After a year and a half of trying to move on from the what-ifs, the tides have pulled Alexandra Rivera and Zachariah Kim back together again.
*****
In the h...
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"Do you want something to drink?" I ask, inspecting the contents of my fridge. "I have about half a box of wine leftover."
Emmie tosses her sweater onto the back of a barstool. "Not sure why you even need to ask."
I laugh along with her and grab two cups from the cabinet, pouring each of us more wine than necessary.
A scattering of paper clippings lines the floor of the living room where the coffee table has been shoved aside. It looks like a tornado made its way through the apartment, which is a pretty accurate metaphor for the way Emmie and I operate together.
"Too bad Jem's not here." I stare at the blank poster board. "She's the one who knows how to draw."
Emmie flicks through a magazine, her eyes glazing over the glossy pages. "Have you talked to her since she left?"
It's not a question that needs asking as we're both aware of how things left off between the three of us. A breakup between friends stings as hard as the break between Zachariah and me.
"I don't think she wants to talk to me," I flippantly dismiss. Old habits die hard and even though Emmie and I made baby steps in repairing our relationship, the idea of accomplishing that with Jem when she's in DC is less likely. "She's probably too busy with school anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if she forgot about all of us back here."
"Oh, don't act like you believe that." Emmie rolls the magazine to whack me on the shoulder with it. "Someone like Jem never forgets where she came from."
"I didn't say she forgot about Hawai'i," I argue.
"Hawai'i is home, and so are we. None of us could forget each other even if we wanted to."
Her sentiments effectively shut me up.
"Have you returned for good?" I ask, the question lingering in the back of my mind since I first heard of her return. Word spread when she came back from Seattle, but there was no definitive answer as to how long it would last. "Or have you found a new home?"
"Hawai'i is always home," she answers. Her voice softens at the end, making me feel guilty for even suggesting otherwise. "But I haven't made up my mind yet. The plan was to stay for a year and then go back but I'm still thinking things over."
"Is there a reason you came back?"
Emmie looks down at invisible specks on the counter. When she speaks again, I'm transported back to when we were kids, afraid of the world but never of each other.
"It's just—" She pauses to breathe. "It's been so long since I've seen him. And there was so much unfinished business that I—I couldn't stay away any longer."
It's been a long time since I've seen him but not as long as it's been for her. I remember the last time Anthony and I went to her father's grave to leave fresh flowers. The pale blue sky had been the clearest it'd been in a long time, salt left little bustles of discoloration behind on our skin from the morning swim we'd taken. I remember telling my brother how nice it would have been if Emmie had been there.
