“I wanna make you happy.”

He kisses my shoulder blade and pushes my bra strap down my arm. “You already do that.”

“I promise I’ll never stop loving you, Kai.”

“That,”—he gives me a short but heated kiss—“is all I ask for.”

Kai

Eighteen Years Old

“Happy graduation day!” My parents, Auntie, and Po Po shout at the top of their lungs.

It’s the morning of graduation and my dad and Auntie teamed up to make a huge breakfast for Olivia and me. Meanwhile, Olivia’s dad is at work but he claims he’ll be at the ceremony later.

“Thank you, everyone,” Olivia and I say in unison.

“I’m so proud of you both.” Tears well up in my mom’s eyes as she speaks, so I pull her into a hug and Olivia joins in.

“Don’t you start with the waterworks, Lisa, because then I’ll get started.” Auntie starts patting under her eyes with a tissue and my dad rolls his eyes.

“Will you both calm down? This is an exciting time!”

Auntie slaps him in the chest and he laughs. “We know what time it is, fool. I just can’t believe they’re headed off to college soon. Who told y’all to grow up so fast?”

“That’s a great question,” Po Po chimes in.

“Wait for me!” Kylie yells from somewhere behind us.

She comes running out to the kitchen wearing the Rice University hoodie my mom bought for me the moment Olivia and I received our acceptance letters.

“Why do you have my hoodie on?”

“It looks better on me.”

“Says who? You look like a T. rex with your big head and little arms.” The hoodie practically swallows her whole, with the arms going well past her hands so you can’t see them and the hem stopping at her knees.

She sucks her teeth. “I came down here to be nice and bring you a graduation gift but now only Livvy gets one.” I pull her into my arms for a big bear hug and she squirms in my hold. “Don’t try to get on my good side now.”

“Love you too, sis,” I say as I kiss her on the top of her head.

“Love me enough to let me keep your hoodie?”

Like she doesn’t already know she’ll get whatever she wants from me. “Yeah, yeah. Bleed me dry.”

She finally hugs me back. “Thanks, big brother. Love you too.”

She steps out of my hold and pulls out two small packages from the pocket of my, I mean her, hoodie. She hands one to each of us and prompts us to open them.

Carefully wrapped in bright pink tissue paper are homemade friendship bracelets. Mine has beads in different shades of blue, and Olivia’s has green beads and soccer ball charms. In the middle of both of ours is Kylie’s name spelled out in letter beads.