by Piper Lennox
“Surprised you’re hanging with me,” I told Noe, elbowing him hard enough to slosh his beer. “I know Andrea leaves tomorrow.”
Noe took a long sip and glanced out at the patio, where Dad was now chatting up some guests. He looked back at me and smiled. “Actually, she’s staying.”
My beer went down the wrong pipe. I coughed, “Staying?”
“Yeah. She told me this morning. She was like, ‘We need to talk,’ so obviously I assumed she was going to break up with me. I mean, that’s what happens, right?”
I nodded, as though I knew. Truthfully, I’d never so much as held hands with a tourist girl, but Noe had a habit of falling in love every summer. At least for a few days.
“But instead,” he went on, “she told me her dad pulled some strings, so she’s staying at her uncle’s condo over in Hawi, while he’s off renovating his other condo in Canada. So she’ll have six more months here, which is plenty of time for me to save up for our own place.”
I tried to hide my shock. “Isn’t that...kind of fast? You just met her a few weeks ago.”
“A month,” he corrected, like that made a difference.
“Dad’s going to lose his shit.”
“Dad doesn’t have to know. I’m twenty-four.” He said this part with a slight slam of his mug on the bar top, defiant, but I noticed his eyes cutting out to the patio again.
“Well…if you’re happy, I guess.”
Noe nodded, then stopped and studied me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then quit it.” I flicked a balled-up napkin at him. It probably had someone’s nasty wad of gum inside it. Good.
He flicked it back. “I was just looking,” he said slowly, “to kind of...gauge your reaction, I guess.”
“Why would I care?”
Noe tilted his head. “Come on, Kai. I know you liked her.”
I rolled my eyes, reflexive. “All I said was that I thought she was hot.”
“She told me you guys talked for, like, two hours, her first night here.”
Worse than the blush I felt on my neck was the fact I know he saw it. He was looking for it, waiting. But I wasn’t just embarrassed. I was pissed. Why was Andrea running her mouth about me? I got it: she wasn’t interested. Leave me alone about it, already.
“I was talking to her,” I said, keeping my words level and paced, the paragon of nonchalance, “like I’d talk to any other tourist. Polite and friendly.”
Noe said this last part in sync with me, making fun of the poster Dad kept in his office. Back then, it wasn’t some big glass and marble room, but a converted storage closet with a filing cabinet, old desktop computer, and stenographer’s table. Cheesy motivational posters were slapped on each wall. The three of us quoted them to each other incessantly, our favorite bit, and it never failed to make me laugh. Except this time.
“Do you like her?” he asked, almost whispering. “I would want you to tell me, if you did.”
That was the thing about Noe. He was the golden child to our parents, but to Luka and me, he was a typical big brother: every bit as capable of sudden and extreme kindness as he was of standard older sibling torture.
If he knew my crush on Andrea hadn’t stopped for one second the entire month she’d stayed here, he might have backed off, told her to go home to the mainland, and that would’ve been the end of it.
But, depending on his mood, he could just as easily take a twisted kind of happiness and pride in the fact I liked Andrea, yet he was the one who got her.
I wasn’t interested in finding out which way things would go.
“No,” I said. I could tell he didn’t believe me.
So I took a page from Luka, who could get away with murder because he was the baby and an expert liar: throw in just enough truth, preferably something embarrassing, and no one will doubt you.
“Okay,” I sighed, like he’d finally dragged it out of me, “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed. But something tells me you wouldn’t be into sharing.”
Noe laughed and punched me in the shoulder. Suspicion: erased.
The rest of my birthday was depressingly dull. All my friends were working late or already asleep at ten for early shifts, so I played quarters with Noe and let Luka finish my drinks when Dad wasn’t looking.
I had fun, kind of, but kept thinking, I’m twenty-one. I should be doing something exciting right now. Instead, I was doing basically the same thing I did every night: hanging out with my brothers. The alcohol didn’t make it more fun. In fact, it just made me painfully aware of how little fun I was having.
