North Star

22 | middle child

2019

"Did you know?"

"Yes," I answered truthfully. Giving Keali'i anything but the truth would have been foolish, nor was it of any interest to me. If there was one thing I knew we could always count on each other for, it was pure honesty when everyone else would likely give us something else, whether it was for a good reason or bad.

"For how long?"

I stared up at him. "Does it matter?"

"Yes." After a second thought, "No. Maybe not. I don't know."

"She told you how long it's been since she took the test, right?"

He nodded.

"That long."

"That long?" He sucked in a breath. "Dang."

"It hasn't been that long."

Keali'i scoffed. "Longer than I've known."

"I bought her the tests, Keali'i."

"And the Sunny D?"

"Does she still have those in her room?"

"Yeah."

"I'll throw them out when I head back."

"It's okay," he brushed me off as he sat next to me on the beach. "I already tossed them."

It had taken Kanani almost a week to tell Keali'i about the pregnancy test.

What I found so interesting was how we could spend our entire lives knowing someone—their deepest secrets, their darkest fears, what gave them glimmers of hope, and what made them weep with despair—and yet one single moment could change our perception of them entirely.

Growing up, my gaze upon my older sister had been viewed through a middle child's lens. She irritated me beyond belief while she battled being a third parent and trying to remain a child. I had responsibilities while she had duties that were always expected of her. They weren't always fair, and neither had I been. I blamed her often for my frustrations with the world; maybe because I had always believed she held the world in her hands and therefore was the orchestrator of my inexplicable demise. Sometimes the feelings lingered. Sometimes they went away when I realized how foolish I was being. But she was always just... my sister.

When she walked out of the bathroom last week, the evening when I had come back from Nikau's apartment, after chugging more Sunny D than any one person ever needed in one lifetime, I saw something shift in her. A realization that her life was about to change drastically and she wasn't sure if she was ready for it. She looked up with those two red lines flashing at me from her drooped hand and looked more like herself than she ever had before—ready to take on the world.

From that point, it was just a matter of letting Keali'i know.

Within three days, she decided to keep it. But she was still grappling with what to tell Keali'i and how to tell him the entire time, so that resolution had shifted her way of thinking.

Keali'i's face was mostly unreadable. I couldn't tell whether he was on the verge of breaking down or simply taking it all in. Worse yet, I had no idea what transpired in the house upon Kanani's unexpected revelation. The only good sign I took was that I didn't hear any yelling. But that still wasn't a confirmation it went well. I clung to that tiny sliver of hope that lingered between each breath.

"Might help to say something," I suggested. "Anything, really."

I was in no position whatsoever to pressure someone into speaking up, but Keali'i and I had known each other for long enough, seen each other through the best and worst of times, to not expect otherwise.