North Star

47 | class of 2012

2012

I didn't go to the class of 2012's graduation ceremony for a myriad of reasons.

Most of them revolved around the debilitating anxiety that arose within me like bile threatening to spill out onto the carpet whenever I thought about stepping foot on that campus again. I felt like a coward for not being able to face walking into my old high school again. (I was still trying to adjust to it being my former school since I still felt very much like a child who belonged at school.)  It was just a collection of buildings, all of which weren't required of me to enter for the ceremony, anyway. All I would have needed to face was the football field, and I hadn't spent enough time there to form bad memories of it. But it was still part of a larger picture, one I had erased myself from months ago.

It took a lot of convincing on Kaipo's part because I felt so guilt-ridden about missing him walk across that stage. He was the only person who could get me back there, besides Leimomi when she eventually graduated from high school, but he knew how badly I didn't want to return to Kaiser, and he made it his mission to get me to understand it was okay for me not to go. He didn't mind at all and actually supported me not going in the interest of not letting me possibly walk right into a panic attack. He promised to let me take him out to dinner another night. Just the two of us, my treat.

"Do you want me to pack juice or soda?" Kanani yelled from the kitchen.

I snapped out of my recurring daydream at the sharp sound of her voice, one I had been trying to wake myself up from since November. "Huh?"

"For the beach?" She waited for a response that didn't come because I had no idea what she was talking about. "I'm taking you and Lei to the beach."

"We have a beach right outside our house."

She sighed. "I would like for us to do something besides stay home again."

Now that she mentioned it again, she had asked us about this the week before, but I had completely forgotten. (That wasn't anything new.) I had zero energy to do anything today, least of all to go to the beach, but I had even less energy to argue with Kanani about flaking out on our plans either, and she looked too hopeful, so I didn't want to be the one that ruined it either. Most of our morning had been spent with her in the kitchen performing a deep clean while I watched movies in the living room once again. Following through on our plans was the least I could do.

"Either one's fine," I answered as I stood and joined her in the kitchen. The air was slick and sweet from the smell of spam fried with teriyaki sauce for the musubis she was making, presumably to bring with us. A package of nori sheets sat on the side of the counter while the tab on the rice cooker popped into the keep warm setting right as I walked in. "Do you need some help?"

"Um..." Scattered-brain Kanani was a rare sighting, but she was busy so I cut her some slack and waited patiently for her answer. "Yeah, can you..."

"Make the musubis?" I suggested.

"Make the musubis. Yeah. I'm gonna grab the laundry real quick. I had to throw Lei's bathing suit in there 'cause she hadn't washed it since the last time she used it." Kanani scrunched her nose. "So gross."

"You're so gross," I mocked Leimomi's voice.

Kanani laughed as she pulled a few cans of juice and soda from the bottom cupboard and placed them into the cooler. Since we didn't have an ice machine—a point of contention in our house since we often argued about who put the newly-filled ice trays at the top of the stack instead of on the bottom—we were going to have to stop by a gas station on our way there. I wasn't even sure what beach she wanted to take us to.