Then, salt in the wound, Andrea decided to show. She draped herself on my brother like a jacket and drank my drinks, when she finished his and didn’t feel like ordering more.
For a while, I just sat there and ignored them. When I was so drunk I didn’t care about seeming rude, I slipped out from under Dad’s eagle eye and headed home.
Luka caught up to me when I was halfway down the road. “You want to go see what Liam and Derek are up to? Or we could go to Colby’s. She said her parents are out of town till next week.”
I shook my head. “I just want to sleep.”
“It’s your birthday,” he said. Like I needed reminding.
“So?”
“So...I don’t know. Don’t you want to do something fun?”
I looked at him. He hadn’t finished growing yet, and would get another four inches in height by the end of the year. The way he looked up at me, so expectant, made me feel bad for shaking my head again.
“Well...what about tomorrow morning? We haven’t been surfing in a while.”
“We went yesterday.”
“You and Noe went yesterday,” he said sharply. “Nobody woke me up.”
“Okay, okay. We’ll go. If I’m not hungover.”
He laughed. “Deal.”
At the top of our driveway, he wished me happy birthday and waved.
“You aren’t going to bed?”
“Nah,” he called, jogging backwards in the direction we came, “just wanted to make sure you got wherever you were headed.”
For a second, I felt shitty bemoaning my shitty birthday. At least Luka had tried to make it fun.
“Thanks, man.” I waved, watching him vanish into the dark spot between two streetlights, and headed down the driveway.
The door was locked. I tried each window, the back patio, and emptied my pockets before accepting the fact that yes, I’d left my keys at the bar. Right beside Andrea’s purse. Great.
My head felt heavy, like my sinuses were packed with gauze and my brain was just a sponge full of liquor. I tried to throw up, couldn’t, and lay down in the lifeless dirt of our garden bed with a beach towel underneath me.
I fell asleep for a while, until I heard keys jingling. I opened my eyes and saw them, crashing together right in front of my nose.
“Jesus. ” I hit them away. “Can you not shake jagged metal in my face?”
“Sorry,” Andrea laughed, unfazed. She held out a hand. I hesitated, then took it.
“What are you doing here?” I yawned, rubbing my eyes like I could draw out my drunkenness and cast it aside, no longer needed.
“You left your keys.” She scooped them out of the dirt and tossed them at my chest. “Noe had to help your mom with the registers, so I told him I’d bring them to you.”
“Where’s my dad?”
“Emergency plumbing situation.”
“Uh-huh. And, uh...Luka?”
“God, I get it,” she giggled, reaching up to tousle my hair. “You literally want anyone else in the world here but me.”
“No, I was just wondering,” I said, even though she was right. It wasn’t like I still pined after Andrea, but that didn’t mean I was ready to be buddy-buddy with her, either.
“Crappy birthday, huh?” she asked. “Little early to call it a night.”
“Yeah, well.” I shrugged as I navigated the darkness to the side door. “I didn’t
want anything big, anyway.”
Her footsteps followed me. God, why wouldn’t she leave me alone? Wasn’t it bad enough I’d had to spend my birthday watching her and Noe hang all over each other, reminding me that, yet again, Noe got everything before I even had the chance to try?
Even his twenty-first birthday had been miles above mine, with a giant bonfire down on the beach, all our friends showing up with more beer and food than we could finish. Everyone partied until sunrise for him.
It took me a few tries to get the key into the lock. The sound of it dragging on the wood sent screeches through my brain. All I wanted to do was get inside, fall down in my bed, and sleep the rest of this birthday away.
Andrea followed. She must have had one foot set right behind mine, to get in as fast as she did.
“Can I use your bathroom real quick?” she asked, and headed down the hall without an answer.
My room was hot; I’d shut the windows that morning to drown out the sound of Noe on the lawnmower. Once again, the perfect son. He didn’t even have to be told to do it, much less ten times, like me.
