postcards from isla (on hold until 2024)

02 - rejection

"THIS HAS TWO-HUNDRED million views," Isla groans, dropping her head into hands from her seat at the kitchen table. Her palms feel damp, grossly sticky. "And the video quality is so bad I think my computer's malfunctioning."

Haru flips her egg on the pan, cursing loudly when the yolk pops. Aloe-infused skincare patches lie underneath her eyes, green flecked with gold. Isla feels an endearing tug at the edge of her mouth, expression softening into liquid familiarity. "Beautiful people don't have to rely on video quality to stay beautiful. They just are."

"I hate you and I hope your egg burns," she deadpans.

"Fine by me. I'm stealing all of your fancy yogurt that you bought yesterday." Her sister turns off the stove, plates her breakfast, and settles in the seat directly across from Isla's. Haru's hair grazes the wings of her collarbone, sleek and pin-straight; she looks like what a law student should, clad entirely in pressed jeans and cream button-down shirts. Like a newly minted coin, a pretty pearl formed by the ocean sand. Isla shrugs and takes a bite out of her poorly air fried breakfast burrito. Hot sauce dribbles down her wrist—she thinks about how these years are supposed to be the peak of her life and nearly rolls her eyes, because life is too cruel for comfort.

"You've been up since seven in the morning," her younger sister voices, full eyebrows raised. "Your eyes are bloodshot, Isla. What's going on?"

Isla shrugs, but something inside of her feels like it's turned into stone, the weight unwelcome and bitter. "I have a meeting at noon with Eden, so I was just doing a bit of research for it. I didn't want to come unprepared—"

Her butterknife stops in midair, and even Isla pauses long enough to glance at its sharp ridges. She sees a distorted reflection of herself in the glossed-over silver: a girl whose eyes have perpetual purple crescents underneath, lips cracked and edged with a type of bleak sadness she can only relieve in the studio. "What?" Isla asks, throat drying up as she looks at her sister.

"I don't know," Haru explains, biting into her egg sandwich. The tone of her voice reminds Isla of the transition to winter, with broken branches littering the sidewalk and the scent of snow settling underneath her chin. Isla is so cold—she is cold still, even under the heat of the Californian sun, made entirely of frostbite and falling autumn leaves. "Maybe I'm overreacting, but I haven't seen you so invested in a project since you first started working with Harry."

"Being invested means being emotionally attached," Isla counters, a bit defensive. "I'm being scientific. Objective."

Her sister snorts and then shakes her head. "How do you lie to yourself so well? People who are objective don't look at the computer screen as if something's going to eat them alive."

"Just—Haru. Haru, just shut up."

"Ah," Haru pleads, faking shock. She licks yolk off of her pinkie finger, and Isla is both awfully endeared and annoyed at the same time. "How scary. Consider me threatened."

Last night comes to her in shockwaves, starting at the temples and then traveling to her kneecaps like honey. Isla remembers dark eyes and even darker hair, silver piercings and swirling tattoos on hands. She remembers the bass of the drums and that damned look he gave her, like he couldn't believe that she was really here: a ghost from the past. And then there was the way his voice sounded when he realized she'd quit her nicotine addiction—arrogant, maybe, but lethal in a way that was passively questioning. She doesn't blame him entirely. Isla disappears at her own choosing, and perhaps that's always been her own problem.

But that look. God.

She pushes it out of her mind with another bite of breakfast.

"Are you really producing their album?" Haru asks, syllables slanted. "You're not psyching me out right now?"