I press my arms against my stomach and dig my fingers into my sides. Shoji looks back at me with his dark, familiar eyes. Even when they’re filled with pain they’re beautiful—why has it taken me so long to notice?
My little brother knew long before I did that our half-Japanese heritage was worth loving. I only wish I could have told him our future was worth loving too.
He asks me to tell him a story that’s not about Mom or suicide. I tell him about California, and Hiroshi, and Jamie, and Brightwood. I don’t tell him about my painting, because that’s too close to Mom, but I do tell him about the job at the café.
“When are you moving?” he asks.
I flatten my lips. “I’m not. I don’t want to leave you here with Mom.”
“I’m staying with Dad,” he says seriously, leaning forward.
I’m not sure I should tell him about the custody and the lawyers and the fight Mom is making about it. I don’t think this is the appropriate time for bad news. “Okay. Well, I still don’t want to leave you.”
Shoji settles. “I don’t want you to stay here. It sucks here. I’d much rather you went to California.” He thinks. “Besides, if you lived in California, maybe I could come visit you one day.”
It’s a nice thought, even though it’s unlikely to ever become a reality. My brothers and I just don’t keep in touch, no matter how good our intentions are.
I nod anyway. “Okay, well, the nurse said I was only supposed to have a few minutes. I guess you need to rest still.”
“Okay. Thanks for coming.”
I stand up, but he lifts his fingers to stop me.
“Hey, Kiko?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember when some of your money went missing?” His face goes white. “It was me. I took it.”
It wasn’t Uncle Max. It was my brother. My face crumples in surprise, but I try to smooth out the creases before Shoji starts to feel bad. “Why would you do that?”
He shrugs. “I was going to run away.” A weak laugh follows. “This was plan B.”
I don’t join in on his humor. “Well, thanks for telling me.”
“I told Dad, too. I thought if he found out later he might not let me live with him.” He stares at his hands. “If Mom tries to make me stay with her, will you stick up for me? Even if Dad has to get a lawyer?”
I push a smile onto my face to reassure him. “Of course,” I say. I hope it won’t come to lawyers. I’m afraid of what I’ll have to say out loud if it does.
? ? ?
I draw a skeleton putting itself back together again.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Jamie leaves four voice mails on my phone. He texts sixteen times. Most of them say Please call me back. The very last one says How do I fix this?
I’m not ready to talk to him. I want to—I want to go back to where we were on the beach, two people finally telling each other how they really feel. But I can’t find the beach anymore—there’s too much road between us. A road I need to travel on my own.
I don’t tell Emery about any of what’s happened. She’s so busy that it’s easy not to. More important, I’m worried I’ll go back to using her as a crutch now that I’m not talking to Jamie, and I don’t want our friendship to be about her holding me up.
Mom doesn’t act like it’s been weeks since she’s seen me. She just asks questions about Shoji and whether anyone—the doctors, Dad, Serena—has been bad-mouthing her.
I spend a lot of time in my room drawing. It’s the easiest way to avoid Mom, since she’s now the only other person in the house. I think it’s making her weirdly clingy. She even comes up to my room to give me a stack of pages torn out of a fashion magazine.
“I know you always wanted to use makeup,” she says enthusiastically. “And you’re almost an adult, and I’m sure you’re going to do what you want to do. So I thought you could at least look at these to get an idea of what looks good. There’s nothing worse than someone putting on makeup the wrong way.”
All the pictures are of a certain type of model. Blond, blue-eyed, narrow-chinned, with thin brows.
In other words, they look nothing like me. They look like Mom.
I don’t point out to her that she’s giving me makeup tips for the completely wrong face shape—I just thank her and push the pages under my bed.
Because blond and blue-eyed and narrow-chinned is what Mom thinks is beautiful, but it’s not what everyone thinks is beautiful.
And more important, it’s not what I think is beautiful. Not anymore. Not when I’ve seen all the colors and lines that exist beyond this small town.
Beauty is unique and special and it looks different for every person in the world.
I don’t need Mom or her magazines to try to convince me otherwise.
? ? ?
Mom spends a lot of time arguing on the phone with Dad. They haven’t talked this much in years. Mom’s threatening to fight Dad for custody. She thinks she’ll get it.
? ? ?
I call the bookstore to see if they have any hours for me. I need to start saving for college, and I’m so anxious these days that it’s probably better if I stay busy with work. The manager tells me I can start again next week, two days after my birthday. It’s something, but, to be honest, I feel like my mind is broken into a hundred tiny pieces, and most of them are still back in California.
Because all I ever think about is Jamie, and I’m supposed to be working on rehabilitating my mental health. I know I want to be stronger. I know I don’t want to feel as if I need people to meet my expectations as a mother, friend, boyfriend, or even brother. I want to find self-worth without needing it to come from someone’s approval.
I want my first steps into my new life to be ones I take on my own.
But still. It’s hard to forget his blue eyes, and the way he’s so tall that when he hugs me I fit against his chest, and how he smells like the ocean, and how when we kissed for the first time all I could hear was the water kissing the sand.
I want to call him. I don’t.
? ? ?
When Shoji goes home from the hospital with Dad, Mom spends the morning googling lawyers. She doesn’t call any of them—she just reads a lot.
Even though she will never admit it out loud, I think she knows Shoji should be with Dad and Serena and the twins. He’ll be healthier there. He’ll probably be more loved, too.
If she wanted to, she could’ve stopped Dad from taking him home, but she didn’t.
We’re all thinking it—we just know better than to say it. Mom is irrational when she thinks you’re in any way criticizing her. Admitting Shoji is better off without her is admitting she’s not the best mom.
“Do you want coffee?” Mom asks from behind her laptop. She’s holding a mug in her hand. She laughs. “Isn’t that what everyone in California drinks?”
“You don’t need to keep making fun of California. I’m probably not going back anyway.” My voice is dry. I haven’t slept very well since I’ve been home. Being here makes me feel constantly on edge.
“Did you and Jamie have a fight?” She blinks at me with intensity.
I shake my head. The last thing I want to do is talk to her about Jamie.
“Until we get Shoji back, it’s just us girls. We can talk, you know. About anything.”
“Shoji isn’t coming back, Mom.”