By the time he’d split her lip with a closed fist and threatened to kill her, Maile knew she had to get away. She waited for her chance and quickly disappeared one morning when he left for a business meeting. She found a job waitressing on the other side of the island, rented the back room in a house owned by a Chinese widow, and vowed to return and finish studying the last five months for her teaching certificate before leaving, hoping upon hope she wasn’t worth looking for.

On weekends, Maile found the courage to get out and walk a few blocks, always looking out for him, always fearful that he would find her. The big world that she had once dreamed of seeing became smaller and smaller as she took to spending most of her time in Chinatown, hiding in the older areas of Honolulu with small, run-down buildings and family-owned stores that sold shave ice and reminded her of Hilo, places he would never think to step foot in.

Since her return home, Maile had only visited Kailani. When she heard from her friend that Daniel was also back from Chicago, her heart sped and she felt a dull ache in her stomach as Kailani kept saying, “It’s fate, yeah,” that they’d returned within days of each other. She couldn’t imagine what Daniel would see in her now; he had studied on the mainland and was a doctor, while she’d barely gotten her teaching certificate. Maile watched her friend rattle on happily and couldn’t bring herself to tell Kailani she no longer believed in fate or magic or fairy tales.

* * *

Maile leaned against the front door. She took a settling breath before she inched it open. Ever cautious, she looked left and then right down the empty road before she stepped out of her cousin’s house into the stale afternoon heat. Early in their relationship, she’d been caught by him with her guard down back in Honolulu, and could barely open her tender and bruised eye that throbbed for a week. She had to learn, he’d said. She wasn’t going anywhere without asking him first. Why had she stayed after that? She’d been such a fool.