I thought I’d just pass out the little chocolate earth balls Mom got from Kokua Market. But no one came over. No one trick-or-treats anymore. Their parents are afraid they’ll get hit by cars.
I had ALWAYS wanted to go on a helicopter ride. I was afraid for sure, because of what happened to Grandpa Olie’s military company. He survived it, and I would, too, if I had my group with me. I was pretty sure I’d told Brielle that forever ago.
What, the chopper? Brielle texted back a while later.
Yeah, I texted, i would have gone.
It was last minute, Brielle texted.
So?
There was nothing for a long, long time. I tried to take my mind off it, flipped between The Voice and the Country Music Awards (to see who was wearing who on the red carpet).
Then Brielle: u dont have the $$$.
It felt like she had punched me in the stomach.
Brielle has no idea how to be someone’s friend. You don’t just do something your friend always wanted—NEEDED—to do, without her, without even asking, then tell her she didn’t have the money.
Honestly, it’s getting old. Maybe I don’t want to be friends with Brielle anymore.
But who else is there right now? She’s the one with the group. Without her, I don’t have anyone.
WINTER
Prompt: Answers.
“Hey, Grom.”
That was the first thing Eli said to me after all this time.
I came home from school, and there he was—no shirt, drinking straight out of the kitchen faucet, like Dad had told him not to do a thousand times.
From the salt that had stung his cheeks red, I knew he’d already been out.
“Where’d you go?” was the first thing I said to him, and when he didn’t answer, I said for him, “Sunset.”
Eli had gotten out, and he’d gone straight to the North Shore.
Then I said, “Was Macario with you?”
I could tell he was, and I told myself there was no reason at all to think Mac and me were friends, just because we went to Sunset that one day.
“And the guys from Ke Nui?”
Yep, even those guys were there. The whole group just took him right back in. After everything.
Nothing had changed for Eli—not his priorities, not his friends. But he had changed my whole life.
“Did they visit you? In there?” I asked.
There was a frozen pizza cooking in the oven. Pepperoni. My kind. Eli had left the box out on the counter, by the blue envelope, yellow letters—CONGRATULATIONS—open at the top.
Eli wiped his mouth with his arm. “Yeah,” he said.
His skin was paler and his hair was darker. A shadow of the seat belt was across his chest.
A fly buzzed at the window, and Eli grabbed the Windex, sending the bug spinning down to the sill.
Suddenly, I didn’t want to be all alone with Eli. I was afraid what I would do to him. What I might say. I didn’t know him anymore, and I didn’t know myself, either.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
Eli shrugged.
Over the past few months, I had wondered so many things—what Eli had in there for dinner, what he did all those hours inside, was anyone with him, did he ever go out.
I wondered if he was fixed now. If he was sorry for what he did. To Koa and Tate. To us.
Was he still going to Santa Cruz? Was he even going to graduate?
But that’s what I wondered before. Before Eli got out and went straight to the swells with his jabronies, came home and drank out of the faucet. Before he was standing right in front of me, all pale, Windex running down the glass.
“Mom’s not here,” I said.
And Eli asked, “What’s the deal with your room?”
“You went in my room?” My face was hot.
“What you’ve got going on there, it’s creepy,” he said.
“So what’s your plan???” My eyes burned.
Eli looked at me. “Well … I’m gonna wait till my pizza’s done, then I’m gonna wait till it cools off, then I’m gonna eat it.”
“You mean MY pizza!” I said. “And why WERE you driving Koa’s Jeep?”
But Eli didn’t answer.
He took the pizza out of the oven and cut into it with the wheel, and I knew I wouldn’t see him again for a really long time.
FALL
Prompt: Standardized testing.
Tae-sung could give a rat’s *** about the state tests, that’s how Eli would say it. I know Tae-sung doesn’t care because I watch him fill in the bubbles without even reading the questions. He’s not going to get into a good college. Or get a good job. Or have a good life. He’ll be a boy forever. Dad thinks Eli’s going to be like that.
We all already know who’s going to do how on those tests. The teachers care way more than we do.
Me, I’ll do okay on the reading, but I’m already having a panic attack about the math. I guess I can always just choose C.
Also, I changed my mind. Maybe there SHOULD be all-girls schools.
I mean, there’s so much boy drama here. Soo said Brielle’s annoyed because Henley talks to me in language arts. I told Brielle it was nothing, that I knew she was crushing on him first, that I’m not into him at all.
“I don’t even know him,” I said. “All I know is that he has good style.”
“So, you noticed,” Brielle said.
Apparently, she wants everything I have—first my brother, now the guy I talk to.
Mom told me it would be good if I could be kind to Eli.
“I’m always kind to Eli,” I said.
She said, “He’s going through some stuff.”
“What stuff,” I asked. “Stacy stuff?”
“Just stuff,” Mom said. She’s not going to tell me.
WINTER
Prompt: What do you remember about your elementary school?
