One Man's Law by John Clarkson

Author:John Clarkson [Clarkson, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780999215531
Published: 2018-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 29

Leilani continued to stare out at the ocean as she spoke.

“Billy was two years older than me. He was the big brother every girl wants. Handsome. Strong. Protective. But it wasn’t easy for either of us in that house, or in that community. People think Hawaii is a big melting pot, but it isn’t really. There’s a lot of racism here. Kids are the worst. The Island kids give the haoles shit and vice versa. I was in between. I got it from both sides, but it would’ve been a lot worse without Billy around. He always stood up for me. There were a lot of fights. He never backed down. He just got tougher and stronger. And I loved him more and more. I worshiped him.”

Leilani paused and dug her toes deeper into the black sand. “When I was fifteen, I looked like I was eighteen or twenty. I attracted a lot of attention.” Leilani lifted an eyebrow and gave Devlin a sidelong glance. “Can you believe it?”

“I don’t know, that’s a real stretch.”

“Yeah,” said Leilani. “I wish. Sometimes I liked it. The attention. The power it gave me. Just as often I hated it. Sometimes I wished I could just disappear. It was all about power, after all. Age, race, male/female, this high school clique versus that clique.

“Billy and I were half-siblings. As you know, he was haole. All haole. I came out looking mostly Island. By the time I was sixteen, he was nineteen. Around that time, we started drifting apart. I tried to convince myself it was the big brother, little sister thing. And then for a while, I convinced myself it was the racial difference that made us drift apart.”

“But it wasn’t that?”

“No. It was something else.”

“What?”

“Just let me tell it my way. Billy didn’t just grow distant. He kept his distance. It hurt me. My mother kept saying Billy just didn’t want his little freshman sister tagging after him. She didn’t want to admit what was going on either. What made it worse – as much as Billy rejected me, his friends were all over me.”

Leilani stopped. Shrugged. “The only thing I liked about the attention from Billy’s friends was that it gave me a way to get Billy’s attention. I knew he didn’t like it, so I kept letting it happen. Looking back, I can’t believe I was capable of that.”

Devlin sat motionless, saying nothing, watching the tears sliding down Leilani’s cheek. She wiped them away as if annoyed by them.

“Then, out of nowhere, came the day.”

“What day?”

“The day Billy left. No warning. Nothing.”

“Left?”

“For the Army, Jack. You see, he’d tried every way he could. I was too young, or too stupid, or maybe deep down I knew the truth, but I didn’t give a damn.”

Leilani turned to Devlin, “The day he left, he knew it was finally safe for him to feel the things he felt for me. He knew there was nothing I could do about it. He knew the minute he got on that bus, I was safe.

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