I am running. This time there are no boots. No sliming puddles or cigarette butts. Just sand like velvet between my toes. Spray and salt and sea.
It feels so different—running without a reason. Without knifepoints or purple-veined shopkeepers at my back. I turn around and all I see are Dai and my sister on the blanket. So close to each other they look like a single person under the sun. Chma is still rooting through the crab burrows, his tailless rump raised high. Hunting for the fun of it.
There are no shards of broken glass under my feet. Just things the sea washed up: kelp, crab claws, and shells. A lot of them I recognize from Hiro’s book. Mussels, sea snails, Arabian cowrie. I bend down. Pick them up. Check to see if there’s still life inside. Hiro’s book said that sometimes the shells wash up and dry out. Before the next tide can save them. Every time I see a snail’s sealed up yellow end, I throw it back. Plop! White foam and sink.
It’s a small thing. A toss for a life.
My life has been full of these small things. Clothes without holes. Boots that fit. My first real mattress. Chma lounging in sun slants and dust motes. New, not-molding books. Bowls of rice porridge every morning. Classes with chalkboards. Dai rumpling my hair every time he sees me and talking about how long it’s getting. My sister smiling again.
The small things add up.
One day I’ll find a way to pay it all back. I’m learning all I can—books and books of words. Mrs. Sun says I’m “exceptionally gifted.” I can be whatever I want. A doctor or a diplomat or a lawyer. I don’t know for sure what I want to be yet, but I know I want to help. I want to find a way to go back for my mother. To face my father without a gun in my hand or a bruise on my face. To show her she doesn’t need him.
For now, I’ll keep throwing.
“Jin!” I look back over my shoulder. See Dai waving a brown paper bag over his head. Like I’m a taxi he’s trying to flag down. Chma is on his lap, begging. “I got stuffed buns!”
My stomach squeals the way Chma used to whenever I accidentally stepped on his tail. It’s never hungry the way it was before—all gnaw and teeth. But the stuffed buns always taste just as good as they did that morning on the roof.
“Coming!” My voice gusts back over the sand.
There’s one last shell by my toes. All curled and coiled the way Nuo wears her hair. So big my palm almost can’t hold it. I pick it up anyway. Toss it far, far, far into the sea.
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