I make myself remember: I’m choosing this. I want to do this. Sure, I felt terrible a minute ago, but it’s a good terrible because it’s making me stronger. And I feel a little better after a few bites of food.
It’s scary how something like hunger can change how you think about yourself. I don’t think I really understood hunger until I started training.
I came close back when I lived with my mom. She lost her job and we were broke. I was on a free meal program at school, and I felt so lucky and so scared. Lucky, because we still had enough to eat. Scared, because there were kids who clearly didn’t. Sitting around those big white cafeteria tables, the kids next to me didn’t always look different than me, but some of them ate like they knew they weren’t getting another chance.
Even in elementary school, we all knew better than to tell the others, the ones who weren’t at breakfast. We had fun, played games, and talked. But there was this unspoken rule: what happens at breakfast stays at breakfast. At lunch, everyone had a swipe card, so no one knew where your lunch was coming from. But before school, corralled together, we were vulnerable. We knew it, even if we didn’t have a name for it. We knew what the food meant, and that we should all be ashamed. I can’t imagine being truly hungry, like I am now, on top of that.
My grandfather started driving up to visit a lot, like every single week, and he would buy us a ton of groceries, lots of vegetables, but treats too, and it was the best thing ever because we had Nutella and brand-name cereal and all the best frozen stuff from Trader Joe’s. Looking back, I think that he was trying to get my mom into rehab, or maybe back on her meds. I wish I knew what really happened, but there’s no one left to ask. I remember them fighting a lot, and sometimes my mom would yell at him until he left, and then she’d yell at me for crying about it. At least I had someone. Not everyone has that. I can’t imagine how much it must have sucked to be those hungry kids at school. This kind of hunger makes it so you can’t think. It’s the kind of hunger that makes you stop on the side of the road and beat up a vending machine trying to get a Snickers, even though Lani told you not to eat any more candy because candy is not food. I mean, who would do that. Only a lunatic. But hunger makes you stupid. When I feel that hunger now, I have literally eaten abandoned pizza off customers’ plates as I take them to the kitchen sink.
Maybe that’s the difference between hungry and hunger. Hungry is what you feel before dinner. Hunger is what you fear.
I could be that hungry again but without the choice. I could go to college, get a useless degree in art and lots of debt, and find myself on food stamps with no way out. Or maybe I’d be successful for a little while and then one thing would go wrong and I would plummet out of the sky. I have a pretty okay life right now. I could deliver pizzas forever, maybe even take over from Tua someday, and never have to worry about food. Why would I risk what I have? If I fly too close to the sun, there’s not a whole lot my dad will be able to do to help me.
I could be hungry for the rest of my life.
“Your destination is on the left,” my phone announces. I skid to a stop. I’m here, but I don’t remember listening. I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and leave a trail of Lani’s fancy sandwich spread. Whatever. I grab the pizzas, walk up to the gate, and ring the intercom.
“Pizza delivery from Uncle Tua’s for…” I look at the slip of paper. “Sailor Chibi Moon?”
God I hope this isn’t a prank. That’s all I need tonight.
Someone buzzes me in. As I walk toward the front door, I realize I do know where I am. I can’t place it. It’s only a medium-sized mansion in this neighborhood, but it still seems huge to me.
I ring the doorbell. I hear footsteps coming toward the door, so I smile my biggest smile and straighten up. The door opens and—
And.
And.
The smile doesn’t fall off my face. The pizzas don’t fall out of my hands.
“Ladies, the pizza’s here!” she calls over her shoulder. She is wearing a Sailor Moon tiara that has “Bride” written on it in glitter ink.
I hear the “woo” before I see them. They appear from down a hallway, walking strangely on those toe separator things. They’re all wearing matching pink satin robes over pink bathing suits. She’s obviously pregnant but still looks perfect. I don’t even sense the pizzas lift out of my hands. I’m still smiling, staring at her like an idiot.
“Daddy, where’s your wallet?” she calls into the house.
“By the door,” a disembodied voice calls back. “Tell him to keep the change.”
She thumbs through the wallet.
“On a hundred?” she calls back.
“If that’s all there is,” he replies.
She turns back to me, leafing through the wallet. Not once has she even looked at me as a person. A uniform makes you invisible.
“Your lucky day!” she says, not even noticing that I haven’t said anything. She hands me a hundred-dollar bill and I feel my hand take it. Then she shuts the door, and I listen as the woos go down the hallway away from the door.
My legs carry me back to my bike. My hand puts the hundred-dollar bill in my pocket, and I force myself to ride away. My eyes turn to the side of the house as I coast away, and there, in the back, I can see it now.
There’s the pool house.
* * *
As I bike back to Tua’s, I’m so furious my brain shorts out and I make a wrong turn. All the “getting over him” I thought I’d done over the last few months. I’m so stupid. Why can’t I turn love off? Why is it sitting here, in my chest, fueling this flame that’s doing nothing for me?
Sometimes, the universe just sucker punches you.
