A little comedic relief for your Monday blues :)

It's hard to feel high when you're falling from grace – "Saint" by Maggie Rose

Claire

There's a chicken in this airport.

(And for once, it isn't me.)

If I didn't know better, I would think I'd caught a flight to another planet. Another dimension. Technically, I haven't even left the country.

I'm a hop, skip, and a jump away from San Diego, in Hawaii— Kauai, specifically —and there is a literal chicken blocking my path to the taxi stand.

It feels a little like a metaphor.

In my head the flight to Hawaii should have taken an hour or two. But we flew over the ocean for six straight hours, nothing to see but blue water and the occasional puff of white cloud. It put me in a trance. For all I knew, I was in another dimension.

And let's not talk about that landing. When we turned to prepare for descent, the plane tipped so far sideways I saw only water. My body is still sticky with sweat, my stomach unsettled with nausea.

Hawaii was the natural next step for me, the closest destination on that list Quil sent over. For surfing… for forgetting.

For finding.

For—apparently—fighting chickens to get to a taxi.

Other travelers are just breezing by. Businessmen rush by with rolling briefcases and garment bags; families head to vans marked with fancy resort names. There are a lot of tourists.

The chicken isn't bothering them. No, it's standing directly in my path, looking up at me with slow-blinking, beady eyes.

I may be afraid of chickens. I don't know. I've never met one before now.

An announcement overhead announcing the arrival of some international flight startles it just enough for me to slip around it, my legs wobbling a little as I step through the doors and outside.

The air is warm, like San Diego, but wetter. Not uncomfortably humid, just enough to make you feel the air as you move through it. A hint of resistance that reminds you if you want to get anywhere, you have to keep moving.

Wow. I've been in Hawaii for all of forty minutes and I've already learned a life lesson. (Two, if I count knowing chickens terrify me.)

There are a few people in the taxi line, so I slot in behind them, feeling my phone buzz in my pocket.

I pull it out to see Quil's response to my 'landed' message. I'd texted him before I left with my destination, then turned off my phone so I didn't have to see his response. I see them now, filtering in out of order as my phone connects more strongly to the cell tower.

Quil!: I'm glad you're safe.

Quil!: I think there's a Brady-and-Mia situation brewing. There's a strong vibe. I bet Aaron $50 they'll be together by Christmas. Omar did double or nothing.

Quil!: We always talked about going there. Hope you find what you need. Miss you always.

I know he didn't send them to sucker punch me, but that's what it does. It's a sharp pain, right where my heart used to sit.

Because we did talk about coming here. Together. In the days and nights where we needed an escape from my mother's illness, we'd talk about the places we'd see together. Warm places, because we are warm blooded beings. Different countries and cultures, because we wanted to learn how big the world is. Together, always, because what good was seeing the world if you didn't have someone you loved to share the memories with?

In Hawaii, we said, we would surf and eat fresh-cut pineapple until our mouths were raw, and never want to come home. He'd pick me bouquets of bright, fresh hibiscus, because he loves me. And I'd appease him with a hike up a mountain, even though hiking equals death, because I love him.

Nobody ever told me that sometimes love isn't enough.

That sometimes, you can love with all your being, and things will still change. That people will still die. That just because you know how things should be, that because you know you're hurting someone, doesn't mean you can automatically stop.

I should go home. I should be with Quil and my father and my sister. I should be able to remember my mother without wanting to… die. Without being ripped to shreds at the fact that I have to remember her at all. That she is past tense.

My love for her isn't past tense, that's the thing. It's active—past and present and future tense all at once.

I have loved her. I love her. I will love her.

But I'm not sure where the future love goes, what it's supposed to bounce off of and where it should land. Right now it just circles me, buzzing in my brain and body and soul. I can't catch my breath.

I miss her.

I miss myself.

"Need a ride, Claire?"

The voice right at my side startles me, and I jump. The sudden movement makes the nausea kick up again in my stomach, and I try to remember the last time I had a decent meal. Probably yesterday morning.

I blink at the woman, and the familiarity makes my breath catch in my throat. Skin like mine, thick and dark hair. Features that scream comfort. Calm. Familiarity.

"Rachel Black?" I blink again.

Rachel laughs. "No, the other one. That used to happen all the time on the rez. It's been a while, though."

The other—oh. How could I have forgotten?

"Rebecca," I correct, referencing Rachel's lesser-known twin. I don't think I've seen this woman since I was eleven. "I'm sorry. It's good to see you, though. To be honest, I forgot you lived here."

It's obvious now. Rachel at home is pregnant with twins, whereas the woman in front of me is not. And there's also the thing about Rachel being… at home, and Rebecca living… here.

Fuck, maybe I am in another dimension.

She grins, warm and inviting and a little sly. Her smile is just like Rachel's. "Call me Becca, please. And here in Hawaii? Or here on Kauai?"

