Summer Bird Blue

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

  He shrugs, takes hold of his surfboard, and heads down to the water.

  Kai paces nearby, his phone in his hand and a strange look in his eyes.

  “You all right?” I ask.

  He looks up and shoves his phone beneath his shirt on the sand. “It’s fine. I’ll deal with it later. See you in a few?”

  I nod a few times, and he hurries to join Gareth at the edge of the beach. I watch them paddle out to sea, working hard to fight the height of the small waves until they’re far enough out to avoid being pushed back by the current.

  I watch them become smaller in the distance. I hear his phone rumbling against the sand.

  Hannah hasn’t shown up yet, and I’m a little worried about getting a farmer’s tan if I stay like this much longer, so I pull my shirt over my head while Kai and Gareth are far away and stuff it behind me.

  God, I feel so vulnerable.

  I convince myself I’m not nervous about the water or the surfing or the bikini top, but when the boys return I suddenly feel overwhelmingly embarrassed.

  Thankfully, Kai doesn’t notice.

  He shoves a hand over his wet hair to clear his forehead. Drying his hands on a towel, he rummages under his shirt and finds his cell phone. He swipes a few times, frowning at the screen. “Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Gareth motions me off the cooler and finds a can of juice. He cracks the lid and gulps it down like he’s been traveling across a desert. When he comes up for air, he looks at Kai. “Is dat Hannah? She close?”

  “No,” Kai says. “It’s my dad.” He shakes his head irritably. “Give me a second, brah. I have to make a phone call.”

  When he’s about ten yards away he presses the phone to his ear. It’s only a few seconds before his voice turns hurried and defensive.

  Gareth chugs the rest of his juice and stuffs the empty can in the sand next to his leg. “Water’s good today.” He motions toward me. “Eh, wea’ you learn how fo’ sing? You eva take lessons?”

  I pretend I can’t hear Kai’s conversation. I think Gareth’s doing the same. “I just picked it up, I guess. Lea and I used to sing together, ever since we were little.”

  “Who?” he asks.

  “My sister.” I pause, looking at Gareth like I’m not sure if he’s pretending or not. “Didn’t Kai tell you?”

  “Kai neva said anyt’ing about a sistah. Is she back on da mainland?” he asks innocently.

  “She’s dead,” I say.

  Gareth’s face looks like someone just pushed him off the edge of a cliff and he’s falling so fast he can’t comprehend what’s happening. “Oh, man. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know dat.” He shifts his knees, straightens himself, tries to figure out what to do with his hands. He’s uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable.

  I try to figure out why Kai wouldn’t have told him. It would’ve made it easier for them, to know something like that so they could ask the right questions or avoid them if they wanted to. But then I wonder if he was trying to do me a favor—maybe he thought it would be easier for me if people didn’t know.

  Gareth is trying so hard to think of what to say next. He’s like Aunty Ani. And suddenly I really appreciate Kai for giving me some time to feel human and whole, even if it was only pretend.

  “You don’t have to be weird about it,” I assure him.

  Gareth nods, but he still looks unsure. “I not so good wit’ heavy kine stuff li’dat. But if you like talk wit’ me about it, you can. I one good listnah.” He pauses, then looks up at me with a raised brow and the fat part of his lip sticking out. “You like one hug?”

  “I think I’m all right, thanks,” I say, finding the nerves of someone who resembles a mountain to be a little amusing.

  Gareth enters into a stream of consciousness about the weather. He doesn’t stop until Kai returns.

  “Sorry about that.” Kai shoves his phone back under his pile of clothes.

  “What did he want?” Gareth asks, probably relieved to have someone else to talk to again.

  “He’s pissed I’m here. Says he wanted me fo’ help clean out the garage.” Kai scratches the back of his arm and clenches his jaw. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’s already mad, so I’ll just talk to him when I get home.” He forces a smile and nods to the water. “How about you, hapa? Ready fo’ hit the waves?”

  Not yet, my mind screams.

