The first round began. Makani ran the beach with grim determination. The veterans removed egg cartons from the mysterious sacks and hurled their missiles from a distance. The eggs were rotten and sulfurous. Some of the girls dry-heaved. As Jasmine’s ponytail bobbed ahead of her, resentment scorched through Makani’s veins.
It must be nice to have someone who gives enough of a shit about you to warn you. Must be nice to have been given the opportunity to prepare.
Kayla wasted her carton early, but the captain saved hers for the final lap, when Makani was panting and light-headed. Gabrielle jogged beside her, chucking her own dozen hard. With each hit, Makani felt an accompanying shot of adrenaline. She pushed ahead of Jasmine, and Jasmine finished in fifth. Last place.
Makani took a single shot, and Jasmine took two. The veterans also took shots. Gabrielle and Kayla drank more than the others, Makani’s non-loss adding fuel to their competitive and exploitative inclinations.
As the rookies lunged, the veterans squirted them with baby oil and shaving cream. As they did jumping jacks, they flung mayonnaise and Spam. In a blur of screaming and vodka and exhaustion and confusion, Makani soon grew ill, but she kept her eyes on Jasmine. Forced herself to keep beating her.
“We’ve got a tough one.” Gabrielle grinned. “But don’t worry. We’ll break you.”
“Looks like she’s out for your job, Captain,” Kayla said.
Even though it was a joke, it was the first time that anyone had ever mentioned the possibility of captain. Divers never got to be captain because so much of their training was separate. But Makani desperately wanted to be captain next year. She was good at what she did. None of her teammates got more elevation from their takeoff, executed their twists so gracefully, entered the water with so little splash.
Jasmine stumbled into Makani and toppled her to the sand. A vodka bottle emptied the rest of its contents onto Makani’s underwear.
“God, keep your failure to yourself!” Makani said.
“Sorry, sorry,” Jasmine slurred. She’d never been able to hold her liquor.
The older girls were rolling with laughter. “I take it back,” Kayla said to Gabrielle. “That’s job security right there.”
Makani’s insides strummed with fury. She imagined seizing Jasmine’s hair and yanking until the flesh ripped from her scalp. Thrusting her lacerated head into the salty waves. Holding her in place. Drowning her.
“Shit,” Gabrielle said, brandishing a can of something. Makani couldn’t tell what. “These don’t have pull tabs. Did anyone remember to bring a can opener?”
None of the other veterans had, but a girl named Sarah kept a knife in her car. While she ran to fetch it, another bottle was passed around. The vodka burned as it slid down Makani’s throat. She licked her lips.
Sarah’s knife turned out to be large, something made for hunting or survival, and it easily pierced the cans. The smell released was repellent.
As the rookies did push-ups, chunks of meaty dog food were lobbed onto their backs. Crouching in front of Makani, Kayla pushed a wet handful directly onto her face and up her nostrils. Makani blew her nose and spit, retching. And then something thick was cascading down her head. An entire jar of honey oozed over her neck and through her hair. It would take days to wash out.
With each push-up, her body encrusted itself with more and more sand. “What’s your problem, Bitch?” Kayla screeched. “Can’t handle a few push-ups, Bitch?”
“Makani!” Gabrielle said.
“Wha—?” Makani turned her head, and her veterans high-fived.
Kayla lowered a bottle to Makani’s lips. “Drink up, Bitch.”
Another shot was forced down her throat. It mixed with the dog food and sickly sweet honey. She vomited. The veterans exclaimed with disgusted glee, but Makani couldn’t escape the stench. The honey clung the puke to her chin. As the other rookies finished their reps, Gabrielle and Kayla whooped and danced. Two more shots. Makani threw up again, but she refused to go down alone. “Hey, Jasmine.”
Her best friend was doubled over in sickness and exhaustion, but she glanced up at her name. The word NYMPHO was smudged but still legible. “Yeah?”
Makani pointed her finger. “Ha!”