Today in Latin, I got a blue slip to see Sister Anne in her office. The box was checked “during this class period,” not “at your convenience,” so I knew it wasn’t good. While Miss Wilson passed out the notebooks, I stared at that little blue slip. Did Sister know Mom was gone? Gone away in the … place? Or was it about my math grade, or my Latin one? Both?
Was I getting kicked out because Grammie didn’t want to pay for me to go here anymore?
I’m pretty sure we’re running out of money. I heard Dad on the phone: “Could we lose the house?”
What will happen to us then? Where will we live? Would I go to another school? How were we going to eat?
“It’s a dress code violation,” Sister Anne said.
The old me would have wanted to laugh. The old me would never have violated the dress code.
I looked down at the skirt I had to wear because all the shorts were dirty, and I flattened out the pleats with my palms.
My nails were terrible—red and raw. I tucked them under my thighs so Sister wouldn’t see.
When Mom left, the cockroaches came. At first, there was just one. It scurried across the kitchen floor a few nights ago. A couple days later, there were two, then three.
If the cockroaches were coming, the centipedes would be coming, too. And the fire ants would get Mom’s lettuce.
I sprinkled borax all around the outside of the house, like I’d seen Mom do. Then I took out the omamori Mrs. Tanaka had given me last summer for watering her cabbage and cucumber while she visited her brother in Japan. It could only be used once, Mrs. Tanaka said about the Ward Away Evil charm, and it had to be used within a year. I had been saving it. Clutching the omamori tightly in my fist, I closed my eyes and whispered, “Please.”
* * *
“Your skirt is fine,” Sister said. “It’s the blouse. It’s not the standard white.”
I tugged at the bow under my neck, like Li Lu had done on Picture Day in the cafeteria.
“It used to be white,” I said more to myself than to Sister Anne.
“All it needs is some bleaching,” Sister suggested. “Wait here for a
minute.”
I thought she was going to come back with a bottle of bleach that I’d have to haul around with me, which would be mortifying.
When Sister left, I stood up, looked into the cross-shaped mirror outlined with blue and gold, the scene from Jesus’s life at each end. I straightened the big cream bow at my neck and brushed my bangs to the side with my fingers. I could use a haircut and some sun and a little bleach for my shirt.
Of all things, Sister came back with a flyer for the debate team.
“They’ve barely begun the season,” she said. There was plenty of time to join. Our Lady of Redemption had won the state title the last four years in a row. Trying something new would be just the thing, she said.
But arguing about guns and immigration seemed impossible. Even my old self wouldn’t have liked that.
“I’m not good at talking in front of people,” I told her.
“We have other activities,” she said. “Soccer, softball, theater, newspaper … I know things have been difficult at home.”
I didn’t want to talk about home.
“I’ve been thinking of joining the writing club,” I said.
“Very good,” Sister said. “The Lord works miracles through the written word.”
WINTER
Prompt: Weather.
It’s like vog that blows over from the Big Island, fog and ash from the volcanoes, heavy and suffocating and gray. It started with that money stuff, the ache at the base of my head. It isn’t pain, exactly. It’s more like pressure that wasn’t there before. At first, it would be there a second or two, then a minute, then an hour. Now it stays for two or three days straight, and when it comes, I can’t do anything to get rid of it. The only thing to do is to lay in bed and wait.
I want to close my eyes and squeeze out all the gray, and never open them up again.
The money. Mom. Eli. It’s all about Eli. The same as it’s always been. It’s always, always been about Eli.
My entire lifetime has been his conferences with teachers and deans about skipping class and missing assignments and not using class time wisely. It’s been his trips to the ER for cuts and concussions and the busted shoulder. He’s come home late, or forgotten to call, or needs gas money, or his truck got stuck or stolen or broken into.
On bad vog days or bad Eli days, I’ve laid in my bed under the window, waiting for the trade winds to blow through the curtains, to clean the air and lift the gray.
I’ve waited and waited, worrying maybe those winds will never come again, that I’ll suffocate from the heat and the heaviness, that maybe I’ll never see another sunrise.
When those winds do come, when they blow over you so cool and light, whispering promises of hope and change, you feel new and calm at the same time, the simple hā breathing onto and into and all through you. You’re alive and whole but also still. It’s everything you need.
Lately I’ve been waiting for those winds a really long time.
And still, everything is somehow moving on. And still, somehow, it’s all about Eli, even though Eli’s not here.
Dad is always on the phone, talking to banks and lawyers and insurance people.
Does everything have to completely fall apart because of what Eli did? Did he have to take my life down with him? Did he have to wreck my future, when he wrecked his?
In the beginning, I could ignore that vog. I could live with it, pretend it wasn’t there.
But that vog inside me, it’s grown. It’s growing. Maybe I’m dying. Maybe it’s a brain tumor, a delayed effect from hitting my eyebrow on the airbag.
If Brielle had even any idea how bad things are, she’d back off. Before we started writing today, she turned around and said, “So, your mom, she’s in the hospital now?” Then she just turned back around.
The thing about Brielle is that she doesn’t ever back off. She’s in it for the long game. I remember that. She won’t stop until the vog has swallowed me whole.