  “Isn’t Hannah going to be here soon? I’ll wait for her,” I say. Kai opens his mouth like he’s about to argue, so I add an extra lie. “There’s something I wanted to talk to her about.”

  Gareth jumps up and grabs a football out of one of the bags. “Okay, we’ll be back.” He motions Kai to follow him. I’m pretty sure he asks him about Lea as soon as they’re out of earshot.

  I don’t know how much time passes, but Kai’s phone never stops ringing. When Hannah and Jerrod turn up, I’m almost used to the sequence of piccolo notes and chimes muffled beneath Kai’s T-shirt.

  Jerrod sets off down the beach with his phone, holding it out in front of him like it’s a metal detector.

  “What is he doing?” I ask.

  Hannah snorts. “Taking pictures for his Instagram. He has, like, twenty thousand followers. It’s so weird. I can never get any of the guys I like to notice me, and he’s got girls in South Korea offering marriage proposals.”

  I can’t imagine how anybody wouldn’t notice Hannah. She’s gorgeous. Maybe guys find her intimidating.

  Alice once told me that it’s important for girls to laugh a lot, especially if they’re shy. Because guys mistake shyness for bitchiness, and that’s the last thing a guy wants.

  I think Alice gave terrible advice. I don’t think girls should have to smile all the time in order to make other people think they’re approachable. Maybe girls don’t want to be approachable to everybody. And anyway, smiling is basically the same thing as lying. Most of the time when people smile, they’re trying to hide what they’re really thinking. I don’t trust you. I can’t understand you. I’m finding this very uncomfortable. Good God, please leave me alone. The world would be so much more honest if people didn’t smile all the time.

  And quite frankly, anybody who would turn down Hannah for not being “approachable” doesn’t deserve her.

  Twirling her hair at the side of her chin, she purses her lips and makes a noise. “It’s so warm today. I hope Italy is this warm.”

  “You’re lucky you get to travel so much,” I say. Lea and I used to dream of traveling around the world, singing in all the major cities and launching our careers. I don’t think it will happen now. I think Hawaii might forever be the only pin on my map.

  It wouldn’t be the same without her.

  Hannah leans back on her hands. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool, I guess. Except the ‘having to make new friends all the time’ part. Do you miss your friends back home?”

  I clear my throat. If Kai didn’t tell Gareth about Lea, there’s no chance he’d have told Hannah. “I’ve been too busy to really notice,” I lie instead.

  She makes a face, the skin around her nose crumpling. “Too busy hanging out with your neighbor?”

  I stiffen. “It’s not weird. Mr. Watanabe is cool. He doesn’t ask questions and he doesn’t—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she interrupts me. “Calm down. I’m not talking about Mr. Watanabe.” She lets out a harmless laugh. “I meant your other neighbor.”

  I look up and see Kai throw the football through the air like a spear, laughing casually as Gareth lands on his side to catch it.

  “Oh,” I say.

  Hannah smiles without her teeth and shakes her head. “I know a crush when I see one.”

  “I don’t have a crush on Kai,” I correct quickly. “It’s not like that. We’re friends.”

  She sits up and lowers her chin. “I never said you were the one with the crush.”

  My cheeks darken. I don’t say anything. What is there to say?

  When the boys come back, they sa
y they want to pick up Hawaiian barbecue for lunch. Gareth offers to drive but insists he isn’t going by himself like someone’s personal assistant. And when Kai offers to go, Jerrod insists he’s not staying on the beach with Hannah and me like a third wheel. Hannah says we’ll keep an eye on the surfboards and tells them to order her the pulled pork. I don’t know what they have, so I tell them to surprise me.

  When it’s just the two of us, Hannah alternates between talking about movies, nail polish, music, and college majors like we’re old friends hanging out.

  When her phone rings, she leans forward excitedly. “Hello? Hey, can you hear me?” She looks at me and holds up a finger to say she’ll be right back. “Sorry, Kyle. The service here is crap.”

