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I’d blame it on the fact that I’m going to be a senior this fall, but Lea is going to be a sophomore and she still hasn’t outgrown Mom’s hugs.
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Not even me, and I’m usually annoyed by most things with faces.
A compliment, followed by my real thoughts, followed by a compliment. It was Lea’s idea I sarcastically agreed to go along with, but for some reason it’s kind of stuck. “Your hair smells like flowers. Kissing makes me feel like you’re violating my personal space. I like your lip gloss.”
A crash, like every chime and timpani
She’s a shell. A ghost. I think her soul climbed into the coffin with Lea. I wish mine had done the same. Because at least then I wouldn’t feel so left behind.
Sunshine in Washington is a lot like the people in my life—great when they’re there, but also completely fickle and unreliable.
True. One minute it's sunny and the next it's freezing
The only thing that’s dull and gray and dark in Hawaii is me. There’s no color left in my soul, just like there’s no music left in there either. How am I supposed to finish writing a song for Lea when I feel like my heart has been carved out of my chest and the empty, hollow space is all that’s left?
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“You didn’t fail her, Rumi. She loved you, so much.”
“I heard her say my name. And I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the way she said it. Like she was choosing me, or trading her life for mine. And I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to repay that kind of love. How do I ever show my gratitude? How do I make sure I don’t waste my life, so that she won’t have wasted hers?”
It’s different in Hawaii. I feel different. I’m in a constant state of total and utter rage.
I on the otherhand would love to be in Hawaii.
It’s not my stomach that hurts anymore—it’s my heart.
The fisherman didn’t save him—he disfigured him and prolonged the inevitable.
I’m not in the mood to be anyone’s friend. And I’m certainly not going to make an exception for the boy next door.
We’re family—ohana.” She
travesty to me. Life is nothing more than a flame. It doesn’t get to decide when it goes out—it’s either time or an outside interference.
Socializing is like getting out of bed after you’ve been sleeping for weeks.
he simply exists in the world. He accepts it, like a bird ready to fly no matter the weather. And then time remembers itself. The
I hate that understanding myself isn’t as simple as doing a Google search on what I’m feeling. I hate that one moment I think I know who I am, and then the next moment I’m second-guessing myself and feeling like a fraud.
I mean, it’s not like they have a class in high school that teaches you how to cope with death. There isn’t a handbook for it—it’s like someone gives you the most difficult test in the world and expects you to pass on the first try.
Death is supposed to be natural, but it literally makes no sense. I don’t understand how someone can exist one minute and be gone in the next. And why? Why is that it? What’s the point of being good or brave or kind or hopeful when it just goes in a flash? Where’s the meaning in that?
Lea wouldn’t have wasted a single day. She would have lived her life like a star—burning bright and loud until she went out in one giant explosion that would change the world.
It feels like my heart is made of glass, but her death shattered it into a billion pieces. Trying to make it beat again is agonizing—I can feel every shard, every break.
“Lea died. Her life was over in a blink. There was no warning. She wasn’t old, or sick, or too sad to keep going. She was here, and then she wasn’t, and there’s no healing from that. Because she was my entire world. I could live without so many things—without parents, without music, without my eyes or ears—but without my sister? How am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to get better from that?”
Sometimes I’m not sure if there is anywhere left in the world I can look where I won’t see the empty spaces she left behind.
And maybe that’s like life. You live for a moment—one single moment. And then you don’t matter. Because there are years of the past and years of the future, and we’re all simply one tiny blip in time—a surge of water waiting to leave our mark on the sand, only to have it washed away by the waves that come after us. And Lea, with her brief, tiny wave. She didn’t get to make a mark. If she’d had more time, she would have been a hurricane.
Such a beautiful book.
I feel so much like a bird, soaring through emptiness, with the entire world in front of me. I don’t stop moving my arms, but I don’t feel like I’m swimming—I feel like I’m flying.
It hurts until it doesn’t, and right before everything goes black, I hear her voice again. Her last word. Rumi.
I scowl at everyone who thinks it’s not disgusting to swap spit in the middle of a public cafeteria.
Birds are lucky—they can fly away whenever they feel like it. They can disappear, start over, exist somewhere else. I’m not
“How long have you been playing?” He waves his hand, dismissing my question. “I no can play piano.” “Why do you have a piano, then?” His eyes find mine, and it doesn’t matter that they’re small—they’re so full of the world and life that I think they might swallow me up. “Dis my wife’s one.”
Aww he had a wife.
Because there are no photographs of a teenager or a young man. Just pictures of a little boy, frozen in time much too young. A child who will never grow up. Just like Lea.
Music is magic and lightning and fireworks. Music is going to help me live. I just need to find my way back to it.
My sister fit in the world so perfectly. Whereas I’m the random, extra piece that you find inside a box after you’ve put everything else together. Everyone knows it probably belonged somewhere, but everything runs perfectly fine without it, so it gets tossed in the trash.
This ukulele doesn’t want to fight. It wants to lie on the beach and feel the sand in its fingers. It wants to float on a raft in the ocean, drifting off to sleep with the rise and fall of every wave. It wants to come alive at the warmest part of the day, when the sky is the most perfect blue and the sun makes the world feel like home.
Being friends with Kai makes me feel connected to the world again. It makes me feel grounded.
“I know you think you are, but you aren’t. I’m not saying you don’t feel broken or lost or incomplete without your sistah, but you’re whole. You’re a whole person. Your family might not look the same as it used to, but you’re whole.
‘I can’t do this alone.’ There’s no shame in saying, ‘I’m not okay.’ And your mom knew she couldn’t be any good to you if she was broken a thousand different ways. So she checked into the hospital to take care of her mental health, so that she’d be able to take care of you.”
“So you bettah start treating her like one. You not da only one dat feeling hurt—try t’ink about how she must feel to lose a child.” His eyes burn with memories. “Not so easy, you know, trying fo’ talk story wit’ everybody and trying fo’ act normal when nothing feels like normal—never mind trying fo’ take care of anuddah person. Sometimes it’s real hard jus’ fo’ get out of bed.”
Honestly i think my favorite chraracter is Mr. Wantanabe.
“Grief is only a visitor, but it goin’ stay mo’ longer when it sees you hiding from it.”
“I’m sorry, Lea. I’m sorry I blamed you for Mom not loving me enough. I’m sorry I was so jealous of you. I’m sorry for every horrible thing I ever said to you. I’m sorry I was too selfish to give you your last wish.”
piece of paper falls out and floats to the ground. I pick it up carefully, studying the handwriting I don’t recognize but know is Mr. Watanabe’s. In neat, swooping letters written with black pen are the words: If you get lost in the darkness, remember to follow the music. Thanks for reminding me to do the same. Even though I’m crying, I’m smiling, too.
awwwwwww
And I knew I had to set you free; I knew you couldn’t stay with me. It’s time. I know it’s time. So I’m singing, Good-bye, little bird, I’ll watch you fly into the blue. And when the summer ends, I’ll fly with you.