It was a direct violation of best friendship. Jasmine’s jaw unhinged, hurt and upset, while the other girls laughed at the deception. They made her drink.
As the final round began, Makani had no idea who was losing. Her eyes scrunched closed as she did the sit-ups—just trying to breathe, just trying to keep everything from coming up again. Someone straddled her legs.
“Look at me,” the captain said.
Makani opened her eyes, and a bottle was thrust toward her face. She screamed as something splashed onto her eyeballs. The liquid burned like an instant inferno. She tried to wipe it away and then shrieked like she’d been wounded again. Her hands were still covered in sand and honey and gloppy food droppings. Blinded and in agony, she scrambled to her feet. “What is it? What did you to do me?”
Bedlam erupted as the other rookies cried out all around her. Screaming and yelling. Laughing and cackling. The intensity of the pain reminded Makani of being stung by a jellyfish. Someone said habanero Tabasco. Someone else grabbed her.
“Tilt your head back,” the girl said.
Thinned filth streamed in every direction across Makani’s face, but she could make out—she could see—a bottle of water. She crumpled to the sand. The girl ran off to help someone else. Makani moaned and gnashed her teeth. Through her tears, she saw another plastic water bottle near the bonfire, only a few feet away beside the empty cans and knife.
As Makani reached for the water, Jasmine swooped in and grabbed it. Her ponytail, thick with honey, smacked Makani across the eyes.
Orange sparks flew into the star-strewn sky. Rage, white-hot. With a deep guttural growl, Makani snatched up the knife. The blade flashed in the firelight. It was long and sharp and vicious. She grabbed the ponytail and sliced upward into the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“The tension released, and her hair gave way.” In the waiting room, Makani could still see the limp ponytail in her grimy hand. “It was this . . . instant, overwhelming shame. The realization that I’d done something terrible that could never be undone.
“Jasmine was so drunk”—her voice choked—“that she almost drowned. A swimmer, and she almost drowned. And it was my fault.”
Ollie’s hand rested gently on Makani’s back. He glanced at Darby and Alex, but they weren’t following what she’d said, either. “What do you mean?”
“The other girls didn’t see what had happened. Everything was so chaotic.” Makani paused, experiencing the trauma again. “Jasmine freaked out, of course she freaked out, and ran toward the ocean. I guess she wanted to rinse off—the Tabasco was still blistering our eyes—and to get the hell away from me. She looked afraid of me. I knew that I should go in after her, she was so out of it, but I didn’t.”
Makani had watched her best friend weave and stumble into the ocean. And then she’d turned her head away in shame. It had been too painful to watch the aftermath.
She’d figured Jasmine wouldn’t even want her help, which was probably true. But Jasmine had needed her help. And Makani had curled up in the sand. Eyes burning, tears streaming. The knife in her right hand, the ponytail in her left.
“The captain was the one who finally noticed and dove in after her. She worked as a lifeguard on a resort, so she immediately started CPR. Jasmine wasn’t breathing.”
Makani shouldn’t have been able to hear the wind shaking the palms or the waves lapping the shore, but the bonfire had burned to smoke and embers, and the other girls had trembled in quiet hysteria. Sirens cut through the silence. Compression and a defibrillator and some kind of alarm, another wail. Or maybe the banshee was only screaming in her head. Petrified, Makani didn’t move throughout the whole ordeal.
“The paramedics arrived and got her breathing again,” she said,
wiping her cheeks with her fingers, “and she was okay—suddenly, she was okay—but then she was rushed away to the hospital. And by now, everyone had seen her hair . . . and they’d all seen me with the knife. The police put me in handcuffs.”
They’d ushered her into the back of their car, behind the metal grate, and driven her to the station. She’d taken a Breathalyzer test, and then she’d been photographed, fingerprinted, and questioned. “You’re in a lot of trouble,” an officer said. “We could charge you with public intoxication, and you’re looking at a third-degree assault.”
Makani’s heart had plummeted into the dark sea.
Assault. She’d committed assault. On her best friend.