  She paces around the sidewalk for a while before she finds a good spot near the parking lot. And suddenly it’s just me, sitting on the beach, staring at the water with only my thoughts.

  Her phone call seems like it’s lasting forever. I’m watching the crash of sea-foam against the almond-colored sand, wondering what it would feel like to be a wave. You wait forever to have your turn on the shore, and in a matter of seconds it’s all over. That one wave—that blanket of water—goes back into the sea. It’s special for a moment, and then it’s just like everything else.

  And maybe that’s like life. You live for a moment—one single moment. And then you don’t matter. Because there are years of the past and years of the future, and we’re all simply one tiny blip in time—a surge of water waiting to leave our mark on the sand, only to have it washed away by the waves that come after us.

  And Lea, with her brief, tiny wave. She didn’t get to make a mark. If she’d had more time, she would have been a hurricane.

  I’m so tired—of remembering and hurting and missing and coping. I just want it all to stop. I need a break.

  I’m not really thinking when I pick up Kai’s surfboard and wander out into the water. I’m still wearing my jean shorts—I’m not really thinking at all.

  The water washes over my feet, and it feels warm and cold all at once, like it hasn’t been mixed through the whole way. It climbs up my knees, then my waist, and then my stomach is pressed to the board and I’m paddling my arms the way I watched the others do, slowly at first and then frantically because I don’t have any technique.

  And then I’m using my arms to scoop water behind me, and my eyes focus not on the waves in front of me, but the clouds.

  I feel so much like a bird, soaring through emptiness, with the entire world in front of me. I don’t stop moving my arms, but I don’t feel like I’m swimming—I feel like I’m flying.

  A memory

  “Come on. It’s not even that high.” Lea tugs at my wrist, her brown eyes pleading the way a puppy does when they want to go out for a walk.

  “Never going to happen.” My arms are pinned tight across my chest, partly as a display of my stubbornness, but also because it hides part of me.

  Lea might have Mom’s tangled hair, but I have her curves. I hate swimming with Lea, because Lea is petite and adorable and she makes a bikini look the way it does in the online pictures. I look . . . full. And people stare at full.

  Voices sound from far away. “Hurry up!”

  “Come on!”

  “Are you still up there?”

  She moves to the edge of the cliff and cups her hands around her mouth. “We’re coming, hold on!” She looks at me. “Please, I don’t want to go by myself.”

  I open my eyes wide. “Why, so Mom has to plan two funerals instead of one? No way. I can’t even swim.”

  “That’s why Alex has the raft. All you have to do is doggy-paddle to the surface.”

  “Umm and jump like fifty feet toward my death.”

  “It’s not that high.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m still not jumping.”

  Lea’s face goes still. She lowers her chin. “You have to. I’m using my first wish.”

  “What? No way. Wishes are supposed to be, like, favors, not you making me do something dangerous.”

  “A wish is a wish. Jump, Rumi.”

  I groan. My arms flop to my sides. “If I do this, it counts as two wishes.”

  Lea shakes her head. “Request denied. Want to hold my hand?”

  I look at her seriously. “Don’t let me drown.”

  She laughs. “Promise.” She grabs my hand.

  We step closer to the edge of the cliff, but I don’t look down. I look out at the clouds and breathe through my nose.

  “On three?” she asks.

  I nod. “One.”

  “Two.”

  “Three.” I take a breath.

  We jump, and for a moment we’re really flying.

  I can feel her. I can feel her out here in the water, where there is nothing else and I’m not supposed to be reminded of her. I can feel her because she can never truly leave me.

  I thought I could be free of her for a little while, but I failed. I can’t escape her ghost.

  It hurts to think about her, and I’m not sure that kind of pain will ever go away. Healing from a broken heart is exhausting. More exhausting than anyone ever tells you. And yet . . .

  If she’s really out here in the blue mess of sky and sea, I never want to leave. I want to live in the same world as her. To breathe the same air as her. To fly beside her.

  I want my sister back, and if the only way to find her is to swim out into the ocean where the horizon is empty and the clouds take over the sky, then I’ll stay here in the water. I’ll become a wave or a cloud or a bird if it means I can have my sister back.

