myself up, we could talk our way out of whatever mental roadblock I'd bolted myself into.

While I didn't promise anything, because I was still fully convinced nothing good could come from us venturing into this territory, I allowed myself the freedom of forgetting about consequences for a little while longer. We waded in those waters, swimming around each other in bliss until the sun set, and then walked back into reality once again. We towel dried and Zachariah walked me to my car, thankfully maintaining a distance once again. It felt like we'd been hanging out as friends, even though the atmosphere between us had intrinsically changed.

Before he closed the door, he leaned down and kissed my forehead, whispering how he couldn't help himself and whisking away before I could say anything. I waited until he disappeared out of sight, and understood what it meant when I realized my heart was already racing until the next time I saw him.

Before I put the gear shift into reverse, my phone pinged with a text notification, so I kept my foot on the break and picked up the device.

[ JEM ]

we need to talk