I fell face-first into my bed and closed my eyes. My heartbeat was fast and my mouth felt like it had been swabbed with cotton. I was dying for some water, but couldn’t manage to get up.
In my half-sleeping state, it seemed like hours before my door cracked open. I was facing away, but I saw the arc of light from the hallway sweep over my bed and topple onto the desk.
I don’t know why I turned over. I’ve thought about that night a hundred times—pinpointed every single thing I could have done differently. If I’d just stayed there, lying on my stomach with my eyes shut. If I hadn’t whispered, “Hi.” If, when she shut the door behind her, throwing my room back into that thick darkness, I’d told her to leave.
She crawled into my bed and kissed me, all in one motion, like an eel gliding in and nestling into the sheets.
“What about Noe?” I asked, after she’d already pulled her shirt off over her head and shaken out her hair. She smelled like banana sunscreen and too much perfume.
“It’s your birthday,” she purred, her mouth right against my ear. It made me shiver. “And don’t pretend you haven’t wanted this since the day we met.”
“I haven’t.”
“Sure.”
I thought about arguing this point more, but it was hard to sound convincing when my hand was down her shorts, rubbing her through her bikini.
I really didn’t want Andrea. Not enough to do anything about it. I hadn’t since the day after we met when, despite two hours of what I’d assumed was deep conversation and real connection, I saw her making out with Noe down on the beach. She’d never explained herself or apologized. But then again, she didn’t have to. It’s not like we were together. We weren’t even friends.
She was just a tourist.
“Thought you guys were serious,” I challenged, as she pulled down my zipper. I said it sarcastically, making fun of them. Who moves in together after just a month? Who moves all the way to another state, for someone she barely knows?
“Why would you think that?”
“Uh…because you’re moving for him?”
“I’m staying,” she said, voice spiked with curacao and rum, “because my uncle’s place is free and I like Hawaii. Six months, I go home. Noe knows the deal.”
“I don’t think he does.”
“Damn, Kai—can’t you just enjoy this?” She pulled her hand from my boxers and sat back on my legs. “I like your brother, yeah. But I like you, too. Okay?”
I almost stopped her. It wasn’t okay, obviously, but there was some stupid part of me that chose to focus on the rest of her sentence instead. “I like you, too.”
Noe got everything, without even trying. The thought of getting his girl, even for one night, made the pissed-off, jealous, drunk side of me happy.
So I let her undress me. I hooked my thumbs into the belt loops of her shorts and tugged them down, taking the bathing suit with them.
I don’t remember the details: how it felt, the noises she made. The only piece my memory’s held on to is the moment I pressed my fingertips into her back and thought, She’s mine. Not in a romantic way; not even in an infatuated way. Just to remind myself that, for right now, I had the girl. For once, Noe was the one alone somewhere.
Afterwards, she pulled my quilt over us and fell asleep with her head on my chest. She seemed oblivious to the heat, or the fact I was sweating. I was too tired to protest.
She snuck out before sunrise. I wasn’t sure if Noe saw her leaving my room, hair mussed and smelling like my cologne, or if she told him the truth, but I woke up to them yelling in the garden.
Mom and Dad were at the kitchen table. When I stumbled in, Dad wouldn’t look at me. Mom did. I pretended I didn’t see her as I poured my coffee.
“Kai,” she said finally, her voice breaking, “why would you do that to him?”
“I didn’t do anything.” My lie fell out without a second thought. Another lesson from Luka: deny, deny, deny.
Dad pushed out from the table, stalked past me to their bedroom, and slammed the door, done with this situation. Done with me. I didn’t see the blinks and head-shake that preceded it, but by now, I’d memorized them.
This was his real trademark move: leaving me alone with Mom. He’d learned long ago that when his yelling and punishments weren’t enough, Mom’s disappointment was.
“Kai,” she said again, and touched my hand with hers. “Go talk to Noe. The sooner you explain—”
“I didn’t do anything.” This time, the lie tasted like copper in my mouth. I wasn’t as good at this as Luka.