I shut my eyes tight, my brain still trying to connect the dots between Rachel in La Push and Rebecca in Hawaii and the fact that they aren't the same person.

"Both, I guess?" I try to clear my head by shaking it. "Um, sorry. I just—the flight was…" My stomach roils again just thinking about it. "And I'm sort of hungry, I think, but there was a chicken." I am making zero sense.

Becca laughs, unfazed. "Oh, that's just Harold."

"You named the chicken," I say doubtfully.

"I mean, I didn't personally name him." She holds her palms to her chest in a self-deprecating, peace-offering sort of way. "But no matter how hungry you are, Harold is not the answer. He's a jerk, but he's harmless."

Exhaustion suddenly sways me on my feet, and I yearn for my bed. The scent of my father burning dinner. The creak of the window as Quil sneaks through.

I want home, but I don't know how to get it here. If I'm even worthy of those comforts anymore, after everything I've done to the people I love.

"You can ride with me. We can stop for food on the way."

She grabs my hand-me-down suitcase before I can argue and starts walking away with it.

"Where are we going?" I call after her, feeling eyes on me. When I look over my shoulder, Harold is coming my way, having opened the automatic doors all on his own. He clucks aggressively.

Nope.

I rush after Becca, tucking my board tighter under my arm. I'd never travel without it, but it is a bitch to lug around. I saw some people in San Diego with bags they could wear. Maybe I'll get one of those.

"You're coming to stay with us," Becca says like it's obvious.

"I couldn't," I say. Not again. I'm still feeling guilty I mooched off Sierra and Reed for as long as I did.

She scoffs. "You have to. You're practically family." Big stretch for having not seen me since eleven, but sure. "And it's not like we'll be put out. We always have a full house."

I realize I have no idea about Jacob's other sister. "How full is full?"

"Eight people. Me and Sol and our six kiddos," she starts, and as if that wasn't enough, she keeps going. "Two dogs, but one of them's pregnant. And then there's the farm animals. Four hens, and a rooster, of course. Much nicer than Harold. Three goats. Two cows." She stops abruptly with a shrug.

"And a partridge in a pear tree?" I say weakly.

Becca laughs, stopping at a rusted blue pick-up. "I like you."

"Six kids," I say again in wonderment once we're back on the road. "Wow."

We stopped at a McDonald's after we loaded up my stuff into Becca's truck. I asked her if it was okay for my first meal on Hawaiian soil to be from a national chain. She'd only laughed. I haven't been around this much laughter in a long time.

Without prompting, Becca tells me about them.

Sarah (named, of course, after Becca's late mother) is the oldest at thirteen, and she reminds you every single day that she is a bona fide teenager. Amelia's next, having just turned eleven last week. The twins Ethan and Mason are nine and a half. The half is very important to them. Gabriel is seven and randomly into snorkeling. Last week it was airplanes. And Hailey, the littlest Finau (and a surprise, nonetheless) will be two in October.

"Wow," I say again. What else can you say?

"I'm just lucky I only had one set of twins. My sister did not get so lucky."

Whereas Sierra and Reed were completely comfortable with silence—sometimes none of us would talk at all over dinner—Becca seems to need noise. If she's not pointing out towns as we pass through them (Wailua, Anahola), she's thinking out loud.

Solomon, Becca's husband, will be out for the rest of the day, she tells me, but when he gets back tonight he can take the kids and me to the shore to show me the good spots. Their children have surfed almost as long as they've walked.

I forgot Solomon was a surfer. Jacob always said that Solomon chased the waves, and Becca chased him. She left the rez as soon as she was able, escaping her mother's death. Or trying to, at least.

If there's anything I understand, it's that.

"I might want to wait a few days before I surf," I interrupt gently. "Get acclimated to the weather."

It's a lame excuse, and I know it. But Becca just laughs again.

"Sure, okay. That's one of the best things about the island. The water is literally always there. Waiting."

The trees and brush are thick on either side of the highway. For most of the drive we'd been following the coastline, allowing me little peeks of endless blue through lush green trees.

Now, we pass a little hut in the middle of nowhere, swarmed with cars and trucks.

"Fruit stand," Becca explains. "They're all over the place, otherwise I'd stop so you could check it out. That one does well with tourists. Between you and me, natives save the best fruit for the locals. The stuff at the market is cheaper and higher quality."

Out the window, I watch as a man scoops his daughter into the air, her hair falling over her face as he flips her upside down. Her shrieks linger long after we pass.

It stirs something in my heart, and I think of Quil.

I redirect my attention to the road in front of us. "Sharing classified information with an outsider? I'm going to report you."

"Like Rachel called me to report you?"

I suck in a sharp breath. I wonder how far away I have to go to get to a place where no one knows me. Where nobody knows how much I'm carrying on my shoulders.

Like she's reading my thoughts, Becca sighs. "Hawaii is a far cry from Washington. But there are some things you can't outrun. Just remember that."