I have been to her house before. Or rather, her pool house, site of the Thin Man movie marathon.
He cheated on her in her own house.
I should be righteously angry, but I just feel…I don’t know.
Why am I so easy to forget? Why am I someone who can be thrown away by a dad, by a mom, and by my partner in crime? Things that seem so permanent, people who seem so solid, they…vanish. And they never look back. Will my friends remember me after this year? Am I even someone worth remembering?
My pedal strokes become a chant: The Little Engine That Hated Herself.
I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself.
Just like there’s hungry and hunger, there’s sad and this pain I don’t have a name for. The thing you fear. But there’s nothing I can do.
I pull up to Tua’s. I walk briskly but calmly through the completely full restaurant. Keep it together, I tell myself. I grab my stuff out of my employee locker, then hand Uncle Tua the hundred-dollar bill. He looks at the bill, then at me.
“I’m not feeling well Uncle Tua I’m really sorry I need to go can you clock me out,” I say all at once. I try to keep it together, but the second I open my mouth, tears start falling. I head back out the door as quickly as I can. I walk into a chair that screeches across the floor, but no one looks up. I have to get away. I am choking on sobs and so embarrassed. The customers don’t notice, but Uncle Tua follows me out front.
“Miho, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just. I just.”
I can’t even answer. I’m sobbing, and I have to go. He reaches out to grab my hand, but I pull away.
“Miho, your tips!”
I pedal away as fast as I can.
chapter sixteen
Two weeks later, I get off work on Friday and instead of hanging out with my friends, I play Eldritch Codex all night. I’m pretending to look for the Stone of Hermes, but I’m honestly just sneaking around the places I used to haunt with Scumbucket. I’m surprised he hasn’t been online this whole time. He’s the one who got me hooked on this game in the first place.
I’ve been doing this kind of a lot. I even blew off a few training runs to play. I st
ill want to do this race, but the more training I blow off, the easier it is to just…not. The spark is gone.
If I could get myself together, maybe it would come back.
I promise myself. Tomorrow. I will get back to training tomorrow. This is the last night of moping. Hard stop.
The light from my phone gets my attention. I realize I’ve played all through the night. It’s getting light out. I haven’t slept at all.
It’s a text from X.
“Are you up?” he writes. I switch off the PlayStation and text a thumbs-up.
“Put some pants on and grab your swim stuff,” he writes. “I’m outside.”
I sigh. Normally, I’d be bursting with excitement for this kind of early morning adventure. Today, I want to crawl into bed.
Suck it up, I tell myself. I slap a smile on my face, put on my swimsuit with a dress over it. I stuff a towel, cap, and goggles into my backpack. What else would a happy Miho choose to pack? I look at my sketchbook. I leave it on the floor.
I close my bedroom door, shush Achilles, leave Dad a note in the kitchen, and hop into the car.
“You look like hell,” X says.
“That’s what you get when you rush a lady,” I reply, trying to muster some banter. “Where are we going?”
He tells me about how he joined the Waikiki Swim Club Facebook page, and how he got a tip on a great swimming beach. We’re going to have to drive, though. It’s an hour and a half away, the other side of the island.
“So it’s a workout?” I ask, a little deflated.
He shrugs. “Rei added a makeup session since you got so behind last week,” he says. “Unless you’re having second thoughts about this whole Ironman thing.”
“No.” I try to sound more confident than I feel. “Burn rubber.”
* * *
This is a real open-ocean swim. Not a snorkeling trip, not messing around in the perfect Hawaiian surf. A swim. For miles. I watch bubbles streaming from my fingertips with each stroke, listen to the sound of myself gasping for breath. There are beautiful fish. X said there’s even a shipwreck somewhere down there, supposedly. And sharks, but I try not to think about that. There’s so much to see under the water. But all I’m seeing is my own slow pace. All I’m feeling is the burning salt water that keeps getting in my nose as I try to sight.
I stop. I paddle over and cling to the kayak for dear life, trying to catch my breath.
“You’re not even trying,” X says. He looks at some app on his phone. “We’ve only gone a mile.”
Over half an hour to swim a mile. Ridiculous, I think to myself. I’ve been biking slower too. I tell my legs, “Get yourselves together!” but even though it feels like I’m working as hard as I possibly can, like my RPE is freaking eleven, I’m slower and slower day by day. I’ve been exhausted ever since I delivered that pizza. I thought it was the missed training, but maybe I’m just a garbage triathlete.
I take off my goggles. X looks at his watch. “You need to keep going. If we sit here and let your heart rate fall, you won’t get the benefits—”
“Will you give me a break? There wasn’t even a swim on the calendar today.”
“I told you. Rei added one because you keep missing your workouts.”
“Why didn’t she say anything to me?”
He shrugs. “Can you just drink some water and keep going? It’s hot out here.”
“Show me the calendar. I want to see what else that tyrant put on there.”
“No.”
“Why can’t I see the calendar?”
“Because you’re just trying to get out of swimming. I know you’re tired and frustrated, but guess what, kitten, you’re going to be even more tired and frustrated when your race comes and you didn’t train. It’s for your own good. Respect the distance.”