“Go.” She stood, grabbing Dad’s mug, and made her way back to the bedroom. She didn’t slam the door like Dad did, but the soft click of the lock echoed through our house just the same.
It worked. Eventually, my guilt turned into a fireball in my gut. I finished my coffee and went outside, taking the long way around the house. When I was behind the garden wall, I heard crying.
It wasn’t Andrea, though. It was Noe.
Shitty as it felt to admit it, I was hopeful, hearing that. Noe never cried, except for a few quiet tears when our grandpa died. It sounded like he was more broken than angry. Maybe I had a chance of explaining my way out of this: I was drunk, I was jealous, she came onto me. Etcetera.
I stepped out from my hiding place, ready to talk him down. He had to forgive me. We were brothers, flesh and blood. Who the hell was this girl? Just some summer fling, clearly not worth his time or heartache. I’d done him a favor, really.
No sooner had I set foot in the dirt of the garden than he swung at me, connecting with my chin and sending me back into the birdbath, always empty. It fell and cracked against the brick wall. I tumbled with it and slammed my head on the rim.
“You piece of shit,” he seethed. His voice was choked, but full of so much anger.
I looked up at him, my eyes struggling to adjust after the impact. There was more than anger, there. He hated me.
“Noe, it’s not like that,” I groaned. My hands couldn’t find solid ground to push myself up before he punched me again. I thought about swinging back; I was bigger than him, a stronger fighter. Probably the only thing I could do better than he could.
I didn’t, though. Some part of me knew I deserved to get hit, and that he needed to hit me. So I let him do it again, then a fourth time, before he turned and left.
Now Andrea was crying. I wiped the blood out of my eyes—my eyebrow stung when I rubbed sweat into it by accident, so I knew there was at least one split—and looked at her.
“Kai, I’m so sorry.” She reached out her hand to help me. I pushed it back.
“Get away from me.”
“I was drunk, it was a mistake. I was just nervous, you know, about moving here? I mean, it’s such a big change and….”
Her excuses made me feel sick to my stomach. They were no better than the ones I’d been preparing to tell Noe, and
now I realized how pathetic they really were.
She watched me struggle to my feet, still holding out her hand like I would take it. Finally, she closed it and pulled it back against her chest. “I just want to make things right.”
“Then leave.”
“But I just—”
“Go!” I shouted. There was blood in my mouth when I spat; my lip already felt swollen. “Get off this fucking island and leave us alone. That’s how you can help.”
I ran around the side of the house in the direction Noe had gone. His surfboard was missing from the porch, so I headed for the beach, cutting through neighborhoods on the same worn path we took for our early morning surf sessions. When Noe would wake me up, just before dawn, and whisper, “Let’s go.”
I loved those mornings. We’d done them for years, ever since we were old enough to be on the beach alone. When I turned thirteen—the year Noe had to spend more and more mornings getting ready for work, training under Dad’s watchful eye—I started waking Luka to go with me instead. Sometimes, every now and then, all three of us would go.
The beach was usually empty, with a couple surfers scattered in the distance. We’d paddle out and wait, talking about work, school, girls. Of course, when a good wave would finally show, we’d drop the niceties and get competitive—but even then, it wasn’t serious. It was just about hanging out together.
My bare feet skidded down the path, past the second block between our house and the stretch of sand to the beach. If any of our neighbors were watching, I was sure I looked insane: legs cranking at full-speed, chest heaving, face covered in blood. But all I cared about was catching up to Noe.
He was already paddling. I shouted after him and waded out, then dove and swam. The water stung my wounds so sharply, I had to stop and tread water, calling out for him to meet me halfway.
He pretended he couldn’t hear. After the tenth round of shouting, my voice cracked. He finally looked.
“Please,” I called. I felt like my lungs were about to collapse. “I need to talk to you.”
Noe looked away and shook his head. I went under just in time to dodge a big wave coming in. When I surfaced, he was paddling even farther out.
