Icall Hiroshi to ask him about Prism. He says it was all Jamie’s idea, and he just made sure to provide him with a copy of his recommendation letter. He also mentions there might have been a phone call as well, again at the request of Jamie.
I don’t deserve how much Jamie loves me. But I want to be in a position where I feel like I finally do.
I ask Hiroshi if the job at the café is still available, and he tells me I can start as soon as I’m back in California.
It doesn’t take me long at all to make up my mind. I’m going to spend a year in California, working in the café, working on my art, and saving up for school. And next year, I’ll move to New York and go to Prism.
It’s not hard to say my good-byes, because I don’t have that many people to say good-bye to. I tell Emery my new plans over the phone, and she tells me she wants to spend spring break on the beach with me. The manager at the bookstore wishes me luck. Dad and Serena get a little tearful and tell me I’ve been the perfect houseguest. Shoji even gives me a hug, which feels weird for both of us. Leah manages to smile at me when I kiss her good-bye, and Emily squeezes my finger and coos.
On my way out of town, I stop at Mom’s. I don’t want to leave without saying good-bye, even if she isn’t the mother I need. I’m not sure when I’ll see her again. Saying good-bye feels like the right thing to do—it’s the last page before a new chapter.
She buys sub sandwiches for lunch and makes an oversized pitcher of sweet tea. She asks about Shoji and the twins like nothing is weird about our arrangement or relationship at all.
Mom has always been good at pretending things are fine when she doesn’t want to apologize.
But I don’t need an apology. Not anymore. I have my whole life ahead of me—there isn’t room in it for anger about things I don’t have the power to change. I’ve mourned the loss of the mother I imagined could exist. I accept the one I have will never be the one I need.
And that’s okay—because I will be the person I need. I will be the one I can depend on, the one who has the power to make my life better or worse.
I’ll still panic when I’m in a crowd. I’ll still question whether people mean something different from what they say. And I’ll probably always feel my heart thump when I think someone is criticizing me.
But I can live with that.
I accept myself.
Mom tells me to call her when I get to California. She doesn’t hug me good-bye, but she stands in the doorway waving until her house disappears from my rearview mirror.
I don’t drive north or south or east or west. I drive forward.
EPILOGUE
When I hear the bell ring, my heart catches. I set the mug behind the counter, take a deep breath, and turn my face toward the café doors.
Jamie is wearing a thin jacket to protect him from the January chill. His tan has faded, but otherwise he looks exactly the same as he did all those months ago.
Locking his blue eyes on me, he smiles like he has something stuffed in his mouth. Too many words, probably. Too many things that were left unsaid.
Still, it’s a smile.
I pull my apron off and hang it on the wall peg. “Thanks for coming,” I say. Jamie still towers over me, but somehow I feel taller.
He nods, his hands stuffed in his pockets like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “I was wondering if you’d ever call.”
“You knew I was in town?”
“I saw you through the window once.” He shrugs. “Just passing by.”
“I wasn’t ready back then.” My voice isn’t timid—it’s exactly the right amount of volume.
He doesn’t say anything. He just keeps looking at me like he isn’t sure I won’t disappear.
“I want to show you something,” I say.
We walk up the stairs at the side of the building, and I unlock the doors to the studio. When we step inside, I think I’ll have to point out what I want him to see, but I don’t. He sees it. He sees everything.
The right wall of the studio is covered in paintings I’ve done over the last six months. Some of them are hung up on the walls. Some of them are set along the floor because there’s not enough space. Hiroshi says he wants to feature me in his next art show. He says I could sell some of them to help pay for Prism.
And I’d sell all of them. All of them except for one.
The biggest canvas is wider than my arm span. It’s bursting with so much color it looks like a graffiti artist got too excited with a spray can.
But it’s my story, told in brushstrokes and acrylic paint.
There’s Jamie and me as children, hiding in trees and searching for ladybugs. There’s me alone, searching for stars in the dark. There’s my mom, the queen of the starfish, existing in a tornado of glitter that poisons anything else it touches. There are my brothers and me, living on opposite sides of a triangle, experiencing the same things but never together. There’s my dad, never knowing or doing as much as he should but trying to fix the poison all the same. There’s Hiroshi, painting my hands so I can paint my voice. There’s me split in half—Japanese and white—stitching myself together again because I am whole only when I’ve embraced the true beauty of my heritage.
And there’s Jamie and me in June, the sun on our faces and the sand at our feet, finding each other again after all those years. Our lives trail around us, sometimes broken and sometimes beautiful, but all puzzled and tangled up into the lump that is us.
We fit together not because we need each other, but because we choose each other.
Our friendship was always our choice. Love was a natural progression.
Jamie stares at the painting for so long that I think the room actually starts to get darker. When he turns to face me, he looks relieved. Calm.
Jamie turns back to the painting.
We don’t need words. We just know.
Our fingers find each other’s.