PART I: THE PAST
Lotus
Fifteen years ago
“OUT OF MY way!” Dwayne Ray shouted.
Without time to move, I fell as he shoved me in the back, landing hard on my hands and knees. My back hurt, and so did my hands. Lifting them from the gravel, I flipped them over. The skin on my palms was red, and several cuts were bleeding.
Tears filled my eyes and my bottom lip trembled. All the other kids on the playground had seen me fall.
“Leave her alone, Dwayne!” a strong voice said, and an older boy approached.
“What’s it to you, Storm Hardy?” Dwayne tilted his head back as the older boy stopped directly in front of him.
Storm planted his feet. “She’s just a girl, and she’s smaller than you. You should be more careful.”
Dwayne’s nostrils flared. “She should stay out of my way.”
“You’re a bully.” Storm crossed his arms over his chest, and his dark brown brows slammed together. He was mad too, but it was a different kind of anger, directed at Dwayne and not me.
“I’m not a bully.” Dwayne’s mouth twisted. “You are. You’re the one who’s always in trouble with the teacher.”
“I only get in trouble if I need to.” Storm’s eyes flashed. “Would you like some trouble? I’m happy to give it to you.”
“No.” Dwayne’s eyes widened, and he took a small step back.
“Then. Go. Away. Now,” Storm said slowly and quietly.
Dwayne dropped his shoulders, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked away.
“Thank you,” I said as Storm crouched beside me. Staring at him, I tried to figure out why he’d helped me. I’d noticed him before, but he’d never talked to me. He usually had a different recess period.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently.
“I think so.” I met his gaze, and my bruised heart melted at the softest suede-brown eyes I’d ever seen. “I’m Lotus.”
“I’m Storm. I won’t let Dwayne hurt you again,” he said firmly. “Or anyone else. Don’t be afraid of me. Okay?”
“I’m not afraid.” I decided I didn’t need to figure out why he’d helped me. The important part was that he did.
Storm frowned, looking away. “Most kids are afraid of me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m big, I guess.” He shrugged. “And I get mad a lot. Like my dad and my brothers.”
“My dad says it’s not what others think about you that matters, but what you think about you, and what you do that matters. You helped me. That was a nice thing to do.”
“Your dad sounds great. Mine’s not.” Storm reached out to me. “I’ll take you to the nurse. Take my hand. Let me help you up.”
I put my hand in his. It was much bigger than mine, but he clasped my smaller fingers as carefully as my dad did baby seedlings when he planted them.
“I’m seven,” I said proudly, locking eyes with him as I stood.
“I know.” Storm smiled, and his smile was even better than his eyes.
It made my hands hurt less and helped me feel steady and sure. Like when I dug my toes into the warm sand at the shoreline and the water rushed in, causing me to sink in deeper, making me part of the land and the ocean at the same time.
I decided then and there that this boy was going to be my friend, and if he was going to be my friend, he needed to know the worst of it right away.
“My mom left my dad and went back to Thailand. My dad says she might come back, but I don’t think she ever will.”
“Oh.” Storm stopped smiling. “I’m sorry.”
“It makes my dad sad. It makes me sad too, but my brother is too little to be sad. I take care of him for my dad.” Biting my lower lip, I added, “All by myself sometimes.”
“Well,” Storm said, “you don’t have to be by yourself at school. I’ll look after you and be your friend. Will you be mine?”
“Yes.” I said it like a promise, because it was. A promise I meant to keep forever. “Best friends.”
Lotus
Eleven years ago
“MY FINGERS KEEP slipping.” I blew out a puff of air that lifted wispy tendrils of my dark brown hair.
Storm wrapped his strong arms around me. “Don’t give up.”
I listened to his voice, letting it soothe me instead of getting more frustrated. From the moment he’d offered me his hand to help me when one of the boys had pushed me down during recess, he’d become my hero, back when I was seven and he was nine. Even with the two-year age difference, we’d been best friends ever since.
“It’s too hard.” My stomach flipped as his hand covered mine on the guitar strings.
“It’s not.” Patiently, he guided me through the simple chords again. His long legs bracketed my shorter ones on the seat, and his warm breath stirred wisps of hair near my ear.
“It’s not difficult for you,” I grumbled, though I really didn’t have a lot to complain about.
I was with my best friend, and we were in his backyard. A pleasant tang of salt from the Pacific Ocean drifted past us, which was only a few blocks from his house.
“Only because I’ve been playing guitar longer.” His hand warmed my cheek as he gently turned my head.
As I glanced at him over my shoulder, his face was all I could see. That cute face was all I wanted to see. Everything else faded when I was with him, even my doubts.
Storm was my favorite person in the whole wide world, aside from my dad and my little brother. The palm-shaded alcove we sat in was my favorite place, our very own private refuge. Lush, it was as lovely as the rest of Storm’s backyard, which my father had landscaped.
“You were good at it from the moment you picked up your first guitar,” I said softly, my admiring gaze drifting over his handsome features.
Music was the only outward sign of Storm’s inner artistic spirit. Everything else about him was orderly as his father demanded.
Storm’s sun-streaked light brown hair was shorn military style close to his scalp. His boyish features were rounded, but most times schooled into determined lines. His clothing was wrinkle-free. His shorts and T-shirt were like mine, but unlike mine, his were as clean as when he’d first put them on at the beginning of the day. If he got them dirty or wrinkled, he got into trouble.
His father was a Navy man, a petty officer first class in charge of an electrical team of fifty men on the USS Embassy. He ran a tight ship, both at his job and in his home. Even when he was stationed away, like he was now, Graham Hardy expected his wife and three boys to adhere to his rules. All his rules.
“Why do you want to learn to play so badly?” Storm asked.
Because it’s my connection to you, I thought, and I don’t have many left except for surfing and music.
Storm was in middle school now, kissing and dating girls, entering a world that I was too young for. A lot of the time, I felt naive and foolish around him. I could feel it happening, a separation between the two of us. My best friend was growing up faster than me. Soon, he would leave me and childish things behind. I was losing a little more of him every day.