who you are.

new admirer?

I notice that as Gracie is in all my classes, so is Jason. Every. Single. Class. And in every class, he chose to sit near me. Which I found kind of weird, but also intriguing. He would also be looking and staring at me. CONSTANTLY. Which, again, I found weird and intriguing.

Yeah, I've had boyfriends before, only one that was an "actual relationship" that lasted for about a year and a couple months. I've never really had a boy be my first priority if I wasn't in a relationship. Most of the time, my grades, my Tahitian and hula dance, and swimming are all my number one priorities. When I get into a relationship, they just get added in, then when we break up, they get subtracted.

Gracie and I decide to go grab lunch after school, because we both HATE school lunch here. In Hawaii, the food is actually edible. Here; it's simply a piece of pizza from Papa John's and a carton of frozen milk. Very inedible.

Instead of eating, we grab a table and just talk some more, sitting across from eachother on the circular table.

"So...uuuhhh...Jason..." I begin

"Yeah, what about him?"

"Tell me his image in this school,"

"Well, he's a player, for starters. Not a really serious one, but every 6 months or so, he has a new girl. He usually goes for the hispanic girls for some reason."

I try to imagine Jason, a kind of giant Hawaiian, with one of the small, little hispanic girls I see all over school, which is pretty easy to see.

"Why do you ask? Do you- do you like Jason?"

I'm speechless and surprised. I mean, I think he's cute and kind of nice, but I don't know. Maybe I do li-

"HEY GUYS!" Jason scares me from behind as he grabs my shoulders, cutting off my thoughts. He's with another guy, who has the same facial features as Gracie, which I find odd. What if I DO really like him. What are the odds?

"Hello, Jason," Gracie says with a fake hint of hatred in her voice. "Hey, Jack, this is Noelani, Lani this is my twin, Jackson."

I give him a shaka and he gives one back, mouthing a "Howzit". They both grab chairs from an empty table next to us and sit, both sitting across from eachother.

"So Lani, tell us 'bout you." Jason demands, leaning in on the table.

"Whatchu like know?" I ask, giving a slight smirk.

"Island, likes, dislikes, all that stuff really." He shrugs, sitting back in his chair.

"I'm from Hilo, Big Island. I like poi, I'm a competitive swimmer and tahitian and hula dancer, and I hate the school food here." I say, counting each item with my fingers.

"Wait, you went to Hilo High?" Jason asks

"Oh my gosh, HELL NO! I went to Waiakea dude." I say proudly. Waiakea and Hilo are big rivals on the Big Island, but Hilo High is a little bit more known than Waiakea.

"Ah I see. My cousins all go to Hilo." He says as he takes a sip from his hydroflask. It's an orange 30 oz. with a bunch of Hawaii stickers covering the whole thing. I nod as I play with my hydroflask's straw lid.

Gracie gets an alert on her phone, then begins to stand up with her bag. "Jack and I need to go talk to our mom." Gracie says, which confuses me. Why is their mom here in the middle of the day?

"Wait, your mom is here?" I ask as I ruffle my eyebrows.

"Yeah, she's the Hawaiian teacher here," She says casually, as if she's told me this before. "Jason, stay here and hang out with her, and be nice." She says as they begin to leave. "Hou rajah!" He says as the begin to walk off and out of the lunchroom.

"Do you wanna go outside? It's too hot in here." He asks. I nod and grab my purse. He follows me outside to the quad and walks on my left.

"So, tell me more about yourself. I wanna know more about you, ya know," He brings up as we pass by the center tree of the quad. "Like, why did you move here, who you are, all the deep stuff."

     I think for a second, "Well really I moved here because my dad got a job opportunity which would double his annual income, so he took it." I say. I forget what my dad did exactly, all I know is that it was enough to move us to Las Vegas, BUY a house, have 2 regular cars AND my truck, and give us nice clothes and food.

"I have a little sister, her name's Emma and she's in 7th grade I think, I don't know, I don't really pay attention to her grade, and uh...I don't know really, what else?" I ask, hoping that he'll just take those answers and not ask any more questions.

We sit on a bench near the exit door of the theater and he rests his arm on the top of the bench, behind my head. All I can think is "how does he get so comfortable with people so fast?" He turns to look at me and gives a nice kind of smirk.

"What's your biggest fear?" He asks. My biggest fear, in my opinion, is super silly, but it still scares me to death. In fact, it might be a phobia. Okay, I'm kidding but telling an almost random stranger my biggest fear is a fear itself.

"Um...I don't know really." I say, trying to not answer, because I do know, I just don't like telling people really.

"Okay, you know I'm Hawaiian too, right?" He asks, I nod and reassure him that I am very aware. "I can tell when another Hawaiian is lying. I can tell when Jack's lying, when Gracie's lying, when my family is lying, and guess who else?" He explains, giving me a little guilt for lying. I really hate liars. They're the worst kind of people, really.

"Who?" I ask, already knowing that the answer is "me."

"You, Lani. I can tell you're lying. It's pretty easy to know because your cheeks get rosy." Really that's me blushing, but we won't mention that. "What's your biggest fear, huh?" He repeats.

"Okay, promise you won't make fun of me for it, pinky promise." I demand as I hold up my pinky finger.

He looks at me like "You're so childish" but then, wraps his pinky around mine and says "PiNkY pRoMiSE." in a mocking tone. "So, what is it?"

I take a deep breath and prepare to be laughed at.

"So um, love and relationships, that's really what I'm afriad of. You know, just letting people into my life, really." I finish, and he surprisingly doesn't laugh.

"You find that scary? Why?" He asks, shifting a little bit back to see me better, I guess.

"So, uh, my ex, he was an amazing person at first, but as time went and the longer we were together, the more he lied and did stuff with other people. He cheated on me and when he broke up with me, he blamed everything on me and he told me he never really loved me, and it just really hurt me, gave me trust issues. I haven't been in a relationship since, really." I say, sighing after finishing.

     Jason looks at me with a "damn." kind of look and I throw him back a "yeah, I know." kind of look.

"I've never told anyone that before." I say as I begin to play with the hairtie on my wrist. I begin to blush, because I can feel Jasons eyes staring right at me. I try to let him see it, but inevitably I think he does. I don't like to tell people about my relationships or love life. I mean, I don't hide my relationships, I post pictures and all that extra stuff, but I never let people know the endings of relationships. My parents, not even Emma, know about what happened with my ex and I, they just know that we broke up.
     
       "Damn, I-I'm sorry." Jason apologizes.
      
      "No, i-it's okay. Ya know it's actually nice to talk about that stuff. It feels good to tell someone about it." And it did. It felt nice to actually talk about things and not have it just inside my head.
  
        "Do you wanna hangout this weekend?" He asks me, randomly and out of the blue, which surprises me.
   
       "Uh," I hesitate, "where do you wanna go?" I ask, hoping he won't have a plan and will get discouraged. Instead of saying "nevermind" like I thought he would, he says only what someone with a mass amount of confidence would say.
  
     "Well, I was kind of ho-"