Even as she confessed the charge now, she couldn’t look anyone in the eye. “The magistrate set the bail, and my parents arrived separately. They were already doing everything separately. But their anger . . . it suffused the entire station.”
“I’m so sorry,” Darby said. “This is all so awful.”
“What about the parents who provided the alcohol?” Ollie asked. It was a question his brother might pose.
“They were charged a while later,” Makani said. “That October was hell in slow motion. The school suspended me for thirty days, and I was kicked off the swim team. I’d always been a part of a team. And then I wasn’t. The guy I’d been dating for over half a year, Jason—he was a diver, too—stopped returning my texts and unfollowed me on every platform. Our breakup was unstated but immediate.”
Alex asked with atypical delicacy, “And Jasmine?”
Makani’s expression gave the answer. Their friendship had died on the beach.
“Around school, her butchered hair couldn’t be ignored,” Makani said. “It looked so cruel. It was so cruel. Because I was a minor, my name wasn’t reported in the media, but that didn’t stop anyone from talking online. It didn’t stop anyone from learning that I have a mug shot with the word bitch on my forehead or that the word nympho was still visible when Jasmine arrived at the hospital. The whole team was shamed, but people saw me as the ringleader.”
“Even though you had a word on your head, too?” Ollie asked.
“They thought mine spoke the truth.” Makani lifted her face to look at him squarely. “I was the one who picked up the knife.”
Thousands of messages from classmates, neighbors, and strangers had focused their outrage on her. There were threats of scalping. Threats of rape. Threats of murder.
Shame on you, the internet said. Why don’t you just kill yourself already? #SwimSluts #KonaGate #CommitSuicideSquad
Makani slept long hours and stirred aimlessly through her house. The barrage was endless. Immeasurable. Sometimes it hurt because everyone had the wrong idea about her, but usually it hurt because it felt like they had it right. She didn’t know what to do or where to be or who to talk to. She kept wanting to call Jasmine—the one person who’d always understood—except she was the exact person Makani had failed.
“I wrote Jasmine this long apology letter. Like, I actually wrote it on paper and mailed it. She never responded, but I wouldn’t have responded to me, either. Meanwhile, my parents hired an attorney who told me that I should never contact Jasmine again. And then I was asked to pay restitution.”
When Makani saw that her friends didn’t know what that meant, she explained, “I was asked to give her money for a professional haircut.” She shook her head. “As if that were anything close to enough.” Makani would have paid any amount they’d asked for. She would have cut off her own hair—she would have cut it off for the rest of her life.
“So, what happened?” Ollie’s hand wasn’t on her back anymore, but his body was close. “Do you still have an assault on your record?”
“No. About a month later, my district attorney dropped the charge, and I got my record expunged.”
“You must have been so relieved,” Darby said.
“Not really. I felt like I deserved it. And then the DA made the mistake of telling a reporter that I was sorry for what I’d done, but ‘one night of fun shouldn’t ruin her life.’ She literally used the phrase ‘kids will be kids.’”
Everyone winced.
“Yep,” she said. “Social media . . . did not like that.”
The public wanted Makani to be punished. They became more furious, more incensed. The violent threats increased. The overreaction was catastrophic.
Ollie’s countenance had taken on a perceptible weight, but it looked heavy with understanding—not judgment. At least, that’s what Makani hoped she was seeing as he asked, “How’d you wind up here? When did your name change?”
“When my school suspension ended,” Makani said, “my classmates . . . the looks they gave me. The things they said. I didn’t even make it to lunch. My dad picked me up from the nurse’s office, and on the ride home, that’s when he told me that he’d filed for divorce. And later that night, that’s when my mom told me they were sending me here.”
Ollie and Darby seemed dumbfounded. Alex swore.
“The DA was the one who suggested that I might have an easier time adjusting if I changed my name to one that wasn’t so easily traceable.”
“Did you want to change it?” Ollie asked.
“I don’t know.” Makani had been so depressed that she’d just let it happen. And there had been some relief from having a new identity. Not much. But some.
