WINTER
Prompt: On my mind is …
WINTER
Prompt: How do you see O‘ahu fifty years from now?
I thought Miss Wilson was talking about my eyebrow
when she asked me today
if I’m okay.
I rubbed my finger across it,
rough now where it was once smooth.
WINTER
Prompt: “… A movie, a phone conversation, a sunset—tears are words waiting to be written.” (Paulo Coelho)
Sunset.
Tears.
“Good work,” Miss Wilson said as she bent over my notebook. “You got the prompt down again today.”
Tears are words
Waiting to be written.
“Forget about the prompt if you can’t think of anything,” Miss Wilson added. “Just write words.”
I’ll write. I’ll get it together. I don’t want to get in trouble. That would make everything worse. If Miss Wilson calls Dad and tells him I’m not using class time wisely, the Detention Convention will be just the beginning.
Isabelle came back today. Everything’s normal again for her. It’s all behind her now.
That will never happen for me.
Use time wisely.
Write words.
Sunset.
WINTER
Prompt: What was your first impression of Our Lady of Redemption?
Notebook.
Whiteboard.
Just write words.
Prompt. Erasers. Posters. Wall.
Synonyms for “Said.” Web. Shelves.
To Kill a—
Words are tears
Waiting to be written.
Map. Flag. CD player.
Fire exit. Door.
Write words.
First impression at OLR. Doors—big and dark, holding all the unknown inside them.
* * *
“That’s your building there.” Eli pointed to the smaller square—dark doors, flat roof—beyond the pool, the plumeria, the yellow hibiscus.
I turned to wave goodbye to Dad once more, but he was already driving out the gate.
“That’s yours?” I asked about the other building—bigger, same dark doors.
Eli nodded. We were only separated by a couple of palms, a sidewalk.
“Yo, Eli!” they called out to him from across campus, skateboards under their arms, shirts half-tucked, shorts low.
Koa.
Just writing out those three letters together is terrible. Horrible. Small word. Great ache.
Tears are words.
Koa Okoto ran over, pushed his hair from his eyes. “We’re hanging out at Pipe later.”
Back then, I didn’t know what Pipe was—the Banzai Pipeline—the famous wave south of Sunset at Ehukai Beach.
“We can’t ride yet,” Koa said. “But we can watch.”
Mind-surfing, they called it, studying the swell, the break, the barrel.
“Why can’t you ride it?” I asked. It didn’t make sense that this boy—lean, long, strong, tan—who looked like he was born to surf, would rather watch than ride.
“Hey,” Koa said. He’d just noticed me.
“Why can’t you surf there?” I asked again.
“Respect,” Koa said. “You have to earn it. Pipe’s gnarly. If you don’t get her, she’ll swallow you whole, and she might not spit you out.”
In the years after that, as Koa and Tate and Macario raided our fridge and tried to thrill me with videos of wipeouts and waves, as Eli bribed me up to the North Shore with haupia pie, I’d learn everything anyone ever could about Pipeline, the most dangerous wave in the world, with a break so hard, it shook the sand. I’d find out about the coral, the curl, the currents, the timing, the takeoff, the lip that can turn even a master to a ghost. But there was really one thing to know. If the perfect wave ever came, it would come to Pipeline. And Koa would be ready for it.
The bell rang.
Koa asked me if I was over in the smaller square, and I told him, “Sixth.” Just one word.
Koa nodded, then turned to Eli. “So … you in? For Pipe?”
Eli smiled wide. “Yeah, for sure.” Ever since we got to O‘ahu, since that first day he went out to Canoe’s, he was never ever home.
Before starting off toward the bigger doors, Koa told me, “Yo, watch out for the Detention Convention.” But he was gone before I could ask what the Detention Convention was.
Eli shifted his backpack to his other shoulder. “Go get it today, Grom,” he said to me, then hurried to catch up with Koa.
Behind me, a white car, fancy, glided up against the curb. A girl got out. She was laughing. Sunlight shone on her hair—the shade of toasted macadamias. If I had hair like that, I thought, I’d never wish for anything else. I smoothed out the front of my shorts. The girl and me, we were technically dressed the same. But her shirt hugged her ribs just right. She was on her phone, waving toward the banyan tree, where a group she’s left way behind now was smiling, waving back to her.
* * *
Write words.
Desks. Computers. Trash can. Clock.
Use time wisely.
Orchid. Window.
Outside, the yellow hibiscus blooms and drops and blooms again, like it always has.
But a mile away, a white lantern hangs over the Okotos’ door.
WINTER
Prompt: Dessert.
My favorite dessert is …
That perfume. I know it. Square bottle, silver top.
She’s late. That’s the third time. She’s going to get detention now. Her macadamia hair swishes as she slides into the seat in front of me.
That perfume.
How could she say something so mean?
Write words.
Tali flower. Coffee cup. Crates. Folders. Globe.
* * *
We were at my house.
Brielle flipped the page of the October issue of Vogue, and notes of gardenia, wood, and lilies lifted up between us. We looked at each other, her eyes wide, the thing about the damselfly completely forgotten.
“Oh my God,” we squealed.
The picture was square bottle, silver top. White Gardenia Petals.
We rubbed our wrists all over the sticky strip, held them to each other’s noses.
“This will complete my life,” I told Brielle. “It will literally make my entire life worth living.”
We googled it. It was from London. On back order. Sold out after Kate Middleton wore it to her wedding.
Brielle tapped in her dad’s credit card number, told me it would ship in January. She didn’t mind waiting. She said if there was one thing she knew, it was how to play the long game.
We went back to rubbing our wrists on the strip. “It smells like candy.”
“Summer.”
“A bouquet of everythi—”
* * *
“Please use class time wisely,” Miss Wilson said.
At first, I thought she was talking to me. I was staring off into space. But she was actually telling Tae-sung.
Write words. Get it together.
Dessert.
In front of me, Brielle is writing wildly. About what? Crème brûlée at the Waikiki Yacht Club? Her pen doesn’t leave the paper, and she doesn’t look up. She doesn’t look back. All I can see over her shoulder is the same kind of writing I noticed back in September—none of the letters touching each other, all so separate, wide spaces in between. Nothing has changed for her. She just keeps writing. How does anyone have so much to say about dessert?