Waves of Us

00 | to the start of forever

Hawai'i is a group of islands in the cerulean waters of the Pacific Ocean, each unique with a collective culture that reflects the diverse individuals within each community. Those gifted with the opportunity to experience island life speak of how it feels like a world of its own. Where time slows, life receives new meaning, and our memories become ingrained in the beauty of the island. Once an independent kingdom within those choppy waters, it's hard not to reflect on the past that has brought us to where we are today—the moments that have come to pass, as well as the moments that never came to be.

I always wondered why we were so hung up about the what-ifs but the truth is: we crave the unknown. The dangerous horizon of our imagination, full of things that could have been, might have been, if only we'd made one little decision. Because that one little decision leads to other little decisions and then to bigger decisions until our path has diverged into something so different than we originally thought it would be that it feels like we're living someone else's life.

Words cannot explain what Zachariah Kim is to me, if he's still anything at all. We were a seed full of promises that blossomed into something beautiful, as I once believed at the time, until someone we love picked us up and got pricked by our thorns. I realized maybe we weren't as beautiful as I wanted us to be.

When everything blew up into a million jagged pieces that could never fit back together again, Zachariah did what he did best and ran away. With his departure, I was left to stitch myself back together again.

Eventually, I stopped blaming him. He had his faults but it was as much my burden to bear, if not more. Some might even say I was the one who'd navigated us into turbulent waters, and for a long time, I believed them.

The thing about growing up in a place like Hawaii is that we always find our way back somehow, and I knew that if—when—we were to come face-to-face again, our hearts would never be the same. Another heartbreaking ending doomed to suffer the results of what could have been, what might have been, what should have never been.

Zachariah Kim was not my star-crossed lover. There was nothing magical about what we were. Nothing worthy of having stories being told about us. A love I never wanted, a love I never should have felt, the love that tore my heart into two when he left because I hated it more than anything, even if I knew it was what was best. Our love was hardly the only ruin laid to waste after that day, but he was the catalyst that started it all.