I laugh. X smiles back. I’ve been trying so hard to cover up how I don’t care about anything by being cheery. Even Dad noticed that I’m all smiles all the time. I even sing while I’m doing my chores. Meanwhile, I’m poring through old text messages and crying every time I can find a bathroom stall to do it in. I’m so tired I have no idea what day it is.
X, on the other hand, is exploding with energy because his semester is over. He walked at his graduation last week. Mine isn’t until the end of the month. Everything will get better after that, I tell myself. It’s a lot to handle, all these workouts, plus work, plus school. You’re not pathetic. It is a lot, I say in my head.
She could do it, replies the voice inside me. The smile drops off my face. I hope X doesn’t notice.
I drink some water, throw the bottle back into the kayak, and paddle out. “Ready?” X asks. I grab my goggles. As I reach for them, I spot X’s phone in the clear dry bag. Remember when that Scumbucket texted you that he loved you while he was gallivanting around Italy with his fiancée? Remember the picture of that bathtub bookstore in Venice? my brain helpfully reminds me. What little motivation I had evaporates.
“C’mon, Mi, we’ll do half. Give me one more mile. And then I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“Is it a run? If it’s a surprise run—”
“It’s hiking. We’re meeting everyone in…” He checks his watch. “In two hours, so that means we have to hustle.”
“All the way out here?”
“Yeah,” he says. He looks kind of…guilty.
For my own good, I think, treading water. I take my goggles back off.
“There’s nothing on the calendar, is there. Nothing on my training plan at all. This should have been a rest day.”
“What?”
He has no poker face. Not with me.
“You added it. You added the swim.”
“No I didn’t.”
“What day is it?”
“I have no idea. Who ever knows the date, I mean really.”
“It’s because it’s today, isn’t it,” I say. “His wedding is today.”
X is quiet. He puts his head in his hands.
“It’s happening right now, isn’t it.”
“Yeah,” he says. My heart splits in two. I didn’t know the date, but I knew it was coming. I knew it would hurt this way. Now. Right now.
“Give me my phone,” I say as I swim to the kayak.
“Why?”
“I just want to see the pictures.”
“You don’t want to see that.”
“Why? Because it’s all beautiful on Instagram with her perfect #supportcrew bridesmaids taking a million perfect pictures of her perfect day?”
“No, because you’re letting him ruin one more day with me. He doesn’t matter, Miho. Drop it.”
“Fine.”
I kick away from X, treading water.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“No,” I lie. It’s taking all of my self-control not to tackle the kayak and take my phone out. “Can I please get on the boat and go in?”
“No.”
“I’m tired. Do you want me to drown?”
X sighs, puts the paddle in the boat.
“You’re not tired —you want to get on Instagram and cyberstalk her to make yourself feel worse.”
“No I don’t.”
“You absolutely do.”
“And it’s not stalking because I never said anything to her.”
“It’s definitely cyberstalking.”
“Cyberstalking is online harassment. Look it up, you computer nerd. I have never, and will never, talk to her. Don’t I get credit for that? Don’t I get some kind of karmic points for not messing up her entire life when I absolutely could? When all I’d need to do is show up in her in-box with the truth?”
“I still don’t know why you won’t tell her.”
I glare at him.
“Okay, I do know,” he says
reluctantly. “I get the logic. You know she’s definitely going to have the baby, and you don’t want their kid to end up…”
“On the side of the road alone.” Tears brim in my eyes.
“Your mom didn’t leave you because she thought you were worthless. She left you because she was a drug addict, and you know that,” X says. “But, Miho, it’s a lie. You’re not saving their kid, because you can’t change reality. He is who he is.”
“People change,” I say. “He did a bad thing. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her, only that he didn’t love me.”
“Whatever. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong here. I honestly don’t care about either of them. It’s you I care about. Whatever the masochistic cousin of cyberstalking is? That’s what you’re doing.”
“I need to see so I can move on. I can’t help it.”
“You can help it. You don’t want to.”
“No, I can’t. I try. I am trying so hard. But I can’t. It’s like the universe is screwing with me. Everywhere I look, there he is, or even worse, there she is with her perfect life. I was feeling better, and then you know what happened? I did a pizza delivery, and it was to her bachelorette party. I mean, come on. That’s not fair!”
“What? When was this?”
“Like two weeks ago.”
He is quiet for a moment.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks.
“I just didn’t, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. I mean, aren’t we even friends? I don’t understand why you won’t even talk to me.”
“Because there’s nothing you can do.”
“I can try, Miho! Don’t you think it hurts me that you won’t even let me try?”
“It’s not the kind of thing you understand! Do you have any idea how much it hurts to look in a mirror and just hate yourself? I hate everything about me. I don’t want him back. It wouldn’t fix anything. I want to turn into someone else. It hurts so, so much.”
X looks like he’s about to shout at me, but he doesn’t.
Fierce as the Wind Page 12