  My arms start to get tired, my head starts to spin, but I don’t take my eyes off the clouds.

  Lea.

  Are you up there?

  Answer me if you’re there. If you can hear me. If you’re somewhere.

  I miss you so much.

  The wave hits me hard—not because it’s big, but because it’s strong and I’m not paying attention. I’m too busy staring at the clouds that may or may not be my dead sister.

  The board flips over, and I crash into the water, the salt and sea filling my nose and pulling me under. I kick and flail, reaching my fingertips up to the surface. For a split second, I’m free again, gasping for air and taking in deep breaths while my eyes scan for anything to grab on to.

  But there’s nothing. The board is gone, and I’m surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, and I feel myself falling back down because I don’t know how to stay above the water. I try to focus, to calm down so that I can doggy-paddle to shore, but another wave pounds against my face and I’m far below again, the world turning a cloudy blue-green and the ocean burning through my nostrils as I desperately grasp for the sky.

  It hurts until it doesn’t, and right before everything goes black, I hear her voice again.

  Her last word.

  Rumi.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When the salt water erupts from my lungs, I feel it heave up my throat and out of my mouth. Water is supposed to be a basic source of hydration, but nothing feels natural about almost drowning. It feels violent and foreign and so unbelievably painful.

  I roll onto my side, coughing and gasping, and even though I can hear so many people talking at once, I can’t make out a single word.

  Eventually I take in enough air to process where I am. My hand squeezes a fistful of sand. I can still hear the ocean. And when I look up, I don’t see Kai or Gareth or Hannah or Jerrod.

  I see Mr. Yamada.

  He’s on his knees next to me, his thick brows furrowed with concern. The intensity in his eyes makes me feel empty and cold; his irises are like pools of black ink without a drop of color in them.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, his voice like iron.

  “Yeah.” I cough into the sand. “I’m fine.”

  Kai appears over his dad’s shoulder. His eyes are frantic. There’s water dripping down his temples. “What happened?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m not very good at
swimming, I guess.”

  He looks puzzled. The water on his cheeks drips down onto his dad’s clothes, and that’s when I realize Mr. Yamada is soaking wet too. They’ve both been in the ocean. I think they were both trying to save me.

  Kai’s dad snaps his head around, his jaw like the edge of a knife. “What were you thinking letting her go out into the water when she can’t swim? What’s wrong with you?”

  Kai looks at me like he’s staring at a puzzle with pieces that don’t fit together. “You can’t swim? You said you knew how fo’ surf. . . .”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. It feels like it’s about to gush blood, or maybe more salt water. “I just . . . I wanted to be out in the water.”

  “Why would you lie about something like that? You almost drowned.” Kai doesn’t look angry—he looks hurt.

  I close my eyes to block the sun. I feel so dizzy. “I—it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”

  Mr. Yamada stands up, pulling Kai’s arm with him. “I’m taking you home.”

  Kai yanks his arm away, the electricity in his eyes flashing like a bolt of lightning. “Don’t grab me like that. I’m not a child.”

  Mr. Yamada clenches his jaw. “No more surfing. No more wasting your time here at the beach. You’re too reckless—someone could’ve been killed today.”

  I squint, focusing on his eyes even though they’re glaring down at me like they’re steel blades. “It wasn’t his fault,” I say quickly. “He didn’t know I couldn’t swim. And even if he did, he’s not my keeper.”

  “Both of you are irresponsible,” Mr. Yamada says. “You for trying to get yourself killed and Kai for leaving you by yourself. You know better.” He looks at his son. “You know how dangerous it is to go out in the water alone. We have rules in our family. You broke them.”

  “He didn’t leave her by herself,” Hannah interrupts, her voice smaller than I’ve ever heard. “I was here the whole time.”

  Gareth and Jerrod are standing beside her, their mouths clamped shut like they know better than to get involved.

  Not that I need their help. I don’t need anybody’s help.