“This is your last year with me on campus, you should appreciate my presence more, after that you’re on your own, baby sister,” he reminded me as if I needed it.
“We brought you the food you wanted.” Soleh handed me a pack from a waffle place nearby. “Honey and Biscoff cookies just like you’ve always loved.”
“Thank you, I’m starving. I hope you didn’t use your pocket money for this, Soleh I’ll pay you back, yeah?” I conceded.
“Oh, we didn’t pay for all this food,” Soleh mentioned, “Dad would never let me buy an all-you-can-eat bag of gummy worms!”
“Then who…” I muttered, checking the note on the pack that read;
Keep pushing
- Wyn
“Oh,” I mumbled, swallowing hard.
“Yeah, ready to head back?” Cahya asked, carrying my bags for me. “You smell like you ran a marathon…in spoiled milk.”
“Gee thanks, pal, I had no idea,” I huffed, taking a whiff and wanting to die at the thought that Wynter had to tolerate me like this. “Yeah, let’s head back.”
The very instant I was back in my room, I couldn’t help but reach for the diary. I knew it was wrong, but my curiosity—as it often did—got the very best of me. I couldn’t help but want to know the truth about what happened all those summers ago, and I knew that the only way was to turn every page, to read every word, and this time, there was no turning back.
12
Growing Up
Summer ‘14
Wynter 16, Yesoh, 14
Wynter’s Journal Entry: Summer of 2014
Drifting is the natural way of life, unavoidable. Things draw close and then things fall away, I knew that.
I just didn’t think it happened with humans too, I didn’t think it could happen with my sisters.
Beck had been acting strange, differently this summer. She took longer in the bathroom and held the other girls up, took more time with her hair and dyed it all a ivory cauliflower shadeof blonde. Dad wasfuriouswhen he found out, spoke of how she was damaging her hair too young. But Beck was Beck and he knew that once she’d set her mind on something, God help whoever attempted to intervene with her will.
So if Beck wanted to be blonde now, it was simply just who she was.
She changed her perfume from a sweet lavender scent to a subtle vanilla. She changed her clothes too. Jiwon thought it was because she wanted to appear older. She’d also been going on a lot of long walks lately, insisting on going all by herself.
I never intended to be overbearing towards any of my sisters, I wanted not to halt their journey but to make sure the path was paved and free of spikes and stones. I never wanted to be that kind of person, but Dad had made my role very clear since I was younger—that I was to protect my sisters at all costs. And I would do just that.
Families eating sticky cotton candy and children running between stalls made the pier busier than normal. The distant rumbling of waves crashing against the rocks below blended with the fragrance of caramel and salt water. Usually, I would allow myself to lose myself in the cacophony, but that night, my thoughts were elsewhere. Feeling like a phantom, I had drifted in Beck's wake and followed her here. She’d been slipping away with hardly a word. A part of mehurt, and another part was anxious. She seemed to have drawn an impenetrable boundary between us, and I was confined to the outside.
Usually, we were co-pilots but lately we’d been flying our own planes.
I followed her because I felt compelled to know where she went and who she was with, even though I did not want to be seen. She was leaning against the railing near the end of the pier, her shoulders relaxed as if she belonged there, and I saw her just when I thought I had lost her. She wasnotalone, though. Besideher, a man I did not recognize stood with an arm draped casually over her shoulder. He was older than her. They appeared at ease, as though they had done this a hundred times before. She was giggling, the soft, low-pitched laugh she never showed anyone.
I felt a knot tighten and twist in my chest. Everything had always been shared between Beck and me, or so I believed. However, as I saw her with him, I came to the realization that I would never know some aspects of her. She did not trust me with certain parts.
A gentle laugh wafted over from the carousel as I stood there, feeling as though I was gradually becoming invisible. As I turned, I noticed Cahya’s little sister, Yesoh, standing on the platform's edge, observing their younger brother, Soleh, as he danced on one of the painted horses. She had a smile that she reserved only for him. Her hair caught the sunlight, softening the edges of everything around her and giving her a haloed appearance.
She raised her head to look at me from the other side of the pier. Her eyes were serene but curious, and her expression changed when she noticed me. Almost as if she sawright through me. She approached slowly, as if she had seen something she wanted to learn more about.
As she drew nearer, her eyes flicked to Beck and the man next to her, then back to me. "Is everything all right?" she said in a quiet voice that could hardly be heard over the noise.
“Ah, Yesoh, hello. What brings you here?” I questioned.