I hope she feels like this someday. I hope the vog settles behind her eyes and shuts her off from the world. I hope she can’t move, can’t talk, can’t think, can’t exist.
I hope Brielle Branson gets what’s coming to her—what she deserves, what she’s brought on herself—a hurt so bad she never recovers.
WINTER
Prompt: What does your future look like?
Once, my future was a white T-shirt, gray leggings, aviators, jade flats.
“Dad,” I asked him last night, “are we running out of money?”
He said not to worry about that.
But last night I woke up at 3:21 with the vog in my head pressing down heavier than ever. Toast with honey was on my nightstand, the same thing that was on Mom’s nightstand before Dad sent her away.
I miss Mom. I miss her so so bad.
When is she coming back? Is she ever coming back?
I thought of those pill bottles on Mom’s nightstand. If I took even half of them, I’d never feel any vog again. And even though I knew I wouldn’t do it, I know what just thinking it means.
WINTER
Prompt: Dear …
Dear Jesus,
I think I’m dying.
Please help.
I’ll never ask for anything again. I promise.
XO,
Taylor Harper
* * *
I think it’s a heart attack.
Last night I woke up at 2:47.
My chest felt like it was being crushed by something heavy and huge, and I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to yell out for Mom, but my throat was all closed up. I remembered Mom couldn’t help me because she’s gone. She was gone, and who knew when she was coming back, if she was ever coming back. I missed her so bad, my whole soul emptied and hollowed, and then the emptiness filled up with ache. Vog pushed down heavier and heavier in my head, then started pushing into my chest, and I laid like that, not able to move, thinking I was dying, praying to Jesus to stop it.
Somehow after, I could move again and got up for water. But I couldn’t go back to sleep. I thought the vog would crush me again. I thought about those pills. I was afraid of myself.
For a long time, I had been hoping it wasn’t true.
There was one way to know. I got up and clicked the “No” boxes for “I cry often” and “I have become easily agitated.” And I checked the “Yes” boxes for “My sleep patterns have changed,” “My eating habits have changed,” “I have trouble focusing,” “I care less about how I look now,” and “I would rather be by myself than with friends.”
I checked the “Sometimes” boxes for “I feel hopeless.” And then there was the worst question. “I have had thoughts of suicide.” I paused. Then I checked “Sometimes” for that, too.
I hit SUBMIT, telling myself the quiz would show I had them, the blues.
But the result showed “POSSIBLE depression.”
If I was not all the way depressed yet, I wondered, maybe I could fix myself before it actually happened?
Mom would never, ever move forward if something happened to me. I know that for sure, after what happened to Grandpa Olie.
TeenHelp also had “Tips for Feeling Better,” and the number one tip was getting outside.
Right then, I got up.
I went out under the stars.
I thought about the wayfinders who sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti with no compass, no map, and only the skies to guide them.
FALL
Prompt: Babies.
When Li Lu and I grew up, we decided, we were never going to have boys.
Boys fight with their dads.
Dad and Eli fight about Stacy.
“ONE TIME,” Eli always said. “She bought us beer ONCE.”
But Dad won’t get over that one time.
Dad said, “She’s the reason you’re a vegetarian now? You’ve changed the way you EAT for her?”
“I didn’t go vegetarian for her. I’ve always liked animals, and I don’t want to eat them.”
“Why doesn’t
she go to college? What has she been DOING for two years? Working at that earring place in the mall?”
For forever, Stacy worked at Claire’s. So I never went in there, even though Claire’s had the best feathers and bags.
Instead, I went to Wet Seal, where the feathers fall apart after two days, and the straps break off the purses, and the sunglasses cost two dollars more.
When I really got into fashion, I didn’t go to Wet Seal anymore, either. I started going to Macy’s, and when I discovered the amazing sale rack, my life became almost perfect. And then, I found Abercrombie.
“She pays her own rent,” Eli would say. “She’s been on her own. That should count for something.”
Dad would shake his head. “I just don’t know what you see in her.”
Then Eli would say that Dad never, ever tried to get to know her. She’s kind, she cares about him, and they have a lot in common.
The whole thing ends with Dad yelling, and Eli storming out, leaving the front door wide open, and Dad pouring a sloe gin and tonic and sinking into the green chair while Mom lies on top of her quilt, and I lie under my curtains, and we both just wait for the trade winds to clear out everything and breathe the hā back in.
This time, though, Mom knelt down in front of him, put her hands on his knees: “He likes her, John. We have to trust him more. You know how it is when parents don’t think you’re good enough.”
WINTER
Prompt: Irony.
Blueberries.
That’s the hard part.
But even trying to feel better was actually starting to make me feel better.
TeenHelp’s next tip was to exercise. Another was to take certain vitamins and eat certain foods. If I walked to a store, I could check off three things at once.
I made one list for Longs (vitamin B, omega-3, folic acid, Saint John’s Wort) and another list for Safeway (blueberries, vegetables, whole grain cereal, eggs).
Taylor Before and After Page 13
