Makani strode toward him in a bold path. She always stood out among their peers. Their skin was several shades lighter than her brown complexion, and her surf-inspired wardrobe was several shades brighter than their Midwestern sensibility. She wore her hair big—in its natural curly coils—and she moved with a confident sway in her hips. It was a false confidence, designed so that people wouldn’t ask questions.
Ollie glanced one last time at the jocks, still shouting and posturing, and pulled aside the dangling tulle. He went into the building. Makani frowned. But when she opened the door, he was waiting for her on the other side.
She startled. “Oh.”
“Yes?” he said.
“I . . . I just wanted to say, they’re idiots.”
“Your friends?” Ollie deadpanned.
Makani realized she was still holding the door open, and he could see Darby and Alex through the tulle’s transparent weave, spying on them from across the quad. She released her grip. It slammed shut. “No,” she said, trying on a smile. “Everyone else.”
“Yeah. I know.” His face remained impassive. Guarded.
Her smile dropped. She crossed her arms, her own defenses rising as they sized each other up. They were almost eye level; he was only an inch or two taller than she was. This close, she could see the newness of his hair. His scalp was hot pink. The dye would need more time to wash out of his skin. There was something vulnerable about seeing him like this, and her body re-softened. She hated herself for it.
She hated herself for so many things.
Makani hated that she’d gotten carried away with Ollie, even though she’d been warned about his reputation. She hated that she’d tricked herself into believing she didn’t care for him, when she’d always known that she did. And she hated the way it had ended. Abruptly. Silently. This was their first conversation since the end of summer.
Maybe if we’d talked more to begin with . . .
But that was it, wasn’t it? There had never been a lot of talking. At the time, she’d even been grateful for it.
His pale eyes were still fixed on her, but they were no longer passive. They were searching. Her veins throbbed in response. Why did it suddenly feel like they were back behind the grocery store, preparing to do what they did on those hot, summer afternoons?
“Why are you here?” he asked. “You haven’t spoken to me all semester.”
It made her angry. Instantly. “I could say the same thing about you. And I said what I wanted to say. About our classmates. Being idiots and all that.”
“Yeah.” His posture stiffened. “You did say that.”
Makani let out a singular laugh to show him that he wasn’t getting to her, even though they both knew that he was. “Fine. Forget it. I was just trying to be a friend.”
Ollie didn’t say anything.
“Everyone needs friends, Ollie.”
He frowned slightly.
“But, obviously, that’s impossible.” With one violent thrust, she pushed the door back open. “Great talk. See you in class.”
She stormed straight into the curtain of tulle. She swore as she struggled to pull it aside, growing more and more ensnared in the dark red netting. A thunderous uproar surged across the quad—a chaotic mob of excited, agitated spectators.
The fight had finally broken out.
Makani stopped thrashing. She was trapped, imprisoned even, in this miserable town where she hated everything and everyone. Especially herself.
There was a quiet stir, and she was surprised to discover that Ollie was still behind her. His fingers carefully, gently untangled her from the tulle. It dropped back into a sheet, and they watched their classmates together, in silence, through the blood-colored haze.
CHAPTER THREE
“Did you know that Haley girl?” Grandma Young called out from the sofa.
Makani waved goodbye to Darby as he drove away. He honked twice. Her grandmother’s house was only a short walk from school, but he always picked her up and dropped her off anyway. Makani lived in Osborne’s oldest neighborhood, and Darby lived in its newest. Alex lived on a muddy cow-calf operation near Troy, one town over. She had band practice in the afternoons and carpooled with a girl who played tenor sax. They could all drive, but Darby was the only one with full-time access to a car.
Ollie lived . . . in the country. Makani wasn’t sure where. When the fight had ended, he’d gone to the library, and she’d gone back to her friends. Later in Spanish, she’d felt the faint pressure of his stare—it had thrilled her, even though she wished it hadn’t—but nothing had actually changed. It felt like it never would.
Makani’s heart sank as she locked the front door, further enclosing the scope of her world. “Yeah, I knew Haley. Sort of. Not really.”
She kicked off her sneakers and socks and placed them at the bottom of the stairs to carry up to her bedroom later. Shoes were another thing Makani disliked about the Midwest. Apart from the summer months, it was too cold to wear slippers, but her feet always felt heavy in the necessary sneakers and boots. It had taken ages to build the callouses so that they didn’t rub her heels into blisters.
Flip-flops, she corrected herself. Not slippers.
Regionalisms still tripped her up. Flip-flops weren’t a big deal. But she cringed every time she heard someone order a pop instead of a soda.
Her grandmother was perched in front of the television, streaming Scandal on Netflix and separating out the edge pieces of a new jigsaw puzzle. Makani flopped into a well-loved easy chair. It had belonged to her granddaddy. Tucking her feet under her legs to keep them toasty, she picked up the cardboard lid. The puzzle was a folk-art design that featured a folksy pumpkin patch, a street of folksy houses, and a stream of trick-or-treaters dressed in folksy costumes. Grandma Young liked to keep things seasonal.
“I’m waiting for the local news to come on,” she said.
Makani tossed the lid back onto the coffee table and glanced at her phone. “You still have another hour and a half.”
“I want to hear what Creston has to say about all this.” Creston Howard was the handsome, black half of the five o’clock news team, and Grandma Young believed his word to be infallible. “The whole thing is awful. I hope they catch whoever did it.”
“They will,” Makani said.
“She was so young, so talented. Just like you.”
That last part wasn’t true, but Makani knew better than to correct her. She could already hear the beats of their ensuing argument: Makani would deny it; her grandmother would accuse her of negative thinking; Makani would explain that she was simply being honest; her grandmother would press; and then Makani would explode with something like, “You aren’t my mother! My own mother is barely my mother! We’re not talking about this, okay?”