Sharing her story now, however, had opened a valve of tremendous internal pressure. Her secret—this self-inflicted burden—had finally been released.
Darby set the doughnut box onto the floor, stood from the love seat, and pulled Makani into a determined bear hug. He wouldn’t release her until she received it and returned it. “I’m sorry that you’ve lived alone with this for so long. I wish you would have told us.”
“You’re not afraid I’m a vicious sociopath? Someone who gets off on other people’s pain?” Makani’s jokes were only half jokes.
Darby pulled back, hands on her shoulders, to examine her. His nose and mouth screwed up in exaggerated concentration. “Nah.”
“I don’t know if you remember this,” Ollie said, “but we’ve actually met a vicious sociopath. And he wasn’t anything like you.”
“Besides,” Alex said, “we already know that pain doesn’t get you off. Ollie does.”
Makani buried her face in Darby’s shoulder, but it made them all laugh.
“Honestly?” Alex continued. “I think it’s rad that you have a mug shot with the word bitch on your forehead. I’m gonna be you for Halloween this year.”
Makani’s body uprighted as her emotions crashed back down. “It’s not funny. I ruined my best friend’s life. I will never forgive myself—”
“David is ruining lives. By taking them. You did a shitty thing, and, yeah, she’ll probably hate you for the rest of her life—”
“Alex,” Darby warned.
“—but she still has a life.”
“That’s beside the point,” Makani said. “My actions weren’t harmless. I didn’t just snap a wet towel or shoot my goggles at her.”
Darby stepped in front of Alex to block her from Makani’s view. “You’re right. But I know what it’s like to be angry—to think that everyone has it easier than you. Or that everyone is against you. And if you don’t deal with those feelings, they don’t go away on their own. They keep building and building until they force their way out.”
Tears pricked Makani’s eyes again as she stared at her bandaged arm.
“You aren’t a bad person,” Alex said. “You just had a bad night.”
Darby guided Makani onto the love seat, squishing her in between him and Alex to confront the real issue. “So,” he said, “you think David found out what you did.”
Her head hung even lower. “Yes.”
“You think he chose you—”
“Like Harry Potter,” Alex stage-whispered.
“Oh. My. God,” Darby said. “Can’t you hold it in for, like, one second?”
/> She gave a nonchalant toss of a braid as he turned back to Makani. “You think David chose you as some sort of act of . . . antihero or vigilante justice?” he asked.
“There’s nothing else it could be,” Makani said. “I don’t have any connection to the other victims. I think he found out something about all of us, and he’s punishing—”
“No,” Ollie said.
They looked at him in surprise. He sat, unmoved, across from them, and his voice was resolute. “You aren’t being punished. You’ve already been punished. You were publicly shamed, and you’ve spent the last year shaming yourself. How would he even know? I didn’t know, and I’ve Googled the hell out of you.”
The love seat froze in astonishment.
Ollie’s face skewed with regret. “Not anything creepy. Normal Googling.” He paused. “But, like, a lot of it.”
Darby’s and Alex’s eyes popped.
Queasiness and curiosity mixed inside Makani. “What did you find?”
“Not much.” Ollie seemed pained, perhaps because he only had himself to blame for this conversation. “Small things, funny stuff you said. Pictures on their Instagrams.” He motioned toward Darby and Alex.
Makani blinked.
Ollie was growing smaller. “Please say you’ve Googled me, too.”
“We’ve all Googled you,” Alex said.
Heat slipped up Makani’s neck as she nodded.
“Thanks for leaving me hanging.” Ollie exhaled, shoving his hands into his pockets. But then he sidled her with a grin. “So, what’d you find out about me?”
Makani snorted. “Even less. Though, I did already know that you used to wrestle in middle school. I saw a picture of you in one of those weird blue leotards.”
“It’s called a singlet.”
“It’s a leotard.”
He laughed. “Now, you have to show me that swim team photo. You owe me.”
But Makani’s mind had already circled back to her worries. She chewed her lip. “You never found anything about my past?”